Which reminds me of a prank I pulled a few years ago. I was working at a startup that had been acquired by a BigCo. (Alas, I joined after the acquisition.)
One of the founders decided to put his newfound wealth to a good purpose: fighting white supremacy. This was during the pandemic, so we had a going-away party on Zoom and shared little video tributes to him.
When it was my turn, I told him, "I want you to know exactly how I feel about your new project. I didn't have time to order an embroidered hat, so I mocked it up with my printer and an old baseball cap. It's a MAKA hat."
I deliberately slurred the pronunciation so it almost sounded like that other acronym.
I held up the hat with my finger covering the spot where "Great" would be, and put it on my head. And then I moved my hand away for the reveal.
Your original comment sounded a lot like 1950/60s thinking of an all female secretarial pool like in Mad Men where a secretary was the glass ceiling for women. It also sounded like a line spoken by one of the men in Mad Men. It's also the specific ideal for a particular political movement known for wearing their red hats that think this is what would make the country great again.
Hey dude. Good on you for trying. Sexism is often extremely deeply rooted. So much so that sexist people don’t even recognize without someone else pointing it out. It takes YEARs of self reflection and even then, you’re still going to catch that worse part of oneself breaking through.
Some people vastly over compensate and that’s really no fun either.
