The tiger that came to tea

[Mango1982]

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9920825/Tiger-Came-Tea-lead-rape-harassment-campaigner-claims.html

This kind of nonsense is why I am not a feminist and it really hurts your cause it’s exactly in the same vain as company’s saying pregnant people

It’s bat shit

Some feminists were saying it promotes sexist stereotypes

Iam a stay at home mother their is nothing wrong with that and I do get the feeling that feminists hate the traditional family set up and I don’t understand why
I am not being made to stay at home if anything I felt pressure to work in the past witch ended up being harmful to my mental health and my family

Why shouldn’t girls be able to feel ok with wanting to be a stay at home and raise their children if that’s something they think they would like to do

It's a warm, humorous, cosy book that reads so beautifully out loud and is perfect for bedtime snuggles. I loved it as a child, all my children have loved it too. Written for its time but still a fun story and no need to read more into it than that. I read a lot of vintage children's books to my youngest DD (I have a huge collection thanks to eBay), mainly riding school/pony stories. There are some very outdated/hilarious/confusing/downright dangerous (by today's standards!) themes
that regularly crop up but DD loves them. We discuss how much things have changed since the books were written, she may ask what certain expressions mean or how much 5 shillings is nowadays. The stories are still brilliant but she totally understands that they reflect a different time and definitely doesn't then expect to go out hacking across the moors alone all summer or jump a rusty old iron bedstead bareback on an ex-racehorse bought from the local knackers yard with no hat on

With the Tiger Who Came to Tea, I always think the mum doesn't consider going out to eat until the dad suggest it, because back then it really wasn't the norm to eat out regularly or on a whim. In my early 1970s childhood meals out, even in a local cafe, were very, very rare. Special treats for occasional high days and holidays. My favourite page in the book is the one where they went "out in the dark and all the street lamps were lit, and all the cars had their lights on, and they went down the road to a cafe". I cannot even put into words the childish excitement this still evokes in me!

I do get the feeling that feminists hate the traditional family set up and I don’t understand why

In fairness to OP, I do think there has been a strand of feminism (which got a lot of the oxygen) which has focused on moaning about stuff like this rather than the practicalities of women's lives.

Now that that strand has metastatised into the toxic Genderism of today, everyone can see that it's 'feminism' is silly at best and anti-women at worst. Back looong ago when I first started reading FWR a lot of posters were less tolerent of a plurality of views because the main 'threat' to women was the right and so reflexively defended those on 'our' side.

All that said I agree with everyone else pointing out that one random person's opinion should not put you off the idea that women deserve equal rights.

You obviously don’t get what a feminist is or represents. You chose to stay at home and be a stay at home parent, good, good choice, that’s the difference though, you chose it, you wasn’t made to do it. Choice is everything and what feminism stands for, to have the right to choose, like everyone else does and not just do it because stereotypes tell you that you must select a certain option or behave a certain way.

Don’t get upset about anything you read in the daily Mail....everything is click bait.

@storminasnowglobe - quite agree. It’s hard to impress on people how rare it was to go out to dinner in those days. And on a weekday! There was nowhere to eat out. Pubs largely didn’t serve food, and in my town (70s, so later than the book) I can only think of one restaurant, a rather farty Italian place that even then was out of the ark. There was a Chinese takeaway but my parents wouldn’t have considered that, nor would any of my friends’ parents. People ten years younger embraced “foreign” food.

If the tiger had visited us, I think we might have had fish and chips. But my father would indeed have been the saviour because my mum didn’t drive!

So Very Different Times.

I am a feminist and I loved reading this book to my DS. I loved it more than he did. I love it as a child too.

I hadn't really thought about it before now, but as a child of the 80s we NEVER went out for dinner. I don't know what would have been open in my village.

@Mango1982 I mean you sound like the perfect Daily Mail reader when you are spurting out terms like "This kind of nonsense is why I am not a feminist" and "new woke outlet". Surprised you didn't drop in "feminazi". The comment section is usually full to the brim with these type of comments.

You know the DM posts this kind of article to rile people like you further towards the anti-feminist stance? It's called propaganda.

Oh dear KimikosNightmare, you really do seem to be looking for a fight. Maybe time for a cup of tea and a break from the internet?

PineapplePanda

@Mango1982 I mean you sound like the perfect Daily Mail reader when you are spurting out terms like "This kind of nonsense is why I am not a feminist" and "new woke outlet". Surprised you didn't drop in "feminazi". The comment section is usually full to the brim with these type of comments.

You know the DM posts this kind of article to rile people like you further towards the anti-feminist stance? It's called propaganda.

this kind of sneering Attatuide is why most working women are not feminists tbh the daily Mail represents the Woking class fat more than the guardian or bbc

At the hart of it the middle classes activists is deeply resentful of the Woking classes and our values and that always amazes me because the causes they champion proport for fight for our right in the main

You can’t advocate for people you hate and not think their wrong but evil
working class people like me have had our eyes opened

It's a rather silly hit piece by the Mail, and in their pattern of clickbait... they're not 'GC', they're just anti anything they can label as 'woke'...

The link between stereotypes (and the one in that book which always irritated me was how Mum helplessly waits for Dad to come and offer a solution, not that she was a stay-at-home Mum!) and DV seems a massive leap when you link a sweet kids' book with something so horrible. But I think the broader point that ZT are making is backed up by research: men who commit domestic violence are more likely to believe in 'traditional' ideas about masculinity and gender roles, 'traditional' attitudes to gender are linked to attitudes that excuse abuse or blame victims for provoking it. So it seems like a good thing to make sure that children don't only see books which show people following rigid stereotypes, but a range of stories which show boys girls men and women behaving in a range of ways and expressing different personalities, and talking about those stereotypes when they come up, as other posters have discussed.

I don't think it's helpful to make the connection as directly as she does though. And unfortunately if you criticise a specific much-loved book then people have a very emotional reaction, and the Mail loves to jump on this. She quite specifically says it's not about banning books, but about looking at the themes they raise. And then the article has a long quote from someone criticising people who want to ban books.

We just want stuff we like left alone if you don’t like it don’t buy it for your kids lots of woke books on sale now it’s that fact the woke always trying to ban things for others

I must say as a 50-something I am utterly confused about being “offended” by the past. And offended enough to want to remove things. Obviously many, many things are, to us now, outrageous. I was watching The Plank (“comedy” slapstick film 1967) as i was flicking through the channels. It was awful - groping a woman after she’d been concussed by the plank. How that was considered in any way funny I can’t imagine.

But getting in a froth about children’s stories - ridiculous. When I read boarding school books or ones featuring children with nannies/ponies etc I didn’t explode. I liked escaping into an alien world. Children’s books shouldn’t be antiseptic list books or “issue-driven” sanctimonious dullness.

And, for that matter, altering the past imo negates the whole reason for a feminist (or in other cases civil rights) movement.

To all the people saying it's just the Daily Mail reporting this, that is not true. It's been reported on mainstream TV this morning.

I read When Hitler Stole the Pink Rabbit and Bombs on Aunt Dainty with my children during lockdown 1. Interestingly it was Judith Kerr (called Anna in the book) and her mother who worked to support the family when they settled in the UK, while her father wrote (but didn’t earn from it) and her brother studied.

What an ignorant attitude, OP. I don't think you know what feminism means. Feminism means women having equal rights. Not women being forced not to be stay-at-home parents or being told to make their sons wear tutus. Plenty of feminists are stay-at-home parents fgs. Why would you want unequal rights?

Also, just because the Daily Mail are in favour of women's sex-based rights, that doesn't suddenly make them paragons of good sense. Click-baity 'It's political correctness gorn mad, I tell you!' stuff is their bread and butter.

No one’s trying to ban it though? You can discuss a book’s themes in a critical way without resorting to burning it for not fitting in with your particular values.

I love the book BTW. It’s whimsical and evocative and funny.

I read the book to my daughters. I was a single mum so we used to discuss at the end how I would fix it and not wait for a man to fix it. Also my daughter's dad is an alcoholic so they liked that there was no beer left!

The only book about a single mum I found when they were little was "A chair for my mother" by Vera B Williams.

Most books you can use to discuss issues. The Secret Seven is a good example. Poor Janet only getting to pour lemonade and hand out biscuits when she was so desperate to join the boys on their adventures. Disney princesses waiting to be saved by a prince. They are just stories and to me the important bit is instilling critical thinking in my children and getting them to challenge stereotypes.

To be fair to OP, this was the Times headline as it appeared on my news feed, so it’s NOT just the DM being ridiculous and clickbaity. I can’t read the Times article as I don’t have a subscription but the “teaches boys sexism and violence for life” looks like a direct quote, which is ridiculous and hyperbolic.

Tilting at windmills are we Mango?

It was never a book that my own kids took to - they never took to much that had that kind of dated rigid gender roles to it and were always really disappointed mum didn't just tell the tiger to go away and wallop it with a frying pan!

I think the kids might have watched Tangled (because I like it) a few times too many! We do like the princesses who take no shit much more in our house than the ones who drip around waiting for a man to rescue them.

If you want an interesting one to discuss women taking on more than their share of domestic shite - can I suggest Piggybook by Anthony Browne (may have spelt his surname wrong).

My personal loathed kids book continues to be the Rainbow Fucking Fish.

I'm finding this hilarious

1. A talking tiger comes to tea
2. Apparently drinks all the water in the taps/reservoir 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️

It's a story & a fairly ridiculous one - my kids have all loved being read it from the very bashed copy that's from my childhood. None of them think it's a manual for life.

And as for dated stereotypes in literature you'll have to prize Austin out of my cold dead fingers

metro.co.uk/2021/08/19/sean-lock-dead-comics-fans-want-tiger-who-came-for-a-pint-published-15122145/

@Mrsfrumble Yes, it looks like a direct quote. But I doubt very much that she said those words about this book. I imagine they're a direct quote from a statement about something else, eg a wider context of gender stereotypes driving inequality, and the newspaper has put them together in a way that makes it look more provocative.

I think it does indeed sound ridiculous to suggest that a cosy kids book 'sets boys up for violence'. But what kids learn when they're very little about what it means to be a boy or a girl, a man or a woman, are important, and worth discussing.

I think this article on the Let Toys Be Toys website is quite good on the subject, and has some useful, positive suggestions in it (which don't include banning or removing any beloved books!) www.lettoysbetoys.org.uk/constructing-bias-the-wonky-world-of-picture-books/

Haven't read whole thread but of course it seems dated as it written ages ago. I would still enjoy the book with children but talk about how times change. If I remember it correctly, the clothes are of their time and dad wears a hat so a good conversation starter.

At the end, the mum buys tiger food, in case he comes again. But he never does.

Maybe she saw him as an escape from her shit boring life and hoped he'd just pop by again. Preferably when Sophie was in school and he didn't have to pretend to be hungry.

My house:
"Hiya."
'Hiya. What are we having for tea?"
"Erm, I've got some quorn things in the fridge. "
"No you haven't. "
"Oh. Some quorn meatballs in the freezer. "
"No you haven't. "
"There'll be some pasta in the cupboard. "
"No there won't, a fucking great tiger came round today and ate everything. And drsnk your beer. Didn't touch my prosecco though, cos apparently he preferred cava. Drank all the water in the taps. Clogged upstairs with his fur. "
" shall we get a takeaway?"

I rely heavily on dh to feed me.