Happy Patriarchymas!

I must admit that one of my first emotions when reading of yet another woman complaining that things aren't fair and she's exhausted and her man has done nothing is irritation rather than solidarity with the downtrodden.
If you allow people to take advantage, they usually will even if they aren't necessarily doing it on purpose.
The fact that first world women still find it difficult to ask for a fair deal, and to make it happen in their own homes is annoying. I find it spineless, and depressing after all the fighting that went on to get women recognised as having rights in the law.
I was 15 when the sex discrimination act came into being, it was a fantastic feeling to have been part of that step. Yet we still have women complaining about Christmas, just like always. If you don't want to shoulder the burden alone, then make it unthinkable that it should be your problem entirely.
To me it has always been an issue of pointing out inequality and not being complicit in letting it happen, starting with my own life and my children's first.

Ephiny, but you are missing the point

The most vocal Feminist posters are not the ones in the shitty unequal relationships (or aren't still in one...experience is brilliant at sharpening a viewpoint))

I don't understand why you think that is the case

on the contrary, i think discussion is important - you can't develop an argument/foster a movement/take action that benefits all women if you think it only happens to you, or that it is your fault, or that no one else has ever noticed etc etc etc

back in ye old days this was called consciousness raising. it might not seem like anything is happening, but in the midst of words and shared experiences a movement coheres

But Christmas centres around a virgin birth No need for men at all!!

Hey, CrackFox,don't suddenly pop up here and try and defeat us with logic!

If you are the practical type why are you on mumsnet and not out and about doing practical stuff? There wouldn't be any internet forums (let alone a tiny section on Mumsnet called "feminism") at all if people didn't discuss stuff.

OK, so it's a feminist issue. Fine. But the more important question, surely, is can we do about it?

This is the frustrating thing, for me. When someone comes on a discussion like this and says 'well, it isn't like that in my house' or similar, the response is never 'that's great! Do you want to share how you make that work? Maybe we can learn something.' Instead, they get shouted down, accused of having an 'all right jack' attitude, missing the point etc.

It's almost as though you don't really want to find solutions. You just want to be martyrs, carry on doing stuff you don't want to do, for reasons you can't really justify, and moan about it on here. Or complain that men aren't doing things that they (and I) don't think particularly need to be done anyway.

I guess I'm a practical type, I'd rather think about how I can fix and improve things, rather than sit around endlessly and unproductively 'analysing' them.

Or Jacqueline - as Monty Python might have said.

sorry - will go away and not return....

Pleased to see that "I'm all right jack" mentality is live and kicking on this thread

Norris.
'It's not automatically every woman who does everything'

     Wash your mouth out.We can't have that kind of namby-pamby thinking on this site.I will talk to the moderators about how that got through.

This is what I put in another thread. :

"I am fed up with being constantly told how 'lucky' I am because my dh does literally everything for christmas - he buys and wraps all the presents, does all of the preparation, cooking and washing up and has today, while I've been in bed all morning, has taken the children to the gym. Oh and hoovered, and cleaned the mess up.. Am I 'lucky'? Or have we just sorted out our 'roles' in a way that suits us?"

It's not automatically every woman who does everything

I know, I thought I was clear in my first line that 'it doesn't happen to me' doesn't mean 'it doesn't happen'.

Why is it baffling? I tried to explain as well as I could in my post. This is an over-simplification, but I guess I have difficulty visualising how anyone gets into a situation like that, why exactly grown women are running around doing all this Christmas wifework stuff if they don't want to. Often it seems to come down to 'I want it to be done, but without me having to do it'. Which is how I feel about the paper I'm trying to write! But it's not a feminist issue, and I don't blame society or the patriarchy for it.

Look,it's all just make believe! Like elves,pixies and the Equal Pay Act.

The 'painless birth' thing I think was deduced from the 'fact' that pain in childbirth is a consequence of original sin, and since Mary was a one-off immaculate conception, she was excused from it. It's one of those tortuous 'logical' conclusions that people (yes very likely men, as this is the Catholic church after all!) have come to in trying to make sense of the teachings they're supposed to accept as absolute truth.

Apparently Mary also gave birth without any damage to her hymen (again the only logical possibility if you define virginity as intact hymen, and accept as absolute truth that she's a perpetual Virgin). That one makes my mind boggle a bit.

Oh please where is Mary's birthplan and diary and mumsnet report about her birth? Where is the documentary evidence that her birth was painless? Who first declared that her birth was painless? (I bet it was a man)

It's just all made up.

I know it's missing the point (and quite illogical) to say 'this isn't a problem for me, therefore it isn't a problem). So trying not to do that. But for me this thread - and the whole 'wifework' thing - is a baffling and frustrating aspect of modern feminism.

Yes I believe there are pressures on women to do certain things at Christmas and every day, 'conditioning' and dynamics in society and so on - we humans are all social creatures and there's always a balance between the 'personal responsibility' and 'society made me do it' extremes. But it seems to me that a lot of the feminist analysis is going way too far in one direction, and not focusing enough on women's autonomy and ability to make decisions, choose what we do and don't want to do, decide what sort of lifestyle we want.

Also it's hard for me to understand, because I personally have never felt these pressures that women talk about - I believe they exist, but it's difficult for me to 'get' it. But maybe that's a personality thing, and I'm just the sort of person who goes through life oblivious of what's expected or what anyone thinks of me! Maybe some people are expecting me to buy and wrap presents, or clean the house, or whatever else normal women do - but I don't know and don't care :)

Some women report almost painless births even these days, some women report orgasms! Fortunate lot that they are wish my first birth had been like that and with my second I did feel physical ecstasy although there was pain too....being a woman is NOT all about being in pain and subjugation. To say that if she didn't feel pain was/is people likening her to an incubator is missing the point...she gave birth without pain...what a fortunate thing. She had a very human part in the Christmas story highs and hardships combined. Her birth rocked, empowered IMO.

I agreed with those saying that the gifts, decorations and meal aspect is expected to happen via women in general. Like paddling ducks. The threads about doing all the wrapping as if men cannot wrap or choose presents does go some way to provide examples of how society in general expect the work to be done by women. I don't agree with that point of view and here we've managed a more equal Christmas festivities with us each cooking/buying to our strengths. Although I have no desire to be rude to those who do not have the exact same ideals as us.

I've got Bugsy Malone on in the background here. I haven't seen it since I was a child. I'm quite shocked to see how sexualised it is. It seems interesting visually due to the props all being miniturised but I'm uncomfortable with the girls dressing and dancing in a sexualised way. :( Shame I love the cars and songs :(

My two are quite little just now so I've not experienced much of the daft "pink is for girls" "only boys like science toys" nonsense but I suppose like everyone else our family will come across that sort of nonsense as they grow. We don't make masses about Santa in this house it's more about the Christmas story.

Hae you headed over to AIBU yet, Messy?

Lol. Just read whole thread. The anti-fems really have no sense of humor do they?

Just thought I might add... I may have been rumbled by DS... Handed him a present from "Father Christmas" yesterday, and he told me it wasn't, it was from Mummy...

Personally I couldnt care if the magic of Christmas for children is attributed to Father Christmas, the Tooth Fairy, or aliens from Outer Space.

So long as it's magical.