Aibu to complain to the school- everyday sexism?

[rosybell]

So DS just asked me if I can make cakes for the school Christmas fair- he said that the headteacher told them to ask their mummies if they like baking can they make cakes for the fair this weekend.

DS is 6 but he is pretty reliable and said she definitely just said 'mummies' not grown ups or parents. It's only a minor thing I know (..and yes I have plenty of more important things to worry about..) but this kind of everyday sexism really gets to me. Should I mention it to the school?

If this is all you have to worry about then you are very lucky. Move on.

I was at secondary in the mid 80s we all did cookery and woodwork. In my computer science class it was 50/50 girls and boys. Technology only a couple of girls. The shorthand and typing class wasn't even open to boys.
When my DC were small in the early 2000s that comment may have passed in noticed
We have come a long way but there is still far to go, I would be that parent

It’s things like this that give me the rage. I recently got my new credit card through as the other one went out of date. My dh has a card but he’s an additional holder on my account. It’s all in my name but the two cards came with his first on the letter. Why? Surely the cardholder who actually pays should be first? Not the man under all circumstances? Makes me cross.

Boils my piss when people say, 'oh not worth venting
Over every tiny thing that you hear 2nd hand?
People who vent over every tiny little thing are silly and need to chill out instead of using as a way to prove how progrssive and righteous they are.

People are human. They may make odd insensitive comments. It doesn't mean complaining over every little thing is the way forward.

My son's teacher said this sort of thing to him, my son (5) replied that he rather daddy make them instead.

I may have a reputation of being a shit baker

sobeyondthehills
Brilliant!

That's also a much better challemge than calling up school to go Hello Mrs Blogs. Timmy informs me that you said bakong with mummies. Now you may not realose this but actually that is very sexist and damaging. Let me explain why... ... ... I do hope in future you will be watching what you say otherwisr I'm sure you understand that will have to mention this to the headteacher.

We had an email home before last summer offering a work experience/ summer admin job for any girls that might be interested - coordinating and summer admin assistant to help support a visiting school tour over the holidays.

I emailed the HT and asked if the visiting school group were a single sex group from a culture where it would be inappropriate to have male support staff working with the group, or if there was a specific reason it was being advertised for female students.

His response was essentially 'no idea, I didn't think to ask'.

This from a school with a male running the school reception and office.

if we don't call people out it will never change
and if we do we are overreacting and being "sensitive"
THAT boils my piss

It’s easy to dismiss ‘tiny little comments’ but they can indicate deep seated world views. Yes we’re all human but if you don’t have an internalised sexist narrative then it doesn’t tend to accidentally slip out In conversation. And what about the adopted child with two dads, or the one with a widowed single father? Not every child has a mum and even if they do, she might prefer car maintenance and DIY to baking cakes

sherridan
I'm not denying the content of the comment or that it could be insensitive

I just question whether calling up the school over one comment that's been mentioned 2nd hand is actually doing anything or whether it just leaves the complainer with that smug sense of 'i called them out'.

Send the child in with baking done with daddy, talk to DC about gender roles, run a home with balanced gender roles, talk to DC about different families etc. All those things are far more fruitful in terms of working against ingrained sexist attitudes than calling up the school over one comment.

My god. Who would want to be a teacher, these days, if this is what they have to put up with on a daily basis? Get over it.

I never got asked to bake, our kids thought my baking was punishment.
The PTA never asked me to join, they baked the cakes and ran stalls for all school occasions.
Bingo, what luck

I was going to suggest indoctrinating the children to put up their hands and ask 'is it ok if daddy bakes?'
Better the teacher gets corrected by a 6 year old. Might remember next time.

Bloody impossible though. When ds was that age he announced rather witheringly that he didn't really want to grow up and get married as it was all such Hard Work. (Smart kid). Dd1 (next to him in the tub - whatever, shoot me now) was aghast and argued that mummies did ALL the cooking and cleaning, and so he could get his wife to do it all. Given that dh cooks pretty much every night, has sole charge of the Ironing Pile of Doom, and caters to all barfing episodes, I can only assume she had been watching too much Barbie that day.

Do you really go running up to the school complaining when the teacher says one little thing in the course of a day that you think you need to get on your high horse about? Your six year old said that the teacher said it, and you got worked up enough to actually question them about it, and now want to complain? Bake the cake and STFU.

OP, I agree it's unacceptable.

sherridan 's comment expresses my own view too.

It’s easy to dismiss ‘tiny little comments’ but they can indicate deep seated world views. Yes we’re all human but if you don’t have an internalised sexist narrative then it doesn’t tend to accidentally slip out In conversation. And what about the adopted child with two dads, or the one with a widowed single father? Not every child has a mum and even if they do, she might prefer car maintenance and DIY to baking cakes.

I may have been that parent when I called out my ds1s teacher for using the trope ‘boys will be boys’ about a boy in his class pushing DS over in the cloakroom.
I asked him if would say that to a grown man punching someone, and he kind of mumbled at me.
That kind of casual sexism needs calling out.

I would challenge it too.

Stuff like this only continues because people don't challenge it. Making a better society for our children is more important than mild social embarrassment.

And I do: my biggest bugbear is people saying that something was 'manned' instead of 'staffed' and I do call it out whenever I hear it.

Since I've moved to the US it's become really noticeable to me how sexist some job titles still are in the UK.

Postman (here it is mail carrier)
Binman (here it is refuse collector)
Fireman (here it is firefighter)

I found it really noticeable on the thread about tipping your postie.

Not saying this to be critical of the UK - it just seemed like yet more everyday sexism that we don't even really think about...

It might only seem small but it’s the tiny ‘drip drip drip’ that we feed our girls that leads to the gender pay gap, inequality, feelings of low self esteem (I could go on)...
at my sons school all the girls are angels in the nativity. Why? There are male angels... it’s 2017 and it depresses me.
My DHs friend commented when my son got dirty ‘your mummy is going to have to do the washing and won’t be pleased with you’. My DH interrupted and said that he did all laundry (and ironing ) he does.
Same when my MIL talks to me about thank you cards and gifts for DHs family, they’re his bloody family he can do them!!

madamginger
I think you were right to raise that. It was a phrase used to make generalisations about boys in reaponse to an incident where a child was violent towards another child.

I still question whether a throw away commebt about baking is really worth wasting school time over. It's probably hugely more beneficial to talk yo DC about dated gender roles for mums and dads so that they are able to ask questions or weigh up what's been said rather than call up complaining because 'Timmy said that Mrs blogs said... and now I'm going to enlightem you'.

If they are a staff member who is aware of sexism etc and it was a minor mistake hen they're just going to be eye rolling through the whole call ans laugh about the lecture later.
If the staff member genuinely holds fixed sexist views then they'll probably pay zero attention and then have a good vent later about 'political correctness gone mad'.

Either way, nothing changes. It just wastes school time and makes the complainer look like a busybody.

Maisy it's not women in general's fault that teachers are overworked.

Your workload has nothing to do with OP's right to complain about this sort of shit.

OP complain.

CheapSausagesAndSpam
I'm not saying it is their fault.

I'm pointing out that calling a school up to complain that 'DC says that the teacher said something about mummies baking' won't actually do anything. It just wastes school time (and we have lots of useful to stuff to be doing without dealing with silly phonecalls about a baking comment made hours/days ago).

Now if the comment had been made in the playground and OP was there then a friendly challenge like 'oh can he not bake with daddy too?' Would be absolutely appropriate.

But calling up days later based on something heard 2nd hand? All sounds a bit self-righteous to me.

Earlier in the thread someone referred to an appalling Mother’s Day song- may be the one our school used with the stunning line ‘ she may not have a degree’

Fab.

Nishky
And it would be absolutely worth raising concerns about that song to the school, politely and through thr correct channels.

But one comment about baking with mummies? Nope. Still a complete waste of everyone's time.