The major implications of minor sexism

Over the Christmas holidays, my fifteen-year-old son and I got into watching the darts together. It wasn’t something I’d expected to like, but after a while I found the combination of skill, tension and silliness quite addictive. There was one thing that bothered me, though — the scantily clad “bombshell” dancers gyrating to the walk-ons. As a feminist mother, committed to raising non-sexist sons, I felt compelled to say something. 

“Don’t you think,” I ventured, “that they could have had dancers of both sexes, wearing more clothes?”

My son looked baffled. 

“We’re watching these men, of all ages and sizes, admiring their talent,” I went on, digging myself in deeper, “and the women — who are obviously very good at what they do, too — are all young and thin and not wearing much …”

“I don’t think it’s that important, Mum.” 

I’m not sure I said more (it may have got to a tense point in the match) and in any case, I started to fear I’d made things worse. Maybe my son had barely noticed these dancers until I’d directed his attention to them. Maybe I was being stupid. Maybe it was no big deal. I began to worry that I — a middle-class, middle-aged woman who’d shown no interest in darts beyond vague recollections of Bullseye — was passing judgement on a culture that wasn’t for me. 

There’s particular anxiety I get — which “women like me” are encouraged to get — around responding to instances of relatively low-level everyday objectification. It’s that feeling that you’re in a world where there’s so much serious, life-or-death misogyny — rape victims burned to death, women bleeding out due to lack of reproductive care — and here you are, whingeing about some women shaking their arses a bit on the telly. 

I know this isn’t justified. I know that feminists can care about several things at once, and the worst things that can be done to women should not be used to grant a free pass to lesser injustices. And yet. It’s hard not to feel petty. FFS, Mum. It’s the darts. 

It’s a feeling I get around more obvious instances of supposedly “legitimate”, “fun” objectification. There are the sexual entertainment venues that pop up during Race Week in my home town of Cheltenham. For years, women’s groups have raised objections, citing the fact that three out of four female residents feel more unsafe when the races are on. In response, those who object are often reminded that the women who perform in these venues are themselves victims of sexism, and are not to blame for what happens outside of them. There’s a curious separation in the argument, as though the venues might be a response to or even an outlet for sexism, but play no role in creating, legitimising and/or perpetuating it (were it not for them, we are warned that the problem would “go underground”). The message, you feel, is that local women should let them get on with it. It’s not exactly Pornhub. Things could be worse. 

This week it was announced that Hooters — the “breastaurant” chain where patrons are served by young women wearing tight tops and shorts — are planning to open a branch in Newcastle. Feminist groups such as Filia have raised objections, but of course they are met with the same old “silly women fussing over trivia” responses. Speaking to the Guardian, owner Johnny Goard insisted “we’re not offensive in any way […] We do kids eat for free on Sundays”. The implication being what is wrong with those miserable, humourless feminists? Imagine not wanting children to have a free Sunday dinner! One where Dad gets some extra entertainment on the side! Not quite the Taliban, is it?

I’d like to think it would have been understood that there is a continuum here

And indeed, it isn’t. Then again, I do wonder if someone sets up a restaurant called Chavs, in which Burberry-clad working-class servers offered Common People-style larks to middle-class patrons, we’d be having the same conversation. Would it be argued that the staff were paid, so what was the problem? That working-class people could eat there too? That the really important issue was the gap between rich and poor across the globe, so wasn’t it privileged to make a fuss about an enterprise which put money into the pockets of those who needed it? 

I can’t say, but I’d like to think it would have been understood that there is a continuum here. No one is handed a book on who matters, who doesn’t, but learns it through multiple stories and cues. You couldn’t fix the damage of having a Chavs restaurant brand by offering the odd “anti-classism” lesson in PSHE, just as you can’t correct a million objectification narratives with a few consent lessons, the odd “maaate” campaign and regular reminders that Andrew Tate is a bad person. With sexism, though, there’s a sense that some things — the naff things, the seventies-type things — might as well get a free pass. It’s not just embarrassing but unsophisticated to notice them at all.  

“Sexism” is meant to come from everywhere and nowhere. That “minor” sexism is part of what maintains the system is very hard to convey, at least in ways that seem important. Still, I am increasingly tired of feeling as though it is my job to equip my boys to understand why the multi-billion pound sex industry might be misleading them when it comes to relations between men and women, while also having to watch as women launch grass-roots campaigns, with next to no support, against the sexism-as-entertainment on their doorsteps. 

To my teenage son, minor sexism is silly. It’s bantz. It doesn’t have to “mean” anything. It is practically invisible, hence when I say something, I know I sound a bit mad. 

I also know that I wouldn’t if more people were saying it. Instead of leaving unfashionable mothers to have unfashionable conversations, wouldn’t it be great if more of the self-appointed gender experts were willing to share the load?