Second, on sexist jokes. Social psychology also shows us that sexist jokes aren’t “just jokes.” They influence behavior. A recent article showed that men who scored high on hostile sexism were more likely to discriminate when given the opportunity. Men either heard a sexist joke, an equally funny but nonsexist joke, or a overtly sexist non-funny statement. Only in the sexist joke condition did the researchers see discrimination against women. (The task was to budget for several organizations, including a women’s organization. Sexist men who heard a sexist joke cut more money from the women’s org… THEY DISCRIMINATED.)

So, it’s not just jokes. It influences behavior, encouraging discrimination in some cases. The good news is that confronting prejudice works… it influences people’s attitudes, at least in the short term. So, confront when you hear a sexist joke. It’s not just a joke.

The first mainly refers to the standard ‘Males below 25 are worse off on their insurance generally than girls because they’re more reckless’ sense, but since I’ve never priced insurance for a teenage girl versus a teenage boy and so can only say I’ve heard of it. The second is the stuff of random man vs woman jokes everywhere, but not really particularly reckless.

-Mecha

by matttbastard
Ok, so I missed the midweek linkfarm–my apologies once again.  Feel free to sock it to me one time in comments.  Oh, and go show the one Melissa M. some love–that teaspoon don’t shine itself, dig?
Stageleft: Affirmat…

My point is, I am just as quick as anyone to judge or stereotype a person who does something irrational or dangerous on the road, and if any of these stubborn, tunnel-vision-prone stereotypers are like me, they’re getting their opinions from driving by the person (here, woman) who cut them off, not from the mangled wreck on the side of the road. But statistics unfortunately don’t record cutoffs.

(Just to clarify- I don’t think that women are any more vain than men- but I think that there’s a stereotype that women are more concerned about their physical appearence than men are)

I’m not so certain about the “if she was a man” argument. Men do face a stereotype also when it comes to wreckless driving. That is, that if a man is darting from one lane to another to get one car ahead, if he’s tail-gating, than it’s seen as males are all agressive/reckless.

I have to disagree with you. If that’s a stereotype, it’s not one I’ve seen and it certainly isn’t as well established or widespread as the woman one.

For example, take a google search. If you search for “women bad drivers” most of the top hits either reinforcing or discussing the stereotype. Contrast that to “men bad drivers”, where a good part of the top links mention men in reference to the myth of women being bad drivers. If you switch that to the word “reckless” the closest you get is a pop-science article in the Guardian.

So, I’m sorry, but I just don’t think that the evidence supports the assertion men are actually held responsible as a gender for one male’s reckless driving. And, until there are questions on Yahoo! Answers asking Why are ALL men bad drivers?, stupid flash games about the World’s Worst Men Drivers, and scientists trying to “prove” why the stereotype is supposedly true, then I would say that my point still stands.

I’m not so certain about the “if she was a man” argument. Men do face a stereotype also when it comes to wreckless driving. That is, that if a man is darting from one lane to another to get one car ahead, if he’s tail-gating, than it’s seen as males are all agressive/reckless.

Back to your situation, you talking about your period definitely shouldn’t be an invitation for sexist jokes and being made to feel bad about talking about it.

He said that transsexuals are the very worst gender-stereotypes around, and that the very idea of them offends him because they reinforce the gender binary.

Oi. That’s exactly the kind of selection bias I was talking about in my post. It’s really easy to single out the non-privileged groups because they already stick out as “not the norm”. I’m sure your friend knows at least a half a dozen cisgendered people who fit their gender’s stereotypes to a T but doesn’t think about them at all because they’re seen as “normal”. Ugh.