to be outraged by Nativity casting as 'Innkeeper's wife'!!!

[PIPERHELLO]

Daughter (6) has been cast as 'someone's wife' in the Nativity play at school. 'Innkeeper's wife' to be precise.

Err...hello!?

This is fucking not OK! In 2019, to be identified as 'someone's wife'.

Normally I am pretty relaxed about all things school, and I certainly feel sorry for he teachers' workloads, but come on people!? This is 2019 - no woman should be identified by her relationship to a man!? SURELY!

Itching to call them out on this. Itching!

I kind of see your point, and then thought of a way of countering it...

In the days when Theresa May was Prime Minister, the news would often say 'PM May and her husband...'

Are you suggesting that this is sexist because her husband was only identified as 'someone else's husband'? I think it makes sense to refer to the most identifiable person first, and then their significant other (if applicable).

In other words, OP - in the nicest way possible - you are being ridiculous.

The thing is, I know all of this, but I still think that this is how casual everyday feminism gets perpetuated; by people not calling people out on this shit!

There there dear, we’ve noticed you.

”I think it makes sense to refer to the most identifiable person first, and then their significant other (if applicable).”

You are right. So why can’t the OP’s DD be the Innkeeper and her male classmate play Innkeeper’s husband?

I think the Innkeeper should be non-binary and have a Wife and a Husband. They can all be called Innkeeper.

Inn Keeper's Wife is a big step up from DD5's role in the forthcoming nativity....Chicken Herder

I can't believe so many people have been part of a nativity play. The only one I've ever even seen was on It's Christmas Charlie Brown (where Frieda played the innkeeper's wife).

This is not causal inequality.
There is nothing unequal about being someone’s wife (although there would’ve been back then), just as there is nothing unequal about being someone’s husband.
If I went to dh’s place of work I’m sure I’d be introduced as dh’s wife. Nothing casually unequal about that either. I am his wife. As they spoke to me and spent time with me they’d find out a bunch of other stuff about me too. Being someone’s wife is very different from being seen as “just a wife”.
If he came to my place of work he’d also be seen initially as my husband. Nothing dismissive about that, either.
How can anyone take feminism seriously when people like you are getting it so incredibly mixed up?

*Perhaps you could suggest she is known as "the innkeeper's equally important partner in life and business"?

Or you could just get over yourself*

Now I would vote for a party that guaranteed every primary school child got a speaking part. I suspect that then we would worry less about our child's description and more about their diction

Isaididont - Absolutely

If there is nothing unequal about it, when do you ever see something like innkeeper and innkeeper’s husband? When did you ever see a man defined by his wife’s occupation?

Haha! It suspect the OP posted this so she could see herself on Mumsnet Madness

Sadly I was a scruffy kid who could on,y dream of being “innkeepers wife”. Instead I was relegated to the back of the hall with the music kids to bang on a glockenspiel. I was even placed at the back of those kids as I was “scruffy” according to one charming teacher,

Wouldn't you be introduced as @Isaididont's wife .........( insert name)....?

But I was in school in Scotland in the 70s so we didn't have a nativity play... I feel very hard done by. And me in the 1960s. We didn't have such fripperies as nativity plays then.

And also, why do some people think it’s OK to be so rude to people who care about this sort of thing?

Actually OP I would prefer that the innkeepers were of the same gender. I think it would be an interesting talking point in the post Nativity mince pie and tea get together, when a lively debate could be started on the issue of whether or not they were in a relationship or if they were business partners, or if indeed they were joint innkeeping managers acting on behalf of an international innkeeping conglomeration.

I am more concerned that poor Mary never seems to have a female attendant or doula to talk her through labour. I would propose that at least one shepherd needs to be a shepherdess, or female shepherd if you prefer , as they would have quite a lot of experience with birthing issues . And incidentally, smaller hands than the male shepherds........

“ Or that a poor donkey had to carry a heavy load“

Extract from another ‘the kids wrote it!” nativity of ours:

Narrator: “The donkey carried Mary all the way to Bethlehem”
Outraged Donkey, aged 4: “She’s not sitting on me!!”

You do know that the Innkeeper's wife isn't even mentioned in the book of the play, but then neither is the innkeeper.

Sorry, OP, but I think your good intentions are misplaced here. It's a simple descriptor. What title would you prefer, Co-Innkeeper 2?

If I was writing it there would be 4 Inns in a row, all with ratings from 4 in a bed. Each Inn would be run by two people but of diverse couplings.

My friend owns and runs her own pub. Her dh is often called the landlady’s husband, perhaps I need to tell him that he needs a new title.....

If there is nothing unequal about it, when do you ever see something like innkeeper and innkeeper’s husband? When did you ever see a man defined by his wife’s occupation?

Prince Philipp
Philip May
Jim Toth
Daniel Moder
Richard Morrissey

and ANY MAN you come across after meeting his wife in her professional occupation.

you asked...

Use it to explain historical (and current) sexism to your daughter. BUT DO NOTHING ELSE.

“Soft-anti feminists”?

Hahahahahaha...wait, no, there are not enough LOLs and, actually, it’s not fucking funny. Get over yourself.

There’s nothing soft or anti-feminist in recognizing that we can’t rewrite history; revisionists run the risk of erasing it altogether which opens the doors to ‘that never happened’. Of course there are defined historically patriarchal roles in a nativity play, it’s a traditional narrative set in in a historic patriarchy ffs.

I’m a teacher and parents like this are the reason I’m one straw away from chucking in the towel!

Ugh 😩

“Carrying a heavy load” heaven forbid they are fat shaming poor Mary