Is this casual sexism or just outdated language from my husband?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

He doesn’t read books at all. Is online for a lot of the day.
he won’t listen to new music- I try to, really like some of the younger female singers.
Yes he mows the lawn, I do the rest of the garden .
his whole life has been very gender segregated- boys only private school, male only university - women excluded. Then male dominated roles with women in support areas.

Yes absolutely. . Very few women , who were in admin/ support roles.
I don't want to out myself but his mother was a fairly well known in her area- self proclaimed feminist- but also one who told me she needed to get FILS supper ready on time every night…

But you married him.
I don't know how reasonable it is to start objecting to this sort of thing now.
He probably thinks you are not quite perfect either but for the sake of having made a commitment he puts up with it.
It's a matter of priorities.

Can’t say I would get too worked up at this

A similar thing that annoys me is when people use phrases like ‘the neighbour’s wife’ when talking about a woman who lives next door with her husband. It’s as though he’s the actual person living there and she is some appendage who can only be seen through the lens of her husband.

’The neighbour’s wife’ only makes sense if the woman in question does not live next door!

Most people, as they age, tend to stick with what they know and are familiiar with.

You have two sons, judging by what you said and so he's not used to viewing the world, either, through the eyes of a girl or a young woman. Maybe one of your boys will have a daughter at some stage.

I think my annoyance at this would be dependent on how he reacts if information comes out that e.g. the boss is actually a woman.

"Her boss should have sorted it, why didn't he?"
"The boss is a woman actually. I think she was on annual leave that week"

If he replies with "typical woman, never on the job" I'd feel quite differently compared to if he then smoothly continued the conversation with female pronouns.

I don't personally use he for unknown people but I'm not particularly bothered by it.

Yes, and in the great scheme of things it's not worth the aggro of policing 'micro-aggressions'.

Your first 2 paragraphs chimed with what I was saying. Even today what is said in Parliament and laws past, the majority of the population has not idea about or interest.

But you then turn that on its head to make over the top remarks about poll results and then equate then to statistics and laws.

All I asked for was the gallup polls you referenced as evidence of your suggestion that what others were saying was somehow ageist.

You cant have it both ways.

I'm just chit chatting on a forum not writing a learning article.

Get over yourself.

That's biological ignorance! How terrifying. Or maybe they didn't have a toy farm as children? That's where I learned that most cows are cows and only a few bigger ones are bulls.

It's decades since 'he' was the grammatical default for 'he or she'. My DH is similar age and has never made that sort of assumption. It is casual sexism of the kind that really annoys me, because it seems so trivial that bringing it up comes over as petty. And yet the assumptions, allow for entrenched assumptions that men rule the world.

This. It is really tedious to be endlessly corrected every time you open your mouth. Does he jump on your faults with as much enthusiasm or are you under the impression that there aren't aspects of your personality that he'd like to change?

One of the ways you can tell if it’s sexism is if you use “she” rather than “he” in the type of situation the op describes. If the other person (who would have used “he”) responds with something like “how do you know it’s a woman” - well, how do they know it’s not?

I don't think it's sexism or outdated language necessarily, I think we tend to jump to assuming people are the same sex as us in the absence of other information, it's just human nature.

Me and DD had a conversation about it last year. We were talking about the teddy's she'd had when she was little. I made the mistake of calling Big Ted a he, and DD corrected me and said all her teddies had been girls. Which surprised me, but why should it? All my teddies growing up were boys, because I was a boy. Of course all DDs teddies would be girls.

We were watching a TV show at the time that had referenced a Dr Kelly, but they hadn't appeared on screen yet. DD was assuming woman, I was assuming man. We then discussed whether we'd think the same if it was a nurse, and I said I'd probably assume that was a woman. But is that sexism, or just the fact that the vast majority of nurses are still female, so on the balance of probability it's likely correct. DD also assumed male for truck driver.

With the gardening example on the OP. Me and DP both garden, so if I saw a nice garden and commented, I'd be picturing myself gardening, so would likely say he, whereas DP would be picturing herself, so would likely say she, it's just a default pronoun based on our own sex.

Don't tar them all with the same brush. My DH is slightly older than the OP DH and is nothing like this.

it's casual sexism but to be honest, do you think it is going to change? is it worth the aggro?

In my case i always assume a female protagonist unless it is bad then i assume male.
Anyone complains? they get The Look.

I've never been sure if it's biological ignorance or lazy thinking but he comes from a family of butchers and ought to know better. For myself, I can't remember a time when I didn't know the difference between cows and bulls, so maybe we were taught early on. It was always very obvious that my brothers were boys as they were quite the willy wavers at one point, as small boys can be.

I’m not convinced that’s a general rule, @VimesandhisCardboardBoots, just anecdote based on your family experience. My DD had many toy dogs which were all named; they were a mix of male and female.

'They' is quite correct when you don't know the sex of the person being referred to. 'They' can be a bit of a bore sometimes, though - 'I asked my partner if they would like some cheese and they said . . .' gets on my shapely tits. God forbid we should know what sex her partner is.

Problem with that is that the men would kill each other!