#21

which is especially egregious because you portmanteu-ed your names! You literally blended to become one! How much more committed can you get!!!

(I know you know this I just get really angry every time I remember it)

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#22

Yeah we had been together for 7 years before we got married and had lived together for 4, but my sister said when we told the families we were getting married that she was happy she could finally tell her son that my husband was sticking around as she’d not wanted him to get too attached before in case we broke up???

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#23

That’s so rude and ridiculous!

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#24

She does come out with some shit, she’s very accomplished in life and a lot older than me and that’s reflected in our relationship. She seemed to think I needed lots of guidance growing up but thankfully she’s dialled it back in the past few years and I’ve learned not to listen to a lot of what she says.

I remember when I was a teenager she gave me what she thought was an understanding and calm explanation that I was overweight and I needed to lose weight and not eat so much, like an intervention almost, and I shot back “do you not think I know that??”, like she thought it hadn’t occurred to me that I might be overweight and I was too happy to just go about my business being chubby and needed someone to tell me. Since then she’s never talked to me about my weight as it upset me so much (I was just a kid!), even though I get the feeling that she worries about my weight when she sees me. Like I say, I feel more sorry for her that that’s the way she feels, it’s so freeing once you unlearn fatphobic nonsense and realise you are allowed to be happy even if you have more body fat than other people.

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#25

Same, and the “cool girl who’s not bothered by anything” which is closely linked. Always wanted to be “one of the guys” in my teens etc. Super harmful in many ways, but thankfully I had my big Feminist Awakening and realised what was going on. Still have things to unlearn, I’m sure, but getting there!

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#26

That “even if” is sarcastic btw, in case it’s not clear

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#27

I just had a constant barrage of what girls like/what boys like from my family plus an expectation that I would get married (to a man) and that was somehow an achievement and would be the pinnacle of my existence. It wasn’t done in a shaming way, just matter of fact, so it was relatively easy to unlearn.

What I found harder to unlearn was the wider social pressure around the idea that “women’s interests” particularly as they relate to beauty and appearance are somehow vapid and not as important as male interests and hobbies.

I also have a lifelong mistrust of other women, particularly in groups, but I think that is the result of direct experience of women being much harsher judges of anyone who doesn’t conform and who questions these social norms. It’s all social conditioning, but that is the most lingering effect for me.

On marriage, I didn’t change my name and we walked down the aisle together (very fast). I was told that made it not a real wedding by a family friend who said he’d be furious if his daughter “did that to him”. What a prick.

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#28

I definitely signed up to this too when I was younger, and its something I regret alot as feel I probably missed out/over looked some really good relationships as part of distancing myself from other girls.

Fortunately I think I’ve now learnt from it, mostly, and have some wonderful close female friends but wish I’d have realised sooner.

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#29

Not sure tbh. I have 3 older sisters and was raised by my mum, so think a lot of them will have been from school etc. Probably around what are masculine and feminine toys and that kind of thing. I just played with loads of my sister’s toys like sylvanian families, doll house and a little play cafe and obviously loved it and then at playschool and reception and that we were supposed to build wooden Go Karts while the girls did other stuff. Was all a bit “waaaht???”

#30

TW: Weight talk

I never understand this. Its amazing that people feel the need to inform people they are fat as if we don’t live in an extremely fatphobic society that is constantly reminding us we should be trying to shrink ourselves.

My family+extended family are obsessed with weight. I’ve worn spanx to family gatherings before because I’d been praised at previous events for losing weight and “looking so much better!!!” (gee thanks for reinforcing the belief that I was hideous before) and then I’ve got chubbier again because that’s what bodies do and I’ve felt the need to try to hide it because I know my body will be scrutinised by my relatives. A couple of years ago my aunt made a comment about my body and followed it up with “I can see why he’s in love with you” like… You couldn’t see any reason for my partner to love me before?!

My relationship with my body and food is the best it’s ever been but I’m still constantly battling the diet culture demons in my head.

Makes me so sad that my mum is in her late 70s and is stillon a diet :cry:

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#31

Yes to all of this! I remember my mum buying me a pair of Spanx to wear at my brother’s wedding and they were the worst things ever, they went right from under my boobs to my knees :joy:

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#32

This! I have a very loud sneeze and always got this, that I should try to be quieter. Led to me being very self conscious about sneezing for a long time and i guess is something I’m still unlearning. In retrospect it feels such a waste of time and energy that I’ve actually felt self conscious about a sneeze, but, hindsight.

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#33

I’ve worn spanx to a couple of weddings
and ended up taking them off after dinner, aaah the sweet feeling of relief when you whip those horrible things off and let your belly bounce free :sunglasses:

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#34

It’s so wrong that we are expected to go through discomfort (uncomfortable, restrictive underwear, uncomfortable shoes) and even pain (hair removal, things like botox injections seen as unremarkable procedures) to conform and be ‘normal’ and ‘acceptable’. The more you think about it the more toxic and bizarre it is, but women who don’t want to do these things are seen as the strange ones.

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#35

This is one of the many reasons we got civiled rather than married. So many people don’t even question whether changing your name the right thing to do just because it’s the done thing. Even before you get to smashing the patriarchy, my other half had built up a business in her own name for nearly twenty years. Getting civiled was a polite way of telling people that we thought all the rules and conventions around marriage were outdated.

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#36

This is definitely something I needed to unlearn. I grew up with my mother sharing her strong opinions on body hair (women should always shave their legs and underarms but never completely remove pubic hair!). Society’s disdain for women who choose not to shave - especially armpit hair - is so fucked up when you think about it. Shaving is a massive pain in the arse and I’m definitely not going to spend loads of money and go through the pain of laser hair removal. I haven’t (yet!) completely renounced shaving my pits but I probably only do it about once a month.

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#37

I stopped shaving a few years ago and I still occasionally feel a little self-conscious baring my legs and underarms so I have to sometimes remind myself that if men aren’t expected to shave their legs, I shouldn’t be expected to do it either. It’s so weird that “women with hairy armpits” is still used as an insult.

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#38

Also the hair on my legs isn’t very visible unless you’re up close, so I get that it’s easier for me to stop removing leg hair than it might be for other people - the important thing as always is the choice isn’t it

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#39

These are things I’d want to do. I would quite like to get married but my dad is so old fashioned and him and my mum grumbled all day at my cousin’s wedding about it only being 20 minutes and not having any hymns, fuck knows what they’d make of my ideal wedding which would sack off most traditions and have no nonsense about being ‘given away’. I’d feel guilty about ‘depriving’ them of traditions like that anyway, but the thought of my dad doing his typical steamroll on anything he disagrees with or perceives as odd is… something.

#40

My bfs uncle wouldn’t let me or my sis (not yet) in law be in some professional family pictures because we were just the girlfriends at the time. Girlfriend of 5 years who you own a home with isn’t serious enough :joy: people are weird