To be annoyed by SIL making these comments towards my DD

[nhd]

SIL is very much a feminist, very woke etc but to the extreme. My DD is 3.

DD is the first grandchild to ILs and first niece / nephew to my SIL. (I think) she wants to remain child free at least for now, so she sees DD as her closest small person. SIL and PIL want to take an active part in the upbringing of my DD which I'm not necessarily against - the more loving people a child is surrounded by the better in my view. SIL and I aren't very close but we have a good relationship in that we get on when we are together but wouldn't choose to hang out as a 2 without my DH or wouldn't share deep personal secrets. All this is to say that SIL is a nice person, loves DD and doesn't make these comments maliciously I think, but they still really really irritate me and I think they're harmful.

Comments that she will make:
Eg1. We are discussing schools and I mentioned in passing mixed / single sex secondary school and dating boys. SIL instantly comments "or girls if she chooses to date them!"
Eg2. SIL comes over and DD shows her some biscuits that we made that afternoon whilst DH was at football. SIL "you know, just because you're a girl doesn't mean you need to stay home and bake. You could have gone to football with Daddy if you wanted" (DD was excited to bake, she has never expressed any interest in football).
Eg3. I am helping my daughter to put on a dress (gave her a choice of 2, she picked this one) before we go to a family function. SIL comes in (we don't live together but we were driving her there so she came to our house first) and DD runs to hug her but as we've got to leave, after a few mins, I say "come on, let's finish getting dressed, you'll look so pretty". At this point DD is wearing a stained vest, PJ bottoms and one sock. SIL "that's okay, you don't have to look pretty for anyone. You look how you like! Would you like to go like this?" I'm all for giving kids choices but surely I can at least encourage my daughter to wear clean clothes and dress up for occasions? Of course I'd let her wear something else if she didn't like a dress but why put ideas in her head?
Eg4. And the "you don't have to look pretty for anyone" is an ongoing thing. I was once putting on make up before heading out for date night, SIL came over to babysit. DD started copying me, pretending to put on make up, then came up to the mirror and said "wow so pretty, like mummy!" SIL once again said to her "but remember, you don't have to ever try to put on make up or change yourself to impress a man"

Where did you get 'she's babysitting for free'?

Feminism is about equality. How does being a SAHM support equality, especially for women as a whole? It doesn't.

Never in my life would I do something day-in day-out( that I never wanted to do in the first place) just to support a group of anything or anyone. Bulshit.
I live my life how I want and everyone else will do the same.

That makes sense as to why we are coming at it from different viewpoints. I’m a mix, I love Disney princess stuff, but also football, I do all the DIY but love baking. My DD is 5, she loves all these things - we took her to a women’s football game which she loves from watching lionesses but also loves makeup and typical ‘girly’ things. I’ve always tried to make sure she has access to everything - I have an older brother who went to premiere league matches with my dad and when I came along my mum made sure I got included in the same way.

Just want to say, loving any of these things from mechanics to make up is not in any way a feminist issue. If you think you or DD shouldn’t be limited in anything you want to do based purely on the fact you’re a girl, you’re a feminist. It has literally nothing to do with dresses or makeup or football.

Also thanks for the great discussion - it’s so nice to have differing views on MN and it doesn’t descend into a row.

Maybe so, but yours is the only name I remember. The topic is often being discussed, but you are always to be relied upon to make the discussion longer.

Completely overstepping. If she wants to interject regarding someone's (perfectly normal) parenting she could be a lot more subtle about it! I wouldn't dare say anything like that to my friends or relatives who are parents, it's simply none of my business and really quite presumptuous.

Children's baking has been unisex for at least 20 years. Boys and girls did cookery/baking in my primary school in the 80s with no stigma. If anything your SIL is being regressive. TV and media is full of examples of male chefs and bakers as well as women and girls.

Your comments on this thread sound reasonable and balanced. What shouldn't your daughter bake if she enjoys it? You've already said she's been offered the opportunity to attend various football events and declined. That could change, who knows? This particular afternoon she chose baking. It sounds like you're continually giving her a variety of options.

I'd be extremely wary of gender ideology that's currently in fashion. It's not biologically possible to change sex; the whole movement is incredibly homophobic and steeped in stereotypes. Being gender non-conforming (within your own sex) is perfectly fine but no-one seems satisfied with that.

It's all a bit heavy handed for a 3 year old.

FWIW my own (difficult) mother pushed gender neutral and boyish toys/clothes/activities/hairstyles (my hair was forcibly cut to 1.5") on me as a child. I actually developed a complex as I was denied most pink girly things, not allowed even short bob length hair, baby dolls, barbies, feminine pretend play etc. She found it distasteful and made no attempt to hide it. She thrived on being contrary and bullish as well as sadistic. I was an only child and I often wonder if she wanted a boy or just enjoyed being controlling and making me miserable. It didn't build my confidence at all, quite the opposite. I felt inferior to the other girls. I understood the messages of 'you can be anything' (which I absorbed mainly from society, school and my wonderful dad, not my terrifying mother) but it didn't stop me wanting to play with pink/stereotypically girly toys some of the time like the other girls and have fun, pretty hair that would hold a bobble or clip. This is probably an extreme example but I feel extremely uncomfortable when people think they're doing good by imposing a particular ideology.

Thank you too, and thank you for getting the wider point I was trying to make! Mumsnet can get quite tribal at times, so it is nice to have a discussion that doesn't end in bloodshed, as you say.

I don't force anyone to reply to me. Clearly some people are interested in the topic just as some people aren't.

Same as any topic really.

Feminism is about equality. How does being a SAHM support equality, especially for women as a whole? It doesn't.

You've got that the wrong way around. Being a SAHM isn't about supporting feminism. Feminism is about supporting equality for women including the view that a woman staying home a rearing children (you know - the children that we need to pay large sums to other human beings - mostly women - to mind if we go back to work) isn't a useless contribution to society but instead an essential and valuable contribution not just to your own children but to society as a whole

Equality means valuing all the people who contribute - not just the bankers and high earners.

By the way I was never a SAHM but this just drives me nuts - the drive to devalue the work that - mostly - women do to rear the next generation of earners/tax payers at a time when someone needs to be there to mind them. I paid for it. Why should it be just nothing and something that doesn't support equality when a woman does it for her own children?

💯

By denigrating SAHM, you are denigrating women's work, and supporting a patriarchal view that only paid work is real work. Screw that. The problem with our society is that work women do is consistently devalued, and underappreciated.

Ah, great. It’s the best part of mumsnet I think when people share discussion and it’s not a tribal mutiny! My frustrations with discussion like this is the feminist stuff. Some people (not you!) sometimes seem to think it’s very black and white and almost apologise ‘I’m not a feminist but…’. I sometimes feel the feminist movement alienates people - my mum used to get shit for wearing makeup to feminist meetings in the seventies and I find stuff like that so frustrating. If your son and your daughter are both in the same job and your son gets paid more purely as he’s a man…you don’t think that’s fair, that’s feminism! And it gets sidetracked by things that don’t matter. Wear makeup! Love dresses! That’s brilliant! It’s also brilliant if you don’t!
But yes, thanks for the great chat 🥰

I was a SAHM for five years. It wasn't remotely detrimental to my career going forward. I went back at the same level that I was when I left (and from which I wouldn't expect to have progressed in that period, given the nature of my job). I was promoted two years later, and again a few years after that, in exactly the same timeline of have expected had i been working throughout.

I expected to be a working mother. My DH would have loved to be a SAHD. But when my first child arrived, and I went back to work for the few months I was obligated to, I was miserable. I wanted to be home with my child, and handed in my notice.

Not for one minute did I feel obliged to stay at work and be miserable for the sake of the sisterhood. That's absolutely ridiculous and makes a mockery of feminism being about choice. I don't owe anything to every other woman just because we share genital anatomy.

I agree with you OP.

I don’t think you’re over focused on looks. It’s also ok for a girl to be told she’s pretty sometimes, as long as it’s not the main theme of her life.

It sounds like SIL has made your DD her ‘project’; totally inappropriate to be telling a toddler who has baked something that she could have done something else, or to undermine your value of dressing appropriately. It’s unecessarily introducing doubt and confusion in her mind.

Sometimes the feminist thing goes far too far and ends up being unfeminist. If the message being given out is that being ‘girly’ is somehow wrong or has to be challenged then that’s a problem. We should celebrate ‘girlyness’ and femininity too. It’s not just tomboys who have got it right.

But pointing out that it isn't a feminist choice isn't the same as saying that SAHM is a useless contribution/nothing. No one has said that.

It contributes to inequality so it can't be a feminist choice. How can it be when it largely makes women financially vulnerable and supports problematic gender stereotypes?

It shouldn't be ''women's work''. That's part of the issue.

Okay, let's call it work that mainly women do. Better?

PS. My partner was a SAHD. I was the breadwinner.

Surely it’s only an issue if somehow ‘women’s work’ is worth less than a man’s work??

It's an issue because there should be no such thing as ''women's work'' and ''man's work''.

Your sil is great,empowering your daughter that she can do anything. I like the comments also gives your daughter a different view point and possibly an open person in her life she can confide in or ask questions of as she grows

I think you see equality in a different way to others. It's not just about financial equality ... There's also the mental load equality, quality of life equality, the equality of choice ect ect ...

I am not a SAHM but I wish I was. Unfortunately I can't be and I don't see this as equality for me! I would love to be at home for the early years. I don't feel like I can have it all. Society isn't set up that way though. I need to work as a single income isn't enough.

I'm sorry but labour and breastfeeding is my work. I hate the type of feminism you preach. It is just so reactive to male needs. Men do X, women want X.

Why can't we be more creative then that as women? We can create our own purpose and not use the male purpose as a blueprint.

I never said it is just about finances. I've raised other issues too.

I didn’t mean you are lazy(!), I said that your posts imply/ suggest - at least to me- that you are modelling, affirming some fairly pervasive gender stereotypes in a lazy (ie uncritical/ unthinking) way. Eg offering her the choice of two dresses for a party, and trying to win her compliance by telling her she’ll look pretty - thereby teaching her a) dresses=pretty, b) pretty=valuable and aspirational goal for girls (who after all are the sex that exclusively wear dresses). Instead of critically reflecting on this, you justify it with, well she needs to be clean (lazy justification).
The football example: your SIL tries to reflect on the subliminal messaging that your DD is getting when she watches daddy go out to football (an overwhelmingly male dominated / celebrated sport) , while mum stays home and bakes (an activity Primarily associated with women) . She tries to counterbalance this by telling your DD that football can also be for girls, and you say “well dd doesn’t like football cos I took her one time and she just wanted snacks and to go home”. Again, imv, lazy reasoning. She’s three.

YABU, your SIL sounds great and those are all things I say to children 😂

Depends what you mean by the male purpose.

Again, OP has an engineering degree. She's taken the DD to football and DD didn't like it.

SIL isn't offering anything that OP doesn't offer with regard to crossing the boy/ girl activity/ skills barrier and empowering her child to do anything she wants. All SIL is doing is annoyingly undermining OP, and (unforgivably in my opinion) denigrating her niece's achievement, when DN ran to her, so proud of her baking, only to be lectured on what she could be doing instead.