My BF did not acknowlede women’s day

[gingercringe]

acknowledge

My boyfriend is big on dates and celebrations - he makes a huge effort for my b’day, christmas etc and also when I have personal wins like passing exams, getting promoted etc. If dates fall mid week he wants to celebrate twice - the weekend before and after.

I’m a lot more chill and don’t care about traditional celebrations (such as christmas, mother’s day etc) but I celebrate people’s b’day if it is important to them.

So yesterday as he was planning a 2nd celebration for my b’day lol and I was trying to plan his b’day later on in the year, I said:
’oh, yesterday was women’s day and you didn’t text me about it’

(to be clear he texted me other things)
and I was not complaining at all as I don’t care for it, just thought amusing he missed one opportunity to celebrate

He said that he didn’t understand women’s day and that at work there were speeches by women talking women as whole up but he knows that on a daily basis, these women giving the speeches are horrible to other women at work and they treat men better and differently.

Luckly for me, the women at my work are all amazing, maybe because they dominate the top? Also we had nothing for women’s day at work, nobody cared.

Myself only realised it was women’s day because at the hairdresser they were all wearing the same colour and decorated the place for the occasion.

How do you feel about women’s day?
and
Should we have men’s day too?

As is so often pointed out, there is a man’s day in November.

There’s is men’s day.

its every day. But there’s a special one.

And what’s it got to do with celebrating other things?

I like to see women's day celebrated in the media and online but in my family and relationship its not something we really acknowledge.

There’s at least three things in this thread that got me 🤨

I’d not expect my husband to do something for women’s day, I find that odd.

one Of the men at work did send an email about how great we all were, I found it utterly condescending, I’m equal to a man, and should be treated as such every single moment. I don’t need a day to be recognised. It should be the default every single day.

Honestly I now think it's another thing that's about to go ott. It was everywhere this year. I
Took the DCs out for breakfast as they were off school as their schools were polling stations for the referendum (I'm in Ireland) and the cafe was setting up tables for large groups coming in for lunch for international women's day. We also got offered chocs at the till in Lidl . DH organised a large event at his place of work . It just seemed a massive thing this year

I wouldn’t expect my dh to do anything about Interantional women’s day and it would upset me that he didn’t know about it. There is a man’s day and I don’t message my husband about it either.

I think the fact that he goes out of his way to celebrate you is lovely and wouldn’t be hung up on this.

My god you sound hard work. And you didn’t even know…. Get some perspective

Is this going to be another occasion for Hallmark to cash in on now?

"Happy International Women's Day - from my neighbour's budgie's aunt to your hairdresser's violin teacher's daughter"

@HoneyWogan this is how I see it going

You didn't realise it was IWD but you thought your bf should know?

I think it's an important day. I like to see it acknowledged in the media and on social media.
For me its a day to celebrate women and think of all the women around the world who are still being oppressed and murdered by men.

It's nothing like birthdays or Christmas though. I really wouldn't expect anyone to message me about it, or celebrate it like that.

There is an IMD in November as previous posters have pointed out but everyone knows that men only care about IMD on IWD!

I can see that people are confused or just like to twist posts or maybe dont bother reading properly

I was not sad, upset whatever because he didn’t specifically text me about international women’s day and yes I did not realise it myself and I don’t care for it either

The post is about his perception of women’s day as a man from what he sees happening at his work

Maybe the whole post is bad written and all over the place - I’m not a native English speaker to my defence.

I will be in the background reading but not commenting anymore and remember - this is not AIBU although the whole of MN feels like AIBU sometimes.

1. Women's Day is important and to turn it into another pink-coloured replica of Mother's Day or Valentine's muchas the flower industry might like that---- would be utterly nauseating.
2. It's Men's Day 364 days of the year. That's precisely why IWD exists. To go on about it is no better than the NAMALT brigade.

I think the issue is your title says he didn’t acknowledge it. They you talk about him celebrating other things. So that’s what people assumed the post was about.

Then went out of your way to tell him he didn’t text you about it. The day after. You must have been bothered of some description to bother mentioning it.

He has a view of the way his work does it. Not sure we can comment on it as we don’t work there.

I am also unsure of your comment about this not being Aibu. Not sure what that’s relevant to.

IWD is typically a work place thing IMHO rather than a relationship thing ? Id never expect my kids or bf to acknowledge IWD to me

I for one wasn't trying to mock or twist your words, OP. It's just that so many of these special days can become tokenistic, where you give a card and a bunch of flowers 'because that's just what you do' and pay it no further heed at all.

It does sound like your BF has noticed and acknowledged (internalised) misogyny - and a rather large part of IWD is identifying and drawing attention to how poorly women are routinely treated, rather than shrugging your shoulders and accepting it as 'just how things are'.

My colleagues husband bought all the women in his office flowers… which I find a bit weird.

I see what he means.

It's getting a bit virtue signally these days.

It's a political thing, a day for organising or visibility, not a chocolate and flowers day.

I do a sport which is quite grassroots and some of the women were singled out online. It made me uncomfortable in some way that I've struggled to put a finger on. Maybe because as something that's none competitive it usually feels quite egalitarian.

🤣🤣🤣

Thread is defo a bit odd.

If the function of IWD is to be used by Corporates to mansplain how feminist they are with pink branding and Barbie messaging, it’s a waste of time. If it’s going to mean anything it needs to be about women expressing their anger in a way that makes at least half the population deeply uncomfortable and not in the mood to celebrate.

LTB

I think you raise an interesting topic but it's buried a bit by having the post start by saying so much about what happened with you and your boyfriend personally. Especially when that's how you've titled it as well. And the title does come across a bit AIBU-ish so it's not totally surprising people have responded in that vein.