I love good advice, and recently a visitor to our site reminded me of a fairly straightforward way of dealing with sexist remarks. She was discussing a difficult work situation with her son—one in which the term “guys” was often used to refer to groups that clearly included women. He suggested that she consider redirecting people by telling them what she wanted. In other words, if you want people to stop referring to you as a guy, then tell them what you want to be called instead.
It’s a simple act—telling people what we want or need—but one that clearly eludes a lot of us in many situations. Yet it works, so maybe we need to stop trying so hard to come up with a great retort to sexist jokes or comments and focus instead on calmly—without emotion or exaggerations—telling the people involved what we want.
If you find yourself socializing with people who make inappropriate comments about women, for example, nicely tell them that you would prefer that they not share their sexist jokes when partying with you. If someone is calling you “honey” in a setting that makes you uncomfortable—quietly tell the person that you would prefer to be called by your name.
Will some people react badly? Sure they will, but as I heard Oprah say recently, maybe it is time to start believing what people tell you about themselves. When friends and colleagues are unwilling to honor our clear and specific requests about how we prefer to be treated, their behavior is the problem, not ours.
So make it easy on yourself in 2010. Rather than trying to come up with the perfect response to every possible type of sexist remark that you might encounter—simply ask the people making those comments to stop.
Cynthia
