Chat thread - come chat, rant, or celebrate, here!

Can I have a little moan as well, please?!

On a hen do this weekend in a city I haven't visited before (maybe they're all the same but I haven't been out in a while!) and the night started with some drunk men shouting "slags" at us. I shouted back it was illegal to shout at someone like that and was treated to a string of obscenities.

Went to a club full of stag groups. One man picked up the groom's mum (physically rather than chatting up) and she was laughing so I didn't realise she was not enjoying herself until she told me to get him to put her down. I did in no uncertain terms and then he tried to pick me up. When I told him if he touched me I would ask the bouncer to throw him out he tried it again. I pushed him away and told him he didn't have permission to touch me in any way, shape or form and him and his friend laughed in my face and tried to touch my bum. The door staff were very good once I complained but weren't keen to step in with what was obvious harassing behaviour without being approached.

The night only picked up when I started chatting to a man (the only one who said hello and asked if we were on a hen do etc rather than groping us) about our children and we were then left alone. Even then though there was a downer as a young man asked to have a photo with me (I was dressed as a character from a film) and asked my new friend's permission then said thank you to him after. I was very .

Sorry, that was long, but not all my friends really understood why I was so upset by it all and I felt I was overreacting until I processed it all. I wanted to leave but the hen was enjoying herself and I felt like the important thing.

thanks for that link Doctrine :) living without amazon is very hard!

Bump

Our local bookshop will order books if you phone them up. They usually promise a couple of days though usually it takes a bit longer. Then you go and pick the books up from them, instead of the bloody sorting office which is down a small lane with no parking and funny opening hours.

...here it is! Commissions go to your local bookseller or you can nominate one.
www.hive.co.uk/

Bigkids, Nickelbabe did some links somewhere to a site which routes the order to an independent... Hang on...

I didn't know where else to go so went to waterstones online. Though for all I know they avoid tax too

I guess that's a charity bookshop and won't be any good for new books. Sorry...

bigkidsdidit I'm boycotting amazon too. I bought quite a few books (amongst others books 2 and 3 of the Millennium trilogy and it was quite a gamble because I really wanted them quickly ) from Green Metropolis recently and they delivered really quickly.

the extracts I've read I really like, I like that she regrets not being a feminist activist earlier and is trying to solve the problem of women's representation at higher levels in companies. But I haven't read the whole thing yet and won't for a while seeing as I'm bycotting amazon so it won't be delivered for 2 weeks :(

I read the interview in the Guardian, and also an article by Hadley Freeman about it in this thread. I didn't find it particularly enlightening - what she said about how women's and men's identical actions being perceived differently was also discussed at length in Delusions of Gender. But I didn't find it particularly offensive either, like the OP in that thread. Since this is a chat thread rather than a fight thread I assume I can take this position.

I love cats :)

just refound this thread in TIO and I;ve been enjoying catching up.

I've just ordered Lean In too, have read lots of extracts online adn like the look of it. Has anyone here read it?

Yes, it seems there are trolls around and some who are not trolls who might well be IYKWIM.

(it's what the current trolly troll has been saying - I think it's a "mad cat lady alone and lonely with a million cats" sort of thing)

Anyway, the kittens are all asleep now :)

I've not heard that stereotype. But I don't particularly like animals and probably just switch off when it is mentioned. I'm sure there are worse stereotypes.

So, is this stereotype supposed to be a bad thing then? I am confused as to how liking cats is a bad thing if it is. Unless it is because cats are rather self-sufficient independent animals with staff.

So apparently it's a stereotype that feminists like cats.

I hadn't really heard that one before, but I do like cats, and if you like cats too there are some lovely live kittens here.

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Having watched slug's video from the other thread, I'm going to start challenging DSs about the stories they write. Yesterday DS1 did a picture of "The Thing Family" with Mr and Mrs Thing and three children, all male. After challenging him on that he added one female child. On the subject of Mrs Thing he acknowledged that while I am not a Mrs anybody, it just happens that Mrs Thing was a Mrs Thing. Can't argue with that, I guess. Especially since one of their teachers went and changed her name after getting married recently. But we will continue the discussion!

About 10yo. He's an independent child and often does things on his own.

How young is the child? Maybe the parent said "go and borrow Mr Copper's tools" and child wanted to stick to the letter of the instructions.

So still a stereotype but from the older rather than younger members of the house...?

So neighbour's child came to borrow tools which I found and gave to him, making it clear they were mine. He then asked to speak to DH to ask permission to take them away. I called him back and suggested it was me he should ask, which he did. Very polite child. Wrong, but polite. Am I being oversensitive, or can I not possibly own tools due to not possessing a penis?