eleanor says:
Who is your husband making these remarks to? You? Your family? Friends? Regardless of who is on the receiving end of them, ideally he’d be able to apply more self-control, but his inability (or reluctance) to curb this irritating patter also seems to, unfortunately, require you to be firmer about what you are and are not comfortable with. You may have laughed it off in the past, but you’re not laughing now. Your husband needs to listen to you and stop this.
Does he display other kinds of sexist behaviour, or is he making ‘get back in the kitchen!’ style comments to try and push people’s (women’s, I imagine) buttons and get a rise? Does he get angry and defensive because you can’t take a ‘joke’? Perhaps he feels that he doesn’t want his speech ‘policed’ by you? Tough luck. He may deem these casual remarks as tame little quips, but they have clearly built up from being a forgivable habit in the beginning to something more affecting.
That you laughed off his remarks in the past will have meant he felt he could carry on getting away with it. Clearly, this habit of his comes from somewhere where he has a receptive audience – maybe male relations, friends, workmates? Perhaps you didn’t feel strongly enough to call him up on it. That’s OK, but what matters now is how you go forwards.
This needs a frank conversation. Why should your relationship have a wedge driven into it because you’re uncomfortable with sexism? Think about this in those terms. You don’t owe your husband sensitivity or gentleness on this issue. Don’t wait until he has made one of these remarks to tell him how you feel – do it wherever you’re comfortable, on a normal day. Be calm and make your position very clear: there is no room in your relationship for sexism or degradation of women of any kind – in jest, or otherwise. I do feel quite concerned that he gets angry when you confront him, and he needs to realise that this reaction is part of the problem. If he can’t listen to and understand you in a composed way, as well as showing willing to check himself, perhaps you need to seek outside help from a service like Relate.