What's your number 1 feminist ishoo?

That point about men taking naps while women are busy reminds me. I was watching my stepmum knitting while watching TV the other week, and it got me thinking. Even though these days knitting, crocheting, doing tapestries etc aren't essential and women do them as a hobby, it still strikes me that it's women being busy even during their leisure time. Like it's so ingrained in us that we should always be engaged in some useful task that sometimes we can't even relax in front of the TV in the evening unless we are also actively doing something with our hands.

My biggest bugbear has to be that when a woman speaks up against or points out sexism it is belittled (by either making out she has no sense of humour or that it's simply not an issue)

Violence in relationships. I am both shocked and depressed when I read Relationship threads here. It is stunning what a woman can come to perceive as normal.

Yep exactly ilkley. Good for you bigkids!

Men seem to think they can go off and do their hobbies too without worrying about looking after their DCs.

How many mothers in comparison will just assume they can spend evenings and weekends doing their own thing.

They ask your gender at online check in for small turbo prop planes, where it must matter more than for jumbos.

I assume they use an average weight for men and women. They also make you stay in your assigned seat for take off and landing, even if there are spare sears, but they sometimes ask people to move, perhaps if they notice a few large people on one side of the plane.

Unacceptable though to assume all Drs are men though.

I had a crafty nap when DH did bath time yesterday

Hurly I think this is a good illustration of the assumption of male privilege in real life and not trivial at all. I work my buns off all day every day ( other than now obvs! ) and have never ever had a crafty nap when other folk are busy. I would like to know when was the last time any one posting here had time to themselves and didn't feel guilty about it

That's rather shocking of EasyJet micah - someone must have messed up there - surely it can't be actual company policy that any female doctors be "told off" for not declaring themselves as female (when not even asked to do so) Very strange

This will seem so trivial compared to most things here, but what really gets my goat day in day out, is that men think it's perfectly acceptable to fall asleep on the sofa at any hour of the day. I see this with DH, my dad, my uncles, my friends' DHs, dads etc. Women are always too busy doing stuff.

For me it's sanitation issues. Women in India who don't have access to toilets and have to hold it in from dawn to dusk because they'll be assaulted if they dare to urinate outside during daylight hours. Girls who have to give up school when their periods start due to menstruation taboos and lack of sanitary products.

Then there's fgm.

Then housework. And the fact that barbie dolls don't just skew girls' views on female images but boys too.

AF nope I can't do it either .. Too much to be hacked off about although I do agree Capitalism is the root of many evils....
Damsilli I totaly agree with Zazzels and Petula. Also had to smile at your post earlier this afternoon re your comment 'no 1' . ironic since you accused me and others of pedantry on a recent thread re reporting of rape!!

I rather like the idea of fence gratin

I was wondering, Apocalypse. I was torn between it being an autocorrect I couldn't figure out, some weird Latin phrase or just an interesting concoction of cheese melted over a garden fence you were having for dinner!

By "fence gratin", I do of course mean denigration. I could suggest an auto check conspiracy...

Just thd routine fence gratin of women as a class. Nothing women do or say is really taken seriously. Except when it can be used to curtail women's rights, of course. Then it's an issue.

Like the whole drinking in pregnancy foolishness. You can tell how few people see women as anything other than mobile wombs.

That is pretty appalling, Micah. The assumption that anyone with the title Dr is fairly universally assumed to be male outside actual medial practice or academia. Considering how many female MDs and PhDs there are now, it's a rather outdated assumption to make!

Their weight distribution thing is bollocks anyway, people move around. We flew to France last week, and they had us in one row of three, and then one seat in the middle of the opposite row. Fine, except that they'd put on of the DDs in that row. Why on earth do they thing any sane parent would put their small child (mine are 6 and 9) to sit between two random strangers. So of course DH sat there instead and the DDs sat either side of me.

The Mr/Mrs/Ms thing reminded me...

I have a PhD, and my title is Dr. Easy jet have an option for Dr title when you book the flight.

When I checked in I was given a telling off for using Dr, as how were they to know I was female, and that would upset their passenger, and therefore weight, distribution.

It was busy so I didn't question it at the time, but thinking about it-

Are they assuming all dr's are male, and of male weight? Apart from being horrifically sexist, If it's that important to them, don't offer non gendered titles, or ask which sex when booking.

What happens if I'd pitched up as a 9 stone male or a 15 st female? You can't predict gender by weight...if the sex of a passenger is that important to weight distribution, surely they should ask for a weight range on booking..

Equal pay.

Totally agree Violet. I was talking to a friend's DH about some news story and he was coming over as so shocked that "over there women are second-class citizens!" (even though I know him to be pretty sexist himself )

I said (not in an aggressive way, just reasonably) "But women are second-class citizens in this country too." He simply wouldn't have any of it, even when I pointed out the statistics on pay, DV etc.

Damsili, Petula is a long-term poster in FWR, and the last thing that any of us posters who post here regularly would say about her is that she is difficult. You on the other hand... Petula has made a perfectly reasonable request of you, why do need to call such a reasonable request 'difficult'? And if you see her post as problematic and difficult, do you feel it would be difficult for you personally to comply? Why is it difficult for you to comply with a perfectly reasonable request? I suggest that you have a deeper think about the questions I have posed. The other thing is, why do you need to come on a thread and go against the grain of the thread with your posts? Do you realise that you are doing this, and then when someone points it out, you say "You're stifling me"? Is there some sort of need for attention that you are trying to fulfil? Please have a think about these questions.

Nope, can't do it

Can't think of just one

The fact that so many people don't see/ refuse to accept that the things mentioned here, and the many more issues facing women even exist.

It seems to be commonly accepted that we women have it so good now, apart from those 'few cases' in 'backwards countries'

Scratches head