Coversation with my guy best-friend about feminism: hiring male/female?
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@bloodymediocrity @Ange and @Copa
It hurts to realise my best friend’s thoughts on such matters. I always gave benefit of doubt to people before perceiving their actions/comments as sexist. Sometimes I try hard to find a fair angle to not put them in the category but more often than not I fail, there is no logic to explain their point being anything other than sexists/ageist.
I am 166cm and weigh 49Kg, I always used to go out of my way to prove I am not physically week (I lived the guy for two years so I chose to lift equal shopping bags, carrying extra things while hiking, holding equal luggages, not asking a friend to pick me up/drop me to/from train station/airport/etc). There were times where I have hurt myself doing so becuase I was trying hard to prove the point, now I do not becuase that was stupid of me to not ask help when needed. I have learned that it takes strength to say “Help me” and accept my physical/mental short comings. So these comments (ones made from colleaugues, friends or random men) hurt a lot when they casually say women take benefit of being “physically week”. I always ask my friends to ask whether it’s the gender or the personality?! when in doubt.
@Ange and @Copa
I agree women in their 40s are not all week. Sometime age isn’t the issue but the health condition might be and one do not have to reveal it. It definitely seems like the company lacks leadership.
I agree with @Copa the job discription should have been more distinctive in job discription, its very cheeky to expect a Marketing/administrative head to give hands in un-related jobs, like it’s not worth the time.
@Anonymous guest says makes a good point, there should not be anymore arguments beyond “I am effin Marketing lead”.
@Lisforleslies you made such a simple argument I wish lot of people understood it.
My “other friend” who is less-forgiving than me in such matters did not like this guy when he only offered us (girls) to help with our bags (on hikes or super market runs) but not our other guy flatmate when we were living together. I told the “other friend” that she should give him benefit of doubt that may be he saw us struggle while the guy was comfortable carrying the bags on his own so he only asked us if he could take more things.
The same guy friend complained that none of our friend offered to pick him up from the train station while we (two girls) got asked by other friends few times if we needed to be picked up. Again in this case, there were a lot of things to consider and it could have been anything from the people who offered us to help.
Sometimes I feel so stupid to make effort in going out of my way to prove equality that I am blided by the emotions itself and refuse the offered help! Do you know what I mean?!!
Can’t speak for the whole of the world, but in most places all of those tasks would come under a union or job specific roles. You need training on how to move a water jet so that you don’t hurt yourself or damage the equipment. So if he and his colleagues are doing that, then they are potentially putting the company at significant financial and insurance risk.
I’m curious if your friend would say anything if the marketing lead was a man who didn’t move machinery around. Or if the marketing lead used crutches or a cane? When the job requires certain activities – say, a firefighter being able to carry an adult out of a building – then yes, a woman should be held to a minimum capability. However, that’s the nature of the job. A nurse doesn’t need to be able to breastfeed, a teacher doesn’t need to be able to menstruate, a marketing lead doesn’t need to be able to move a water jet. But he’s lumping all women into one basket using a sample size of fewer than 10 people. He’s a bit of a shit head. (and by bit I mean total).
Sexism is still alive and well, yes. (I mean, even I’ve had to check myself and challenge my own thoughts sometimes over the years on realizing some of the ways I internalized sexism when I was younger.)
I don’t think it’s inappropriate in a start-up to expect employees to go beyond their job descriptions, however, expectations need to be made clear at some point. From the little I know, this sounds like incompetent management/leadership from the founders (men), which, coupled with sexism, is a recipe for a terrible office culture.
I work at a company that used to be almost exclusively men. When my boss was hired about 10 years ago, one of the long-standing, high-level directors who interviewed him told my boss that it was a shame he hadn’t joined the company a decade prior because the office still had Mad Men vibes. It was a “boy’s club” for a long time and that culture was hard to kill. I can imagine that a start-up run by men with attitudes like those described here can easily end up being the kind with frat house vibes and antics.
I’d not waste my time playing devil’s advocate.
It’s interesting you have physically hurt yourself to prove you aren’t weak. And no, I’ve never felt the need to do that to prove equality. I compete against myself. Do you mean to prove that women are as strong as men?
If you are taking the average size and strength of men across the world and compare them to women, the will average bigger and stronger, because men are built a bit leaner and musclier than women, we are different sexes of the same species. Of course none of our bodies are the same. Why do you listen to this horseshit?
Woman and men are equal does not men we need to be equal in size, strength, lifting strength, etc. I don’t know where you got this strange view of equality from.
All people should be treated equally because we are all human. Physical brute strength and everything else should be taken out of the equation. I do think you seem to bend yourself in knots to give your sexist men friends the benefit of the doubt more often than you don’t, from your post. I’m not sure how old you are, but if a man is telling you he and men are better than women for ANY reason, he’s sexist and not worth speaking to.
Value yourself. Compete against yourself. Prove to yourself that you are strong. Or don’t, why do you have to prove anything at all? You’re worthy without needing to prove it. Stop gauging your value by someone else’s rotten standards.
@Anonymousguest
I am 31, I do not do that anymore. It was in my 20s and I did not think that the equality meant I should be carrying equal load like a man. The competition with men or need to prove I am worthy began since I was kid (now that I looked back and analysed). I grew up with two younger brothers and I often used to hear from people tell my parents that they were lucky to have two sons who would take care of them blah blah blah. I always wondered why did they think I would not take care of my parents if needed as I was older. My mum doesn’t say it out loud but I know she feels proud to have given birth to two boys. My brothers are really kind, emphathetic and very smart, I went out of my way to prove to my parents too that I was worthy of the money that they were spending on my upbringing and etc. I went on to have graduation and post-graduation with student-loan from bank, and I chose an in-expensive university because I over heard my mother tell my father that he should think of my brother starting the university two after me and he can not be putting all the money on my education (we were economically struggling). I then went on and got my PhD which was fully-funded and paid off all my mortgage and even paid for my youngest brother’s university. So all this and I hear my relatives say to my parents oh! thats lucky, it likes you have three “sons”, I almost get sick hearing these.
And I was carrying more things (more than my capacity) around men not to prove my euqality in strength but just the point that I could handle things on my own, I now know it was silly I have un-learned it.
My younger brother recently got married and I helped him financially with the wedding (he paid me back the money), all my relatives could not believe it, instead they kept asking me if my brother had paid for my dress etc. When I lived with my parents and brother two years ago (briefly) I used to give my share of rent and my cousins had no idea about it so they would say oh! now you might be saving more as you are living off of your borther. My borther do not like that I am calculative but I need to be, to really keep myself out of the “pity” and guilt of even slightly depending on them.
Thanks for listenign and putting your thoughts on! I was torn to think my guy best-friend was sexist and I wanted to make sure I was not missing any point of angle that would give him benefit of doubt.
Does your friend have a similar cultural background? Do his parents value him over female relatives?
It sounds like you set goals and reached high because you wanted to prove yourself and I’m glad you’re ‘unlearning’ the nonsensical gender based treatment.
I’m sorry you’ve grown up with these ideas that women are inferior. You don’t have to live like this, or listen to that crap. You’re a grown adult now and you can choose what ideas you allow into life.
If this idea is still bothering you, I would consider therapy. Often, the core beliefs we make about ourselves as children a can and do affect us into adulthood. But they don’t have to. Find a therapist. Good luck.
Stop giving people the benefit of the doubt. It’s not serving you, you’re hurting yourself by giving them extra chances to prove how sexist they are.
I feel like you’re being anti-feminist in some way by going to such lengths to try to come to the conclusion that someone isn’t being misogynistic or sexist. And by trying so hard to prove that women can do what men can do that you actually harm yourself. Stop jumping through hoops. Feminism means you think men and women should have the same rights and opportunities. I do think you’re kind of missing the point too when you ask if it’s someone’s gender or personality that makes them not do physical labor. It implies that women should be doing physical labor, or doing exactly what men do.
