One that always annoyed me is when it is around the holidays, when stores advertise gifts for men. They always assume a guy is into toilet humor, beer humor, assuming they’re a lumberjack who needs to survive out in the wilderness, are into bbq-ing all of the time so gotta have those available all year around for some reason.
Even when I used to have identified myself as a guy, I never once fit into any of those traits. Just because guys grow beards, doesn’t always mean they’re chopping wood somewhere and always wearing plaid.
Most, if not all of them, should just die to be honest. But the one that is targeted at me and annoys me most at the moment is the following.
Where I currently live, there seems to be an assumption that if you are a man, you’re going to be a deadbeat parent.
The bar is in absolute hell to be considered a “good dad”. Change nappies? You’re so “hands on”. Spend time with your kids minding your own business? Mums out of the blue coming to tell you “you’re doing great”, with optional condescension. Thanks, I didn’t ask. Or conversely if my child is crying, get offered help insistently, because yeah, you must know better than my sorry man ass, even though you only met my child 5 seconds ago.
When my partner is present, any questions from doctors or childminders about our children are by default asked to her, and if I don’t (repeatedly) chip in, I don’t even get a look.
No, I’m not “babysitting” to give my wife a rest, I’m enjoying spending time with my children. No, I don’t feel emasculated having my baby in a carrier/sling or pushing a buggy. Also no, I don’t need to be advertised “manly” looking dad gear (you know the one, looks like you’re cosplaying a spec ops soldier).
This seems to be getting better as my children are getting older but during the baby phase it was absolutely mind blowing how I felt I either had to assert my presence quite a bit, or paradoxically get infinite praise for doing the bare minimum.
the bar really is that low, tbf. congratulations you are in the top 0.1% of parents/dads
lot of people out there that really shouldn’t be having kids because they’re barely aware of themselves let alone other people
Tbf, this is not super local specific necessarily. I definitely pass judgement in fellow coworker dads who show up to work a week after they have their new born. When I chat with them about how nights are going and they say “oh fine, I just sleep in the basement so the baby doesn’t wake me” I want to throttle their weak asses.
Much of it is definitely cultural. Its made worse that we work at a company that offers dads two months full pay and live in a country with employment insurance benefits for parents that can be split over 18 months.
Yeah, by “where I live” I meant the country I am currently in. I am not saying there is no sexism where I am from, far from it, but from what little I can tell, the specifics that I am describing seem to be more prevalent in English speaking countries. Sexism expresses in different ways, that’s definitely a culture thing.
And yes, here in the UK, fathers are only entitled to two weeks paternity leave which only makes things worse. I was very lucky to be working for a company which had a great parental leave policy when both my children were born (3 months full pay) so I could do my part and bond with my children at a very early age. I remember after two weeks thinking “how do fathers even go back to work at that stage?”. And that’s not even taking into account a difficult birth, like needing a c-section, and the mum needing at least 6 weeks to start being able to safely do anything remotely straining again.
It’s just insane.