Small acts of resistance

[illegitimateMortificadospawn]

You know, the ones where patriarchal and societal expectations stick in your craw and you take pleasure in small acts of resistance, often passive aggressive. Examples:

• A school friend used to iron creases in to the backs of her Dad's work shirts
  
• unapologetically 'man spreading' and not budging up when similarly space hungry men sit down next to you
  
• Quietly shelving & not writing up meeting notes when, in ameeting where you were the only woman present (but in a professional capacity for your expertise) and were asked ad hoc by the male chair to take notes
  
• Remembering your in laws birthdays but not rushing around to sort out gifts & cards when you've agreed in advance with DH he'll sort his family out & has forgotten

[SenseiWoo]

I do the notes one-I like to take a note for my own benefit, but I won't be made to do one when far more junior men present should be asked. I completely ignore the arrival of the tea and coffee tray too (though not the biscuits).

To be fair to DH, as soon as we moved in together he declared he would do his family's cards and presents and that I would never be expected to buy his pants.

My other one is not doing the expected shrink move on public transport, in queues etc to give space to a man who has just arrived. I don't telegraph any kind of defiance or hostility, I just don't move. And men expect you to move. So they bump into you, often more than once. Then realise how bad it looks and move away. But they do feel cross. With no awareness of how unreasonable it is to expect a woman to squash herself into a tiny space so a man can dominate and posture.