My wife
Has, many times over the years, been a victim of workplace sexism.

You'd think, after thousands of years of 'progressive' society it just wouldn't be an issue.
As a liberal sort of chap, I find the ongoing adherance to these centuries-old habits somewhat loathesome.

She was going to come on here to tell the story herself, but she got all confused by the big internet, so I sent her off to do the ironing whilst I took over. The silly, fluffy thing.

*Coat/leaves*
( sir_spicious2000 Crap I've watched: www.filmplop.blogspot.com/, Mon 28 Dec 2009, 10:05, Reply)

Women aren't funny.

( mike woz ere 7442200 & 7696970 getter, Mon 28 Dec 2009, 10:04, 6 replies)

Flight School
The chief instructor and owner of the school is quite a notorious chap within the aviation industry, and also famous for having a view of women dating from around 1865. Anyway, he marched into the bar one morning and in front of 20 of us students (busily studying, not drinking. honest...)loudly declared "If God had wanted women to fly the sky would be fucking pink!"


Length? 20ft, wingspan 28ft

NB: Board cherry popped...
(Gaddafi's Law is floating in a sea of Dutchness on, Mon 28 Dec 2009, 9:48, 6 replies)

I'm Sexist!
I wouldn't fart in a girls face,
and I wouldn't buy a guy flowers.
(Hill Dog loves planes, Mon 28 Dec 2009, 9:41, 2 replies)

Making it all add up
Hello, middle-aged heterosexual male here, so feel free to judge the following story on the basis of your prejudices about me.

Wavy lines back to the mid-1990s when I used to work for a large, well known telephone company in the UK in the department known at the time as Operator Services. As a newly-promoted manager, I had to attend endless courses and workshops to ensure all the necessary boxes were ticked to show I was capable of performing my job properly. One such event was the one-day “diversity workshop”.

We did the usual bits about race, disability and so on, but the part that sticks in mind is when we got to the fact that, although the operator population was about 80% female, the gender ratio between their managers was almost exactly half-and-half male to female.

What surprised me was the next statement from the course trainer: that they were going to try to align the managerial gender mix to match that of the operators within 3 years. As a bloke who’d just got promoted, I was a bit miffed by this and asked the trainer if I should just “get my coat now”.

I don’t think the trainer was too keen on my attitude as she went on to talk about how change is inevitable and we must all adapt to it and that people must be given opportunities without thinking in such sexist terms, etc.

Unfortunately, she had no stock answer when I started doing a bit of maths. At the time, it was a big organisation, with about 5,000 operators and team managers at a ratio of about 1 for every 25 operators. Unless the company intended to increase the number of managers, roughly 60 male managers would have to be replaced by female ones within three years, meaning 2/3 of us would either have to fall on our swords or get promoted elsewhere, which kind of defeats the object.

That assumed, of course, that women would fill every team manager vacancy that arose, despite the company’s avowed policy of every applicant for a vacancy having an equal chance. Yeah, right.

Anyway, the trainer wrote my “issues” down on a flipchart and promised to get back to me. Fifteen years later, I’m still waiting.

Sorry for length and lack of funneh. To make up for it, here’s a joke that did the rounds on the e-mail before the thought-police stopped it:

Always keep the sexual harassment complaint forms in the bottom drawer of the filing cabinet. That way, she’s got to bend down to get one.
( Snappyuk gets BIGGER with free sample., Mon 28 Dec 2009, 9:03, 1 reply)

*cough* *cough*

( Jeccius Steam Borderlands 2 junkie, Mon 28 Dec 2009, 8:56, Reply)

Studs and slags
In my school sociology class, I was taught that a man who sleeps around is considered a stud, but when a woman does the same she's a slag.

Maybe in 1973, but nowadays a woman who sleeps around is liberated but when a man does it, he's a manipulative bastard who's only after one thing. Same if you cheat on your partner: if he does it, he's a bastard, if she does it it's because she was unhappy.

In fact, when the female partner of a friend of mine (and mother of his child) took to shagging the neighbours as she "felt trapped in the relationship", many of her female friends rallied round her; after all, how terrible does your man have to be to drive you to something like that? I wonder how they'd have felt if he'd done the same to her?
(lolwhites, Mon 28 Dec 2009, 8:49, 2 replies)

Having it both ways
Women who are heterosexual but who confess to having "experimented" with their own sex = instantly more sexually desirable in the eyes of men.

Men who may have batted for the other team in their past = not something they would generally declare in public.

Bizarre.
( I_Was_Mordred, Mon 28 Dec 2009, 8:37, 10 replies)

Listening
Listening, and retaining information heard, seems to be a huge area of difference between the sexes. It's a fundamental part of the female skill set that can reflect negatively on the males that are unable to both listen, accurately interpret and retain information. This week's QOTW has helped me to appreciate that this could be one of those genetic differences between men and women and I shouldn't, perhaps, become cross about it.

I have, however, told him four f***ing times and written it down . . . .

Length, not applicable in this case.
(GsterMum, Mon 28 Dec 2009, 8:32, 2 replies)

Humour in pain
In a tenuous link with last week's question, why is it that women *love* seeing men in pain ?

Gents - if you want to make the ladies laugh, fall on your arse, smack your fingers with a hammer, thwock your forehead on a low doorway, or give yourself second-degree burns.

Ladies just love seeing us suffer. If anyone put together an hour of men having mild domestic accidents on DVD, that would do away with the need for any other form of comedy for that 50% of the population who are *meant* to have tits. Gents, if you're in mid-argument with your loved one and it's all going Pete Tong, just walk into an inanimate object, preferably nuts-first, and the then stagger about in pain. Argument forgotten - hilarity will ensue.

And yet, be honest ladies, if men laughed at your accidents in the same way - they'd be killed on the spot. I mean, I can find many other things to laugh at you for - but finding it funny that you're in pain ?! You're just bloody weird, the lot of you...
( I_Was_Mordred, Mon 28 Dec 2009, 8:24, Reply)

Beardy pain.
Here's one area of Western society in which women generally have it much easier then men; women have it utterly made where shaving is concerned.

Shaving my face is rubbish. Why would any just society dictate that I have to scrape a razor-sharp razor all over the most visible and vital to social interaction part of my body, first thing in the damned morning whilst my brain is still half-asleep and my dexterity is suffering a -2D6 penalty with possible additional modifiers depending on how the previous night went?

In response to this, women might wish to bring up having to shave their legs, underarms, or whatever else to comply with prevailing societal standards of beauty, but the things ladies generally shave can easily be covered with clothing if one is just not feeling up to it. If I could skip shaving my face and just go to work with a trouser leg over my head instead, I would be so happy.
( Rob T Firefly talked, like, William Shatner, on, Mon 28 Dec 2009, 6:05, 8 replies)

Arf
Its a well documented fact (and one even uber fem germaine herself agrees to) that men have advantages in some areas, such as co-ordination for hitting a moving target. On *average* (with many exceptions) men will hit a moving target X many times, whereas on *average* women will hit it X minus 20% times. This is, of course, a two way door - men also have disadvantages in some areas where women have advantages. This isnt a sexist view, its documented medical fact. However, what I believe is wrong is the assumption that these differences are down to male vs female, full stop.. What is more likely is they are the by product of generation on generation on generation of function.

Men were historically the hunter / gatherers - thus evolved the awesome (yet relatively useless nowerdays) skill of being able to hit a moving target with relative accuracy. Its said that, as example, women have a better sense of understanding with children (again, an average generalisation example, before the feminist nazis come out) - likely evolved from the female role in our historical society, given the history.

Im pretty sure if historically the roles were reversed things would be somewhat different. Imagine sometime back in cave dwelling era that the woman had gone out as hunter gatherer instead of kicking the man out of the relative warmth of the cave, into the harsh cold of the ice age to find food - id bet that women would be able to hit that moving target with much higher accuracy than men nowerdays. And blokes would be pretty shit hot at what we consider womany-things. Same grey matter, just evolved in different ways. It could evolve the other way if given enough time.

That being said, the woman leaving the cave would never EVER happen, even if we had a magic time machine to go and try it all over again. As any man who has lived long term with his female partner knows - in winter he always has to run out in the cold to put the bins out. He has to do the 4am dash to the garage, in a freezing cold car, to get the *insert relatively unimportant item name here*. He has to go walk the dog/let the cat in or out. He has to go get the milk from the cold doorstep in nothing but his dressing gown, an icy draught causing shrinkage. Non compliance can result in anything from harsh stares to stroppy behaviour and in extremes, lack of nob action.

so there you go b3ta wenches, its your own damn fault you cant hit moving targets - that same instinct that makes you want to stay in the warmth inside while us blokes do the cold/outsidey chores is to blame. You may smirk at the time that you have the upper hand, but in the long run you are impeding your side of the race. Deep down, blokes know this but give the token moaning to keep up the illusion. We can also kick arse on the little duck shooting games at the fair.

Length, etc.
(shamen Geekius Maximus, Mon 28 Dec 2009, 5:51, Reply)

I went to the doctor last week. I said "Can I have some sleeping pills for the wife?" He asked why.
I said "She's woken up".


Sorry if a tad off topic...but surely this QOTW isn't complete without at least one Les Dawson joke
(Super Jet Shoes, Mon 28 Dec 2009, 3:13, Reply)

men and woman are not equal
Sorry but not in any society aside from a few remote tribes where a matriarchal system is favoured. But that’s rare.

In one way or another, in most set ups women get the raw deal. Religion plays a major part in this, western society flip flaps about but the worst aspect of this is the sheer terror of suggesting men and women have different brains. Tens of thousands of years of hunter gatherer tribes have meant men have some skills that women have less of and vice versa. Men can throw a rock at a moving target and have a far better chance of hitting it. Women know what a particular baby cry means – tired hungry wet etc. Both are equal in their importance in our survival but hard to reconcile with modern society.

If we are ever to have true equality we must first of all accept that we are not the same. Men and women’s brains are every bit as different as their genitals.

There are very few female fighter pilots for the same reason very few nursery school teachers are called Steve. Different heads. Different skills. Both crucial.

We'll only be equal when we embrace our differences.

And you try explaining that to a bloody woman. Fucking nightmare.
(omnishambles ™ has been fucking things up big style since, Mon 28 Dec 2009, 3:04, 17 replies)

Not sure how much this occurs across the country...
At the university I attend there exists a post called the 'Women's Officer' whose job is to ensure the midnight 'safety bus' (a free taxi service for the assorted drunken double X 'delights') and that's it as far as I can see (apart from putting forward the needs of the lasses at whatever utterly pointless meeting the utterly pointless student council declares, i would imagine). Even if the post wasn't completely and utterly pointless, the sheer sexism of it just grates significantly. Because I'm a male I'm not an easy target (not just for rape mind) when inebriated to certain degrees? What makes their existences worth protecting more than mine?

I'm not too bitter, but I'm not sorry to be finishing this year.

Am I missing any apostrophes?
(Anachronist misplaced in time since, Mon 28 Dec 2009, 2:29, 5 replies)

After considerable thought...
...theorising and experimentation I have come to the following conclusion:

"Bitches be crazy"

(Presented in slang to show my "hip" and "down with the kids" credentials)
(Falco, Mon 28 Dec 2009, 1:45, 2 replies)

Sexism in action
Back when I was in my final year of primary school, I had a lovely teacher who strongly believed in the equality of the sexes, to the point where a substantial portion of her lessons were composed of the message "Anything boys can do, girls can do too", which while an admirable sentiment started to grate a little after the umpteenth time of having it rammed down our throats.

One day, while we were all busily engaged in maths problems, the teacher from the classroom next door stuck his head around the door and asked if he could "borrow a couple of strong boys" to help move some tables. Naturally, our teacher was outraged at this blatant sexism, so she decided to send the strongest boy and the strongest girl as a statement against his chauvinism.

Of course, to the delight of the male half of the class, this backfired when a few minutes later said girl returned to the classroom and admitted that she couldn't even budge the tables, and could another boy go instead?
(oball needs Satan more than he needs me, Mon 28 Dec 2009, 1:37, Reply)

Chivalry
I was brought up to be polite, and 31 years in to my little badfox life, it's still the second thing people comment on (after "Is he Jewish?"). I still think it's nice to open doors for women and that if a man and wife come to the bar, to serve her with her drink first. I think it gets you a long way. And before you say it, no I'm gay, so I don't think in that way.

Also, I remember a cross-dressing night quite some years ago where women dressed as men and vice versa. One woman stuffed a dildo down her jeans and rubbed up against me. Felt violated.



Length? About as far as you can throw a brick in a handbag.

By the way, how do I add a witty little comment by the date underneath this?
(badfox1 wonders who he's played by this episode on, Mon 28 Dec 2009, 1:35, 3 replies)

If I am honest...
I don't want to be the same as a man. I like being female and having female attributes - they are not second rate, just different!

If anything, I like it when a chap treats me like a lady. I like being called love, pet, darling etc... I like having the door opened for me and heavy things carried for me. I don't expect it, but if it's on offer I accept it with grace and it makes me feel nice.

I laugh at sexist jokes as I have a sense of humour. I don't mind if blokes stare at my boobs - its flattering! I don't have a bloke, but I like the idea of taking care of one and keeping him happy. Hopefully, he will want to keep me happy too.
(Just a girl., Mon 28 Dec 2009, 1:20, 10 replies)

I'm with Morgan Freeman on this one
When he was asked on an American talkshow how he, as a black man, thought racism should be fought, he responded that as long as his opinion was sought because he was black, there would never be an end to racism. He said that his opinion could be asked as a man: not as a black man. The same is true in the case of sexism.

Judge people on pure merit. Nothing else.
( MatJ LOOK, Mon 28 Dec 2009, 1:16, 2 replies)

To sum it up
Only men are sexist, women aren't being sexist, they're being assertive.
( sandettie light vessel automatic New Twitter - @bollocksreally, Mon 28 Dec 2009, 1:14, 9 replies)

I can think of but one ad
where the man gets the better of a woman. It was for a small car, Punto, Corsa etc. There was a contest to see who got to drive the car and so they said "We'll race to that fountain over there", so off the run. Then it cuts to the woman in the fountain jumping about, "Yay I won" just as the bloke drives past in the car.

This happens in advertising so rarely, that when it does it is distinctly refreshing to see it.

Anyone know of others?
( sandettie light vessel automatic New Twitter - @bollocksreally, Mon 28 Dec 2009, 1:11, 4 replies)

Sex differences in parking are affected by biological and social factors
In short - Men are better at parking. Scientific fact!


Abstract
The stereotype of women’s limited parking skills is deeply anchored in modern culture. Although laboratory tests prove men’s average superiority in visuospatial tasks and parking requires complex, spatial skills, underlying mechanisms remain unexplored. Here, we investigated performance of beginners (nine women, eight men) and more experienced drivers (21 women, 27 men) at different parking manoeuvres. Furthermore, subjects conducted the mental rotation test and self-assessed their parking skills. We show that men park more accurately and especially faster than women. Performance is related to mental rotation skills and self-assessment in beginners, but only to self-assessment in more experienced drivers. We assume that, due to differential feedback, self-assessment incrementally replaces the controlling influence of mental rotation, as parking is trained with increasing experience. Results suggest that sex differences in spatial cognition persist in real-life situations, but that socio-psychological factors modulate the biological causes of sex differences.


Claudia C. Wolf, Sebastian Ocklenburg, Beyza Ören, Cordula Becker, Andrea Hofstätter, Christa Bös, Markus Popken, Truls Thorstensenand Onur Güntürkün **

in Psychological Research; doi:10.1007/s00426-009-0267-6 No print citation yet.


** And I thought REF was making co-authoring silly in the UK!!
(dxg, Mon 28 Dec 2009, 1:08, 3 replies)

At a parents' evening years ago
there was a "take a number and wait" system in place. My number was next and I was momentarily distracted, so the teacher asked me if I was the next number. I said yes and sat down, at which point she glanced over to the teacher next to her and said "typical man".

She didn't like being called a misandrist. Especially because I had to explain what it was, bless her
( sandettie light vessel automatic New Twitter - @bollocksreally, Mon 28 Dec 2009, 1:07, 1 reply)

Mothers with young children are crazier than sheep on MDMA/fire
They seem to think that prams are equipped thusly:



I have seen women with prams walk out in front of moving cars and stop...so the car has to stop...and THEN they continue to the other side.

Crazy as a marzipan eating horse...

Personally I think that they (and this does include men) should need a license before being allowed to:
1. Raise children
2. Push a pram

Apologies for Tesco Value photoshopping...
( Extinct Jesus Dossier "...I think it counteracts Hitler's magic...", Mon 28 Dec 2009, 1:06, 9 replies)

FETCH MY SODDING SLIPPERS, WENCH!

( Davros' Granddad a voice of calm reason in a world of spastics., Mon 28 Dec 2009, 0:59, 2 replies)

Equality my arse
Equality, right, is a pointless ideal.

Men and women should not be equal. Simple reasoning - men and women are not equal. We are genetically different. It is naive to believe that all these differences are skin deep. Men and women are not capable of the same things. Men are, as a general rule, physically stronger than women and are therefore suited to more physical tasks. It is absurd to think that physical professions will ever have the same proportion of women as men, for that reason.

Similarly, it is also absurd to think that men should have as much paternity leave as women have maternity leave. Yes, equal rights and all that but the fact remains that women are the ones giving their own body to a parasite for nine months and then ripping themselves apart to get rid of it. They need more rest than men do in this case.

It is also naive to think that these differences are confined to physical differences. As a previous poster has stated, science and maths are dominated by men. There are a number of societal reasons why this is the case, but it is not being stupid to suppose that it is possible that male brains are more suited to mathematical reasoning. I hasten to add that I have no proof of this. I am not even advocating the position in the absence of evidence. I do, however, believe that the question is legitimate and important and that intellectual differences between the male and female brain would still be apparent in individuals brought up under the same circumstances in a society that is not historically patriarchal as ours is. I do not know what those differences would be, or whether they would match up with our prejudices as to what they should be. But I have no doubt they would be there.

So in a society that truly judges employees on merit, it is an impossibility to believe that all professions will eventually have equal proportions of men and women involved. It may turn out that certain male-dominated professions should in fact be dominated by women or vice versa, but it is highly unlikely that in all cases, men and women are equal.

Therefore, equality is a pointless ideal. The important part is not equality, but equal opportunity. Any woman should be able to apply for a job (or perform any particular activity) without prejudice despite any possible genetic bias towards either sex, because any genetic bias only works on a level above the individual. It is impossible to say whether any one woman would be better at a job than any one particular man without looking at their individual characteristics, which do not necessarily reflect any gender bias. We all know women who can drive better than certain men or ones who are better at maths or who are stronger, or ones that defy any convention that I have not addressed.

I am not a sexist. I am absolutely not a sexist and I believe passionately in the equal opportunity in any circumstance of men and women.

But I do not believe that men and women are equal. That does not mean one is better and one is worse - just that they are different.

PS: I also believe these differences apply to race. Races are not equal, but good god that does not mean one is better than the other, that you can apply a particular racial characteristic to any individual and particularly not that you should be prejudiced against any individual of any race because of a characteristic that may or may not apply to them - and I passionately hate any person that does.

PPS: I still find racist/sexist jokes funny - because they're making fun of a stereotype, and I'm not stupid enough to assume stereotypes apply to individuals OR that the person making the joke believes it either. When it's patently obvious they're serious, it's not funny any more.
(cypherspace is not a toaster, Mon 28 Dec 2009, 0:56, 5 replies)

Why can't birds...
Take their tops off properly? You don't grab the bottom, you yank it off by the neckhole, obviously.
Throw properly?
Appreciate a good meaty fart?

Conversely, any female playing a guitar, or fixing a car makes me a little bit warmer inside.

Still, bless 'em eh.
(NiplyTheElder tried to slip clunge into a conversation on, Mon 28 Dec 2009, 0:55, 12 replies)