Would you like to play "It's like Feminisim never happened" with me?

[Marchpane]

I have a gem: I'm sorting out the home insurance renewal but since the last policy I have taken redundancy and I'm going back to do a postgraduate course. Which I told them.

They now have my occupation listed as "housewife" which is pretty yuk, but under employer's business it say "domestic service".

Presumably my husband is my employer and I spend my time in servitude to him?

Any one more?

I booked the appointment to have Sky installed. I'm paying the monthly charge. DH answered the phone when the engineer who was going to install it phoned up with a query (about the time of the appointment or something like that).

It is DH's name on all the Sky documentation.

Ephiny - you must be about the same age as me. The guys who I know who went to work in the city are the ugliest, twattiest, most misogynistic blokes I know. What is it about financial work, which you would think was pretty far from oil-covered, bear-wrangling masculinity as you can get?
VS - ugh at citypounds

Too right Trillian, and of course they did have turkey because they always have turkey, not because they necessarily like it. I realised some years ago that as I'm not that keen on turkey, there is no law that says I must eat it. I usually have lamb. Obviously if I'm having guests I check with them whether they'll like it (and consider pushing the boat out with a bit o' beef instead), but if they say it has to be turkey because it's Christmas, I simply reply "No, it doesn't". If you want to go all Trad Brit it should be goose anyway...

Re car buying, my sister was once looking for a sturdy but lively vehicle to take a bunch of mates paintballing in, visit relatives who lived on a farm etc. It had to be 4WD for going over fields, headroom for a couple of 6ft-plus guests and room for their kit in the boot, and she likes a lively car so at least 1.8L sporty or fuel injection kind of thing. The salesman said "ah, you'll be looking for something like a Corsa then". Funny because she hadn't seen his fingers in his ears while she was talking. And no, she didn't buy anything there. (She got a Subaru if you're wondering, and loved it dearly.)

I was watching More4 last night, and the trailer for the next programme came on after Grand Designs....

"... Next up, starring Alan Rickman, Hugh Grant and Greg Wise, it's Sense and Sensibility".

hahahahahaha Zhen, I've noticed this kind of thing too. Even funnier when they are using a picture of a woman to publicise the film, on a poster or a DVD for instance. And then above her face is a list of men's names. Er, someone's had serious plastic surgery then?

What's even weirder is that surely Emma Thompson and Kate Winslet are more famous, or at least as famous as the first two - and definitely more famous than GW. There's no excuse really is there? Unless they're learner-thinkers and assume that women watch films for the hawties only?

MIL once 'told me off' (not seriously, but as an aside while on the phone) for DD not having having gloves and warm clothes (it was that weird time of year where it was warm one minute and freezing the next). The thing is DH had taken her and I was at work!

She felt very guilty though and called to apologise for interfering.

Alan Rickman is the most important thing in Sense and Sensibility, but who is Greg Wise?

My mother asked me the other day who had set up my satnav, my DH or the man in the shop.

Er, I think it was me, actually.

Zhen I thought I was the only one to notice or care about that sort of thing. It pisses me off so so so much when films with female central characters are billed with at least three male actors' names before the women's. Lucky there are proportionately less female central characters, really

I used to work in a bar in the City and the guys that drank there were the most tightfisted, boorish, rancid wankers I have ever encountered.

Also didn't Emma Thompson write the damn thing and get an Oscar for it? (Obviously not S&S the book, but the screen play).

Greg Wise played Willoughby, and is married to Emma Thompson.

Snigger at Emma Thompson writing the damn thing. I know you specified the screenplay but it would be funny if Emma Thompson were secretly Jane Austen having travelled through time.

The only concession to sexism in our house is upon receiving the school photo, when we play "who did the child's hair on the day of the photo". DP claims I and DD's father are crap at doing hair.

Does S&S pass the Bechdel test?

I think so, they spend a fair bit of time at the beginning talking about moving house etc surely?

Bloody love the Bechdel Test, Trillian. seen anything good that passes it lately?

actually, i think most of austen's pass the bechdel test, they're all written from the woman's pov, and never have a male only scene in them. all the main protagonists are women, who all have at least one female friend that they chat to, and they talk about a lot of things, not just men & marriage.

Last film I watched was 'the men who stare at goats' and I don't know that there were any women in it at all.

Before that I saw 'let the right one in' and again there was a definite lack of female charcters.

Yeah trillian there is a woman in TMWSAG, the one whose treacherous falling in love with someone-other-than-the-hero triggered his flight to the middle East etc. Wikipedia: "Soon after, Bob's wife leaves him for his editor. In anger, Bob flies to Kuwait to report on the Iraq War and to show his wife/himself that he is a man."

There should be a special sticker for films like that - "Contains women as plot drivers only". They could put it on all the films where the woman's sole role is to be raped/killed in order to drive Our Hero onto some kind of revenge jaunt.

And another sticker "Contains a woman so there's someone for the hero to snog at the end to prove he's not gaaaaay"

She wasn't a woman, she was a plot device. She didn't even speak did she?

Not that I remember

OTOH I watched Keeping Mum the other day, plenty of female characters in there :o

Big tick for elephants sticker idea - genius!

Tesco compare website will not allow you to choose ms when looking for van insurance but it will for car insurance. Maybe it's because there are so few female van drivers that they don't think they need to?

First BF's mum told me that I was imposing my vegetarianism on exBF because I wouldn't cook meat. Gently tried to suggest that he could cook his own meat and I would not object....no, I was still unreasonable.

Letting agents ask me whether my DH works full time. No I say, he's part time and self employed but I work full time. Does he have three years worth of accounts? No, but my salary is enough to cover the rent. oh.