How do you deal with sexist remarks in a way that leaves you feeling good about yourself and comfortable with how others reacted to your response? Back to Answering the Tough Questions
Cynthia says: I always feel best when I have responded—rather than reacted—to a person making a sexist remark (particularly when I suspect someone is baiting me). In those situations, I typically assessed the situation fairly well, including identifying whether there were others in the immediate area who would support me, and chose words designed to begin a dialogue about the negative effects of sexist remarks and therefore the need to eliminate their use.
That said, I once gave the finger to a male colleague who routinely made sexist remarks when he made an inappropriate comment during a short farewell speech that I was giving at a going-away party for one of my staff. The women in the room spontaneously broke into applause—and I have to say that while my action did nothing to further educate this man about his ongoing misogyny, I felt pretty darn good afterwards.
The fact is that no one can ever be prepared to respond perfectly each time they are confronted with a sexist remark. It is helpful to decide that you are no longer going overanalyze the outcomes of your responses to sexist comments—or to feel badly if those situations don’t turn out as you hoped. Just speak up, do your best, and then don’t dwell on it. Living well is always the best revenge.
Steve says: I have two ways of responding to sexist comments, depending on who is making them. The distinction I make is between remarks by people with whom I have some kind of ongoing relationship that matters, and those by people with whom I have no relationship, or at least not one that is important.
When someone in the first category makes a sexist comment, I feel better trying to have a conversation about what happened (even though we probably all know people who don’t appear capable of having a serious discussion about interpersonal issues). A real conversation, of course, means both listening and talking. Listening well means being genuinely curious about why the other person chose to express themselves in the way that they did. As offensive as I may find their expression, it means asking questions like, “I’m curious why you would say something like that?” “What’s that based on?” “What’s led you to think that way?” Talking means conveying my values in personal terms, expressing why equality is important to me and how such comments affect people I care about—my nieces and nephews, my wife, my sister, my mother (for example, witnessing gender-based discrimination against my mother in a religious institution that my family belonged to when I was in high school). (See my May 18, 2009, post for more information on that episode.)
When dealing with someone in the second category, I’ve found it doesn’t work to try to plan the perfect response to the next sexist remark—each one is different, and I never do seem to correctly predict which I’ll hear next. Instead I try to have a clear message ready, one that works in most situations. Mine is, “That sounds sexist. I don’t like to talk that way about women.” In the best of circumstances, a statement like that can lead to a conversation about sexist remarks (like the one described above). In other circumstances, at least the person making the remark has heard the message that acceptable conversation does not include misogyny.
What do you suggest? Post an answer
