to take the mick out of male colleagues who bring in shared food that their WIVES have made

[morningpaper]

this makes me both scornful and slightly depressed and I resort to extreme sarcasm

Only last week I was nibbling lemon cake from a colleagues WIFE.

What IS that ABOUT?

AIBU?

[SixSpotBurnet]

Cor, you do give good thought-provoking posts, don't you onebat? Right up there with the divine motherinferior, I think (that is high praise from me).

I shall ponder that. Of course someone like Katie Price does everything in the public domain, doesn't she?

[onebatmotherofgoditschilly]

yes yes flacon but you see my point?

[SixSpotBurnet]

Wossup, wilf?

[SixSpotBurnet]

I suppose you could argue that irrespective of what you actually do (sexually or otherwise), just being publicly in a heterosexual couple is a public statement of something.

[Habbibu]

Have seen, Wilf. Don't know why.

Onebat - then we come down to whether baking should be part of the private sphere only, and I can't say I think it should. If you construe it as a private, nurturing act, then do you run, potentially, into the camp of "don't breastfeed in public"?

You might also question the sagacity of performing dominatory sex in public - referring to submissive sex kind of side-steps the argument.

[onebatmotherofgoditschilly]

thank you sixspot, that's a lovely thing to say.

[Habbibu]

[SixSpotBurnet]

Sorry - I should acknowledge that both parts of the argument equally thought-provoking! Thank you also Habb!

[Swedes]

I thought about this thread a bit more this morning. DP works with a mainly female team - some of them mothers who work full-time. Women are still not equal in the workplace and me sending in a homemade cake with DP (to share with his colleagues) doesn't exactly help does it? I feel it sends the message that it's easier for a man to send in treats for his colleagues because he's got back up at home for the domestic stuff. Also I would worry that the females in his team might feel some form of guilt that they are not at home with their children baking. For these reasons sending in a cake just feels wrong.

[Habbibu]

[GoodWilfToAllMN]

Yes. Date has been extended. AFTER the original closing date. Snot fair.

Am bitter and will turn to virutal serial killer shortly.

Was there a lastminute nomination? How? Why? Why won't MNHQ come and talk to me, the CLEAR winner at midnight last night.

I'm not obsessed. Really. Not.

[onebatmotherofgoditschilly]

so now it's freaking savouries as well???

[Habbibu]

dunno, onebat. are they public?...

[SixSpotBurnet]

Oh dear, onebat.

Are you violently anti-pasty?

[Swedes]

I suspect MP is hobnobing with MNHQ.

[onebatmotherofgoditschilly]

my point re: subm. sex was simply that certain acts may be politically neutral in our private lives because we know one another and share a world-view. The same acts are not necessarily without political meaning in public, and after we have drawn our own subjective line, we should give one last thought to that fact.

I'm still not coming down firmly against cake-sending, because there are so many variable. Donor's personality, the extent to whcih donor's personality and domestic politics are known to the recipients, the political temperature of the recipients' workplace, processor/hand-stirred, marg/butter.

Breastfeeding is not an act that has implied female subservience though, Habbs, so I don't think you can extrapolate

Interestingly, though, I do think of it as having political meaning - though it's directly opposite to that which you imply - and that's why I've always made a ludicrous pantomime of breastfeeding in public whenever I could.



Naked from the waist up.

[onebatmotherofgoditschilly]

"Are you violently anti-pasty?"

YOU WIN!

[Libraloveschristmas1975]

You'd have problems doing it from the waist down.

[Habbibu]

Yes, but onebat, I was talking about the modern woman's licence to refuse sex as analogous with her licence to refuse to bake. And then we could sit down and try to categorise whether we should or shouldn't do a pretty much infinite number of more or less gendered acts which may have reflected subservience to a greater or lesser extent.

Isn't there a different way to approach all of this? I don't know what it would be, but it strikes me as a more positive exercise.

[onebatmotherofgoditschilly]

It's perfectly possible to bf naked fromthe waist down, though ill-advised in this inclement weather.

[onebatmotherofgoditschilly]

Yes, you know there is a more positive approach, because you advocate it. And in general I lean in your direction.

I think that, in arguing against your position, I am simultaneously asking myself whether some of these acts (I include many others of my own, extending beyond cake-sending to general domestic availability and beyond) don't veer dangerously towards Post-Feminism.

Which, as any fule know, is as meretricious a concept as was ever dreamed up by a lad-mag Daily Express 'commentator'.

[SixSpotBurNativity]

{breathless}

am I too late for the Xmas name comp??

[Habbibu]

Yes. This is an obviously difficult area - I mean, I am most certainly NOT saying, oh, it's ok to be a surrendered wife because I choose to do it in a post-feminist fashion. Of course that's bollocks.

But it just seems so inelegant to me blanket ban anything which may have a political significance of the type we've discussed. I just want a totally different approach, and yet I truly don't know what that is.

Some of the basics would be, I suppose, a default assumption that a woman is an independent, free-thinking, reflective personality until there is evidence to the contrary - innocent until proven guilty, if you like. And that actions in general should be assessed in context.

But then I run in to trouble, as clearly there are some actions where I think context is irrelevant, as you can't get past the fact that they objectify women - Page 3, pole-dancing, etc. So my theory looks less elegant already.

Swedes' post was interesting - I get very fed up with notions of guilt for not being "the perfect parent", and I don't want to be held responsible for some other woman's guilt over something pointlessly unattainable. Why isn't "good enough" ok? It suits me pretty well. I mean, I get that it's not enough for an Olympic swimmer, but for a parent? And the guilt stuff is vile and pervasive - I detest and despise "guilt" over food - and yes, that's where I get scornful. Food is many things, but a "sin" is not one of them, and this common ascription of a moral value to what you eat vexes me enormously.

[SixSpotBurNativity]

I think your default assumption would be fine in circumstances of genuine (objective and subjective) equality between women and men - equality of opportunity, equality of earnings, equality of control over own bodies, etc etc etc.

[pamelat]

So what does the fact that my full time working husband made mince pies for my antental group (mainly off work mums) mean????????