Feminism making me look at everything in a different way

55 replies

raisinsraisins · 27/05/2019 16:43

I blame MN!

Went into London today and got the tube home. There was a woman in my carriage, and then 3 men got on the next stop and sat near her. The men were talking/shouting loudly, playing music on their mobiles, sitting sprawled over lots of seats. Although they weren’t doing anything wrong, I found them a bit threatening. As soon as they got off the tube, the woman got out a sandwich to eat, she obviously didn’t feel comfortable to eat in front of the men.

Another example was yesterday when my DS showed me his school Leavers Video. I asked him why there were hardly any of the girls in the video, but mainly the boys, who were in charge of it all. He said that most of the girls didn’t want to be in the video as they were worried they didn’t look good without their makeup!

Just 2 examples that maybe would have just passed me by, but since getting more involved in feminism and WPUK I have really started noticing everything in a different way. Although that can only be a good thing, I do feel that it sometimes affects my relationship with my DH and DS’s due to my different viewpoints on things...

OP posts:

LizzieSiddal · 27/05/2019 17:32

It’s everywhere and it’s so depressing.

Mumminmum · 27/05/2019 17:21

One of the books in uni had a lot of made up examples of correct and incorrect management behaviour. Whenever it was a manager who did good it was a male, whenever it was someone who made mistakes it was a female. My teacher, who was male, did the male mistake of bragging about knowing the author. I asked him if he had noticed the misogyni of the book. He had not. A female teacher, who was also present exclaimed that this was the reason why she couldn't take the book seriously, despite it being a part of our curriculum.

JellySlice · 27/05/2019 17:08

Yes.

I've always defaulted to he/him/his etc for un-gendered statements. That's what English does. Using one/one's etc can come across quite pretentious, and it can be a bit of a clumsy sentence, too. So using the masculine form is generally considered neutral.

But I have become increasingly uncomfortable with this. I realised that defaulting to masculine is not truly neutral. It effectively erases the female experience.

I actively try to use feminine forms where once I would have used masculine ones. Sometimes people give me odd looks, or ask questions to clarify, as they think I am talking about a specific individual rather than in general.

Ninkaninus · 27/05/2019 16:51

It changes everything. And once you see it, you can never unsee it.

I haven’t got the energy to rage, cry, set out argument, entreat, engage anymore. I am resigned. It was ever thus, and it will continue to be so.

EmpressLesbianInChair · 27/05/2019 16:48

It’s like that.

I felt at first as if the world had changed, then it hit me that things have always been like this & it’s my perspective that’s different.

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