Do you remember a specific moment where you realised that being female put you at a disadvantage?

[ChickensHaveNoEyebrows]

I have three.

1. I was about 8, and my best friend was a boy. We went to his house to play and I remember being so envious of his toys. He had lego, a real tool kit, a chemistry set, a metal detector etc. These were Boys Things, and I remember thinking how unfair that was.

2. From the age of 9 I begged my Dad to teach me to play 'Risk', because he often played it with his friends. He fobbed me off for years, and then one day I came home and found him teaching my 9 year old brother. Apparently, 'Risk' was a Man's Game.

3. At age 13, I was moaning about washing up the lunch things. My mother and aunt laughed and told me I'd best get used to it. When I said that if I got married, my husband would also wash up, they practically wet themselves with mirth.

All of these events made me feel so frustrated and angry. In fact, I spent a large part of my childhood thinking I must have been born in the wrong body because 'proper' girls didn't hanker after a saw, or desire to conquer america, or find washing up boring as fuck. You?

Hasten to add a group of mates and I (aged 14 now) got together a petition to allow us to wear tracksuit bottoms like the boys. Submitted it to the headmaster and PE staff

..and got a month's detention.

When my mother tried to explain to me why my greatgrandfather had not spoken to his firstborn (my gran) for 9 years because he needed an heir for the farm and she was 'only a girl'. He also did not speak to his wife due to her 'failure' to provide one .

Whenever my dad in any kind of teenaged argument (me, not him) would say "Do you have your period?" whenever I got upset .

Don't get me started on the job side of things....

Also, I wonder if it makes a difference what gender your siblings are? I had a sister so I never had a brother to see being treated differently IYSWIM.

Maybe. I was an only child and they knew they weren't going to have any more children so my dad pretty much HAD to do all the things with me he would have done with a son.

I know my mum felt very disadvantaged by being a girl in her upbringing, having a younger brother.

Good grief ToffeePenny. I remember the awful PE pants but only the boys at school could leer - from a distance. Did you tell the school about the men at the pub leering?

At least schools seem somewhat more aware of that kind of thing now.

Too many things to list here but a few;

Growing up in a house where the girls did all the housework and my brother did nothing. We also had to tclear up any mess that he made even if we had already tidied.

Mr dad being FURIOUS at my extremely intelligent, graduate friend being offered a job on 17k a year when 'there are fully grown men out of work'.

The mortgage advisor wanting to put my DP (now DH) first on our mortgage despite me already having the mortgage with them (we were buying together after him having lived in my flat for years) and banking with them for ten years. They also wanted to put him first when we opened a joint acount. I was told it was very odd to put me first as that wasn't normal.

Going to university to study a 'male profession' after attending an all girls school - just everything about it.

Working in the construction industry and watching DH (also in the same job) being invited out on golf / rugby /racing jollies and receiving none - although they could just not like me I guess!

Having children and being expected to just deal with all child relate matters despite working full time.

It's always been present in my life, this feeling that being female was second-best. I had a fairly old-fashioned upbringing and went to an all girls' school, where Maths and Science were viewed as 'hard' subjects, more suitable for boys. Many of the more technical subjects - technical drawing, applied maths, economics - weren't offered at all at our school. We got one extra language and home economics though - lucky us! I was just a determined feminist from very early on though, regardless, and sought out good female role models to give me hope.

When I went to university, I was the same, just persevering against the sexism and staying optimistic. It was really only when I started work that I felt I hit a brick wall in terms of being female. In one of my first graduate jobs with a big technology corporate, I remember looking down the phone list to call someone and noticed that every single senior person in the company was male and every single PA was female. It was male power, influence and money to the left side of the sheet and female subordination, low/average pay and inferiority to the right of the sheet. My heart kind of sank. It made me realise that no matter how many degrees you have, how hard you work, it doesn't always translate into career success. Being female still meant being subordinate in much of the 'real world' outside of school / university. It was really depressing.

I still haven't come across any positive experiences in the workplace that have made me change my mind. I left the corporate sector to focus on non- and semi-governmental / academic roles and it was the same there too. Women are still held back in much of life and have to be twice as smart and ruthless as men to get the same jobs.

In primary school the boys had football and the girls had netball, I LOVED football and couldn't give a rat's ass about netball, So I begged to play football and was told it was netball or nothing, I chose nothing and was made to write 'lines' (remember them?)instead.

In high school girls I was suspended for wearing trousers instead of a skirt and refusing to go home and change.(3 feet of snow on the ground by the way)

So the next day most of the girls turned up in trousers and were sent home too.

Not long after that we were 'allowed' to wear trousers.

So did everyone else also feel like they drew the short straw? I remember very clearly thinking that my brain was the same as a boys, but I was just unlucky being born in to the 'weaker' body. I wanted to be male. My parents would swear blind that they aren't sexist, btw, but that 'biology means boys and girls are different'. A fundamental truth, but has fuck all to do with wielding a saw to make a camp or going metal detecting

1. Almost every day when working in a tech shop.

Customer: Could I speak to an expert? Me: Yes, how can I help? Customer: Oh... um.. is that man over there free?

1. Working for the same store, and finding out that I was being paid less than a male member of staff (who worked less hours than me and had less responsibilities).

1. Attempting to talk to any tech services and being ignored so they can talk to my father of DH instead.

All of mine seem to be tech/work related.

"So did everyone else also feel like they drew the short straw? I remember very clearly thinking that my brain was the same as a boys, but I was just unlucky being born in to the 'weaker' body."

No, I was always perfectly happy with the body I was born into. Just aware other people viewed me as having drawn the short straw.

No, I never wanted to be male or play 'male sports'. I just don't understand why I had to do something or not do something because I was female.

I've never felt at a disadvantage as my parents were fab, but I work in a very male dominated field, and of recent years have been involved with a totally male (almost) one. One of my customers was in hysterics as someone kept asking to talk to the expert on this (at a conference, so I was working the booth) and had to keep being told it was me . Customer pointed out I should get a fake beard and a woolly jumper to pull out at times like that so their minds didn't blow up

I also rememebr in my first job I worked in a really small practice and often answered the phone only to have someone speak to me as though I was dirt until they realised that I was not 'just the secretary' but the professional they were actually ringing up to speak to. Wankers.

CMOT I kept threatening to stick a poster up at my tech job (it was a camera shop) saying "Cameras are not penis operated".

My boss, though she was amused, said no as the biggest sexist arse was our area manager and he was already looking for ways to fire me.

"So did everyone else also feel like they drew the short straw? I remember very clearly thinking that my brain was the same as a boys, but I was just unlucky being born in to the 'weaker' body."

To an extent, that's how I felt too. My eldest and only brother was treated like some kind of saint and could do no wrong. The three of us girls were made to feel like we were surplus to requirements in some way, especially me being the youngest of three. We were nothing special. Everyone made a fuss over how bright my brother was at school and how well he would do in life. I was actually even brighter at school but no-one took an interest in my success. I remember thinking if I'd been born a boy that my family and teachers might have cared more about my achievements.

WHen I asked my mother about this she sort of fobbed me off and said that she and my father always just assumed I'd do fine and didn't need any extra support. In reality though, they just weren't that bothered because it was assumed that as a girl my career prospects would be limited anyway.

(as it turned out, my brother got so stressed with school exams he failed them and had to resit, then got depressed when he went to university, couldn't cope with life at all and now, at 40, hasn't worked in years...)

at about 15 when i decided i wanted to join the marines.

up until that point, no-one had stopped me doing anything at all, or treated me differently for doing it. seems unbelievable now.

it was at that point that i realised whatever bubble i had previously existed in would be punctured on a pretty much daily basis by real actual laws and rules.

having been unable to convince the marines that not having a penis wasn't an enormous problem for me, and wouldn't be for them, i joined the raf. and had to sign a contract stating that if i got married or pg i would leave.

it's just been a joy since then, really.

What a revealing thread!

I always knew: Daddies hit Mummies, not t'other way round - though I remember cheering out loud the only time she did hit back, and did it myself (more effectively) when I was big enough.

I went to a good all-girls school, thank goodness, and had sibs of both sexes. I had Meccano, chemistry sets, etc, and we all learned basic DIY as well as basic housekeeping.

In my teens I agitated for workplace reforms. Some of the factories got out of hiring women because they didn't have ladies' loos! They also had men's jobs and women's jobs - which paid less, natch - and I spent quite a few mornings freezing outside head offices, demonstrating with older women who taught me about all the hour-by-hour, day-by-day injustices they suffered.

My feminist light bulb was switched on by Germaine Greer, in the first edition of Cosmopolitan

On a personal level, it helped me to start feeling rightly angry about my home life with my parents ... though, since mine were egalitarian with things like education and pocket money, I still struggled to see the abuse for what it was.

I only found out recently that my father refused to pay for me to go to university because of my sex.

I was truly shocked when I went to work in Jersey, which hadn't got equal pay laws at that time, and was hired on the women's wage. It was 40% lower than the men's.

My first career was in catering. I quit because I wouldn't be allowed to have my own pub unless I married a fellow licensee!

In my next career, post-uni, I had to sign an undertaking not to get pregnant for two years. Statutory maternity leave came in during that time and the union improved on it, so I could have rescinded. There was still a 2-year qualifying period for mat leave, though.

In large part, it's hard to separate feminist issues from the domestic/relationship abuse in my lifetime. They are expressions of the same problem, of course, but I was outspoken against sexism in public - and even at home - while submitting to abuse by my partners. There must have been a very odd disconnect in my own mind.

Outside of my private life, I simply didn't put up with sexism even when travelling alone. Things started to get difficult after my mid-forties. Sexism seems to gain courage from ageism. The next decade's going to be enlightening, I'm sure

x-post lots. Will have to come back and read. Great thread!

That's exactly it dittany. I thought there must have been something wrong with me because I wanted more. And out of the two of us, my brother is miles more passive than I am. He goes with the flow, doesn't like to rock the boat, hates attention etc. I was the one doing cartwheels up the living room just to get noticed. It was only when I got older that I realised that this wasn't a 'male/female traits' thing but a personality one. I do remember clearly hearing my Dad say that it was a shame I was a girl, because I could have 'been something' .

Oh, just remembered my favourite bigoted-customer incident. I was the credit controller, customer came in to discuss her repayments, I went down to see her and she started ranting that I wasn't good enough, she demanded to see G. Butty, who signed her reminder letter. "I'm G. Butty," I said. "I want to talk to a MAN!!!" she yelled. So I fetched the box boy over, and asked her whether she'd prefer to discuss her debt with him or me.

garlic, my dad always made it clear that my (younger) brother and I could both go to university if we wished and we both did. I was the more academic one of us two.
Fast forwards 15/20 years and he is outraged that I am working in my profession (part-time), being a mother and wife an'all . My brother is of course working in his profession, full-time. He is a father and husband. But clearly a totally different situation. According to my dad. .

I only ever felt really disadvantaged once; the first summer it was deemed inappropriate for me to remove my top whilst playing football with the boys in our street, I was gutted.
Other than that it's been an advantage, I was the only girl in my woodwork, electrical, graphic design, and games (canoeing, caving and rock climbing) classes, which is pretty fabulous when you're a frisky teen! I remember the woodwork teacher calling me a thorn among many roses!
I notice the stereotypes when out DIY shopping with DH, even if I'm the one asking the questions, the salesMEN always talk to DH when replying, luckily DH usually plays along, lets the bloke say what he has to say, then turns to me and ask me to translate.