People have some strange ideas about what sexism is. As much as I hate the expectation of adherence to traditional gender roles, I don't see what the problem is if one chooses to adhere to those roles. If a man expects his wife or girlfriend to make sandwiches for him because she is a woman and a woman's place is in the kitchen, that would be sexist. However, this does not mean it's sexist every time a woman does something in a kitchen. If I knew this woman, I'd ask her to make me a sandwich as well. Not because she's a woman and she should be making sandwiches, but because it looks like she makes really awesome sandwiches and I would very much like to try one. She enjoys making sandwiches for her boyfriend, he enjoys eating them. That's not sexism, that's compatibility.
Recently, my room mate has been spending a good amount of time with a former co-worker, and it seemed like she got the impression that I don't like her, which is understandable. He and I have an understanding about women we both may be interested in, but that understanding is as of yet untested so I'm cautious. I kept my distance. I talked to her only as much as being polite required, the other day when they made plans to go to dinner I declined when she asked me to go along. I was partially doing this out of habit. Most of my male friends get all pissy and accuse me of trying to "steal" their girlfriends if I show any interest in them as a person. My roommate is different (i.e.: not severely insecure) so I decided it would be okay if I stopped acting so coldly toward her. She left her bike the night before, and I'd noticed it could use some routine maintenance. So I did it. I figured she'd realize that I wouldn't fix her bike for her if I didn't like her, so it seemed like a simple way to send the message. That, and she's smart and really pretty and thinks I'm funny and I want her to like me. Sometimes she does things like buy coffee for me when she's on her way over or bakes cookies and gives them to me so if I do things for her maybe she'll continue to bring me coffee and baked things, if she thinks I don't like her she'll probably stop. Also, my room mate told me yesterday he's only interested in her platonicly so keeping my distance at first turns out to have been even stupider than I originally thought.
Anyway, my point. Was fixing her bike sexist? Had I been thinking "women don't know how to fix things, she needs a man to do it for her" it would have been. I was thinking "if she knew how to maintain her bike, she would have done it already." I would have made the same assumption if it was a man's bike. It turns out that she didn't know how to fix her bike, and thought it was really awesome that I did it. it doesn't matter that the outward appearance of the situation hinted at possible sexism. If she asks me to fix something in the future, would that be sexist? If she's thinking "he's a man and a man's place is fixing things" it would be. However, she'd probably ask me because I've demonstrated some proficiency at fixing things and also my room mate told her I'm good at fixing things. If she expects my room mate to fix something because he's a man that would be sexist. He is not good at fixing things, and that would end badly for everyone.
I just remembered a tongue-in-cheek conversation I had earlier this year when I worked at a hotel:
Me: "Every time something breaks around here, all of you expect me to fix it. Why? Is it because I'm a man? Oh, just because I'm a man I'm good at fixing things. That's really sexist."
Laura: "We expect you to fix everything because you were hired to do maintenance, you fucking dumb ass."
Me: "Oh. In that case, I refuse to fix everything because I'm lazy and don't wanna."
