The language of patronisation...

[bookwormsarah]

I was in the supermarket a couple of days ago and passed a small boy complaining about wanting something or objecting to something his mother had chosen. A few minutes later I passed them again, and heard the child call his mother "you stupid little woman". I was shocked, and had the following thoughts

Comments

[euphrosyna]

It disgusts me the way some children treat their parents. And the way parents let themselves be treated!

But it would send me into a fit of giggles if someone described me as a woman as opposed to a girl. I don't feel like a woman. To me, a woman is someone of my mother's age. But I don't think it's a sexist thing, I don't refer to my male contemporaries as men either; they're 'boys' or 'guys' to me until they're old enough to be my father.

The engineer was horribly rude and patronising. But I don't know if it's irrefutably sexist; he could have said the same thing about a male receptionist. My boss in a summer job I had used to describe one of the guys I worked with as 'a silly little boy' regularly.

[bookwormsarah]

I've only recently started to feel like a woman rather than a girl (I'm 29), and I think it was prompted by hearing a number of very derogative comments about 'girls'. I don't tend to refer to my male friends as men (blokes, fellas, chaps, although I could start describing them as gentlemen callers for the comedy value), and I suppose what bothers me is when people use men for men and girls for women. If they use girls and boys for both, I'm not so fussed. I've never come across blokes being refered to as 'little boys' - in some ways this reassures me!

I'm with you on how some parents let themselves be treated - have they never watched Supernanny?!

[dolorous_ett]

What you said.

We stop calling men "boys" much earlier than women "girls", and I'm sure it's tied in with a lot of really quite toxic social phenomena.

And I'm a Ms on everything - the only time that might concievably change is if I get a PhD. I didn't change my name on marriage either, and was really quite surprised how many people expected me to... but that's for another day, perhaps.

*cheers you on*

[nineveh_uk]

You could, if you were feeling particularly annoyed, phone the fire alarm company and make a complaint about the use of unprofessional language, and (because they only care about money) observe that if this is how they treat female colleagues, it concerns you that they may also provide second-rate service to female customers, which makes you consider whether you should look for a new company...

[morganmuffle]

I hate being patronised and talked down to in that way and whilst, like Kate, I still find it slightly odd to be referred to as a woman because clearly I'm not a grown up it still drives me crazy when peopl call me "girl" and I have been known to pull people up on it because it's ridiculous and demeaning and dismissive.

The BBC article is interesting isn't it. It goes along, I suppose, with all of the rather horrified opinion pieces recently about how there are more and more women being arrested for violent crimes or drunk & disorderly etc. The old double standards don't really ever go away and it's VERY difficult to train yourself out of them even when you catch yourself doing it.

[lyndagb]

Out of curiosity... should we *not* be concerned that aggressive antisocial behaviour is (allegedly) increasing within a particular subgroup of British humanity?

Since this is a group that showed less of this undesirable behaviour, we should be unimpressed when they start to get as bad as the rest, and we *are* trying to reduce such behaviour in both men and women.

[morganmuffle]

We absolutely should be concerned about it, what I get cross about is articles which insist on framing it as women becoming less lady-like or as if somehow it's more understandable when men get drunk and go out and smash up things and/or people.

Something about the way most of the pieces I've read have been written feels incredibly... I'm not sure what the word is but it feels like a double standard and I can't help thinking it'd be better to hold both sexes up to the higher standard rather than just complaining about the women (and I knew as soon as I hit post someone would call me on it, I should have worded it more carfully!)

[lyndagb]

Well, yes, that does sometimes comes through, which I heartily deplore. I suppose my disappointment in women is greater because I generally see better behaviour.

And, okay, so as a psychologist, I have some sympathy for those overburdened with testosterone... It's a very powerful hormone that has a lot of effects on behavioural thresholds. (In much the same way I have sympathy with psychopaths ... is it their fault their dorsolateral cortex doesn't work properly? It's genuinely a toughie for me.)

Not that I would allow my sons to act up any more than the girls. You're right, we should be holding everyone to a higher standard. But I gave up on journalists a long time ago.

[ms_wanderlust]

I used to have this sort of conversation regularly with my manager in my old job. She was a friend of mine too, so I could be honest with her, but I don't think she ever really understood my point.
She used to call the radiographers as a group "the girls" as in "that's fine, I'll ask one of the girls to do it". As we were almost all women and varied in age from 21 through to early 60s, I didn't like that. Most of the radiologists (doctors) in the dept. were men, and I tried to explain to her that she would think she was being rude to refer to them as "the boys" yet somehow it was considered OK that she called us "girls". But like I said, I don't think she really got it, presumably because she didn't mean to be patronising.