Feminism and My 7 YO dd. The right message

[Portofino]

My dd was 7 on Friday. She can dress herself, feed herself, make an omelette, type a message to her Auntie on FB, ride a bike etc etc. She is getting so much more independant by the day.

We chat in the car. Last week when it was International Women's Day there was something on the radio news so the subject came up. I can't remember exactly how the conversation went, but basically she said she thought that men were BETTER than women. I asked her why she thought that.

She replied that men were stronger and had better brains! She cannot tell me why she thinks that is true. Now I work FT, domestic tasks are pretty equally shared and DH has always been very hands on with her since she was born. I have to admit that recently DH is away a lot with work, so it is ME in the kitchen after work/school (though when she was smaller it was the other way round).

I want to start her (a little bit) on earning her pocket money by having jobs to do. But I want to do this without.....well rewarding her for being subservient. DH has asked her to get a beer out of the fridge. She says (laughing) "I am not your servant, dad" I say it's fine because we are a family and we like to do nice things for each other. It's nice when daddy makes me a cup of tea etc etc.

Where do you start? What are the right messages to give her? My backgound was NOT very egalitarian so I have nothing to fall back upon.

[FlamingoBingo]

Just keep talking to her about it, and hope that that will counteract the socialising she's experiencing. My home educated daughters, who've been to hospital and been cared for by male nurses and female doctors and none of whose books show female nurses and male doctors only still say that nurses are women and doctors are men . Just goes to show how insidious gender stereotyping really is!

Have you read Delusions of Gender, by Cordelia Fine? That's a great book.

[sethstarkaddersmackerel]

get her the Sandi Toksvig book, Girls Are Best.

Flamingo - mine are the same re doctors and nurses, even though they have hardly ever seen a male doctor in their life and dd's best friend's dad is a nurse.

I think you can make a particular effort to show her counter-examples. I was nattering to my dd this morning about my friend from college who is a scientist who helps invent ways to make buildings safe from earthquakes AND HAS LONG HAIR even though the hair was completely irrelevant (and indeed this risks pandering to the obsession with women's appearance) and I was just trying to underline that SHE IS A GIRL.

[Portofino]

Thanks for the book links! I will have a look.

[Drizzela]

I usually agree with you Dittany but i'm not sure about that. Assuming the dad is a fair person and everyone is the house is equal, I think OP's DD should be encouraged to fetch items for her dad. The fact it's a beer is irrelevent isn't it?

[Portofino]

What is the difference between fetching a beer for her dad, and fetching my book for me? Really?

I don't want her to see jobs as something only girls do, but on the other hand, she should start to play her part in helping out. I haven't let her near the kettle yet, but making tea, cleaning the car, tidying her room....

[Portofino]

DH is also expected to do things! I know I do more domestic things than he does, not because I am female, but because HE is not physically there. At the weekends we both pitch in to get jobs done.

[notsweatingthesmallstuff]

I agree with Dittany about asking the child to do something like that. It seems to suggest that its ok for daddy to sit there on his fat/skinny arse and get someone to run after him. What would he say if dd was sitting doing nothing and said "can you get up from whatever you are doing and get me a glass of juice dad? " Although I have tried to bring my girls up as feminists (by which i mean that they are equal to but not the same as boys) my OH will often pull this stunt, sometimes just as a wind up, and too often I find that we give an exasperated comment like your daughter, but then do it! I continually find it hard to walk the walk as well as talking the talk!

[Drizzela]

But don't we fetch things for the children all the time? I don't think it hurts them to do things that benfit us sometimes too. We have a cleaner so there are no real chores in the house. The only way the children can contribute is to pick up after themselves and do small favours for us adults. I have to say, i don't think I've ever asked one of them to fetch a beer! But I do fetch beer for DP on occassion, as he fetches my wine. With the kids its more that one of us will say 'if you're going to the kitchen can you please bring me back the biscuits'

They've never said 'I'm not your slave' cheeky littleportofino

[Drizzela]

aww I don't know 'notsweatingthesmallstuff' everyone's allowed to sit on their arse and ask for thing sometimes arent they? 99% of the time if someone in our house asks someone else to fetch something it's because they're going that way anyway. And if anyone did sit and ask someone else to get up and get something they'd be met with - 'get it yourself!'

But I've been known to slump on the chair after 12 hours on the go, realise I wanted a glass of water, and turn to the nearest seated family member and say 'pleeeeease fetch me a glass of water?'

It's not a feminist issue in our house as every one is equal, man woman or child!

[Drizzela]

I'm sorry Dittany, I genuinly don't understand why fetching your dad a beer teaches that men are more important than women?

Would it be ok to fetch mum a beer?

Would it be ok to fetch dad a more 'feminine' drink?

Is it ok for dad to fetch mum a beer if dad has fetched mum a glass of wine?

Sorry, that sounds as if I'm being obtuse, I'm just picking your brains as I usually think you're bang on track!

[Drizzela]

Is it ok for dad to fetch mum a beer if dad has fetched mum a glass of wine?

should read

Is it ok for mum to fetch dad a beer if dad has fetched mum a glass of wine?

[Drizzela]

Hmm.. I don't know. I guess we'd need to ask portofino.

I was basing it on my home situation I suppose, where none of the two scenarios you pose would ever happen. It is, however, conceivable that if the elder of our's (12) was en route to the kitchen, DP would ask her to grab him a beer out of the fridge. It wouldn't cross my mind that it was in any way because men were more important than women...

[Drizzela]

And I suppose it's because of my home situation that if one of the kids said 'i'm not your servant' I would find it cheeky, because we all help each other out.

Portofino - as your DD came out with the servant line, I would say she will have no probs making her self heard and letting the world know she's equal as she grows up

[Portofino]

Drizzela - she certainly has no problems making herself heard!

To me, the normal scenario would be "I'm getting myself a drink (be that tea, water, beer, wine), would anyone else like one whilst I'm up?" That's the way the adults in the house act (we have a male lodger as well). So to that degree, I agree it would probably be wrong to ask dd to get dad a beer, UNLESS she was also getting a drink for herself.

Normally she is only ever asked to do this if she is physically near the fridge though. If she (or anyone else for that matter) was sitting watching TV or doing something, Dad would get his own.

Drizzela, I guess my thinking is more along your lines - people do things for PRACTICAL reasons in my house, rather than because of their gender. Generally I cook in the evening, for example, not because DH is an entitled lazy arse, but because half the week he is away, and the other half he is generally late. We'd all starve to death otherwise. (The lodger takes his turn mind) DH will usually cook Sunday dinner.

"Can you get something whilst you are upstair/pick up something from the PO/Chemist etc" would be requested of whoever was in that general vicinity.

[Drizzela]

No, i said the situation "Dad regularly getting mum to fetch his beer for him whilst he's sitting on the sofa." would never happen.

You are right.

I didnt read in to portofino's example as much as you did because I immediately placed it in to our household.

[Drizzela]

Ooh but DP has probably asked me to get up and get him something when he was capable of doing it himself maybe once in the whole time we've been together. And I don't think it was a beer... might have been... DD would never have seen this happen. But he will ask me for things if i'm en route, and I do him. As Portofino says, we do things out of practcality. Obviously the 4 year old does less, but we don't have a gender or age based hierarchy.

[TeiTetua]

The real feminist test would be if it were equally acceptable (or not) for a boy to be asked to get beer for his mum. We could make it wine, I suppose.