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Any married guy with an NFT profile pic is no longer in access to the family accounts
How much of this is the contractors being sexists and how much is it them being used to, far too often, having to manage the fragile ego of a male partner who thinks that “as the man of the house I’m suppose to know these things”?
That’s where you actively go “Woah, better spread those handshakes around. If the boss don’t sign off on the plans, my word means nothing!” You give them an out. If they’re sexist, they may engage with an “heh heh, I know how it is, women!” but if they’re cautious they will hopefully just go to being professionally cordial with your partner.
Whilst I’m not sure about contractors specifically, at least in my technical area “Software Development” having the expertise/insight in the social domain (which is not part of the expertise required for the job) to do things like that is more the exception than the rule.
But, yeah, totally agree that the wise, well-rounded and (IMHO) competent professional would at the very least do a bit of subtle “social discovery” to try and figure out who is the best person the interface with.
And how much is it society having conditioned women into “oh I don’t know anything about that” when it comes to anything technical, including home repairs and such so they don’t even try to pay attention? Because I’ve encountered women of all ages who are impressed to hear a woman could do anything considered a man’s job traditionally. It’s a sort of learned helplessness to the point some think they need a man’s help to put together IKEA furniture. Not because they’re incapable of doing it but because they’ve been taught that they’re incapable of doing it.
Gender stereotyping is a vicious cycle (multiple cycles even) and definitelly goes through both genders.
Mind you, in my experience it does have some cultural component to how far it goes, but even in the most gender-egalitarian country I lived in (The Netherlands) there were still plenty such expectations and, for example, before the remote working era the percentage of couples there with a huisman (the male version of housewife) was only 18%.
To be clear, she doesn’t need to be the technical one to be the one in charge of the decisions.
Given how frequently it happens even with no male partners or it continues despite the male partner saying to talk to the wife about, I’m am gonna guess it’s pretty uncommon to be the primary factor.
I imagine it’s a lot of both
I was taught you first greet the women present and only then the men, because that is the gentlemanly thing to do. But alas, I was also taught to respect women and people in general.
If you respect them equally then why is there an order of operations?
Why are there quotas for women and PoCs in some companies? To get rid of a bad social tradition you have to actively work to undermine it until this work isn’t needed anymore.
But honestly, it’s just because I have been taught to be a gentleman to women by my mother. I do think though that they have SO much shit to deal with in our society, it’s okay to value them a little more than men now and then.
Work is being done by a professional, that is how you should know it is my partner to speak to, not me. If it was me I would be happy with the 5 layers of duct tape applied while I was drunk and have been perfectly serviceable for months now.
Don’t worry - this fix is just temporary ^(unless it works)
As the husband in such situations, I find this very frustrating from a practical perspective.
Guy comes over to install some tech. Me and my wife are both home. I’m working, she’s doing chores. She knows her stuff and did the research, I very clearly don’t know shit about fuck. Guy looks for me every time he has a question. The answer is always “I don’t know, but my wife does”. After I tell him this, he still doesn’t ask her, just makes a decision on his own, so I have to drop everything and get her to make sure he doesn’t fuck things up. At one point, I had to ask my wife to physically stand next to the dude so that he wouldn’t interrupt an important meeting. She later told me he still tried to look for me.
When we need repairs or some kind of work done, I have to be the one making the call because I’m less likely to be ripped off or treated rudely. And since I’m dumb, I have to prepare for these calls because they sometimes cross-examine you with terms I never even heard of. In the middle of a busy workday, while my wife has the time and the know-how. We share household tasks with my wife as equally as possible, I’m just stuck with this.
Female contractors popped up in the area recently. I instantly chose them every time. No such issues.
I’d be tempted to play dumb and keep saying we need a bigger discount until the guy gives up and talks to my wife about the project.
The Rom and Leeta gambit I approve
Why the hell did you let that jackass keep working
Because the others we asked quotes from were worse. They didn’t just ignore my wife’s specs, they deliberately went against them, offering a build we didn’t actually want.
Then again, this is my experience with 99% of contractors where I live, so I’ve also sort of given up.
IMO, if you’re a homeowner, DIY skills are non-negotiable. At least one person per household should know how to get things done so there’s no need to involve contractors in any but the most extreme cases.
Absolutely! But you should also know your limits - I don’t fuck with gas and mains electricity for safety reasons. Flooding the house is fine in my book, so I only call the plumber if someone has a gun to my head lol
Yeah. Most contractors are so bad at communicating that I went to trade school so I could work on my own stuff.
It sucks working with people who don’t value so-called “soft skills” and also spend so much time arguing about stupid shit.
My sister went through 3 potential builders before she found one that would even address her rather than her husband.
She, the extremely qualified, professional architect who works restoring ancient buildings and who’s name is on the structural plans and diagrams as the engineer picked the first people who could identify that her husband couldn’t tell a hammer from a screwdriver.
I never noticed how sexism is so ingrained in the people of my country until I married a foreigner that doesn’t speak the language.
Obviously every interaction needs to go through me so I can translate to him, but people refuse to look at me when interacting, always talking to him first, even after they see he doesn’t understand them.
This happens in places as simple as grocery stores, cashiers will always try to talk to him first. It’s the same with almost every other service we encounter. It was a weird thing to find out as an adult.
“weird” is not the first word that comes to mind for me about this.
When I sold cars I was explicitly told to never ignore the wife and if I did it was an immediate deal killer.
In job interviews, we pay attention to if the applicant gives eye contact and engages with the female staff members.
It’s a red flag when they don’t.
I had a boss who bought a car from the dealership across the road out of spite after a sales guy did that. Deal killer might be an understatement.
Guy who owns both dealerships: “Mwah ha ha my plot worked again!”
I work on boats but got the same advice. Often the wife sits to the side and I try to draw her into the conversation and ask her opinion.
My wife gave me the advice as she always points out when I’m talking to someone and they don’t look at her. To be fair, it often happens to me when she’s talking to people, and I’m glad I was made aware of how rude it is.
Good for your boss… and good for the couples who wouldn’t put up with that!
Had that with a carpenter who was bidding for the new windows in a friends apartment. I was there as a visitor for a completely unrelated reason when he showed up and only looked at me and never talked to her while answering her questions.
Boy, did she drop him from the list of possible contractors.
Went along with a friend when she went car shopping, had a nice lady sales rep, really knew her stuff. They were close to signing and the assistant manager comes over and sends the rep my friend was dealing with away. Guess he thought he would swoop in and seal the deal, take all the glory…and the commission.
Guy refused to look at or speak to my friend, everything was directed at me. Got to the point where I asked quite loud why he was speaking to me, I have nothing to do with the sale. He STILL wouldn’t look at or speak to my friend. So we left.
Friend went back a few days later to see if the lady rep was there. Apparently the assistant manager’s shenanigans were being watched by someone from the regional office, and he’d got himself shit-canned from the largest dealer group in the country. Love to see it.The last time I went car shopping, it was as the ride for my carless roommate (we were dating, but he introduced me to the car rep as his ride and roommate). He ended up talking to a manager about a car and the manager kept bad-mouthing my car, talking about how unsafe it was, etc. I just kept knitting next to him because the whole situation was not my problem, but I was confused until my roommate said pointedly “you’re not going to get my roommate’s car as a trade-in”. I got up to help myself to their snacks and coffee.
He did not get a car from that dealership.
I shake men’s hands and not women’s because women never ask Me for handshakes, and I don’t like giving them. I only do it with men because they’re so needy and touch starved that they think touching sweaty feelers is a good time.
I only do it with men because they’re so needy and touch starved that they think touching sweaty feelers is a good time.
Umm, no. We do it because we’re taught to from a young age. It’s considered necessary in certain social situations. I don’t even like them much myself, but I’ve found the older I get I will offer them up because I know that’s called for by the social scenario I’m in
If you feel this strongly about handshakes there are definitely many regions around the globe to avoid. Some places handshake an absurd amount.
Most of the time I avoid handshakes with a vulcan salute or as fist bump
Over here men shake hands but not women, it’s just how things are (unless in a professional setting). So you just say hi from a distance or wave your hand. I hate it but I can’t overturn a whole cultural standard by myself.
I know for some, its considered improper to have interactions with opposite sex members after marriage, so its entirely possible they knew who is the decision maker and still feel obligated to use the husband as a go-between.
Then don’t work in a profession where you can’t do your job with 50% of the population lol.
That’s still sexist bullshit
Yup. Either way, not worth dealing with their BS.
Getting downvoted for explaining lol.
I can’t see downvotes anyways 🤷♀️
Honestly a lot of times people doing “well actually…” aren’t acting in good faith, so I don’t blame people for downvoting.
I just find interesting because some of my parents neighbors are like that, but my parents are lesbians, but one of them is quite eggy (not just butch) and they socially treat her as a guy, so the husbands will talk directly with one of my moms but not the other. So I find it a little fascinating how different flavors of sexism try to manage situations outside the norms that were assumed in their making (surprisingly they seem to have no problem with her being a lesbian). Otoh, they’ve had plenty of contractors coming to give bids who just clearly don’t respect either of them because they are women.
Yeah. There’s a big difference between
I know for some…
and “it’s my strong recommendation that…” People are alarmingly bad at reading.
A lot of people don’t want to understand anything bad. They want to condemn the people who think bad, and they feel like any kind of understanding results in less condemnation, which is bad!!
I see it as very analogous to the war on drugs. A lot of people think that “drugs are bad mkay” and so any sensible policy like drug harm reduction is bad because it sends the wrong message - even if it doesn’t really increase use of drugs much. Even if understanding (large numbers of) sexists doesn’t result in more sexism, it seems to send the wrong message.
Don’t mistake “this is fucking stupid” for “I don’t get why this person is doing this”.
I completely understand there are men who are so weak willed or bound by Sky Daddy that they can’t handle interactions with women, but that’s not an excuse for the behavior. If I was part of a sect that didn’t allow alcohol, I wouldn’t work where I’d regularly come into contact with it.
If these chucklefucks can’t interact with half of their potential clients, they shouldn’t be doing the work.
That doesn’t explain, on its own, why you would downvote someone explaining some aspect of misogyny. The explanation there is that people don’t want to hear the explanation.
In this case the explanation was quite likely not the explanation of the specific example, and so perhaps that was a factor in the reaction. But if so I’d say that the OP did phrase their comment carefully, saying: “I know for some…” and “so its entirely possible…”. I don’t think that reply would get such a negative reaction if it were just missing the mark in another scenario; I think it’s people not wanting to hear it.
If all men acted like that, they would end up completely excluding women from society. I wonder if that ever happened in history…
