What little acts of rebellion or activism do you do?

[Steelworks]

I’m not talking about going on marches, but minor things, that you know about.

Mine is I won’t play Michael Jackson songs, after all the alleged behaviour, which certainly wouldn’t be accepted by today’s standards.

The second is I won’t buy McCain products, after they put out an advert for Smileys, which referred to ‘knocker’s’ in them. I thought that language had died out in the seventies.

This x 💯.
"Why are you letting your hair go grey?"
"Because it's a natural part of the ageing process and doesn't diminish my capacity".

I just can't help myself. Whenever I come across those toilet paper dispensers with the tiny hole in the middle that deliberately try and restrict how much loo paper you take, I pull out twice what I need.

yup, this definitely.

Without trying to sound too worthy 🫣 I don’t buy any products that I know belong to the big monopolies and try to buy from independents/locally produced where possible - food, DIY tools, toiletries, clothes etc. I avoid any products from Israel and I’m trying to break from all US based systems and find European alternatives - AI tools, electronic goods etc. It’s hard to get past Microsoft though - it’s so integrated into our lives. Proton is based in Switzerland and offers secure email, storage etc. Mistral - « Le Chat » is a French LLM if anyone’s interested.

I've boycotted Amazon for years. Spending $bn on vanity space projects rather than projects to end poverty, homelessness or abuse?.

But who asks?

I agree, it's not rebellion but others assume it is.

I do look feminine, I just don't do all the extras.

Life is waaaaaaaay too short to be worrying about this kind of bullshit 🤡

I don’t frequent MacDonalds, KFC, or any other FFC , I don’t go in chain cafes ….much prefer independent businesses, don’t buy from Lush.

Thinking about this thread, I am fast losing patience with a great many people, maybe my filters are declining, maybe I’m getting old 🤷‍♀️. Fact is, most of the time I simply don’t give a shit anymore.

Environmentally, I avoid harsh laundry and household products as I care about what goes into the river, seas and oceans.

And I won’t tag along with people simply to be part of ‘the in crowd’……yes, that’s a thing around here 🙄

I don't care if I don't look feminine. I look like me.

I understand where you're coming from, but that's a tricky one, really. How do you avoid products from China?
I'm not accusing you of hypocrisy, it's just how to manage the whole boycott thing.

Colleagues and friends. "It would take years off you".
Plus both my sisters who appear to be offended by it.

In shops where they put a dearer product in a space where the reduced item is out of stock, I move the items away from the spot, leaving a space. It's usually in grocery shops.

I don't like seeing people thinking they've got a bargain or bought something they can't usually afford only to find when they get home they've been charged more. It's probably staff being lazy but always smacks of being ripped off to me.

I don’t buy from temu or shein etc.

I try to repair my clothes instead of simply buying new items (get shoes resoled, have my jumper mended etc).

I use the feminine grammatical form quite frequently instead of the generic masculine one when writing in my native language (that one wouldn’t make sense in English).

I had a role where I was responsible for signing off on forms for NHS services provided.
The NHS template asked for ‘gender’ and I made the decision ours would have ‘sex’, which was far more appropriate anyway.
Did it knowing I would get a bit of flak for it and went ahead anyway. Still stand by the decision.
Absolutely refused to use pronouns in my email signature when there was significant pressure to do so.
Also never did that stupid phonetic spelling of my name in my signature that was ever so popular for a bit, and totally unnecessary when your name is Jacqui, Catherine or Amy. You’re not that exotic, Cath 🙄

Why are you telling me that? It's not compare and contrast between us.

@Chocolatefreak

I use proton as well. I should absolutely look into AI tools, thank you for reminding me!

good grief and you call them friends?

this is a group convo.

I refuse to fly with emirates as I don't want to set foot in a place like Dubai or put any money into their economy even for a layover.

I never buy anything from Shein or Temu.

I also stopped buying from Frieda Baby after I saw their paedophilic advertising.

It's not depressing how "politics has become embedded in our thoughts", it's a good thing!

A phrase from my youth comes to mind: 'the personal is political'.

We have great power by acting together, eg by boycotting products or companies.

The Budweiser boycotting comes to mind as a great example from recent years.
Also the campaign against any product using palm oil.

As for bottled water, having read what's in tap water I would recommend a good filtering device or use bottled.

We as consumers and citizens have every opportunity to become informed about any issue, and no excuses not to be.

In the olden days forms often had a box marked sex. The expectation was that one would write M or F. I was always tempted to write "regularly", but never dared.

😂

Absolutely! The personal is political.

I don’t shave my arms.

I shave everything else but I keep my hairy arms