I want to share a personal experience so that next time I'm in a similar situstion I'll respond better.
Recently when I went to visit my boyfriend he was playing a video game online with a few of his friends, and using this program that allows them to talk to each other at the same time. I have never met or spoken with these friends before so I was curious and wanted to talk to them. I put on the headphones and asked them if they could tell be any fun stories about my boyfriend. The first guy that responded asked, "Since when are women asked to speak?", and said that I needed to be kept on a shorter leash. Totally mind-boggled and with my innocent efforts thwarted, I called him sexist and horrible and left. What could I have said to get my point across better? If I'm put on the spot I usually don't know what to say, and if I do and I'm trying to get my stance across to someone, in my haste I'm not all that coherent.
So what should I have said? He didn't care about disrespecting and the whole female gender because as he explained later he was "just joking". Also, my boyfriend is a fellow feminist, so why he is friends with someone whose first response to a women voice was to be sexist? And, just so you know, we're all college freshmen.
I'll be thankful for any responses.
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Welcome to the internet. There isn't anything at all that you could have said that he would have cared about. When people have complete anonymity they do and say things just because they can.
Agreed. It sounds to me like he said it because he thought it was funny, not because he really believed it. That doesn't make him less of an asshole, it's just the nature of his assholism. He really was "just joking," but in a way only a moron/jerk would. Maybe sometime he'll make a delightful joke about black people or slavery around an unreceptive audience.
As for your boyfriend, you can judge him for having a socially inept idiot friend, but I don't think it reflects on BF's commitment to feminism.
I don't mean to nitpick, but it's funny how frequently I notice that when someone makes a demeaning comment toward some group, the eventual response is "I hope they say something offensive around a bunch of black people" because everyone knows that black people are more violent than others, so they'll certainly be the ones to teach our offender a lesson.
I'm not saying you were thinking that. But it's something to consider.
I shouldn't have said that. I take your point and I apologize.
Males are more violence prone than females, and that making a racist joke around men of the given race would more likely to result in an ass kicking than making a sexist joke around women. I'd be more likely to slug someone over an anti-Semitic joke than my equally Jewish sister.
I see what you're saying but, personally, I think it comes from the observation that people of *any* race are more likely to stand up for themselves when faced with racism than women are when faced with sexism. It's just that due to the nature of male/female relationships, women have a lot more to lose by speaking up.
And I will clarify that I do NOT mean that's how it is in every situation. But just casual situations, among a group of peers.
I agree. I've left many forums for this reason. Its a big chest bumping testosterone fest. They think they're kings of the interwebs.
They'll just respond with "STOP TAKING THINGS SO SERIOUSLY". Yes, because comments like that are totally harmless and nonoffensive. The sad thing is most females put up with it just so they'll be included in the group.
Were they playing World of Warcraft?
Me, I would turn their words back on them. An anecdote:
One time I was on my boyfriend's facebook, having a debate with some dude he was acquainted with about the merits of liberal politics. I said something about women, and he told said, "get your candy ass off your feminist soap box."
I was really shocked, and at first I was going to try to be conciliatory and explain my position to him, but then I thought, "wait, I don't owe him anything."
So my reply was: "I'll get off my feminist soap box when you get off your "family values" soap box. Except that I won't get off my soap box. Ever."
The conversation degenerated from there, because dude was an illogical self-centred jackass, who was unable to deal with critical analysis. He got really upset by the end of it and started CAPS SHOUTING at one point, so I'm counting it as a win for me.
But, yeah. In your situation I would have said, "since when are morons allowed to speak?" Maybe I would have said that the only time my boyfriend uses a leash is during sex, and he's the one who's wearing it. Or at least, I hope I would have been able to come up with something like that quick enough despite my state of shock.
Comments like that are supposed to smack you down. I think the best thing to do is to not show that he succeeded in upsetting you in any way, and that you can give as good as you get.
Yeah, they were playing World of Warcraft and were talking over Ventrilo.
And thanks for the responses everyone!
Something that might be interesting. I play Warcraft, and a friend of mine who ran serious guild had a policy of not allowing women. The policy wasn't because he thinks women are worse at the game, but because he knew that as soon as it becomes known that a women is "around" all the males playing will start acting like retards.
You said the right things. What you need to do is establish some boundaries for the future. I hope your boyfriend called his friends out on that shit. Flip the situation around, how would you respond if your friends disrespected your boyfriend like that.
You know, unfortunately in college the peer group is still highly influential...just something to think about.
I really feel you here. This is something that while I have not really had to deal with, my sister has. She plays predominantly with a group of guys (I usually only play MMOs with just her and me, so the whole "girls are silly" thing doesn't come up :D), who have a tendency to continue to use the term "rape", despite her asking them to stop.
They tell her to "lighten up" and "it's just a joke".
The best thing you can do is pretty much what you did. Pointing out that it's sexist and horrible is the best you can do for now. However, I'd ask my boyfriend to stand against that sort of thing, because it's the decent thing to do. Having a jerkass friend doesn't mean that he's a jerkass, too, but it does mean that you can expect him to speak out against that sort of language and attitude. Well, that's what I think, anyway :D
I play World of Warcraft and I get this crap all the time. Mostly people think I'm a guy until I hop onto voice chat, then they all go quiet.
Luckily for me, I'm a raid healer (healing groups of 10 - 25 people) and if anyone gives me any shit for being a girl, I stop healing them and they die :D
WHO SAID I DON'T HAVE ANY POWER?! :D :D
Nice.
You are my WOW hero :)
Sounds like he was just trying to get a reaction out of you, to get you to play their "game." I play World of Warcraft and am often talking over Ventrilo (a voice program which allows us all to talk in order to make raiding easier). Sometimes the guys I'm aquianted with say stupid shit like "Make me a sammich" as a joke. I'm certain they just want me to say something back which is equally degrading, which means that in the future I need to come up with better responses.
Mostly, they all rag on eachother, and to be a part of their mostly male club, I think I need to be able to verbally spar with them as well. I honestly believe that if some new guy came into our group and verbally challenged me with some sexist comment like "Hey get back in the kitchen" the guys I know would not approve (even though they do it on occasion).
I think this boils down to an "in group" thing. You are not a part of their group, but "intruded" into their territory. It was a verbal challenge, and you took it seriously, which, I believe, was the wrong reaction if you wanted to be in the "club". In the future, your boyfriend may tell them not to say shit like that to you, and the guys may treat you nicely. But you will not be in the club until you can take their crap.
I'm no psycology major or anything, this is just my opinion based on observations I've made due to the fact that I'm a girl gamer as well as an engineer (and therefore work and play mostly among males).
I get called a bitch quite frequently. It doesn't affect me at all since I see myself as precisely that. When someone says something glaringly sexist to me, I come back with something more biting. They usually cant hold their own with me. The "make me a sammitch thing"...my reply..."you wouldn't be able to eat it after I kicked your ass". Women CAN be violent. My ethos permits such assertions of power.
I'm not very good at the verbal sparring. So, I'm going to use your reply to the sammich thing in the future. :D
Guilds, clans, and even just casual put together friend groups for gaming tend to have a lot of that in- v. out-group mentality. Sadly, a woman 'intruding' on their groups is not taken very kindly too. To get into the in-group you've defintley have to be able to hold your own in a verbal spar or show that you are very (and I mean above average) capable of playing the game. My favored tactics are one liners aimed at highlighting their immaturity ('Well now that the village idiot's had his turn to speak...') or kicking ass, and not necessarily the enemies (I have been known to get someone killed or let them die for being a misogynistic asshole).
Also, random aside to those who play WoW or other MMO's. I have a elf rouge that is apparently 'one hot chick'. Within minutes of her creation she was being stalked by another player and she has had way too many 'chivalrously' intended males interested in her. It always bugs me and I always make my dissatisfaction known, but my bf (who is going thru a feminist awakening)has always underestimated the harassment women get in games, and WoW in particular. So I let him play her for a bit the other day. Within minutes of logging on a passing character handed him 20 gold and he later got sent a tell to cyber. He believes me now.
this is an example of what is called "gamer culture". It was constructed predominantly by men, for men. In general, they either like women to be a part of it and think it is cute or cool, or whatever, or they consider the woman an interloper or someone who has specifically targeted gamers to date the first type of gamer. Then there are men who don't care either way.
In any instance, since this is something you are only dealing with through your boyfriend, just ask not to be a part of it or avoid him while he is playing. Or DTMFA. I honestly don't take anything that people from this subculture say seriously as they generically use the advantage of anonymity to inflate their flaccid, macho egos.
If I game, I am not one way or another; I am playing a game. The best way to deal with imbeciles is to treat them as if they do not exist. Correcting someone in this situation is fruitless. You either ignore sexism and prove it wrong through actions (in this case, through playing the game with equal skill) or you avoid the situation completely.
If this is indeed WoW, you may be surprised to know that one of the top WoW players (according to the latest arena tournament a few months ago) is a woman.
OK, so I'm not the most tactful person in this kind of situation and can be pretty verbally brutal. That being said, whenever I encounter a situation like this I refuse to get upset. Because that's what he wants. Instead I start asking questions that passively-aggressively point out how ridiculous this guy is. I come off all innocent at first: "Why do you feel so threatened by me?" "Do I know you?" Have I done something to make you feel threatened?" This makes him get defensive and blustery, since he's not really looking that great in front of his friends. At this point I move on to the harsher attack. "Is your dick really that small that you have to go around acting like a complete asshole in order to make yourself feel better?" or the fake sympathy: "It must be hard to have such a tiny little peepee and have to act like an asshole all the time to prove yourself to the world." In my situation this generally happens in the bar setting (and there are some pretty rough bars here in the Old West), but I would bet it works in any context. You would think this would get me in heaps of trouble in the bar setting, but oddly enough it usually just works to make everyone laugh at the asshole, which shuts him down pretty effectively. The most important thing is to stay deadly calm and not allow him to see that you're pissed off or hurt by what he's said, cause bottom-feeders love that more than anything else.
Dated frat brothers. I've done this before.
One night at dinner, when I was meeting people in the house still, one of the brother's made a really distasteful 'joke' about rape. One of the things that sets me off is rape jokes, but since it was towards the end of dinner, I just left. BF asks me what the problem was, and I told him. I also told him I really didn't want to associate with that brother if that was his 'sense' of humor. To BF's credit, his reaction was not 'well, it's a frat house,' but 'yeah, we try to behave at dinner, and this brother says a lot to stupid shit.' Later, said brother found out I was offended, and apparently, he and this other girl essentially planned to have a super sexist conversation in front of me to piss me off. Classy, I know. Fortunately, it didn't happen, but I was all ready to explain why rape jokes aren't jokes at all. Rachel in WY had a great response about these types of people being 'bottom feeders.' It's true. No one really likes them; they're usually just tolerated because they're 'one of the guys.' If you don't like them, many guys will probably agree with you. Good luck, though, on trying to get guys to stop being friends with asshole guys.