Deprogramming

It's interesting that child rearing has never really been part of the discourse of feminism except, I suppose, in terms of workplace crèches. It's a real sticking point. I sometimes wonder if it's just too difficult to address.

Which is why you often hear women say that they did not become feminists until they had children.

looking after children is given very little value in any context- whether it's done by mothers or by other women being paid peanuts to do it.

:o

Lol yes, I'd find it difficult too. I suspect if he had some mates he'd take them instead.

I'd find it pretty hard to impulsively pop the the pub with a mattress. I can just about manoeuvre a mattress around on my own but it's a bit unwieldy, isn't it? And you'd have to find a table with plenty of spare space around it. :o

A lot of things on this thread are resonating with me. Particularly the posts about cleaning before guests come. Dh thinks people have come to see us and should ignore any mess, but I am very aware that there are minimum socially acceptable standards (even for people who claim not to care about what our house looks like) that we fall short of. And I'm aware that even if we're OK with that most of the time, visitors judge me (not him, even though he works fewer days in a less demanding job than me) if they arrive and we're falling short of those minimum standards. We've employed a cleaner, (16yo dd1 because she's finding it difficult to find a proper Saturday job) but that doesn't solve the issue of friends coming over and nobody has done last night's dishes, cleaned the kitchen/bathroom or hoovered for a week. So when friends/family come over I spend a couple of hours getting the house up to minimum standard. I don't particularly want to spend that time doing it, but it's better than dealing with the comments/helping out from DM/mil or seeing the looks on friends' faces when they spot the mountains of stuff that have built up.

Dh would say that we do the housework equally, and a few months ago I would have agreed because when we list chores or lists are pretty equal. Recently I've started to notice the hidden differences, like me doing cm drop off/pick up every day means he has more freedom than me, he can finish whatever job he's doing at work before leaving/go to the gym on the way home/impulsively pop to the pub with mattress but I can't because i have to get to the cm by a certain time. Or he does the supermarket shop on his day off in the week but if he has a deadline and needs to work that day then he doesn't do it and it becomes my job at the weekend. Or the fact that when I'm on holiday (I'm a teacher, so have more holidays than most) all of his chores automatically become mine , even on his day off. Now I've noticed these inequalities we're working on them, but neither of us had even noticed them before.

I also love the guilty feminist podcast.

I would also like to say to women: by having a baby you are doing a wonderful, difficult thing. You are not an inconvenience to men's lives. You do not have to do everything and be everything to everyone to the detriment of your own health. You deserve your own life and leisure time as much as anyone else.

^^ this got me in the chest. Thank you for writing it, I needed to read it.

One of the things I struggle with is being a very high achieving kid and twenty year old, being brought up to think a career was the be all and end all and then making the decision to step off a career ladder which made me hugely unhappy in order to have kids and work part time in a decent but non-career type job. I love being a mum, I'm good at it and I like my current job.

What I find really hard is my parent's attitude to what I've done and the other family adults around me. DH has a glittering career and there's much interest in that and none at all in the work I've chosen to do. My mum, a self declared feminist, doesn't value my almost-SAHM status and finds the whole thing hugely awkward. It's like she thinks I'm not being a feminist by walking away from the high profile job, when in my mind its feminist to have whatever choice I make accepted.

This is a really interesting thread.

I am a big fan of a (comedy) podcast you might like that features a lot of this "how your socialisation undermines your ideals" side of feminism.

www.guiltyfeminist.com/

My dd also had a short bob at 5 - no bullying then - round that time she also spent a few years wanting to be a boy and dressing in boy's clothes only. No teasing at all.
Short hair at school is just easier - hers is very thick. But there is definitely an age when girls are starting to be self-conscious and wanting to fit inthat long hair is the only accepted style.

I hope girls don't get bullied for having short hair. Dd is desperate to get hers cut into a short bob (will cut it next weekend).
Really hoping she doesn't get any crap for it.

She's dreadful for conformity herself though. Constantly talks about long hair being only for girls (she's 5). So I point out two of her male friends who have long hair and her grandmothers with short hair. She gets it then - but one week later we are back to square one "boys have short hair" I guess the vast majority of the boys she knows do have short hair but not all of them.
It's enough to drive you mad.

Agree with Buffy about the emotional work that needs to be done to fight this. Just been on holiday with my family. My Mum has very old fashioned views about gender roles and really does not approve of my marriage where DH and I both work PT and do the housework (for information our male cleaner cleans the toilet). Her disapproval consists of ignoring DH and constantly criticising me for being lazy and selfish, it's really hard work to try and rise above it. We live a long way away so it's only for a couple of weeks a year at least.

some boys and girls were making fun of her choice to have short hair

My daughters have had this and they've got bobs FFS. And never mind the abuse they get if they dare to wear trousers to school (allowed in the rules, but breaking gender rules according to other pupils). DD1 is a mini-feminist with the brains and sarky attitude that means she can come up with good one liners to put the boys who come out with this shite down but DD2 finds it really upsetting, she's young in her class and really wants to conform at the moment even though she knows it's all rubbish.

Hair has gotten longer in the last ten years or so. I blame celebrity culture with all the TOWIE girls and Cheryl Cole with what are clearly extensions all over their heads. I had what I believe is termed a "page boy" from 11-18 and a bob before that. So did lots of girls, it wasn't uncommon. I then grew it at uni for thrifts sake and have had long and short styles since but have noticed when I've had short hair and bobs in the last few years that I'm in the minority. Depressing. As it happens I have quite long hair again now but that's young kids and being poor. I much prefer a shorter style.

Ah, OK. Maybe it 's from the media then. By the time they are 16 or so it seems to be a bit more free and easy with styles. But the amount of hard staring she's had in public has been quite surprising - including women in the Ladies toilets.

I'm in the US, Geraniumred. It's definitely a thing here too.

Senneca - it seems to be a peculiarly UK thing as we noticed many girls her age with short styles when we were abroad last year. She had people asking if she were a boy or girl - even though she wore a skirt!

Sorry Seneca the "post above" is not yours but PassiveAgressives referring to autism.

I have no idea what the post above is referring to. I am not autistic, never claimed to be autistic and have never once commented on any matter relating to autism.

I have my own views on this idea of "deprogramming" (which frankly I find an utterly depressing and infantilised idea of being an adult woman ) but what has to do with autism escapes me.

I was thinking about the hair thing today. It's more than just fashion, I think. It part of the hyper-gendering that goes on with children from even before they are born with all the blue/pink distinctions, etc. When I was a child a lot of girls had pixie cuts, at least as many as those who had long hair. I have not seen a girl with short hair in ages. It's really disturbing to know that those who do are belittled and teased because of it.

**

Oh that is easy be born on the autistic spectrum, peer pressure just washes over you, well it does me.

My dd has a pixie cut at the moment, which she loves. She's 11 and just about to start high school. She's scared because on her induction day some boys and girls were making fun of her choice to have short hair - looking her up and down and jibing her. It makes me really angry that such a simple thing as hair length should make her a target. Nearly all girls of her age have long hair.

I can't really complain on the housework front since DH does actually do most of it.

But my god the fucking toilet. I don't know how I always get saddled with it.

Entirely frustrating too to witness the difference between the toilet where I lived at home, in a household of three women. DM was the one to clean it then but she isn't very domestic and probably didn't do it very often, maybe once a month??

But living with two males there is pee EVERYWHERE. And it's not even like they don't aim. It's just that DH literally refuses to believe that when you stand two feet above something and pour liquid into it that drops escape. FFS. But I'm the only one who notices the fact it stinks so I'm the only one who ever cleans it.

It's 10x better since we moved to a place with one of those weird floaty toilets without a base - it doesn't need doing every day any more - but it's still annoying.