Feminism chat thread

[ElephantsAndMiasmas]

Hello

Been saying for ages that it'd be nice to have an area for just saying hi, letting off some steam and sharing the little things that don't warrant a whole thread.

So, I'll start...

My brother made me :o:o:o last night when we were talking about some crap sexist song. And he said (in all honesty) - well this is just one of the millions of ways the patriarchy keeps itself going.

Also got the updated email from the Feminism in London conference this morning - can't wait.

Anyone else?

Rosie's Hat is Julia Donaldson but a different illustrator from usual; it ends with her being a firefighter and finding her lost hat when she goes to rescue a cat stuck in a tree.

rosie's hat

DD thinks it's great, she's fascinated by the page where rosie "grows, and grows, and grows" and it shows her going from a child to a young woman to a firefighter

Re the different choices stuff - I have realised that I can do this in RL sometimes. The reason it happens is that we know that with any parenting/mummy decisions we stand a strong possibility of being judged, and so go on teh defensive from the off. So eg I work part-time and DD goes to preschool and my parents. When I tell people I tend to launch into a very involved explanation about how the arrangement we have is all fine for the children. And I think it could be taken the wrong way by someone with different arrangements. It's not deliberate on my part, it's a sort of self-justification and defensive thing.

I basically think that's what we see all over these boards - women are in a perpetual state of concern that they are doing the wrong thing and many/most of them are sensitive to anything they perceive as criticism. But for the same reason women are always saying things which it's easy to take as criticism.

The only way to get rid of it is to have a society where women are not judged for the choices that families make. Do men go around tying themselves up in knots because their DCs are in nursery full time, or launching into great speeches about how their children are with a childminder and really that's OK, really it is...? No they don't, not that I've ever heard anyway.

SAF. I'm really sorry you're feeling that things I am writing are anti-school or that I am criticising your choices. Surely you can see, though, that school isn't perfect. Do you really feel threatened when someone says something they see as a bad point about school? I don't mind when someone says 'that's the bad thing about HE, you can't get any time for yourself' because, on the whole they'd be right.

But if people hadn't been honest with me about the things they felt let chidlren down in the school system, I'd never have had the opportunity to question my assumptions that my children would go to school. I didn't even see any downsides to it - it was just what everyone does! I have to admit I feel frustrated when you're not able to debate something without people taking offence

To me, it's the same thing as when you feel obliged to say "men as a group are crap but I mustn't forget to say 'except for...'".

And I'm not sure what the ex-teacher bit relates to - my mum agrees with me and is a teacher; my uncle too; and about 30% of my HE friends are teachers.

As mothers, we really must start feeling more secure in our choices so that we can open ourselves up to debate and questioning and maybe even having our minds changed. Debate can help you strengthen your belief in what you're doing/thinking (I'm finding this now with debating feminism a lot on MN and IRL) and also help you realise when you need to change your mind about something (I also found this with some feminist issues). Don't take offence - challenge it or ask more questions. I'm afraid, though, much as I love you SAF, I'm not going to stop saying things that are true for me and I'm not going to stop doing my utmost to open my mind to truly listening to opposing arguments.

(truthfully and honestly not a passive aggressive ! )

ps. I love Rosie's Hat!

Oh blimey!

Please don't go! You're right, it's not an HE board. I'll shut up - I was only responding to aviatrix's thoughts about introducing children to war, not trying to make everyone want to home educate.

And I was just a bit shocked that someone would see that as anti-school.

Come on back SAF

My children will be going to school - they hit nursery at age 2! PLease come back.

I wasn't preaching!!!!!! I was talking to aviatrix!

And it is relevant! Children are exposed to things in school that any parent who has strong feeligns about things will be unhappy about. Girls being pitched against boys; introduction of big subjects without a good support system in place; peer pressure to have sex very young.

By home educating, it is possible to mitigate some of the popular culture that your children are exposed to. I don't censor things my children see and read (apart from really awful things, obviously!), but the point is, I am there to help them make sense of it. I am there to help them consider whether the messages they're receiving are good or bad ones.

There have been discussions about where children get the messages that blue and diggers and football are for boys but pink and ballet and playing weddings are for girls when the parents bring them up free from sexism and one of the influences will be school. You cannot escape that!

I'm not trying to get you to home educate. It's none of my business how you educate your children, and I don't ever try to persuade anyone to do anything.

And I'm sorry if you thought I was being patronising, but it's difficult to come up with a reason that someone might say someone was preaching when they weren't, unless they are feeling particularly defensive about something.

I think this is a fully feminist area

I know what you mean though - there are topics which I steer clear of on here - and if I felt that they were starting to encroach on here I would be annoyed.

Flamingo has stopped posting about HE, we can all hoist our dungarees up and get back to it Please stay I appreciate your posts.

Flamingo I think you have raised some interesting points and would be happy to chat about them if you start a thread about HE + feminism

Can't be arsed, SQ

I'll shut up about HE, but I'm really struggling to understand what is different between feminists going and talking about feminist issues (albeit not naming them as such) on non-feminist issues because we think it's relevant to them and we want them to listen to us; and me posting about how HE benefits me as a feminist on this topic.

Do you not think we all come across as preachy harridans to everyone else? In fact, don't answer that, because we all know we do. So why are you bringing that same attitude here, SAF? I don't get it! .

I really want to understand why this is different to you, because at the moment I can't make it out.

Do we have to? I'm not on either "side" here but you could take

"Children are exposed to things in school that any parent who has strong feeligns about things will be unhappy about. Girls being pitched against boys; introduction of big subjects without a good support system in place; peer pressure to have sex very young. "

You see I don't agree with that - I don't agree that going to school will automatically mean that those things will happen, or that staying at home they won't.

Your post sounds very definite that these bad things will happen rather than an invitation to discuss IYSWIM. Also the statement that parents who send their children to school are happy to expose their children to sexism, being overwhelmed, and pressure to have sex. So as someone who does not home educate, you have expressed that you think I don't care about these things happening to my children. If I was so inclined I could take that personally.

So I can see SAF's point and also that you think it's a good topic for feminism (which it is). But maybe not on this thread which is a light-hearted chat place.

No, I said I wouldn't talk about HE anymore. I'm asking, now, what is different between me chatting (lightheartedly, initially) to another poster about it, and us talking about feminism on a non-feminist topic.

I'm sorry about my recent posts - I was feeling pissed off to be told that talking about a benefit of HE wrt to big topics like war was actually being anti-school. I ended up posting hastily and angrily - of course I meant 'more likely to' rather than 'definitely will'.

Happy to draw a line under it all, though, and start afresh.

Yes. I did say I was sorry.

It's so difficult on the computer isn't it, so much depends on how you're feeling when you read something, as to how you "hear" what others are saying, and how you respond. What could be a nice discursive chat IRL can easily become quite upsetting/irritating on a screen.

Anyway, where were we?

My kids will go to school, a state school no less but I think home-schoolers have to put up with a lot of crap from society, and that's what made me think there's more to it than meets the eye. A general rule I follow is that if public opinion is against it, it's probably contrary to the patriarchy in some way.

I do think that certain topics are sensitive but that they can be analyzed in a feminist way and the reason I think this is that there is a patriarchal party line that society must tow. The multi-billion dollar formula industry is patriarchal, the sneering of breastfeeding in public is patriarchal. SO breastfeeding does not make a woman a better mother, but it's important to look at how patriarchy has systematically striven to destroy it. Supporting breastfeeding should be seen in this context.

WRt homeschooling.. School is seen as normal by society and homeschooling is seen as "weird" .This is the starting point of a home schooling discussion.
I do think that there are elements of patriarchy in the school system. The most obvious one i can think of is the way mothers are threatened with Social services for not getting their kids to school on time, or frequently enough. Now these women should be offered help if they're struggling in some way, but instead they're given threats of having their children taken away, all because they're having trouble slotting into the way the system has been built.

That said, my kids will be going to school for various reasons, and one of those is that it's the "done" thing.