Feminist Pub XX - may the summer rains wash the patriarchy down the plughole

@Fluffy: Have you looked into the possibility of employing a woman-lead firm for plumbing and electricity and stuff?

I only know this service: pinkplumbers.com/ and they seem more about repairs, but researching women-friendly firms might save you some time and nasty experiences.

Testicle (cool name! ) - I'm going to nip it in the bud now, so emailed the solicitor requesting that I'm named first on the deeds of the house. It seems so trivial, but it's been winding me up for ages - I'm sorry you've had a similar experience.

My partner is a feminist (I couldn't be with someone who wasn't) and he totally 'gets it', so is completely happy for me to go first on things. We opened a joint bank account in the summer to save for our deposit and when the lady asked 'Who shall I put first?' he said 'Put Fluffy first please'... which meant a lot to me as he's first on so much stuff!

I think I'm having a slightly easier ride as I am being phoned by the Estate Agent (ever since my partner instructed them to contact me before him) and they do seem to have been doing that.

It's only NATIONWIDE who seem to have an outdated I.T. system which only list the first person on the mortgage application, even if it's a joint one... (Sort it out, you idiots.... it's the 21st century, after all).

As soon as we move in, I'll be the one sorting out the plumbing / electrician / carpet laying and also getting a very high-tech house alarm sorted (I got burgled a number of years ago and am so paranoid about house safety) ... One of the number one criteria will be 'If you try and talk to my partner and not me... you're not getting the work'. I've had mixed experiences of tradesmen and suppliers, however once I've found someone who treats me like a human being and not the 'Little woman' and provides a good quality of service at a competitive price, I tend to be quite loyal to them.

I hope your name comes first on loads of things in the future!

Bloody amazing and brave Irish women

Grauniad article

FluffyPersian, my partner and I bought a house last year and I went through exactly the same thing. His name was first (if mine was there at all) on many documents and letters, he was being emailed and telephoned and not me, it made me feel like crap to be honest. We were joint buyers and had a joint mortgage.

I rang up one of them (solicitors or estate agent can't remember which) and said my name wasn't on one of the documents and I was concerned. It was nothing important I was just trying to give them a polite kick up the backside to start including me, they apologised and said they'd send out a new one and so on but they never did. I told my dp to forward any emails to me that he got that weren't sent to me and I would reply to all, or to cc me in, he did and they continued to send new emails to him alone. They'd phone and leave him voicemails and not try me. We had a mortgage broker who did the same but dp had dealt with them more so I could accept that; I expected more from the solicitors though, particularly as most of the people we spoke with were women.

Argh it got me so down at the time but thinking back I feel angry! I probably would have kicked up more of a fuss but I was home with a newborn and just wasn't in the right frame of mind to deal with it.

Since we are having to get work done on the house and I'm determined not to have anyone who treats me as inferior to dp. It's proved a struggle I'm sad to say. I think I was a bit blind to all this before as up until moving in with dp I'd been surrounded by females. Single mother, all girls school, flat sharing with female friends. Now I'm seeing first hand people actually treating my partner, my equal, like my superior! I hadn't realised that before writing this but that's exactly it.

Sorry for the outburst. I follow this thread usually and saw that post and it brought back all those memories from moving that I'd forgotten.

You are becoming a radical feminist? Well, better late than never!

So the clothes stay on all the way through the game, that answers a question from another thread.

And i am currently feeling like a stereotype, like adrian moles mum, hitting my mid life crisis getting all radicalised.

Fluffy

fluffy, I'm annoyed on your behalf. Not for the first time, I will say that the banking industry has some really outdated ideas on women.

I'm just catching up on the thread. I'm playing tomb raider and it's a really great game. The last one was good too. It shows Lara as a really 3 dimensional character. Her body shape is as you'd expect, her clothes are stylised but practical. I think in the 90s she was about 40% boobs.

Unfortunately not....

I have found my inner rage and am now channeling it massively....

We got the formal mortgage offer through yesterday

Well, I say 'we', it wasn't addressed to the little woman, only the big strong man.....

Oh, my name is in there, hidden on page 3 as the 'other borrower', but not mentioned anywhere else, as .. well.. I wouldn't ever want to make any decisions, would I?

The fact it was only addressed to my partner has literally made me go ballistic... (hence why I'm writing this before work )

I've just fired off a polite, yet curt emails, inquiring as to why the letter wasn't also addressed to me and stating that I am not happy that this is a joint mortgage application, yet only one of us seems to be getting regular updates. There is literally no way they can justify this apart from gender... I've got the larger salary, My name comes first the alphabet (both forename and surname)... I've got my Dr title on there, so it's not even a 'The title dictates who gets put on there'....

The way I feel at the moment, I'd rather lose the house than have to be the 'other party' and not be a joint equal in this process.

Annoyed++

The only time ever I didn't correct a rental agent who called me Mrs I got asked who I was sharing a 1-bed flat with.

God, I'm going to have to finally bite the bullet and try a cup aren't I... pretty much everyone who does seems to love them, and I'm having loads of hassle with leaking too..

House buying I managed everything (visited broker together - but he had DP's number immediately and contacted me for everything).

Rental agencies on the other hand - despite never having met DP (he could have been a figment of my imagination) sent plenty of stuff to him - including vital paperwork, when they knew he was going to be away for a fortnight (lucky I open his post) and me being the primary contact on everything.

Fluffy - as another data point, when DP and I bought our house, our mortgage broker asked which of us to put first on the application (me). Main contact was with me as agreed (DP worked in another city at that point so would have been very inconvenient if they'd called him for appointments etc). I did the initial booking of appointments but I do remember DP being the one who phoned to make an offer, so if they'd been sexist arseholes I suppose they could have used that as an "excuse" to switch. They didn't. That's what normal behaviour should be.

I am also quite polite. But after initial interactions, politeness from me is something earned. They haven't been respectful of you, so I don't think they've earned your respect or politeness.

I never heard of menstrual cups before MN either. But I love my mooncup.

Today the postie delivered my menstrual cup. Hadn't heard of them until reading on MN few years ago, the price put me off and because I struggle with Tampons I thought a cup would be uncomfortable too. Since having my implant out my periods have been ridiculous and leaking has been a big problem for me. Decided the cups are worth a try, (lots of choice,I went with ruby cup because they donate one to women in third world countries for every purchase) OMG I'm converted. Had no hassle with insertion,really comfortable, in fact can't even feel it and best of all, absolutely no leakage!

Just had to share how much I love it. I'm going to bore every woman I know :)

Thanks - I appreciate it’s ‘not just me’ … You know when you’re not sure?

I did object when the broker put in Miss… then apologised when I said I wasn’t a Miss and put in Mrs… and then I said I wasn’t one of them either. I’m absolutely fine with Ms / Dr, I just don’t want to state my relationship status. He was fine with it, didn’t roll eyes or anything… It was just all 3 things and I was like ‘Hang on a minute’….

I’ve just phoned the Brokers assistant, but she’s not in the office so have left a message to please call me back. I was going to politely ask her to phone me, rather than my partner as he’s mostly in Client meetings throughout the day and I will be able to action things quicker… (90% true, part of me just wants to be the one in control anyway!). I’ll also inquire as to why I haven’t been contacted before if it’s a joint application – ‘is this a process they follow and if so, could it be amended’ type of thing…

I’m mostly a polite person... mostly

I agree. Raise hell.

I also had to tell people politely that I'm not Mrs Never, and certainly my husband is not Mr Never, because Never is my name, not his. Usually you have to spell out that you are Dr Never (or Ms Never if the opposite party cannot contemplate a woman having a doctorate) and your husband is Mr NotNever.

It's really difficult. I have no idea why. Or perhaps I do...

@Fluffy: I am not an important person in any way, so have not experienced this, but I saw it happen with other people.

Also: Letters to me that say "Mr. Vestal", despite my real life name being obviously female. It tells me that their default letter is addressed to a male.

Those things are all small, but they add up. Your anger is justified. Maybe you decide to aim it at those bigger things and fight them, but that's your choice.

I personally think that we ought to have our priorities straight; reproductive rights, financial equality, etc. are more important, and solving those issues might even solve the other ones (If a female Dr becomes more common, this address problem will hopefully cease to exist), but it is all connected.

I like to compare it to diabetes type II, or metabolic syndrome. Fat people are more resistant to insulin, which causes them to produce more of it to keep blood sugar low, which causes more fat to be stored in cells, which in turn causes them to become even fatter.

People who don't eat unusually much can become fat because of a pre-existing insulin resistance of their cells.

So there's different points where intervention is possible - media mostly say to lose weight, which would remove the visible symptoms, but doesn't get to the root of the problem.

(And it is even more complicated than that. Just like feminism)

Likewise, if we can change the perception of academic title = male that might encourage more girls to try and get one - but one can also directly support girls in achieving higher education.

It would be good to have some research on what works better (for my diabetes example above, I know that low carb diets help), but as long as there is none, I think we should just all do what we can do best.

Am I getting precious over nothing?

No. Raise hell. Politely if you are so inclined. These things won't change until enough women object.

Despite being a feminist, I’ve been quite lucky that despite working in I.T. – I’ve not actually encountered much sexism.

However buying a house!!!!!!!!

I don’t know if it’s me just getting wound up for no reason but this has really annoyed me!

Example 1: Found house we liked online, I phoned up and booked viewing – Gave both our names Dr A Fluffy and Mr B Fluffys partner (we’re not married) we looked round house and liked it, so made an offer. Letter came back:

Dear Mr B and A Fluffy’s Partner and Dr Fluffy (So there’s 3 people in our relationship apparently?)

….

I think the system couldn’t cope with a Dr and a Mr…

Example 2: I found the solicitors through my sister (Estate Agent). I phoned them up, spoke to them, gave details our details… got them to email me all the documents…

All of the documents attached were labelled ‘Fluffys partner. Doc’

Okaaaaaaaaay

Example 3: I found the broker through my sister as well, I phoned him up, emailed him, the only details he knew of my partner was his name. We confirmed a meeting with him.. met him… he was really polite to both of us…. Put my partners name first on everything – OK, fine.. 50% chance of that happening, I guess, so didn’t kick off.

Once done, I find out a few days later that my partner has been getting calls from the Brokers assistant and when she can’t get through, rather than phone me, she just left a voicemail and asked him to call her back.

Is it me? Am I getting precious over nothing? It’s just little things that put together, make me really angry, but then I think ‘There are bigger things in the world to get annoyed about’ .. but when I make the effort, sort things out – surely I should be the one being contacted?

Has anyone else experienced this?