#21

I’m no fan of the Kardashions but tearing one woman down to supposedly lift up others is not feminist at all.
It’s still telling women what to do and how to be, in order to be worthy or respected.

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#22

Also found it very weird when people sneered at Kim Kardashian when she decided to study for a law degree. I think she failed one of her exams recently and some people thought this was a sign she should stay in her lane and wasn’t up to it, even though I’m sure loads of people fail law exams and pass them later. It feels strange to think “she can’t win” when she’s a bazillionaire, but it’s like, either she continues to do her job of being an influencer and TV star and gets slated for it, or she tries to do something academic and gets slated for it.

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#23

I HATE that Kardashian/astronaut meme thing. It’s insulting to both parties and agree with comment above that it is pitting women against each other.

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#24

Absolutely no issue with it whatsoever, as I will reciprocate those behaviours to others regardless of their sex.

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#25

I ain’t paying and you can’t make me. My man knows the score and if anything, he created this monster.

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#26

She probably already has them but those Little People, Big Dreams books are great for female role models. There’s also a good night stories for rebel girls which my bfs cousins kid is super into.

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#27

It’s that thing of believing that women who are attractive or put a lot of effort into their appearance are stupid, isn’t it. Why would law not be her lane?

It also ties into something else I’ve noticed, which is that women aren’t allowed to be mediocre or just OK at anything. It feels like society is now at a point where we can accept women who excel at something, but a woman who is just average at something will still be considered to be worse than a man who is bad at it.

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#28

I’ve softened my view on men paying for meals out. I earn less than my husband and probably always will, he’s in employment and has a salary and I’m self-employed, he’ll get a bigger pension than me and will probably be able to retire before me. The economic factors are stacked against me and women on the whole, so I may as well enjoy one of the few areas of systemic sexism that benefits me. I still regularly pay for meals out and I like doing it because I like being a woman with my own money and I like treating him, but I get why many women like when someone else pays.

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#29

So, my personal experience is that it doesn’t matter what you do, kids are gonna like what they like. We have never done gendered toys and I’d say neither me or Mr B conform particularly to gender stereotypes - I’m the main earner, we share bedtimes and childcare, we both cook, clean (not quite equally but working on it!) and I can turn my hand to most stereotypically “male” roles.

Eldest daughter hates anything pink or traditionally feminine, total bookworm, likes teddies, wears leggings instead of dresses, wears “boys’” shorts to school etc etc. Doesn’t give a toss about her appearance, in the best possible way. Not yet self-conscious (she’s 10) and recognises her body is brilliant and strong for helping her do cartwheels and backflips and ride a bike etc. Youngest (6) is pink and unicorn obsessed, and loves everything traditionally “girly”, refuses to even attempt to ride a bike, much more interested in clothes and so on. Raised identically, just fell in to different interests and friendship groups.

The best thing you can do is engage with her about things other than her sex or appearance - what book is she reading, what’s her favourite subject/computer game/YouTube channel. Note her kindness and her fairness and her wit, and not her looks. There’s a brilliant Facebook page/website called A Mighty Girl which talks about this a lot and is really helpful.

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#30

Also, don’t underestimate how quickly kids pick up on social justice issues. I’ve had some great recent discussions with mine about things like prison (we were talking about how prison is not supposed to just be for punishment), what the world might be like if there was no money and everything was provided for free, and so on. There’s lots of ways to get them thinking about the wider world while completely avoiding any discussions that are gendered.

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#31

I’ll elaborate.

If you’re getting into a relationship with me, it’s likely I’m going to be doing the bulk of the real work. Shopping, tidying, making sure you have everything you need, reminding you of birthdays, organising shit you don’t wanna sort out, keeping the house nice and cosy. So the least you can do is pay for my meals and drinks out. I’ll get the candles and throws in and you can be all cosy when we watch the films I paid for with my Netflix account, but you buying that dinner and I’m having cocktails ok.

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#32

I’ve stopped doing this (and stopped buying the cards and presents for in-laws). It’s very liberating! The fact it ended in an almighty fall out with my MIL was unfortunate but not my problem!

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#33

Honestly I’m quite fed up of taking on the burden of some of this kind of stuff in my relationship and don’t wat to encourage it any further with any sort of men’s jobs/women’s jobs division! I’d much rather that we both participated in cleaning and tidying equally without me having to manage the process, than get a few free meals. But it’s totally reasonable to split things a different way if you can find a way that feels equal to both of you.

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#34

Yeah it’s not that I’ve gone “I’m gonna do this and you can buy me dinner” it’s been 7 years so we’ve naturally fallen into the roles we have. And anyway, really it is literally just me buying candles in exchange for dinner and he panders to me. I refuse to do bins, dishwasher, tidying etc, I never have to ask him to do anything, he’s just naturally really into keeping on top of stuff way more than I am! also we have a cleaner so never have to do that whole “you haven’t cleaned the bathroom in ages, I always do it” types of conversations.

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#35

I am anti this whole rhetoric but it absolutely doesn’t make any difference if every kid at school, every other grown up and most tv shows run with it. They pick this stuff up and there’s only so much pushing back on it you can do before they ignore you. I think the way I talk about it means eventually she’ll come around to being less gendered on stuff but not for many years. I think what’s more important for me is to push back on the bigger stuff so whilst she might say pink is for girls she’s accepting of the fact that lots of those girls are in fact non binary or trans or a man who likes pink even if I don’t shut down the fact it “belongs” to girls. She absolutely loves Kim Petras so her being trans has been a great icon for her to explore fluidity etc.

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#36

If you feel like you do the bulk of housework in a couple living situation, is that because you a) don’t like asking or don’t feel like you should have to ask, b) prefer to do things your way, c) don’t really think about it and just do it?

I’ve stopped asking my partner if she needs help with things like hanging the laundry (if she gets to it before me) but I often feel she has a system and would prefer to do things her way as she’s always re-organising things I’ve already done

#37

That’s part of the problem though…the mental load of coming up with a system. That cartoon in the guardian was good on this

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#38

Though, tangentially, I really hate how one-of the solutions is to raise kids away from those stereotypes when that’s an impossibility when you’re a single parent.

#39

Option a for me. I’m not his mum, I’m not his boss, he’s got eyes, why is it my job to tell him when the bathroom is dirty?

If there are things I prefer done “my way”, there’s probably a reason for it. Example - the other week he was hanging a load of laundry, got to near the end and went “you’ll have to put these on the radiator as I’ve run out of room on the drying rack”. I had a look and he hadn’t actually run out of room, he’d just used the space inefficiently (eg hanging a big tshirt so that it covers another rail directly below instead of using both rails for smaller items). So what he thinks is me having a “system” for hanging laundry is actually just me having given the task more than the bare minimum of thought to make sure that I can actually complete the task.

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#40

Are you me?!

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