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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Feminism: chat

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Original poster

I'm posting this on here because I hope you'll agree with me

107 replies

MarionCole · 22/05/2011 17:37

DSD lives with us. It's her 15th birthday today and her mother has bought her a Ladyshave for her birthday.

This upsets me. DSD was mortified when she opened it. If DSD decides that she wants to conform to the expectation that she should shave her legs, then surely that is for her to decide in her own time?

Or am I being unreasonable?

(I would never actually post this in AIBU because I suspect most MNers would tell me that I was).

OP posts:

MissBeehiving · 23/05/2011 10:18

I had a pair of sparkly silver hot pants which I absolutely loved.

LRDTheFeministDragon · 23/05/2011 10:20

Was that the 80s by any chance, MissBeehiving?

frantic51 · 23/05/2011 10:27

LRD, how come what? That I'm not a feminist? I used to be, founder member back in the 70s! Like a lot of movements though, I find, these days, it goes too far and I prefer to distance myself from the extremists.

Most of what I fought for, back in the day, has been more or less achieved and I really do worry, as the mother of a son, that girls today emasculate boys and that boys, generally, are now the ones that feel devalued by society at large.

SybilBeddows · 23/05/2011 10:27

of course you can depilate and be a feminist. Hell, you can vajazzle and be a feminist if you want.

it doesn't mean depilation is a feminist act and it doesn't mean the increasing pressure to do it isn't a feminist issue.

MissBeehiving · 23/05/2011 10:27

Yes - happy days .

SybilBeddows · 23/05/2011 10:30

'Most of what I fought for, back in the day, has been more or less achieved'

I wonder what you were fighting for then, because it clearly wasn't equal pay, political representation, an end to the objectification of women or an end to rape or domestic violence

LRDTheFeministDragon · 23/05/2011 10:33

Yes, that's what I was asking frantic. Personally, I think feminism is also about countering attitudes towards boys ('he can't play with that, it's a girls' toy/ I bet he's really rough, boys are'), as anything else. It's all part of the same prejudice imo.

SB - sorry, got lost, but I think it was you who was surprised anyone would be ashamed of a mum not shaving - was that you? And why? It seems to me children are much more vulnerable to peer pressure/social pressure they don't understand, than the rest of us.

at miss. I was too young in the 80s, I just don't feel being a teen in the 90s really gave much opportunity for sparkle!

JenaiMarrHePlaysGuitar · 23/05/2011 10:37

This feminist doesn't wear hot pants. Not anymore

I might consider wearing some with opaque tights though.

LRDTheFeministDragon · 23/05/2011 10:40

Ohh, I'm not mad keen on that look Jenai. It's very trendy with the students round here, or alternatively hot pants and knee-socks with little bows ... I think they look oddly like toddlers.

I am sure you could pull it off and look spiffing, though.

frantic51 · 23/05/2011 10:43

Well, when my sister joined a bank in 1976 she wasn't allowed to take the banking exams, even if she paid for them herself as she was only 17 and "bound to be leaving to get married and have children" Older women, with children, who had gone back to work, were allowed to do them if they were still under 30 and they paid their own fees. Young men coming into the bank however could do them any time they liked and could apply to have their fees paid for them!

That's just one example of exactly how bad it was! I haven't got time for more just now as I must run and catch a train in about 15mins but I don't think some of the younger women today truly realise just how far we have come in the last 30-40 years.

As to objectifying women. That, I am afraid is human nature (or rather men's nature) rather than societies' nurture and I'd as soon try to nail a jelly to the ceiling as enter a fight to try and put a stop to it!

As to political equality, there are many people, in this country at least, who are disadvantaged politically and they are not all women by any means. It is far easier, at the moment, to enter politics if you are a female Oxbridge graduate than it is for a state educated man, even in the Labour party! If you think political equality is a feminist issue then, sorry, but I think you are barking!

SpringchickenGoldBrass · 23/05/2011 10:45

Is part of the problem that the DD is an individualor indeed a feminist and her mother one of those twatty women who can't bear non-conforming and is constatnly pressuring the DD to be more 'girly'?

LRDTheFeministDragon · 23/05/2011 10:47

That's really depressing for your sister frantic.

I do think some things have got better ... but bloody hell, you'd hope so, wouldn't you?! What's a shame is they haven't got much better.

I don't see why a feminist couldn't be angry both about the social inequality in politics, and the sexism? Both kinds of prejudice are propping up the same privileged men, I think.

mrsravelstein · 23/05/2011 10:55

frantic i agree

TrillianAstra · 23/05/2011 10:55

I agree with LRD - if we want men to treat women well when they are adults then we need to counteract the "boys can't play with that because it's for girls" attitude when they are young. The sereotyped attitudes and divison of interests are all part of the same problem.

mrsravelstein · 23/05/2011 10:58

but if the girl is a feminist, equates that with not shaving, and her mother who doesn't live with her and therefore doesn't understand her very well, buys her a ladyshave, what does it matter? how is it cause for major upset? my mum bought me a vile jumper in the wrong size last christmas which suggests she thinks i have absolutely no taste and am 2 stone fatter than I am... should i be mortified and offended?

LRDTheFeministDragon · 23/05/2011 11:01

It seems the girl was upset though, mrsravel. I think it's a bit different from you (an adult) getting a crappy present - at 15 she's still young enough to feel hurt quite easily by things you as an adult can put to the side.

I remember feeling absolutely awful when my mum got me shampoo for my birthday when I was a teen - I wouldn't care at all now but for some reason at the time it seemed terrible.

JenaiMarrHePlaysGuitar · 23/05/2011 11:04

hot pants and knee-socks with little bows ...

Ooooohhhh - I wore something along those lines (over knee socks though) circa 1990. I looked fabulous. Possibly

LRDTheFeministDragon · 23/05/2011 11:07

That was 1990, though. If memory serves, it wasn't hard to look fabulous in 1990, compared with the average.

(Btw, feel free to ignore this as I may be both wrong and spectacularly creepy-stalkeresque, but do you and I live in the same town? With Lewis and Morse and all? If so, you've surely seen them all in their student-y get up all down Cornmarket of an evening ... and somehow, the loveliest outfit just doesn't appeal to me so much when I've seen it being puked down.)

LRDTheFeministDragon · 23/05/2011 11:08

Ahem. Though, no doubt, your 1990s fabulousity was extra special.

(Not doing much to combat the creepy image, am I? Best have a quick bunfight.)

mrsravelstein · 23/05/2011 11:10

as i read it, the OP was the one who was upset, not the step daughter.

LRDTheFeministDragon · 23/05/2011 11:14

She does say her DSD was 'mortified', actually. Though I accept that's the OP's interpretation and could perhaps be mistaken. Still, she must have reacted negatively in some way to give the OP that impression.

SybilBeddows · 23/05/2011 11:15

'If you think political equality is a feminist issue then, sorry, but I think you are barking!'

we'll have to agree to disagree then, because I think you're barking if you think it's not.
and I think it is barking to set one's sights so low as to think that removing formal barriers and leaving the rest in place is adequate and that anything more makes you an extremist.

I don't think some older women realise how far there is still to go.

darleneoconnor · 23/05/2011 11:17

Am I the only one who doesn't know what a ladyshave is?

next we'll have someone come on here saying that delipidated women are to blame if they're raped, because they obviously only do it to entice all those poor menz

kickingking · 23/05/2011 11:29

My mum bought me a ladyshave for my birthday when I was about the same age (over 15 years ago) She bought it because she was fed up of me nicking hers, so she already knew I was shaving my legs. It had never occured to me about shaving pubes at that age tbh.

I was mortified too, because a) it was really embarrassing to open in front of my dad and to have to tell people what I got for my birthday when they asked, and b) it's a crap present. If you are shaving, it's kind of an essential item. the only reason I hadn't bought my own was because I didn't have any money.

JenaiMarrHePlaysGuitar · 23/05/2011 12:27

Nah LRD, not Morse land

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