Raising kids as feminists?

My mother raised me to believe that women are, in fact, superior to men in every way. I'm struggling not to do this with my DD. I need to guide her to challenge the still prevalent attitude of male superiority and entitlement without the sexism associated with the way/reasons that I challenge it.

In all honesty this belief has served me well at both school and work as I was always challenging the perception that girls/women can't do certain things. I'm aware that this attitude is as sexist as someone believing that men are superior btw.

I know I'm a lot older than many on MN and perhaps I'm more "radical" because I can remember/have experienced levels of sexism which would not now be tolerated anywhere.

And, FWIW, I believe that feminism is about equality for both sexes and is not about putting men down or hating them etc. It's about us all having the same rights.

i dont think its so much girly=gay=bad.

i think its just girly=bad fullstop.

but i hear you sethstarkaddersmom. my DD is obsessed with shoes. putting them on taking them off etc etc. i hadnt thought to myself that this was because she was a GIRL, at least, i didnt think i had. but.....i was at playgroup the other day and a little boy the same age as my DD was also obsessing over everyones shoes and i caught myself thinking it was funny. i metaphorically kicked myself all the way home.....

As I'm not a parent yet I'm not sure I have the right to comment, but from witnessing the kids in my family and those of my friends, it seems that parents are very keen to "give in" to their children when they pick so-called sterotypically "sex-appropriate" stuff. So in the family (where the mother is a child psych FGS) the little girl has an absolute plethora of fairy-princess crap, more than any child could possibly need. There's no reason why they couldn't say no to buying this stuff, but it's all been waiting for her since she was too small to speak. Now she demands it, they don't even think about saying "no". On the other hand, when the little boy switched from ballet to football, the parents made little jokes about heaving a sigh of relief.

TBH I think
a)parents re-learning how to say no to their kids, and

b)wiping out the remaining homophobia would be a good start.

Parents are afraid their boys will be seen as girly because girly=gay and gay=bad.

it's a really interesting issue Ghostlove.

for me it's turned out (to my surprise) to be as much about questioning my own expectations as anything else. I thought that I, at least, would be non-sexist, but I keep catching myself treating them differently (I have a dd and 2 dses, and find that when you have both sexes it is easier to notice.)
For instance: meeting with dd's teacher, teacher tells me dd has a real feeling for numbers, I am astonished, because I've always thought of her talents as being primarily linguistic. Later I read that people tend to overestimate their sons' mathematical abilities and underestimate their daughters'

On average boys are breastfed longer than girls - whaddya know, I bf dd for 6 months and ds1 for 13. Oh, I had perfectly good work-related reasons, but even so....

By Prolesworth Wed 30-Jun-10 17:53:21
What's feminism about if not equality BBJ?

TBH

I'm no longer quite sure. It seems to change depending on who you talk to. (BTW I am not trying to start an arguement or derail the topic)

i dread to think of the influence school will have on my two, i just hope that the stuff that is instilled at home will prevail in the end and they will be nice people who treat all others equally without prejudice.

riven do you think that is because of how you raised them or just because it would have happened anyway because of peer pressure etc?

SEA- Feminism isn't just for girls, y'know...it is about equality BOTH ways.

don't really understand, think education is completely centered around girls atm

so am getting more defensive for my sons sorry no help

I wouldn't say that raising someone to believe in equality is raising a feminist.

challenge all sexism when you hear it/see it. tv, radio, friends etc.