2d ago

What are some sexist stereotypes that need to just stop?

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.

104 comments

I've noticed that when you want a question answered it's best to put your own answer in a comment and let the post only be describing or clarifying the question. When you put a question and your answer together in the post, the question reads more rhetorical since you've already given "the answer", and your answer will be what people discuss rather than giving their own answers.
My sexist stereotype that needs to stop is that men are not good with kids, or unsafe.
I want to see more men playing with kids, being handed strangers kids to hold at gatherings, men hugging and cuddling kids. It's no more suspicious or odd for a man to enjoy and appreciate and be caring with children (not just his own) than it is for a woman.
I have no qualms asking a strange child if they want help if I see them struggling (seeming lost, trying to reach something, scared of the escalator, whatever), and I want men to feel equally comfortable stepping in without being afraid of what people might think they're up to... Because people need to stop thinking men are up to something when they are clearly trying to have a positive impact.
- This is one thing that I'm pretty self conscious about. I don't know if it's because I've spent a lot of time on the internet and see lots of actual creeps on there but it's often on my mind in public to try not to come off as a creep. The only exception is with my nieces or nephew, I'll be dammed if someone's going to accuse me of something because I'm playing with them or keeping an eye on them in public, but outside of that, I'm a single guy in his 30s and that don't look good, so I keep to myself.
  Actually, as I was typing this out I remembered the guy that I saw while I was with my nieces and their parents waiting for some food at a fast food place a few months back. The place was busy so we were all there for a while and this old guy comes up nearby, waits for a while, then complains out loud to us. Ok, that's normal, but then he just hangs out for a while close to the kids. After we get the last of our food as the youngest is getting off of a stool, he reaches out to help her off, holding her under the arms. That type of situation is exactly what I try to avoid. Maybe he was harmless and thought she needed a hand, that for some reason the three adults she knew couldn't provide, but keep your hands off the kid, we don't know you. (She was not struggling to get off the stool)

That men always want sex with anyone at any time, and if they don't that means there's something wrong with them.
- I'm on the far end of this spectrum, and I'd argue that there's definitely something wrong with me, but it's a curious issue in the sense that it only affects me negatively when someone else is bothered by it. You don't really miss sex when you have no desire for it. It's actually kind of a superpower too at times. I feel more free than many of my peers whose minds are constantly occupied with chasing sex.
  
  As desires go, it certainly takes up an awful lot of time and energy that can be put to other uses.
  
  I didn't think I could ever be like this until I took a long break and realized, "Uh oh. This is working WAY TOO WELL." Now I'm like 5-6 years in and I used to wonder how I'd go even a month or two without sex.

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.
- 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.
- 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
  edit/crossing out dads
  
  congratulations you are in the top 0.1% of parents/dads
  This right here is what this whole question is directed at.
  No, doing the basics does not put them in the "top 0.1% of dads," like it's some sort of anomaly (they might be, but it's not because they changed diapers). Almost every dad I know is heavily involved in their kids lives, including when they are babies. I'm never the only dad at the park or the birthday party, and everything else. I have had many discussions with other guys about taking care of our babies, and it is very clear that it is a shared responsibility.
  Do more men bail on their kids or dump responsibility on their spouse than women? Sure. Is that currently the common thing, or what 99.9% of men do? Absolutely not.
  Stop perpetuating this stereotype, especially in a post about negative stereotypes.

What you're describing sounds more like marketing than stereotypes.
Enough men fit into these category that advertising this way works. So that won't stop.

I get annoyed when I order a cocktail or a vegetarian dish at a restaurant and they put it in front of my wife.
Sometimes I want a veggie filled meal, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to pass up a cocktail because it’s not “manly”.
I have scotch at home, and if I’m buying a steak it’s going to be from a high quality restaurant. I hate overpaying for steak that I can cook better at home.
- Lol happens to me all the time, I only drink fruity or sweet alcoholic beverages and my wife loves beer and whiskey.
  Couple weeks ago we were out with some work friends and I ordered a "Trophy Wife" and it came with a flower in it and everything lmao (tasted fantastic) and one of the guys we were with (who is gay even) made a comment about my prissy drink lmao. He was doing it in jest but like... Why shouldn't I like things that taste good? XD
- I can sort of relate. I'm fat as fuck, but I really like salads and veggies. When I go out to eat, my (much smaller) partner will order like a steak and potatoes, and I might order like a chicken cobb salad, not because I'm dieting, but I because I really wanted a dinner salad. And like half the time they give the salad to my partner and give me the steak.
- So I had a similar experience. I was a vegetarian, I don't like coffee, I don't drink alcohol.
  First the waiter put the wine in front of me and the soda in front of my wife.
  Then I got the meat and she the veggie dish.
  Then finally she got the white tea and I the coffee.
- My wife is a huge prime rib fan. Invariably, the waiter gives me the prime rib, and my wife the salmon.

Men don't cry or ahow emotions. Women can't drive. Women belong in the kitchen. A man having many partners is the goat. A woman having many partners is a removed. A woman wearing "sexy" clothes wants the attention of men and is partially responsible should a man overstep his boundries. Blonde women are stupid. The men are the bread winners. Househusbands are "beta"-man. Men have to pay for the date. Men getting beaten by a their partner are weak and deserved it. Women getting beat by their partner is an exeption. Making a sexist joke is harmless. Feminism is bad for men and only helps women take away the power of men. The patriachial order is good for all men.
Sooo, this are all the cringe takes I could come up with real fast. There are many more, but I don't want to write and essay here.
- Ngl in general there is an overall "women are stupid" stereotype like "if she doesn't speak like a borderline child, obviously she is either mad or some antisocial nerd."

The timing of this post is ideal.
I’m a guy. Yesterday, a coworker (a woman) told me about a male customer who was shopping before my shift started. She tried to help him, but he said “can I get a man to help me?” Ugh.
Amusingly, only her and two other women were working at that moment. She said “I’m the best you’re gonna get. There’s only two other people on duty right now, and they’re both women with less experience than me.” She wasn’t bragging, either. She’s always the one I go to when I have questions.
I’m glad I wasn’t there. I wouldn’t have wanted to deal with that caveman.
- If you were there, you could've just played dumb and driven the point home by redirecting each question to your coworker.

Men are just big children.
The other day at work, a woman said "I have three children. And a husband, so I guess three and a half children."
Don't usually see that stereotype in the wild.
I don't want people to give up joy and fun things, but the idea that men are just irresponsible and their wife has to also be their responsible mother is sad.
Edit: typo
- Unfortunately that's a stereotype that holds up way more often than it should. Women often end up taking on a huge domestic load and/or caretaker load in a household, even if both she and her husband are working outside the home.
  There are couples that never fall into this or that actively try to balance domestic and caretaking activities. One set of tools I know about is "Fair Play".
  
  Only because the far right wing conservative shitlords like Shapiro, ~~Kirk~~, Chowderhead, and Walsh et. al. have been brainwashing guys into taking pride in having no idea how to take care of themselves. They literally take pride in not knowing how to do laundry, cook, or many other domestic tasks...
- Bonus points if it's, "He's childish because he's so emotional."
  And then we wonder why men are closed off emotionally.
- It's not a stereotype if it's true, though! /s
  On a more serious note, coming from an immigrant family, you can see it very clearly in a lot of those old Eurpoean cultures (Portugal, spain, etc...) The men work, the women (seem) subservient, but honestly, without them, their husbands are absolutely useless at bills, banking, groceries, literally anything that isn't getting up and going to work to make money.
  Most men would absolutely fall apart without their wives because while they can dress for themselves, they sure as hell can't shop for themselves, etc...
  I'm not saying that that'st he modern convention. It isn't at all. It's changing. But there's still a tonne of older women who come in and (half-jokingly) have to buy a bunch of premade meals for their husband because she has to go on the road for a few days and he is useless for that sort of stuff on his own.
- It's funny because the dynamic in my relationship is flipped and I can relate more to women's complaints about mental load, cooking/household, malicious incompetence, communication, etc so this one always stands out when I come across it.

I recently became aware of the "performative male" stereotype. Basically, if you're a guy who doesn't dress the way most men dress and you like to read books in public, you're just "performing" in order to attract women.
I think it's the whole anti-intellectualism aspect of the stereotype that irks me the most (it being shameful somehow for a guy to read).
In some cases Tik-Tokers are filming guys just sitting alone at like a Starbucks reading a book, bothering nobody, and acting like they caught a predator.
It reminds me of that old Bill Hicks anecdote where he's at a diner in the deep south reading a book, and some dude exclaims "looks we got a reader!" as if it were something peculiar.
Here's a good critique of it if you're OOTL https://youtube.com/watch?v=b3jIgdbVjr4
- I just recently discovered that channel and really like it. People on lemmy have great taste lmao.
- CrackerMilk
- Women are such fucking creeps at times.

Men just want this simplistic life with no amenities. No bed just a mattress, cheap canned food, cheapest tshirts bought in packs of 50 and so on. I'm sure there are people who genuinely like that, but a lot of the times I find it so sad when men think they can't treat themselves. And often if they just tried finding out what is a good product for them they'd find that it solves a lot of their problems.
One example: my husband told me when we met that he didn't like to go to the pool because he was very self-concious about his unclean skin and lots of akne. He was also using any cheap soap he saw at a shop. I did some research for him and we tried some medical shower gels and just a few month later his skin had cleaned up completely. He isn't even someone who buys into this manliness-stuff, but I think society just never suggested to him that as a man he could care about what soap he buys and put any thought into it. For him it was just a fact of life that he had bad skin and he was sad that it kept him from going to the pool or sauna, but he kind of accepted it as his fate. Because somehow trying to feel good and care for your body is still coded female outside of some fitness/bodybuilder etc bubbles.
He has since also found out that investing some research and money into the right mattress and bed base helps against his back pain that he had before also kind of just accepted.
- Man, you’d likely be a boon to marketing companies - help everyone realize what markets they’re underserving by targeting one gender demographic.

"You're a man. You can take it." No, cunt. It's domestic abuse.

I have friends (men) working in a heavily women work. Every times there’s a minor scratch or handwork to do they’re called. It’s annoying, everyone know how to operate a screwdriver

Meat. I'm vegetarian, my wife is not. When we go out to eat, if she orders meat, there's a good chance the meat dish will get put in front of me.
We were at a Christmas market on the weekend, and one booth had a sign that said "Make your husband happy", and it was of course a butcher stand.

Big penises being more manly or making you a better lover. I'm sure wars have been started by men who were upset with their dick size and would do anything to make up for it.
- Funnily, in ancient roman times having a big dick made people think you were a dumbass who was only good at fucking.
  
  Yeah the satyrs had enormous dongs because they were animalistic sex maniacs while learned people demonstrated their mild temperment by having modest genitalia. Michaelangelo's David is a famous example of the latter. Disappointed to not see the former in Disney's Hercules.
  
  He has a wife, you know

I would extend that to pretty much all gendered advertisement. Especially for kids, the way toys are advertised in such a gendered way does quite a bit of harm to those who don't neatly fit into the stereotypes.
- The toys situation annoys me so much more now that I am a parent. Also it does not matter how hard you try to avoid certain things, we keep getting gifted clothes that would turn our daughter into a free walking advert for Disney princesses and our son into a truck and heavy machinery enthusiast.
  Which, there wouldn't necessarily be anything wrong with if they were into that to begin with, but that's really not the case. The push is unreal.
- Can we all appreciate for a moment that while gendered toy aisles we're dominating the scene, Nintendo opted to target boys.
  Also I'm very, very curious what the gaming scene would look like through the ages if they'd started with girls. Are fighting/racing games actually more fun or have they just become imprinted onto our psyche?
  Oh for a quick shot of Rick's portal gun to find out.
- Do you all remember the public freak out when Target said they were de-gendering their toy isles

I fit into that stereotype. I'm still doing no shave November 2014, I hunt and fish and like to BBQ anything I catch while having a beer.
- Too good for fart jokes? 😂
  
  A wise woman once told me, "If you don't enjoy farts you'll have less joy in your life but the same number of farts."
- does no shave also mean no trim? scissors?
  
  It would probably contain those words if that is what it meant.
  No shave means no shave.

Even when I used to have identified myself as a guy, I never once fit into any of those traits.
I don't think you should be too surprised to have not fallen into male dominated stereotypes when you are part of a minority.

The market has determined the gender stereotypes that are most profitable and insecure people increasingly take on those qualities as parts of their personality.
All other interests are niche and require someone to establish a special interest club to attract like-minded folks.

Anything machismo. Guys shouldn't take pride in being big dumb oafs that can swig gasoline if they wanted to.
- an swig gasoline if they wanted to.
  By all means let'em win Darwin Awards.
- I even think our current view on machismo is too product-driven, rather than traditional male values.
  Don’t learn to build a cabin, because that’s old fashioned. But do DRINK BEER, and drive a big truck, and mock clean energy initiatives because real men love the ROAR of an expensive motor paid for by oil companies!
  Old values would’ve been about treating a lady right, or standing up for what you believe in - even if it was as simple as punching someone who mocked your wife.
  
  I agree about male values, but has 'machismo' ever meant those things?
  Males with exaggerated pride are rarely a positive, after all...

Marketing people prey on insecure people. It's not just guys. I had a girlfriend who would spend a fortune... Not even kidding on hair products, cremes, you name it. She was always jealous of my hair and skin and i always told her that i literally make my own soap and don't care about products. But on Instagram... Well, then just buy stuff from influencers i guess.
- Oh this hits so close to home. She does not spend that much but also not little. Does a 20 minute routine every night and morning with like 5 different products.
  Then goes and tells me she is jealous of my skin. I almost never wash my face directly even under the shower I just use water. And it's somehow so much better than hers.
  
  I think that's the issue. Letting the body take care of itself with its natural oils and just cleaning it with pure water is pretty good I think. Could do with a once in a while light scrub to get bacteria out of course, couple times a week maybe.

They are selling them because people buy them. E.g. I'm a guy, and I'm into toilet and beer humor. Trans/non binary/etc guys are a minority, and im pretty sure you can find your stuff somewhere, it's not banned, but capitalism says they have to advertise to the majority to make the most profits.
I don't care about football, but I know a lot of people do, so I don't get annoyed by other people having different taste and interest than me.

I read "sexiest stereotypes" and got confused as to why you would want to stop them.
- Because even Ryan Reynolds is tired of them at this point.

Husband Dumb; wife like shopping and naggs Boys being violent being considered "okay" Boys in theater are into guys. I mean i may be that but not everyone!

I used to teach community college sociology. One of my students told me "it would be gay" to be kind with his 4 year old son.
I often wonder how that kid turned out. Not good I imagine.
- Fire eating? That has to be a typo, lol.
  
  looks pretty gay
  
  Fuck you, Android autocomplete!

Any sentence you say starting with "men" or "women" than "people"

I misread the topic and thought this was about the "sexiest stereotypes" like a woman smart woman talking about a topic she's passionate about or a man that frees trapped wildlife.

Every one of them

Fuckin sick of all the blue and pink baby things. Babies are babies.

You know, I feel like they're all up in the air more these days. When I was a kid the "stupid dad guy who loves BBQ" thing was so dominant. Now Timothee Chalamet is a hot item at one end, and there's incels at the other.

Even when I used to have identified myself as a guy, I never once fit into any of those traits.
Well, you weren't actually a guy! But you're still right, it's the usual societal gender role nonsense.

All of 'em?

All of them? 🫣

That men are obsessed with sex. Compare guys night vs ladies night. Men talk about cars, sports, computers, games, politics, their kids, work. Women talk about penises, relationships and sex. I'm gender fluid so I've seamlessly blended into both groups my whole life. Doesn't matter if they're straight or lesbian or bi... it's all sex all the time to the point that I can't hang out with female presenting individuals, because I would like to have an actual conversation.

Guys that have adhd, autism, or just overall not as social are assumed to be perverts, sexists, and rapists.
Girls have hobbies and lives and do not constantly think or talk about men. That one is more of a gripe with "male authors writing women" thing.

Calling it a 'Lazy Susan'

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