Nothing nice about sexism

There is a big hole in our ceiling. An electrician, while clearing the tangled mess of wiring in the attic, stepped onto the old ceiling and left a gaping hole. When the "ceiling man" came to give the electrician's boss a quote for the repair, I was amazed at what I heard.

Shaking his head, boss electrician said: "It was our lady electrician."

The ceiling man, with a knowing smirk, responded: "Ah, the lady."

We often hear this low-level form of sexism. I suspect because it's not obviously damaging or hurtful, we let it slide. I heard "nice guys" banter about their female colleague and I didn't say anything. But we shouldn't allow seemingly insignificant sexist attitudes and statements to go uncriticised.

When sexism or misogyny is not expressed through rape, domestic abuse or similarly entrenched violent, unfair and unequal treatment of women in our country, we tend to dismiss it as harmless. But inane statements about women drivers, mothers who work, how we work - be careful of them. They nurture and sustain a damaging attitude towards women.

When the men left my house and I hadn't said anything, I wondered at my inaction. Was I shocked, or being "nice"? Did I feel it wasn't my business?

Too late to confront them, I asked the electrician how she felt. She said it was okay and that her male colleagues often put their feet through ceilings.

Later I came across Linda Grant's piece Twitter tales of sexism. On International Women's Day, she tweeted about why feminism still matters. She tweeted: "For you I'm-not-a-feminists, in 1979 aged 28, when I applied for a store credit card, the form had to be signed by my husband or father." Her timeline that day was flooded with responses and stories of similar incidences. They are daily experiences, and pertain to the way we live. These, said Grant a novelist and feminist, prove her point that "feminism still matters".

A selected 1000 tweets from her timeline that day have been given a permanent home (athousandreasons. com) to remind us that we must never forget, ignore or permit "the small indignities, the opportunities denied, the insults, the patronage, the dismissal, the ignoring, the diminishing, the low expectations, the whole indignity of sexism."

I didn't dothe feminist cause any favours by being a passive bystander. But I'm in awe. The electrician is working in a traditionally male industry and has broken through that infamous ceiling, albeit a hardboard one.