ReiRose
I’m sorry that you’ve had to experience this. It terrible to have sexism not only impacting one group of people, but both/all. I haven’t experienced what you have, it’s not possible for me to exactly as I’m female. Could you share one or two specific examples that made you feel that way? It would help me to understand your experience to help paint a picture. You are under no obligation to, nor does my request imply your argument is invalid.
Sometimes discrimination can be more of a gut feeling. Sometimes it is obvious but hidden, and sometimes it is direct. I’m going to list a few examples. None of which left me weeping and defeated, but all of them felt unpleasant. I want to hear your experience particularly so I can avoid doing this to others, but also because your experience is outside of my own.
Some of my examples:
- as a Flight Attendant, we have to do cabin checks every 10-15 minutes, this includes bathrooms. I’ve had two people go unconscious in the bathroom, it’s not personal when I knock and ask if you’re OK. I did so recently, the man came out shortly afterwards stood over me and shouted three inches from my face, “can’t I even take a shit?”. I responded, calmly (I’ve been at this too long), “any time someone is longer than ten minutes we have to check on them, I’m so sorry.” His response, “I wasn’t ten minutes, bitch,” and he returns to his seat.
- I was a regulatory compliance manager having a regular meeting with the director of regulatory compliance who was like a mentor to me. He lived an hours flight away with his wife on weekends and rented an apartment to stay in near the office during the week. He knew I was divorcing at that time. He suggested we had future meetings at his condo, using phrases such as “I know you must be lonely,” and “I’m away from my wife too often.” I was polite but declined and changed the subject. He canceled our future meetings on the calendar, when I asked, via email, he responded by email to say I no longer needed his mentorship.
- I was so proud to pass my private pilots final stage check with less than fifty hours, about average for our class but some took upwards of seventy. I shared my accomplishment in the class groupchat to be told, by a male student, “your examiner goes easy on women.” I didn’t press it because it was a stand alone comment amongst the congratulations, but I felt he implied that somehow my PPL was worth less than his.
It seems so silly to type out these things that hurt me. I almost feel it’s an unfair ask to commit yours to ‘paper’, I just don’t know how else to learn what your feeling, except to assume that your situation may be different but your feelings similar to mine.
Some info that I found important that isn’t in this article but is in the Wiki:
He spent 18 months in hospital, before going home. He was paralyzed from the neck down. His parents rented a portable generator and a truck to bring him and his iron lung home. Beginning in 1954, with help from the March of Dimes and a physical therapist named Mrs. Sullivan, Alexander taught himself glossopharyngeal breathing which allowed him to leave the iron lung for gradually increasing periods of time.
Alexander died from a COVID-19 infection on March 11, 2024, at the age of 78. He was one of the last two people still using the technology, alongside Martha Lillard, who first entered an iron lung in 1953.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Alexander_(polio_survivor)
(I haven’t brought over the sources, they can be found on the Wiki link)
Do you do your own laundry?