[cherryberry]

What do you do if your own flesh and blood is sexist?

[cherryberry]

What do you do if your own flesh and blood is sexist?

Tell him not to be. I'm sorry that your son has the unfortunate experience of being misogynistic. Are you his mother? Father? A lot of men in my family are sexist. It's kind of scary.

[~Christina]

How old is he? What influence does his father have or have not in his life?

What do you do/ say when he acts sexist ?

Why do you describe him as sexist?

[Erebos]

Misogynistic is a strong term.
Are you able to explain what he has done to raise these concerns?

He has learned this behaviour from someone.

[Shadix]

I am just going to throw this out there. Women often make comments about men that if a man had made about women, he would be labeled as misogynist, and it is seen as a non-issue.

Here is an example. A female facebook friend posted a video where a guy admits to cheating on his girlfriend a bunch of times. Another female responds with "men are trash". There was no backlash and she even got a couple likes. If a man had said something like this about women, he would be labeled as a misogynist and socially ostracized. But when a female makes such a comment, people just chalk it up to her being upset by something men did.

Another example. I literally just read an article on Huffington Post where the writer said this: "While this rule seems tried and true, it doesn't change the fact that it*seems like*the majority of single guys out there are, in fact, assholes." Again, imagine if this was a man saying this about single women.

So before you label your son as a misogynist, ask yourself if you would have the same concerns if you had a daughter who displayed a similar attitude towards men. If not, then perhaps it shouldn't be an issue?

[MickeyCheeky]

How old is he?

[seesaw]

If he is making sexist remarks or behaving in a sexist way, he has learned that behavior from someone or somewhere. It's your responsibility as a parent to teach him to respect women. You need to talk to him and talk to him about how he treats women.

I would Google some articles on how to raise a son who respects women. I've seen quite a few blog posts and articles on the subject that should be helpful to you in repairing whatever damage has been done.

Seesaw

[Skeezyks]

Hm-m-m-m... well... I don't know.... (I take it perhaps this is a son?) It's possible the sexism is something that was picked up either from a relative or from friends. If the person's sexism is directed at you, then it's a matter of establishing & enforcing some personal boundaries. If it's a matter of the person making general comments you don't want to hear, one option may be to simply say you consider what they're saying to be sexist & you don't want to hear it. Tell them to please refrain from making those kinds of comments in your presence. And if they do it again simply walk away. (Again... boundaries.) Yet another option may simply be to walk away in general. Sometimes things like sexist comments can be primarily an attention getter. So if you withdraw your attention, you eliminate the potential for reward.

Also if the person's sexism is coming to light in terms of general comments that are made, or if it's in ways in which you observe the person to be treating others, another option might be to offer some alternative ways of looking at situations or alternative ways of handling situations when the opportunity presents itself. But if the person's sexism is not directed at you personally, at least from my perspective, it's not really your responsibility to modify the person's attitude or behavior.

The other possibility here, I suppose, is that the underlying cause relates to some personal insecurity regarding the person's own sexuality or self confidence. If the person feels themselves to "not measure up" in some way or another making sexist comments, or acting in sexist ways, may be the person's way of trying to make themselves feel better about themselves. I sort-of doubt there is much you can do about something like this. It's really something the person has to work through themselves in their own time, perhaps with the help of a counselor or therapist, if -&-when they come to realize what they're doing is not helpful. At least these are my thoughts with regard to your post.