Sexism is a deep-rooted parasite that breeds in our culture. You may or may not have come across it, but it is a reality that a lot of people live with. A majority of us even let it pass, thinking that the remarks aren’t too offensive. More often than not, this is because our day-to-day lives have absorbed sexism in such a way that it doesn’t even strike us when we come across discriminating remarks.
“Women can’t drive” or “Men will always be men”, are some of the examples that people often use as a form of joke or mockery. But what it results in is not funny at all.
It is a common problem and it is not biased to one gender alone. Men and women who went through several sexist remarks posted their experiences on Quora.
These remarks show how much we need to work on ourselves as a society.
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When I was preparing for IIT-JEE in Bansal Classes, Kota, Bansal Sir’s remarks were probably the most sexist ones I have ever heard from a teacher.
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I joined a coaching class to help with my JEE studies. I used to go to school in the mornings and coaching in the evenings. When my class teacher came to know of this, he told me, “tell your father not to waste so much money on you and your coaching. He should keep it aside for your dowry. And considering that you are not even pretty, he needs to save every penny he can.”
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Why do you girls need to come all the way to Delhi to prepare for Civil Services? You end up disrupting the preparation of the boys around you. We’ll supply whatever study material you want at home! The passing percentage of boys has started dwindling, thanks to the surge in the number of female aspirants and the resulting distractions.
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So this friend of mine sitting besides me was passing comments on the professor’s mannerisms and all of us sitting in the row were giggling. To this, the professor made a remark which I think all of us have heard and actually laughed upon (and maybe that’s the biggest problem).
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I was coming back home with an elbow injury, bleeding knee and swollen lips. I was crying as I came home. As I entered, I met my uncle, and guess what happened when I told him what happened after he saw blood on my knee? He laughed like I told him the most hilarious joke ever and asked me not to cry like a girl.
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This one didn’t happen to me. But it happened to my cousin. Her dad is a well-known politician and she wants to follow his footsteps. When she visited one of her Family friends, the typical uncle asked her about future plans. Upon answering, that she wants to become a politician, he replied, “is sab ka kya faida, bari hokay rotian hi toh baleni hai”
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It was an emotional movie (Barfi) and I did cry. So, I was telling my best friend about this movie and I told him how even my parents got emotional during the movie. There was a group of students who over heard our conversation. They came to me, laughed and mocked me over the incident saying, “hume to laga tu mard hai. Par tu to movie me Priyanka Chopra jaisa nikla.”
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There was a particular book I was looking for, and after searching a bit, I approached the owner who was standing nearby. I said to him, “I cant find ‘The Prophet” by Kahlil Gibran anywhere. Would you please tell me if it’s in stock?” To which he replies, “We don’t have any more of it, man. Sold out. But aapke interest ke sab books upar wale floor pe honge – cooking, gardening wale”.
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When I was doing my internship as a car mechanic in training, a local newspaper was doing a piece on gender stereotypes and invited me for an interview. The things people said in comment section to the article were unbelievable. One particularly outstanding comment was, “she, a car mechanic? She won’t even be able to diagnose the problem!”
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A classmate and I were talking about some concert, and the conversation went on about how I could get a little too obsessed with music and instruments sometimes. And then he said, “What’s the point in being so interested in music when ultimately you just have to sit at home and cook?”
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A female friend asked me about my plans post graduation. To which I replied, “I want to do a lot of travelling, for at least a year, and just live out of a backpack for a while.” Little did I know that she’ll reply, “how do you expect to get a boyfriend or maintain a relationship with that kind of a lifestyle?”.
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Bouncer: come on in everyone, bar is downstairs and stay away from the upstairs
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I was talking to a girl on Facebook. Now, she told me that she was preparing for IBPS and the exams were near and that she needed to study a lot but she isn’t feeling like. I said that even I have some exams coming up and even I didn’t feel like studying. So she said that “study hard or else for every wrong answer that you write, your honeymoon destination will shift from Mauritius to Mahabaleshwar! Hahaha”.
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He was giving lecture on placement interviews as we will be having campus placements soon. He was talking about the various rounds and how to tackle the questions asked by the interviewers. Then suddenly he told that attire matters a lot.
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Some random guy on Quora said to me, “don’t you think attractive girls on Quora should set display pictures which don’t show their real face? So they can avoid fake upvotes, praises and messages from strangers? Or do you girls just like the attention?”.
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One of the staff scientists came in to make sure everything was running smoothly. He saw that two females were running the experiments, to which he said “wow! Where is he (the male colleague)? He left you two ladies to take care of these experiments all by yourselves? Are you two okay here?”
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It’s hard to catalog; there is so much sexism in US society that it’s a pervasive film covering just about everything.
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Me – “So you’re saying being called out on the street by a bunch of hooligans is a compliment?”
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As I jogged past them, one of the boys passed a comment about me to his friend, which I clearly heard. I’m sure even the people living close to the park must have heard it! He had said, “Why is she jogging to attract attention to her boobs?”