To ask why some mum's don't care about feminism?

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I have a daughter. I want her to have the same rights as her brother, the same opportunities, the same life experiences.
I try not to bore but I think that any mum who has a daughter should be interested in feminist issues, if not for herself. Yet I still feel that not enough people give a shit.
I post on another group where mum's dissect every part of the parenting experience. We're talking thread after thread of car seats, which sling to buy, how to talk a toddler out of a tantrum without using negative language. Yet when I posted about how we can encourage girls to get into STEM I got no response. Does anyone care? I feel like I get nowhere when I try to get the debate going about how we should give our daughters the best toolkits to go off there and be amazing. In real life too, I sometimes feel people glaze over when I talk about equal rights, like it doesn't effect them. You are a woman, you should care!!

If a girl is good at science and maths, that’s great, but it would be equally great if she excelled in English and drama, surely? And conversely for a boy.

Yes, of course.

I think really, it's about keeping all the doors open, and making sure they are aware (at a subconscious level maybe) that they can walk through whichever suits them.

tssdncp do you have a fucking problem? You can read. You can see I was specifically responding to someone telling me how I should do feminism.

So aggressive. You should consider relaxing a bit. You’d be a lot nicer.

So aggressive. You should consider relaxing a bit. You’d be a lot nicer.

She's working on overcoming female socialisation, I reckon.

I do think it's important to get the balance right from the start.
My dgd is only a few months old but me and dil are already considering the importance.
E.g her mum is all oh my beautiful Princess which is lovely, so she will have a girly grandma ito old stereotypes who will no doubt buy a lot of pink. I have volunteered for puzzles, maths, science and educational toys.
I agree that you raise your dds to be who they want to be, doing what they want to do, not just taking a job for the sake of one, but because they find what they are good at and enjoy.

I think we are never going to solve the feminist issue of equal pay gap, opportunities, glass ceilings etc in the workplace until structured support is put in place for affordable childcare, men taking full paternity leave and taking 50% of domestic responsibility and women taking 50% financial responsibility. The issues are structural. I have a friendship group of about 15 women. Just 3 including myself are working top jobs. All 15 of us are degree educated. The remaining 13 all have the attitude of 'can't make it work'. For many reasons a lot is against them from working until their children leave home. I can work and afford childcare because I have the ideal work utopia : 100% flexible working hours and flexible location , high salary and a husband who has the same and we do have 50% equal responsibilities domestic financial and childcare. It never used to be that way but we have now landed with STEM companies who are very progressive in that respect. Next job might not be so fortunate!

I tend not to post anything in feminist chats as i don't agree with alot of the views alot of feminists share.
I have a son and a daughter and bring them up equally, i tell them they can both do anything they want etc (jobs, hobbies). I won't treat my dd different to my ds and i give them both the same values.
I don't think girls should be pushed to learn something they might not be interested in just because there is a lack of females in that area.
Surely we should all just be telling our children they can have any job?

They sound like pretty feminist beliefs to me Cheryl

Actually by focusing on getting girls into traditionally male roles you are completely undermining feminism. You are perpetuating the principle that only traditional male roles have value and therefore you are automatically undervaluing the traditional female roles.

Try concentrating on increasing the pay and status of traditionally female roles if you truest care about feminism.

eminism is about celebrating all that is good about women, not just finding ways of women being like men

OR do both which is what feminism already does.

We do need more women in stem because at the moment we are not getting all of our best people in important areas. Do you think we will cure cancer or AIDS as quickly if half the people who could be studying don't think they belong in that field? No, we then have to choose from the best of half the population meaning we lose some of the best and brightest before they even get a chance

Do you think it is relevant that research has focused on men and the result is that we don't fully understand the way some illnesses present in women? Or that women disproportionately die in car accidents because men studying it used male crash test dummies? It's not feminist virtue signalling. It's important.

don't think girls should be pushed to learn something they might not be interested in just because there is a lack of females in that area.Surely we should all just be telling our children they can have any job?

The point cheryl is that school and society may well be pushing a girl who is naturally good at science towards a career they wont want because they are a girl. Parents are just making sure their daughters have the same opportunities boys have. Whats wrong with that?

We force children to learn about lots of things they arent interested in. Thats called education! We don't only learn the stuff we want to or most kids wouldn't branch out any further than Paw Patrol.

I hope my daughter will be interested in STEM subjects when she is older, my career is science based and job role is a type of technician. If someone mentioned it in a baby group I probably wouldn't bother replying because she's only 5 months old so right now it isn't relevant

It kind of is googlemum. The difference in toys that girls and boys are given starts right at the very beginning. Boys are given cars ans toys that move and blocks to build.

I don’t think we should only teach our daughters about feminism. For it to work, we need to teach our sons too. I have a son (won’t be having anymore) and that’s my plan anyway.

@CookieDoughKid men taking full paternity leave?

Men by law only have 2 weeks. Anything else is shared with the mother.

At the moment my partner is on SPLP. He's taking the leave I decided not to take for financial reasons as he gets full pay and I get statutory.

A few other men I know have taken or will take SPLP but that means the mother of the child will cut her maternity leave short. In many of the cases it is because the man's employer gives him decent pay for those weeks while the woman's pay will be statutory.

Ideally men should have at least 3 months on full pay for themselves. More men would be encouraged to take it as they will think it's easier than working.

Just what you want in a discussion about feminism, woman telling you, your view is not right or explaining/patronising.
And I'm sure half of you use the the word mansplaning about men doing the same thing you have just done to me

I’m involved with a few feminist groups because of another issue I’m involved in and I have to say, I’m fed up being “congratulated” that my DD doesn’t “conform to gender stereotypes”
It actually really winds me up. I didn’t force pink, Disney and princesses but I didn’t keep them from her either. They’ve mentioned STEM loads of times in relation to DD (who is 8!) but I’d celebrate her and be just as proud if she wanted to be a beautician, hairdresser etc.
I’m just a bit jaded really.

. I won't treat my dd different to my ds and i give them both the same values.

Great, but the point the op was making is that society doesn't treat them the same way. Everyone knows the famous male scientists, tech ect. not so much the female ones.

So our sons and daughters will not be equally exposed to role models in science, technology, maths and engineering.

The op is suggesting we alter this bias by deliberately thinking and talking about female role models. Do you think we should?

Btw op, my favourite is Rosalind Franklin.

She contributed a huge amount to discovering the structure of DNA. She was treated appallingly at the time at kings college London and not given fair credit ever since.

N

@Catinthetwat
I never said i wouldn't expose my children to great role models weather they be male or female, my point was why should i push my daughter into something she may not be interested in because there are not as many females as men? Nobody is talking about pushing boys into nursing or teaching etc

Nobody is talking about 'pushing' girls into STEM, fgs. The word the OP used was 'encourage' - and yes, there are people encouraging boys to similarly consider nursing and teaching.

Anyway - on role models, mine is Dorothy Hodgkin. At the start of her academic career she wasn't allowed to teach male students at oxford, so she had a women's research group in her college, Somerville. This lead to a cluster of women crystallographers being trained up (I heard the obituary of one, Barbara Low, on the radio just last week). I might have chosen crystallography for my PhD anyway, but knowing this was a field in which a woman could win a Nobel prize sure as heck didn't do any harm!

I share a lot of perspectives with feminists (and have been told on here previously that technically I am one due to this) but I would never label myself as a feminist in terms of using it as a defining characteristic. I find a lot of self described feminists to be a bit irritating and often a bit whiny/self martyring if I'm totally honest.

Like for example it's never ever even considered that a lot of women don't want to pursue high flying jobs because they'd rather enjoy the easy life which a high earning partner can facilitate. This isn't inherent to females imo, it's just a common human trait which women are more able to exploit as it's less socially acceptable for men to be trophy husbands or house husbands - always regarded as cocklodgers.