Ladies – which means all of my readers except for maybe 2? – do you know a male chauvinist pig? Are you often surprised when you encounter one? You know what I mean right? A guy who never *says* anything really wrong, but just makes your skin crawl and delivers the message through body language and facial expressions and tone of voice that you just don’t matter because you are a girl. They know The Lines they shouldn’t cross, but at the same time it is pretty clear they do NOT consider you an equal. In some ways they cover this by being TOO nice – too polite – too complimentary. Stopping mid sentence to say “Oh, you know you look very nice today” with a smile that is just too bright and a squeeze of your arm – coming from someone who really doesn’t know you well enough to be making that gesture. Then completely cutting off the conversation as one of his buddies walks up and turning away from you with nary an apology, or maybe a very muffled one thrown over his shoulder. No guilt over that since he gave you a compliment right? Acting impatient when you ask for a favor quizzing you about why you need to do that, then 5 minutes later going out of his way to help out another fellow board member who is male without question. Never truly giving you his full attention (something you realize after running the tapes of every conversation you’ve had with him through your mind after the latest cut off/distracted discussion). Yet he gives a dad on his team his undivided attention as you stand by dutifully waiting for him even though he knows you have to leave. I’m no raging feminist but I can also tell when I am being dismissed due to my gender.
Oddly – I know two guys like this. Both my age too. I think in some ways I could understand if it was someone from an older generation. But now? C’mon! It’s 2009! Really?
And there’s nothing I can do about it since they *dont* do anything overtly wrong. Instead I just smile real pretty 🙂 and count down the days until I don’t have to deal with them anymore.
Trees & Flowers & Birds! 
Yeah, it’s out there. I’ve seen it over and over and over again. I saw it when I was 20 and when I was 30 and 40 and 50. And I am still seeing it. The offenders can be any age. Sometimes older than me, sometimes younger, and sometimes my age.
I stopped putting up with it a while ago.
LikeLike
You know, just because you *think* I’m not reading your blog doesn’t mean you should write blogposts about me…
LikeLike
hahahahaha – Stormy – you are the *furthest* away from what I was writing about!
If anything – given your reason for oh so quickly embracing NN10 in Vegas, you are simply a Pig 🙂
LikeLike
I do know the sort you’re talking about. I tend to only run into them like, at the rec center (weirdly enough- cus that’s dominated by women, numbers wise) and also a guy who used to work for the local watershed. He was tireless, environmentally minded, but only seemed to think men worth talking to.
I wonder if it isn’t a fear issue, sometimes.
LikeLike
Welcome to my first two years on the school board!
I actually found it much worse in that setting than in science circles. I’d gotten pretty used to people taking me seriously at work, and found it very disconcerting — and very annoying — that when asked questions or made comments about financial issues the reaction ranged from patronizing to hostile.
LikeLike
this is how i think of it.
say there was 1 man and 1000 women in the world, it would be easy and quick to produce offspring so the human race would survive.
but if there were 1000 men and just 1 woman, it would be incredibly difficult.
so we are both useful, but from using this example it would appear that women are needed more than men. so in their faces lol
LikeLike