The Feminist Pub - come in and chat.

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

This is something like the fourth pub chat thread - please pull up a chair at the bar. Everyone welcome.

Old thread is here: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/1920422-The-Feminist-Pub-continued?

But it's pretty much full so welcome in.

[UptoapointLordCopper]

Survived the swimming pool thanks to my impulse purchase before Christmas. Yes I know. People impulse buy pretty things. I impulse buy potentially useful things.

[AntiJamDidi]

Ooh, a new pub. Can I have a hot chocolate please?

That looks like a very practical impulse buy upto My impulse buys usually involve chocolate of some sort or fitness related stuff that I then never use because I don't like exercise

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

That is a good impulse purchase, upto. Much more sensible than most of mine.

anti - of course! Coming right up.

[PacificDogwood]

Well done, LRD, for getting the new pub sorted with the 1000th post - impressive!

Penguins, just v briefly coming back to the driving thing: I hear you. I hate it when something I do/am bad at 'confirms' some kind of gender prejudice. I have vastly improved my around-the-corner-reversing because of our awkward drive. It's done wonders for my reverse parking etc etc. So it's actually practice (or lack thereof) that makes you better or worse at something. Who'd've thunk!!
I read something interesting a looooong time ago, so won't be able to reference, that one of the reasons that woman are not as good at reverse parking is because they tend to do it less because when you are the the main shopper going to large supermarkets it is preferable to park forwards to keep access to you boot for your shopping clear. So there you go...

LordCopper, that's not an impulse purchase, that's essential survival gear

I've had the whole 'You're too young to be a dr' today - I am 47, I qualified some 20 odd years ago, and I do not have some rotting painting of myself in my attic . Apparently my (male) trainee was my "boss" (he's about 15 years younger than me). According to lovely 85 year old lady we saw at her home today. Hey how. You just can't be cross with little old ladies. I think. Or can you??
Is that one step of UNpleasantness too far? I genuinely don't know .

Boring but reliable White wine for me please, bar sister .

[StormEEweather]

Hello, can I come in for a tonic water? New to these parts but it seems friendly.

[PenguinsDontEatKale]

Thanks for the thread LRD. I sat on my hands and was very, very good when I realised I had post 999 so you could link!

Pacific - Yes, but that's the bloody catch 22 of reversing. I never get to drive in an empty car. And I'm always scared of damaging the thing the odd time I do (we only have one, so would be totally stuffed for a while if I messed it up). So I never practice. So I never get better. I have actually started forcing myself to reverse park in a car park I go to for a toddler group. The car park is always empty and I could make my life so much easier by just driving into a space, but I figure I have to start somewhere. It doesn't do a great deal for your accuracy without surrounding cars though.

I hear you on boot access too. DH always reverses into parking spaces and then I'm saying 'but I can hardly get the buggy out'. So I'd say mothers of young children probably get the least reverse parking practice of all groups since it normally makes sense to pull in if at all possible

God, the 'male in charge' thing is infuriating isn't it? I used to get it at work. Female trainee with me = never mistaken for my boss. Male trainee with me = happened a few times. Thankfully in an office type environment it is pretty easy to stamp your authority on a meeting from the start (you lead the introductions, you offer tea and coffee but let the trainee do it, you gently direct seating, etc) so it didn't happen too often.

I do miss working. Just not the job I used to do. Sigh. After this baby I have to do some serious thinking about what the hell I'm going to do with phase two of my working life.

[PenguinsDontEatKale]

Hi Storm. We are indeed. Come on in. I shall stick with my pub tradition and have a virtual bucket of wine please.

[TheDoctrineOf2014]

Penguins

If it helps, cars are probably still built for the average male not the average female, in terms of sight lines, steering wheel positions etc

I have no evidence for this, it's just a hypothesis. Good plan for you to practice though. I'm aware my motorway driving is more tentative since I got married as DH tends to drive if we are both in the car, as he prefers it and also we get there faster (and I can MN and navigate!)

Am drinking in real life now, yay!

[TheDoctrineOf2014]

The Evening Standard is reporting that the Met is no longer going to 'no crime' rapes unless an independent reviewer certifies that's the right decision beyond all reasonable doubt.

www.standard.co.uk/comment/evening-standard-comment-police-are-now-taking-rape-more-seriously-9043542.html

[Basketofchocolate]

Ooh, did someone say 'bar' and 'chocolate'?

Thought I'd pop in as Xmas has got me all annoyed in so many 'equalist' ways.

Am currently a SAHM in the traditional main parent, housekeeper role but get fed up with people thinking it's cos I'm the female rather than cos husband's career is more important to him.

Xmas annoyance: A six yr old boy telling me I'd have to have the pink one of something - he couldn't explain why though...
Girl and boy twins being dressed in pink and blue respectively.
Convo with DH trying to work out why the heck Blurred Lines was biggest selling single last year, Miley is doing what she's doing and are young people these days really happy with all this pink, princess shit.

Sorry for rant.

[TheDoctrineOf2014]

The Jolly Greer is a rant-apology free zone, Basket, don't worry, just have more

[Basketofchocolate]

parking - I hate having to correct my parking as otherwise I will get people judging. Worse - having to swap with DH to parallel park once he's got himself stuck and then having to grin and bear passersby assuming I can't park. Grrr....

[UptoapointLordCopper]

Top tip for parallel parking: aim for the headlights of the car behind. Always works. (Obviously stop before there is a crunch. )

[PenguinsDontEatKale]

Aim for the headlights of the car behind?! How isn't there a crunch?

[AntiJamDidi]

I'm fab at parallel parking cos when I passed my test I was living in a street with on street parking and a lot of cars for the space, so I had to get very good at parallel parking very quickly or I'd never have been able to park on our street at all. I'm aware that I'm not as good at it now as I was then because we moved a few years ago to a house with a drive so now I don't need to parallel park unless we're visiting my parents. I also do all the driving in our household because dp just doesn't want to drive at all (he passed his test and hasn't driven since then) so I'm pretty confident with it.

I've never understood reversing into a parking bay in a car park though. Why would I ever want to? Surely it's just easier to go in forward so that you can get to the boot and the back seats more easily. I can't see any advantages to going in backwards and then coming out forwards.

[PenguinsDontEatKale]

Reversing is very good for ridiculous tiny spaces in multi-storey car parks with random pillars AntiJam. Also where there isn't enough space between rows of bays. I wish I could do it.

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

Oh, sorry, penguin. I was keeping an eye and I tried to get to it asap. I should've just started it earlier. Ah well.

Hi storm. Pull up a chair.

On the subject of parking ... I used to be terrible, but practice helps and now, because I live in Oxford (aka the most car-unfriendly city in the world), I'm pretty decent. It does help that both my parents are terrible, DH doesn't drive, one of my brothers has written off, IIRC, three cars in five years, and most of my mates are American. So I get loads of positive reinforcement because I could park like a chimp and they'd still be polite about it.

Reversing into spaces gives you a tighter turning circle, and it's useful if there's masses of traffic because you have to give way reversing out but not necessarily reversing in ... is that it, anti?

Something that really annoys me about parking, though, is the number of perfectly nice, well-meaning, polite blokes who suddenly start barking orders. And honestly think it is polite.

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

Btw, erm ... I promise I know this entirely from theory not practice (as if!), but if you hit another car's bumpers reeeeealllly slowly, like 1mph, you never leave a mark. Promise.

I always bump off the kerb, anyway - much easier if you worry about hitting something.

[AntiJamDidi]

Oh, ok then. Reversing is good for tighter spaces and tons of traffic. We live in a very small 'city' (it's a big town but someone onc said we're a city so that's what we claim to be) and never have to park anywhere with tons of traffic or very small bays. Maybe if I lived somewhere busier I would care about reversing into bays. I can do it if I need to but I've never seen the need, so have probably not practised enough to want to do it in a really busy place.

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

YY, I think it is overrated.

Dare I suggest sometimes it is just showing off? I must admit, a couple of years ago one of our neighbours who was a right wanker smashed his poncy car because he reversed into a space too fast and didn't see there was a bollard at the back - and I wasn't sad.

[MooncupGoddess]

Marking place on thread.

I can't drive; every so often I have a go, find it loathsome and terrifying and give up again. I have crap hand-eye coordination (is it because I iz a woman?) so it is probably better that I keep off the roads.

In matters feministy, I've just been to Bridget Christie's solo feminist-themed comedy show at the Soho Theatre. Anyone else been? Nothing super novel but she had some excellent lines and a good atmosphere.

[Zhx3]

Marking place .

I drive the family bus so I'm ok at parking, did a 1-manoeuvre reverse into a very tight space the other day and was stupidly proud of myself .

Husband and I share the driving on long journeys but when ILs were staying at Christmas and we all bundled into my car to go on a day trip, FIL was shocked to see me taking the wheel followed by lots of jokey "fear for your lives!" type of jokes. I said "of course I'm driving, it's my car!!!"

[CaptChaos]

On the subject of women drivers, eye roll, hohoho. DH was idly going through some pictures on a Facebook page, something to do with ridiculous car wrecks, where they end up in unfeasible positions and such. Every so often there would be a picture of someone who had managed to park in a ditch, or drive off with the fuel hose still attached or something equally daft and there would be a legend on it stating 'Yes, it's a woman'.

On the positive, there were comparatively few 'Yes, it's a woman' comments, which suggests that there were comparatively few women doing daft things, but by the same token, there was not a single 'Yes, it's a man' legend on any of them.

On the subject of parallel parking, I wouldn't sweat it, just keep quietly practicing, and don't listen to the voice in your head which tells you that women can't park, you'll get it in the end. It's a learned skill like any other, no one's ever said 'women can't knit' and I find that knitting takes far more hand eye coordination than parking! It also has a lot to do with the vehicle you drive, for example, I presently drive a 7 seater and can park it in the tiniest spaces imaginable. I needed a bloody truck space to park my Mini though!

[BelleCurve]

I also can't park for toffee and I get really at myself for confirming the stereotype. But it is just practice and necessity as when I lived on a street which needed it, and practiced everyday I was brilliant.

Now I drive a larger than necessary car for carrying buggies and shopping and I don't have any need to practice. I do think stereotype threat has a lot to do with it though. I still remember being taunted by my male friends when learning to drive and that was nearly 20 years ago.

Waves at Mooncup. Bridget was ok, but I think many people were laughing at the feminist talking out loud, rather than her being particularly funny. Plus most of her routine has already been on MN