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Original poster

When did you realise women still needed feminism?

27 replies

TowelNumber42 · 01/03/2019 08:36

Inspired by the direction another thread took I wondered if other women had thought feminism unnecessary then had a rude awakening at some point in their lives?

Me, I grew up in a sexist environment but "knew" that how I was treated was something I could change through my own behaviour and general bolshyness. Older women harped on about feminism because they were from the olden days.

Then I had children. Then I realised I had been passed over for promotion earlier in my career without realising (I'd still got a good way up though).

The way I was treated in pregnancy by the medical profession and the world was an eye-opener. I was now the host-organism, a silly woman to be talked down to even when I object and am bolshy.

The attitudes of people who think mumsnet is all pram reviews and lipstick.

Did you think the world was equal then change your mind? What changed it?

OP posts:
howmanybiscuits · 01/03/2019 08:48

Yes, motherhood for me too.

I was always a feminist, my mum's a feminist. But I think I saw it more as club you belong to or - dare I say it - an identity, a set of beliefs, rather than an urgent need to address sexism and discrimination affecting me in my life and other women in the UK.

Then I had kids. And I realised how little the feminism I knew had to say to me about motherhood. And how badly mothers are treated, what we are meant to bear and just STFU and get on with it.

And, the extreme marketing of gender stereotypes to children became apparent to me, and how much things had chanced for the worse since I was little - I'd just assumed we were getting more progressive as time went on.

And more recently, I'm terrified fro my kids grouping up in a society that's teaching them that if you're different, then you need hormones and surgery to help you fit in. And I've woken up to how little women are listened to, how sexist all the woke bros and those in power are.

Feminist campaigning is now a major part of my life, before motherhood it was something I nodded along to but nothing I actually spent any time on.

Mumsney has had a lot to do with that!

Original poster
TowelNumber42 · 01/03/2019 08:36

I'm going in to work now so lack of response isn't a post and hide. Laterz squints.

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