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!

@BertrandRussell re someone being defined as being someone's husband - I give you -Prince Phillip

I'm off to write a novel called The Innkeeper's Wife. Flesh this poor wummin out a bit. So that forever more she shall be named.

You are lucky she has a part!!! In our school if you are nit a board of Governors or Teachers child, you are in the choir every time.

Flowery, you can laugh all you want at my comments about historical accuracy. It's fine, we are here to debate after all.
But here is the way I see it: referring to a woman as someone's wife is dismissive and undermining. Now. People are finally starting to accept that it is not a respectful way to describe a woman. And yes it is a feminist issue. And it didn't happen overnight. So I actually think that children need to see that there is a difference between then and now. That they see the progress that has been made. Look, in the old days women were not considered equal. You would now have a female hotel manager , but many years ago someone doing a similar job was seen as the wife.
So if we are serious about addressing casual sexism, can't we actually have a conversation with children. Can't we say ' wow, did you see how you are cast as the wife, not the innkeeper? We wouldn't say this now, would we?'
Like I said, I don't particularly care either way, but the OP does. And I think that is the way she should approach it. Telling her dd's this is how it used to be and it's a real shame', rather than pretend that women have always been taken seriously.
Not that things are rosy now, but things have changed.

You can’t force 21st century western values on a 2000 year old event/story that happened in the Middle East. If it’s really important to yo use it as a teaching opportunity and discuss with your DD how things are different now in the U.K. but that values like that still exist in many other parts of the world.

Itching to call them out on this. Itching! But what would you actually say? What words would you use?

"Err no. Just give the "innkeepers wife" a name."...how about Sarah, the innkeepers wife.

they could have been described as Innkeeper and Innkeeper's husband - the husband therefore becomes an accessory to the woman's role as the worker/innkeeper. But that doesn't ever seem to happen.

So the way to deal with his being brought up to think their title is always connected to a man, is to try and put boys in that position too?

Surely, if you are talking about this from an equality perspective, tey should be 50:50 business partners and no mention of their marital status?

Or we could just pretend it's a story set thousands of years ago, where the woman would have be known as the inn keepers wife.

OMGshefound me out yes exactly that. Do not pretend these issues didn't exist , point out that they did exist and that things have changed.

Bloody hell the world's gone mad!

Coming from someone who every single year had to watch the teachers pets given the best roles while I stood idly by wishing I could have a big part in the school play, I'd be very happy for my daughter to be the wife. I'm sure she wouldn't then grow up to think that was her only purpose in life. If she did I could sue the school, maybe you could think about doing that OP?

Replace ‘innkeeper’ and ‘inkeeper’s wife’ with ‘two leisure industry operatives’. Now how to explain the Immaculate Conception ...

@BertrandRussell re someone being defined as being someone's husband - I give you -Prince Phillip
And in doing so, completely miss the point. If you’d have said - I give you - The Queen’s husband!’ And that’s all we knew him as, nothing about him, what he does, or even his name, then you’d have a point.

You can’t force 21st century western values on a 2000 year old event/story

But the 2000 year old bible story does not mention an Innkeeper of either sex at all. Nor does it mention a donkey or any animals. In fact the translation of stable is probably wrong too.
www.theguardian.com/world/2014/dec/23/jesus-christ-not-born-in-stable-theologian-new-testament

So in fact the whole school nativity thing complete with girls dressed as angels in tinsel and boys as shepherds with tea towels on their heads is a Victorian invention so is already a modern mis-reading of an old text.

Ummm… not Immaculate Conception (a Catholic pedant writes). That refers to Mary's conception, that she was conceived in the normal human way but was cleansed from the burden of Original Sin before she was born.

I think you mean the Virgin Birth.

casual everyday feminism
I love this (even tho it’s presumably an error). Now when someone moans ‘god, is that all you’ve got to worry about’, I’m going to mutter that I’m just engaging in Casual Everyday Feminism.

Alsohuman - varying accounts claim virgin mary was from 12 to 16 years of age when she got pregnant. Besides - the fact that the story also relies heavily on Jesus's mum being 'pure' with hymen intact - no dirty old slag for mother of christ, makes it even more unpalatable

Chill out snowflake

Thank you for wanting to completely change the title of a little girls role in the very old tradition, of a biblical,nativity performance.!! Will you be getting up on the stage,and shouting out a protest to one and all,before it all begins, ha ha.

Infant teacher here, recently retired after nearly 40 years so 40 nativities.
I could write a book.
I haven’t read all through the thread but would just repeat that it’s not set in current times.
We usually buy a nativity script with songs each year and rotate over about 5/6 years. Nearly always the script says inn keeper, inn keepers wife etc.
If you approached me I would nod cheerfully and say ok I’ll say Mr and Mrs innkeeper. Often though we have given the part of the innkeeper to a girl anyway especially if she was good at remembering the vital lines!

Good grief.

This is a joke right? Whatever next? Jesus has to have 2 dads and Mary is just the surrogate? I mean the story needs to move with the times after all. Now I think about it Jesus does have 2 dads and Mary is actually the surrogate, pretty accurate really haha

I get you but many here will scream precious or get a grip.

Casual everyday sexism. They could have called her the Innkepper and had the part of 'husband', it is just a story after all.

Then we wonder why our daughter's have low self esteem.

And yes, no mention of “ little donkey”, “ 3 Kings” etc in the bible so it is all just possibly fiction!
Not that we ever inflict our own views by the way.

In the interests of fairness and equality the school should replace both the inkeeper and his wife with a self-check-in console like Premier Inn.