The 4 Most Sexist Attempts at Giving Women Advice

4 A Law Firm Issues a Memo Reminding Female Attorneys to Use Big Words and Not Flash Anybody

The massive international law firm Clifford Chance recently had its Women's Committee send out a memo to all their female attorneys titled "Presentation Tips for Women" that reads more like a collection of instructions to help idiot teenagers bluff their way through a job interview than something intended for professional graduates from the top law schools in the world.

Interspersed throughout the memo are sage-like pieces of advice, such as "Use harder words," "Pretend you're in moot court, not the high school cafeteria" (remember, this is a tip for people who are now at least five years removed from high school), "Don't giggle," "Don't squirm," and "Wear your suit, not a party outfit." If you must dress like a goddamned female, Clifford Chance helpfully reminds you that "Nobody heard Hillary the day she showed cleavage" and "If wearing a skirt, make sure audience can't see up it," because we all know that women would show up to a trial wearing a stripper belt and nipple tassels if men weren't around to dispense their wisdom.

3 Local Newspaper Holds an Event Where Confused Women Can Learn About Football

Al.com, the website for the Alabama Press-Register, recently ran a story previewing an instructional clinic called "Girls of Fall," which, judging from these opening lines, is aiming to teach women how to shut up and keep the Dorito bowl full:

"Football can be a confusing and often vexing concept, especially for women. To the uninitiated it appears to be a swirling mass off big-bodied young men flying about a field, trying to wrestle an odd-shaped ball from a bunch of other muscle-bound men. It is four-hours of yelling and screaming running about in frenzy of color and pageantry. Well, there is one thing that women understand about the game of football and all the hoopla that goes with it and that is the actual game is a good excuse for a party. And every party, regardless of the setting, needs a good menu to keep the party going."

That paragraph is so condescending, we're amazed there isn't a sentence patiently explaining that a football isn't made out of feet, and that a game between the Bears and the Lions is not a gladiatorial contest on a battlefield of screaming animals. Unsurprisingly, the article drew a hefty amount of criticism from female football fans and women who don't enjoy being spoken to like toddlers:

Al.com edited the article soon after, offering up an apology that claimed the clinic wasn't meant for knowledgeable sports fans, but rather for women who only understand that their husbands get a bunch of their friends together to shout at the magic color box in the living room once a week when the leaves fall off.

2 A College Tries to Help Women Get Jobs by Telling Them to Be Prettier

Recently, students at the University of California Irvine got a mass email instructing them how to prepare for a job interview. The email came with two photographs to help illustrate their points -- first, this incredibly detailed and specific diagram to help female students be as attractive as possible:

And for the male students, this stock photo of an Asian man typing on a laptop in what appears to be the eternal realm of heaven:

The before/after picture of the woman was lifted from the model's personal blog, where she posted it in response to a very specific question about the importance of wearing fitted clothes and heeled shoes if you are short or petite. It wasn't meant as a catch-all piece of advice for acing a job interview, and it was based solely on the personal experiences of a single person. The school hijacked her photo and used it to suggest that women need to be as dolled up as possible in order to get any kind of job, whereas men either don't need to be told what to wear or can just stumble into their interview wearing a winning smile and a shroud of divine fog.

1 Beijing Police Release Guide to Help Stupid Female Drivers

Despite surveys by the World Health Organization concluding that 77 percent of all crashes are caused by men, the Beijing police recently published a guide on its official webpage titled "Women Drivers Please Take Care to Avoid These Mistakes," because women be driving.

The guide lists multiple shortcomings that are apparently exclusive to women behind the wheel, including panicking after an accident, wearing high heels while driving, leaving the hand brake on, struggling to control the pedals, and always forgetting to switch gears. The Beijing police have also asserted that "on their own, can't even find places they've been to multiple times." Unless of course it's the wheel well of the truck in front of them, which they apparently locate regularly and without difficulty.

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