Little or big feministy things you can do to help

but by the time the women arrive they are ready for a break and a coffee having had a full morning getting the family ready before they start

Definitely! that is exactly how I felt when the DCs were younger.

Senior management men come to work with beautifully ironed shirts and I cant help but think they havent been the one to get up at 6 am to iron them. Men come to work ready for work but by the time the women arrive they are ready for a break and a coffee having had a full morning getting the family ready before they start. This is really worrying. The culture needs to change so that household tasks are delegated to household employees. When economically the men are getting paid more for the same job it is a self perpetuating system to try and save money by getting the women to do household tasks. I think that until women genuinely get equal pay and promotion prospects in this country, nothing will change.
For example in medicine, men get distinction awards and pay enhancements far more than women do. Thus the average salary of a full time male consultant is higher than the average salary of a full time female consultant. This needs to be addressed.

Yup. DH and I really do do 50;50 - but we are competing with many who do 10:90 or whatever...

Yup. And they are told how " lucky " they are that their male partner does any share of the housework /childcare . Clearly the default position is that the man does nothing, and anything more that that deserves cookies

They always look at me bemused and say " no problem , my wife /partner does everything "

Yep that always gets me too KristinaM. I have realised that most men in senior management, get there because their wives do all the house and children stuff. However when a woman gets to senior management, she is still expected to do her job as a senior manager, and still do a lot of the house and children stuff.

Yes, I always ask fathers how they cope with working full time and having kids. They always look at me bemused and say " no problem , my wife /partner does everything "

Then I fix them with my beady eye and say " really ?? "

And they look slightly embarrassed at their own admission and shuffle off, muttering

Ask the men in your life (family, friends, work colleagues) 'are you going to go part time now?' when they have children just like you would ask a woman. Ask schools/nurseries how many male staff they have. I think it's very important that both men and women are in the caring professions and that the people employing carers know that for some parents it's important that there are caring men in their children's lives.

This is a great thread. I was one of the people who posted on the "feeling overwhelmed" thread and this is really inspiring with lots of ideas. I'm going to spend a bit of time trying just to take individual actions rather than feeling frustrated that I can't change the world in one fell swoop. I've sent two emails to the BBC News website complaining about articles that minimise abuse and violence against women/girls - terrible languague. Small steps but if enough people do it things do change.

It really would, Lazarusb. My finest parenting hour was when my DDs wrote to Asda, all by themselves, to complain about an advert using mums, they thought it should have been parents

Their grammar wasn't quite mumsnet standard though

Me too YesIdid. My ds (11) is very fond of criticising people that objectify women and girls. It would be fantastic if their generation could break the mould and challenge the acceptance of these stereotypes and expectations.

Well I forgot to change my Halloween name change, and to get to the main point of my post .

I think those of us bringing up children have the chance to really influence tomorrow's society and if we try and really imprint feminist values as early as possible, it will be seen as the norm for more and more of them. The treatment of women in today's society, as shown in the recent thread about oogling young girls, is really depressing. I'd love my DCs to be of a generation that is different.

I do think our parents have a huge influence on us - my parents were very feminist - my dad made sure we knew how to DIY or change a tyre etc, and my mother hated the gendered name professions eg fireman, policeman, manager-ess, she always made a point of saying firefighter, chair instead of chairman etc. (she couldn't even bring herself to order a ploughmans lunch, she would say "plough persons lunch"

They were seen as quite radical hippy types back then, but I look back now and realise how wonderfully feminist they were! DH and I have had stick over the years as we have had a role reversal type household, I worked and did DIY type stuff, he was SAHP. It's becoming more common now but it's still not the norm. It should be! I don't think we will ever have full equality until pay and employment rights inc parental leave are 100% equal. It was interesting how DHs employment gap was viewed when he returned to work!

I am laz and that sounds shocking although not entirely unsurprising, I often have to counteract colleagues attitudes towards female pupils as well as the pupils themselves. I am an increasingly lone voice but I will never stop speaking up.

Crumple I take it you are a teacher? I wish my dd had a teacher more like you than the one that laughed at her (along with a lot of her classmates in her all-girl school) when she said that she didn't want to get married or live with a man but wanted to have a career and be financially independent. She may as well have said she wanted to live on Mars.

In our household we try to show the DC that Mummy and Daddy can do anything and everything, DH cooks more than I do because he genuinely enjoys it whereas I do more of the practical DIY type activities (usually aided by my MIL). We both clean the house, both do the washing, both look after the DC, neither of us does the majority of anything.

Yes I do work outside of the house as that is what works for me and in my profession I constantly strive to equip young people with the idea that you can be whatever you want to be, I challenge casual and blatant sexism in the classroom constantly and have seen some young women actually sit up and realise that they don't have to accept harassing behaviour purely because of what is between their legs.

My eldest wants to be a firefighter when she is older and has had some humdinger of arguments with other people/children who say she can't do that because she is a girl.

My DH was brought up in a conventional household (SAHM mum etc) but in a non-conventional way. My MIL is an amazing woman who has brought up both her boys to be independent and they are a credit to her. She now works in a male dominated career and won't be told by anyone that she can't do what she wants because vagina.

My own mother has been a card carrying feminist from day one and brought us up in the same way, my Dad instilled in me a love of science and maths and constantly told me that I could achieve anything I put my mind towards doing.

I am extremely fortunate in my personal circumstances I know but it has meant that I want the same for my own children and others.

Treat other women how you wish you'd been treated (not necessarily how you were).

I've got the workplace in mind but it could be anywhere.

The culprits are often women as well as men.

So don't think "I had to put up with harassment off that twat in sales when I was new so she'll just have to get over it" don't ignore the "look at her getting special treatment cos she's pregnant/pretty/ill, I never got that". I've heard these kind of comments from the most surprising people. I'm not going to let them go again.

Don't let history repeat itself. Just because you coped doesn't meant you (or anyone else) should have to.

I am a Catholic in NI, and for years I was massively against abortion....I saw it in plain terms as the murder of a child. I even sent SPUC £100 to be a life term member back in 1998!!!

Now, I am so ashamed of myself. I still care about those little unborn babies, but not at the expense of women. I now see that the pro-life organisations that I was rallying for are just forcing birth and parenthood upon women and in fact they care nothing for women. So they have NOTHING in common with me.

Random Yes, my maternity leave was very positive for me, but I was annoyed that the Careers Advisor at my University thought it was something I needed to cover up. So what if I just spent 5 years looking after my children and having the best time of my life cultivating friendships and having a nice time? I don't feel women or men should be encouraged to see spending time being a parent as a negative. She also said I shouldn't mention my children on my CV or in an interview.

Eating yorkies is another one along with mccoys crisps.

apparently putting 'I was a full time mother to 3 children' is not a positive thing to have on my CV

I think that depends how it is phrased. For exmple, something that explains a maternity break in a very positive way, perhaps mentioning multitasking, efficient working, completion of tasks is rapid time, or such like would not be negative.

Just focus on telling the employer what you learned from the maternity break that would be useful to them.

I wonder if there is some way of expressing disgust about this. Am big supporter of the No More Page 3 campaign, for instance, but wonder if there is any organised way of objecting to the sexual objectification of women on that show in particular (given huge viewing figures). Anyone aware of anything? If not - maybe one of us should step up and make it happen…..???

Me too, Alsoflamingo. I purposely avoid those sorts of shows for just that reason. Its the women-as-sexy-decorations trope.