Meet the Other Phone. Flexible and made to last.

Meet the Other Phone.
Flexible and made to last.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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

1000 replies

PIPERHELLO · 15/11/2019 09:26

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!

OP posts:
CentralPerkMug · 16/11/2019 10:47

I do see your point. But at the end of the day, they are trying to create as many roles as possible to give the children a chance to participate. What else could they call this role?

'Mum I get to play Sandra in the nativity'! You - 'Who the fuck is Sandra'??

At the end of the day, it is a factual description of the role, she IS the inn keepers wife. The traditional nativity is never going to be politically correct, lets face it! But you can use the opportunity to talk about these issues with your dd if you wish.

GladAllOver · 16/11/2019 10:50

Thanks OP for a good laugh this morning!

BlouseAndSkirt · 16/11/2019 10:59

“The traditional nativity is never going to be politically correct, lets face it! “

The point is, it could be. We have no idea whether the possible innkeeper was male, female, tall, short, disabled.... they almost certainly weren’t 7 years old and blonde though.

lilgreen · 16/11/2019 11:02

Our innkeeper was female last year and we had an innkeeper’s husband. This happens up and down the country and depends on the children available. We sometimes have fewer boys than girls and vice versa.

NotTonightJosepheen · 16/11/2019 11:06

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

BertrandRussell · 16/11/2019 11:09

“ I do see your point. But at the end of the day, they are trying to create as many roles as possible to give the children a chance to participate. What else could they call this role?”
As I said- how about “Reuben and Naomi- Innkeepers”?

Shinyletsbebadguys · 16/11/2019 11:11

My ds1 has been cast as a sheep...how absolutely dare they ?? In this day and age how dare they not recognise his right to identify as human

Biscuit

Seriously ?? Getting offended by crap like this is what makes people ignore real arguments against sexism and cause people to think we are snowflakes.

Stopping making things harder for the rest of us please and if you want to fight go find real sexism (or sheepism ) and fight that.

Muminabun · 16/11/2019 11:11

This needs to be in classics the replies are hilarious 😂😂😂👍

Knittingnanny · 16/11/2019 11:17

Think this thread has been the one to make me realise I need to transfer to gransnet!
At this time of the year infant teachers are teaching all stuff as usual, in addition making sure 30 children in their class have made a card, decoration, having a turn opening the advent calendar, bringing back all their permission slips (about Christmas dinner, having photos taken, walking to the local church, etc) learning the Christmas songs, sorting out costumes etc. And having discussions with parents about nativity roles.
So “ innkeeper’s wife” in a script would possibly be something that escaped their radar! We genuinely do try our very best for your children.
Despite the hectic schedule of December in an infant school, it was my favourite time, Christmas lead up is magical with 4-7 year olds.

derxa · 16/11/2019 11:17

I asked before but what words are you going to use to ask the teacher to change this parlous state of affairs?
Anyway I used to produce Christmas plays. Woe betide any adult who gave 'suggestions'. Children absolutely fine to suggest changes

NotTonightJosepheen · 16/11/2019 11:22

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

NotTonightJosepheen · 16/11/2019 11:28

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

lilgreen · 16/11/2019 11:29

Teachers do this already @bertrand you’re not saying anything new.

IndigoSkye · 16/11/2019 11:37

I agree with you and think they should both be considered inn keepers, although I wonder if it's also about context, I'm sure someone's made this point as I've not rtft but in the inn keepers wife may have many 'roles' in life - she may have been a healer, an artist, a mother for example, but the one relevant to this story is that of being the inn keepers wife.

StillCoughingandLaughing · 16/11/2019 11:39

OP - you have inspired me to write the story of Sandra. My groundbreaking play, ‘Nobody’s Wife’, will tell the story that REALLY matters from the dawn of a major world religion. It will finally give Sandra the voice her husband and history denied her.

Act One - Sandra silently seethes as she carries out the drudgery of changing sheets, cooking breakfasts, putting chocolates on the pillows etc. while her husband swans about enjoying the status of Innkeeper. (In what I’m hoping is a wryly ironic touch, he is never named in the script.) Later, she heads to the Bethlehem branch of CostCo to stock up on those little sachets of UHT milk. She says ‘hello’ to a passing merchant she recognises. ‘Who was that?’, the merchant’s wife, a jealous sort, demands. ‘Oh, her?’, replies the merchant nonchalantly. ‘She’s nobody. She’s just the innkeeper’s wife’.

Sandra hears every word, having paused to glance at a multipack of mince pies. It hits her like a thunderbolt. The words ring in her ears. ‘Nobody’. ‘Just his wife’. ‘Just. A. Wife’. Her she is, stood in a massive queue on Christmas Eve while her useless husband plays mine host, dishing out free drinks and hackneyed bonhomie. Well no more.

(At this point I’m considering having Sandra burst into a rendition of ‘Nobody’s Wife’ by Dutch singer Anouk. Too on the nose?)

Sandra heads home to the inn. ‘Ah, at last!’ he says. ‘We’ve had a couple of walk-ins turn up. You can make up Number 12 can’t you?’

It’s the final straw. She snaps. ‘No I fucking CAN’T! I’ve been on my feet all day! I haven’t even started on the sprouts for tomorrow, there’s not a single present wrapped and now you want to make up beds for walk-ins?! No, just NO!’

‘Come on Sand’, says her husband, flustered by this sudden burst of defiance. ‘It’s Christmas Eve; she’s pregnant. Where else would they go?’

‘Not my problem’, replies Sandra, warming to her theme. ‘It’s Christmas for fuck’s sake - they should have booked! Stick them in the stables for all I bloody care! There’s no room at the inn! Do you hear me! NO ROOM AT THE INN!’

(Curtain down.)

Act Two - Five years on, a divorced Sandra owns the largest chain of inns across the Middle East. All her managers are women and they only ever employ male chamber ‘maids’. The subversion of the patriarchy has begun.

But Sandra has a secret. Her first inn was founded on capital from a source that gives her great shame. For it was she who tipped off Herod as to the location of Mary and Joseph, and was paid handsomely in return. A rich, successful businesswoman, a feminist pioneer - but at what price, dear Sandra? AT WHAT PRICE?!?!

(Curtain down.)

Just to warn you all, I’ve already registered the concept for copyright and will sue anyone who tries to steal it. Or at least set fire to your hair.

Hoopalaa · 16/11/2019 11:41

Get a grip.

BertrandRussell · 16/11/2019 11:42

“ Teachers do this already @bertrand you’re not saying anything new.” I know I’m not! @Derxa- I suggested “Reuben and Naomi - Innkeepers”

ChardonnaysDistantCousin · 16/11/2019 11:42

I can see that made into a Nativity.

TriangularRatbag · 16/11/2019 11:43

I've not rtft but in the inn keepers wife may have many 'roles' in life - she may have been a healer, an artist, a mother for example

I did suggest a while ago that the play needs a prologue to fill in the back story on this woman. She deserves to be treated as a full and rounded character, with her own motives, needs and dreams, not merely the appendage of the innkeeper.

BertrandRussell · 16/11/2019 11:44

“ So “ innkeeper’s wife” in a script would possibly be something that escaped their radar! We genuinely do try our very best for your children.”
Of course. To both sentences!

TriangularRatbag · 16/11/2019 11:45

@StillCoughingandLaughing

GrinGrin

YoungHun · 16/11/2019 11:50

Strangely it annoys me too!

Why not just Mr & Mrs Innkeeper?

Shinyletsbebadguys · 16/11/2019 11:52

Nottonightjosepheen
If you genuinely believe that this is a conduit into reinforcing childrens beliefs like that then you very much misunderstand the minutiae of social conditioning and the interaction of home , social and school on the complexity of social beliefs.

What you are doing is boiling down to a single issue because it's easier for you rather than accept the complex nature of this issue.

You also patently misunderstood that I wasn't comparing , I was using hyperbole to highlight a ridiculous opinion.

You may wish to read up on more complex use of mirroring discrepancy linguistics.

BlouseAndSkirt · 16/11/2019 11:57

AIBU?

SandraAtTheInn 23.33.02 24Dec B.C 1

Ok, so it’s mad busy here because Bloody Caesar Augustus has sent everyone to do the tax in our village. Sooner we have a referendum to get us out of the Roman Empire the better. Anyway we run an AirBnB and it’s been booked up for months. Couple Rock up tonight, no booking and she is really heavily pregnant. Bloody DH has put them in the stable! I said we should ask some other guests if they could kindly share or go in the stable but DH says we’ll get bad feedback on Tripadvisor. So I said we should give them our room. DH said no way and we’be had a tie about it AIBU?

NotTonightJosepheen · 16/11/2019 11:58

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Please create an account

To comment on this thread you need to create a Mumsnet account.

This thread is not accepting new messages.
Swipe left for the next trending thread