Micro Acts of Feminism

[AntiqueBooks]

Hello

I heard somewhere about eg assuming a Dr is a woman so when someone says "the Dr will be along in a minute" you say "great I'll see her soon then".

Is there a book or a website or something that has more ideas like this?

Thanks

It wasn't a standard setting of course.
Dear Madam to all unknowns would certainly not have been a standard setting...
But did it anyway.
I reckoned esp in work places the person opening the post to sort it was far more likely to be female.

I do this(ish). I always write 'dear sir/madam' but never ask females their title, I just put Ms. Afterall, I never ask men their title, I just put Mr.

Up to a point, you’re quite right. Big markups on more easily handled quantities is sexist, ageist and ableist.

otoh, I used to complain about bags of compost, small ones being much more expensive than the standard size. But at some point - maybe during a spell when DH had a bad back - I started getting them out of the car, into the wheelbarrow myself. And now at 65 I can still deal with them at home unless they’re exceptionally wet.
Of course I’m happy to get a strong young man help me to the car with them in the first place - and sometimes a strong young woman.

Doing something yourself if it’s liable to hurt you is stupid. But not doing something you can do because another person can do it more easily - that can be ‘learned helplessness’, and if it’s something physical it can be ‘use it or lose it’. And if the reason you’re not doing something yourself that you could do is because it might dent male pride - which I think was a factor in the original trolley example - well then it’s not feminist to gradually enfeeble yourself to spare his feelings.

Little examples i've come across is aged 20, i was asked to train a new member of staff on how to do my job. He was a 50 something gentleman who'd been made redundant from a management position in a previous role. The whole time he made comments about how demeaning it was, and surely he ought to be trained by one of the male team leaders not 'palmed off on some silly little girl' along with a few 'i used to be a manager' sort of comments.

The expectation that i should be the one making the drinks. I refused, and pointed out i didn't drink tea or coffee, wasn't part of the 'drinks round' and i wasn't about to waste time i could be working making it for everyone else.

Being asked if my (now ex)husband was 'babysitting' where he was just asked if he'd left me at home with the kids.

I think the only time i have ever been put first on a mass scale is in medical appointments and assessments with my disabled son, and parents evenings with both of them, where i was always deferred to and my husband more or less ignored, to the point he would get annoyed and threaten not to bother coming.

As for what i said upthread, for the menfolk who have clearly found this thread...
If you're walking towards a disabled person on crutches (or in a wheelchair which i sometimes am) and you DON'T step aside, you're inviting injury, or forcing them to stop, they cannot just side step around you.
I've seen women yank their partners out of the way to give me space before. Yes, it does amuse me.

Every time I get a new manager I explain i am a reformed people pleaser who historically has always volunteered for the 'admin' tasks noone else wants to do, and after reading research on how this is most often women, and keep women busy doing tasks that arent 'promotable', so they will find me sitting on my hands for a lot of tasks so others can volunteer. I balance this out by proactively volunteering for appropriate tasks in private 121s with my manager, and being proactive in taking ownership outside of these kinds of tasks, especially when its not our immediate team.

Any time a anyone says 'oh my other half cant cook' i say 'why not' which has now evolved to when I get the inevitable 'oh he just cant, he's useless, cant figure it out' answer, I go 'he's managed to convinced you he can drive a car/insert job/insert hobby ...but cant figure out how to boil an egg? I should try that sometime!'

I have also known to ruffle feathers when people come out with 'well men arent good with xxx' to excuse their partners being shit as will say 'sounds more like he cant be bothered to learn and is happy to leave it all to you to be honest'

I do lots of things to men too, but I dont want to contribute to the collective gaslighting women do that means they build lives with men who dont have basic skills such as 'basic cooking/cleaning 'basic conflict resolution' and 'showing basic respect to the woman they claim to love'

My last shopping delivery was by a driver called Angela, who I correctly guessed was a woman in her mid to late 50s 😂

Exactly this, thank you for articulating better than I could. Yes DH is bigger and stronger than me but I'm absolutely capable or pushing a supermarket trolley, I'm not going to 'let' him do it just so that he feels he's doing the manly thing and not letting the little lady push. Of course, if it was too heavy and I couldn't manage or needed help, I would happiy let him help.

And lower shelves that we can actually reach the things on, as women, generally speaking, are shorter than men are.

@Kendodd 20kg is surely not too heavy, though?

My adult children -male and female - can both lift their own bodyweight.

Muscle is built by lifting things.

You know YOU sound like a right psycho wishing ill on women with the temerity not to move for men?

The exact kind of psycho women have to avoid and placate in real life.

My gym is pretty good in terms of we don't get much macho posturing, however women are still a minority in the weights area. I've started making a point of saying a hello or smiling at other women in there.

https://www.facebook.com/MANWHOHASITALL

Might find some inspiration on this page.

I've never really suffered from patriarchal chicken, in fact it's usually middle aged couples or family groups who don't see why they should move over.

But today I had a bloke do it to me, and to make it worse he was riding a bike on the pavement, on a quiet road. He could have easily gone round me and back onto the pavement, but chose not to. I had to move, even though I told him to. I don't think I have "lost" that "game" before!

If a man is 'man spreading' over an empty seat on the train I always beeline for that seat, and before I sit down, I ‘accidentally’ step hard on the man spreading foot and whack his man spreading knee with my laptop bag. As soon as he moves his foot complaining because I trod on it I quickly spread into as much space as humanly possible. Legs akimbo, bag between my legs.

My space is mine, not yours, you man spreader.

I know it seems minor... But never ever dropping my friends company for a man, even being my husband. Some women forget that they have friends after getting relationships. Even the ones who say they are feminist.

Sit next to men on public transport.

Because they always sit next to women so they can manspread. Basically I try to let a female passenger sitting alone just enjoy having an empty seat next to her

Love that

Oh. I try to sit next to women so they can have a slim non-manspreading woman next to them who doesn't take up more than her share of space!