A Fresh Set of Examples

I've spent over 60 years on this planet so far; more than 60 years in patriarchy. I don't think about it every day. I'm used to it. But once in a while someone reminds me of it in a concentrated set of examples, and I try to remember them for times when I'm asked for such things. This recent thread was such a moment.

Here are some of its "highlights."

My husband’s last name is a woman’s first name. The tone of his emails from new students this semester took a rude, dismissive tone. He thought it was just due to the pandemic stress and that they used his last name as a nickname. Turns out they just thought he was a woman.
Lea Shell @DoRealScience

Administration doesn’t know what to do about the fact that female profs score much lower on evals than male profs. Students much more likely to criticize our appearance, voice, intelligence, personality. To refer to us as “teacher” rather than “professor.”
Zoe Chance

I have a friend who teaches online. When she started going by Sam rather than Samantha, everything changed.
T. Greenwood

going to online teaching since last spring I use title, initial, last name. noticed the switch to “Mrs” disappeared in emails and from other comments, it is clear they assume I am a man and a lot of nonsense has disappeared
Dr. G. A. Adams

My husband's nickname is a woman's name in English. When he posts online with that name, he gets lots of kickback. When he uses his full name, which is obviously male, folks listen.
Toni Whited

Wild. This is like that guy who answered emails for a week as his female colleague, and she as him. He said he’d never been taken less seriously and questioned by men re: his expertise as much in his whole life.
@WackyPidgeon

Yeah, I remember that. He said it took him twice as long to do his job, which opened his eyes regarding the slowness of her getting work done.
@franfree65

Students in an online class were told they had one of these 2 TAs. But behind the scenes, @EmilyKhazan, left, fulfilled TA duties for all 136 students. When student evaluations came in, though, guess which TA scored higher?


@UFNews

Even if you present "butch" you get more respect. Ever since I shaved my head and stopped wearing so much makeup, the mansplaining and dismissive behaviors have gone WAY down.
@AutieBuilder

I co-teach a course with a male professor (who is great and a feminist so this story is not on him) — we equally divide lectures based on expertise and equally share duties. A student eval last semester said I ‘did a good job assisting the professor’
Corinne Graves

After I transitioned [from male to female], it was amazing how fast "doctor" and "professor" evaporated from my students' emails. My favorite though was a pompous male lecturer who assumed I was an administrative assistant and began lecturing me on how to do my job. Dude, I'm an associate professor.
Danielle Cole

My name is Logan, and when people find out I’m a woman instead of a man, everything changes, usually for the worse. I’ve had many men make fun of me and ask if I was really a guy or if my parents loved me.
loganciclovir

Then people pretend to be shocked when they learn it is way harder for a woman to get a promotion, they will surely even doubt about it. Why on Earth would a woman need to be 10 times better than her male colleagues to get a tiny recognition??!! All this crap drives me insane.
hope global

I know I've read many other testimonies like this over the years, and seen summaries of research supporting this as reality. While TAing as a graduate student, I witnessed some students who lacked basic respect for the women professors I assisted, while different students seemed to always have respect for the male professors I assisted.

Similar things happen with race and names, of course, from employment to housing and beyond. And women of color experience it multiplied. 

So don't forget, the next time you need a set of examples of how patriarchy shows its effects, you can find it right here at Daughter Number Three by searching that word.