Things you were told weren't ladylike

Not wearing a petticoat. I was always made to wear a petticoat underneath my dress as a child.

Painting your toe nails - incredibly common apparently :)

Also eating/ drinking whilst walking

putting on make-up in public - not that i ever did it!

even now i cringe when i see someone making that horrible lipstick face and slapping it on on the tube!

I'm not a lady - I know because my MIL told her sister in front of me, "look at Hatie she wears trousers and she doesn't shave her legs"

My fave put down is from Mona Ramsey of "Tales of the City"

"Don't call me a lady, I wouldn't dream of calling you a gentleman"

My grandad said being untidy was unladylike - which I guess makes me a man.....

All this makes me want to cheer my feminist DM who insisted on drinking pints in 1960s Manchester with my DDads full support. They did an article about her in the paper! I suppose they'd think the P.hd she's got now is unladylike too........

YY to brushing your hair in public. Eating in the street. Wearing trousers to work. Swearing.

I'm very unladylike.

Lots of things, but what I remember most clearly was eating a sandwich the wrong way. My grandmother insisted that I eat cut sandwiches a particular way.

Now that I am older, I appreciate that some things are polite or impolite, but the term "ladylike" really irritates me. It's not a term I ever plan to use with my DDs.

Being unapologetically clever in front of men. Arguing a point without deferring to male opinion with a little deferential giggle.

Our nuns used to say that every time a girl crossed her legs Our Lady blushed. Or possibly cried, I can't quite remember. Our Lady didn't care for trousers either. Or wolf whistling back at builders.

(And - while I think of it, because it still makes me inwardly rage - this same set of nuns who ran my convent secondary, employed a friend of a friend as a student teacher during her PGCE year. This woman had had a baby while she was an undergraduate, and was a single mother. What the nuns finally cracked about was the fact that, while obviously unmarried and known as 'Miss' O'Dwyer, this woman had the temerity to have a - gasp - baby seat in her car. It was a Bad Example to the girls, apparently, and deeply unladylike.)

Definately drinking pints, but also chewing gum, swearing and sitting with legs too far apart.

The odd thing is that I'm a crossdresser, so as a guy I can do them all!!!

Time

pushing a pram and smoking is just wrong for a different reason though.
I hate the sight of that whether a man or a woman doing it.

(and there's the Vicky Pollard image too I guess! )

brushing your hair in public. i still judge people who do this.

and, apparently, only prostitutes wear ankle bracelets. thanks, nan.

My dh thinks ladies who smoke look common and those pushing prams and smoking are the worst apparently!!

kerosene, I love ya ... embroidery of Conan quotes!

Going into pubs (my parents ran a pub!)
Drinking in pubs
Drinking pints in pubs
Drinking anything other than wine in pubs

Wearing short skirts
Wearing trousers
Wearing flouncy skirts
Heavy makeup (I would regularly be told to go upstairs and "take some of that slap off!" I'd touch up my eye-liner instead)
Not enough makeup
'Loud' jewellery
Boots
Black clothes

Getting a Science degree
Getting another science degree
Science in general
Being clever (and not even being a clever dick! That, I could live with. I was told my dad that no man would ever want me if they thought I might be cleverer than them. He had left school at 15 and had some ishoos with education in general)
Disagreeing

Giving fewer fucks about housework than them
Reading the Wrong Books
My particular style of needlework (to be fair, I was embroidering Conan quotes)
Rock music

Swearing
Sweating
Exercise in general

I never got 'eating in public' as an unladylike thing, but it was terribly, terribly common. Eating Greggs in public could reliably bring my mum out in a fit of the middle-class northerner vapors.

Mumsnet! You forgot Having An Opinion! and Being Clever!

Oh Yes Indeed!!
'Cover those immodest elbows' is a refrain from my schooldays.
How could I have forgotten all the stupid school uniform infractions? Were they like that in boys' schools I wonder..

At home:
Speaking with a Dublin accent

My nan had a real go at me for wearing low rise jeans. She said they were totally inappropriate and I was showing off my lower back to all and sundry. God forbid she had seen me bend down and a bit of G-string stuck out .

Underwear should never ever been hung on the line, ladies wash them discreetly and hang in the bathroom and remove them before your husband comes home for tea .

I recognise lots of these. In my case I've been described as unladylike for:

Having Opinions (also Being Clever)
Telling jokes
Laughing loudly - I should have tittered or somesuch 'feminine' guff
Having short hair

It's lucky that I've never aspired to being a lady. It's far more fun being a woman.

Speaking unless spoken to.
Showing any emotion besides contentment or gratitude.
Chunky or over the top (in my DM's opinion) jewellery. It had to be dainty and delicate.

Unlike many on here, my DM actually thought it was unladylike to not have pierced ears. I was taken to have them re-pierced several times as they kept becoming infected and sealing back up. She then resorted to stabbing my piercings fortnightly herself for about a year before giving up.

When we were six Sr Agnes told us it was extremely unladylike to cross our legs.

Could we add under "O" - Opinions: having some...?
Clever is already, rightly, mentioned but independent thought isn't here yet.

Rolling up the sleeves of one's school blouse on a hot day and, especially, walking in the street with them rolled up. Brings shame on the school doncha know?

My dad always said no one would want to marry me if I farted. This after him deliberately lifting one butt cheek at the dinner table.

DH and I have made something of a competition of farting on each other. Gross, but better out than in I say!

DM wasn't allowed to do most of the things mentioned, her parent still are very 'proper' and I'm very conscious of what I say round there (knackered is a definite no-no). DH is not so conscious and I have spent whole conversations wincing inside

disagreeing with or, god forgive you!, contradicting a man .... (what the fuck?)
drinking pints.
riding motorbikes.
sitting with your legs even a bit apart. Even with trousers. (What, men are so unable to control themselves they'll be overcome? get a grip, oldtimers.)
eating more than a man at the table ... if you were really hungry, tough.
shouting.

^Ladies shouldn't go to the bar in a pub.
Ladies should only drink wine.

I just order pints of wine at the bar now^ go for it!