Is this casual sexism or just outdated language from my husband?

[IsawwhatIsaw]

Apologies as I suspect this topic has been done to death on here..but I’m getting sick and tired of having to listen to some of the remarks my DH makes.
Some examples - we walk past a nice garden
his comment” He has made a good job of that”

issue with membership where I was told the woman had been having personal issues
“ her boss should have sorted that, why didn’t he? - with no indication of gender of boss.
He makes constant assumptions that men are in charge and
it’s getting me down . He is older than me, late 60s, retired.
And when I say something he just says he uses the term he/ man generically - as if it’s the 70s still.
not sure if I’m just getting less tolerant or he’s got worse.
this is casual sexism?

Yes, I agree it’s indicative of his thinking.
He worked in a very male dominated field for decades and since retirement seems to have aged rather. He socialises largely in pubs with mainly older men.
looking back I think he was always a bit like this, either I am noticing it more or hes getting worse …

I agree , he gets defensive . He feels it was the norm to talk like this when he was younger.
i think it’s worse since he retired , he seems and acts older

No, he won’t do that. He assumes all animals are male and anyone in a senior position is male. Doesn’t apply gender to boats/ cars, but if he did, sure they’d be male too.

Males of retirement age are generally a lost cause - don't forget they grew up in a time when rape in marriage was perfectly legal, women needed a male to get a bank loan, a rental agreement or a mortgage, and there were no Refuges for battered wives, in fact the police didn't bother with domestic violence against women, and there were no Rape Crisis lines. And guess what men msrched on uk streets about, yep, South African apartheid - blindly refusing to notice or care about the 2nd class citizenship of British women. And few of them have changed, in fact they preferred it when women "kbew their place"

Doesn’t apply gender to boats/ cars, but if he did, sure they’d be male too.

I actually find the use of "she" for boats/cars etc. the most annoying. Why is a boat always she? Because it's an object. Men as subject, women as object. I dislike it even more than people always referring to animals as "he".

I think certainly the older generation of retired men.

More recent male retirees would have been born in the 60s and so grown up in the 70s and 80s, when it anything feminism, in the form of Women's Liberation, was much more in the headlines.

Not always favourable headlines of course, and by the end of the 80s being undermined by the media - the start of the backlash against women's liberation including trivialising it with the whole idea of being liberated was to be a ladette.

Rape in marriage, yes - all the rest, no.

A man of retirement age would have been born in the late 50s and the sex discrimination act was 1975, so he would have spent all his adult life after discrimination of women on the grounds of sex was illegal.

People say 'it' is sexist!

Let's stop with all these foolish isms

Cars, boats and countries were all she, and everything else was he. Nobody thought it was sexist.

In short, calling a boat he, she, they or it is incredibly sexist, according to the women in this thread.

Maybe letting men run everything isn't that bad an idea after all!

We had a landscaper come round to look at our garden, he referred to the walls as 'ee' (he), everything was he. Honestly it doesn't bother me very much, the indignation probably would though.

Christ this is an ageist generalisation. This post does a disservice to men and assumes that retired women 'knew their place'.

By the mid 1970s over two thirds of men supported equal rights for women and polls kept finding this percentage rising.
The parliament that brought in the Sex Discrimination Act in 1974 were 96% male.
85% of men over 50 believe women should have equal rights
22% of men over 60 actively identify as feminists.
The first women's refuge - 1971
The first rape crisis line - 1976
Women didn't need a male co-signer for a a loan after the mid 70s.

Interesting stats. Do you have a source?

Could be short for "she"?

By the mid 1970s over two thirds of men supported equal rights for women and polls kept finding this percentage rising. GALLOP POL
The parliament that brought in the Sex Discrimination Act in 1974 were 96% male. UK POLITICAL INFO
85% of men over 50 believe women should have equal rights IPSOS
22% of men over 60 actively identify as feminists. YOUGOV

Let's face it, gender neutral language in English is clumsy. "Him or her" or "them". So having either he meaning he or she is more convenient. I get lazy at times too. So unless he's said anything else that's worse i wouldn't worry about it. Does he believe men in dresses should go into the women's bathrooms? Does he think men are BETTER than women ( not just different?). That's something i would pay attention to more.

Thanks that's interesting. I wonder how the questions were phrased, because clearly there is a 'right' expected answer.

I don't believe that 85% of men over 50 honestly believe women should have equal rights. Most women don't even have equal rights in their own home, you see it on here all the time (eg husband would expect her to take time off if the kids were sick, etc etc). But I doubt they would square this with their expressed belief that women should have equal rights.

Maybe only other women, not my wife. Or only if it doesnt impact on me!

I wonder what that 22% that identify as feminist understand by that term.

Like this gem

"He" is often used as generic. If, in the majority of the situations, it's statistically more likely to be a man, I wouldn't bother any more than I would about assuming a midwife is a "she". Some people are comfortable using "they" as a singular, but I am much younger than your husband and remember my English teacher saying "they" should only be used for plurals!
Obviously, if he scoffed at the idea of a woman gardener or a man who was a midwife, and made threatening comments, that would be a problem!

Interesting take and opinons.

@AstonScrapingsNameChange yes, lovely example there! Always appreciate the posts that pop up on my FB feed from MWHIA.

I also thought younger retired men should be different, but these stats prove nothing.

Parliament passes all sorts of laws that the general public doesn't agree with - and many of the men in Parliament!

And anybody who has seen TV series from the 70s and 80s, which are far more influential and reflective of society would know that in practice most men (and some women) had sexist views about women.

Someone saying in theory they believe in equal pay, in real life, and certainly in their work place doesn't and that is still true today.

Do you have the Gallop Poll links?

But the actual OP is about whether use of language reflects sexist attitudes or whether it is just lazy.

As to the argument about ships etc., being she, that has nothing to do with equality and far more to do with in fact men's sexist attitudes about what they control. Whether a ship or a car.

And worth remembering that there is now a whole generation of younger men growing up thinking that Andrew Tate is right so in some ways we have all gone back to sexist attitudes.

And women knowing their place.

According to the Navy I am wrong, which just goes to show what you "learn" in your childhood may well be rubbish, and or that in the UK we dont actually know "our" traditions. Quote:

Another tradition is to consider ships as female, referring to them as ‘she’. Although it may sound strange referring to an inanimate object as ‘she’, this tradition relates to the idea of a female figure such as a mother or goddess guiding and protecting a ship and crew. Another idea is that in many languages, objects are referred to using feminine or masculine nouns. This is less common in English which tends to use gender-neutral nouns, however referring to ships as ‘she’ may refer to far more ancient traditions.

Although of course my explanation of ships etc being female and controlled by men may well reflect sexism in practice in the years I was growing up!

Ask him that riddle about the surgeon OP. You know - a young lad had a bad acciident on his motorbike, his father was called and went in the ambulance with him to hospital where he went straight into theatre for an operation. The surgeon looked at the patient, and said "But this is my son".😯

To me it's casual sexism, Like male is the default so everything is he/him.

Like when my Mum argued that Bluey was a boy. Kids tv show about a cartoon dog if folk aren't aware, she's blue and its refreshingly that the dogs aren't obviously male or female based on their eyelashes like paw patrol. Also, why was my mum arguing with me about it, she'd watched precisely 0 episodes where I was practically off book on Bluey at that point due to the kids love of it!