where did you learn about feminism?

[SinicalSal]

All I know about feminism I learnt from a cartoon I saw in the Sun once.

Therefore, I'm an expert and I hate you all, you hairylegged saggytitted man haters.

In reality I want to say thanks to you all. But sometimes I wish my eyes had never been opened. It was cosier chuckling away about daft useless men and I found the low level self directed resentment and discomfort quite easy to deal with, in the main...

Brought up that way, I think. People who see my mum find that odd, since she appears to be a very pretty, clingy type, who always wanted to be at home all day with 6 kids doing a lot of baking. But she and my dad raised me to never question that i could do anything a boy could do, other than pee accurately standing up!

I took it all for granted and seldom encountered much overt sexism (apart from one horrific careers class, when I made the careers teacher cry when I shredded him for his assumption that "medicine" meant I wanted to be a nurse, when I meant a brain surgeon), until I got a job in a call centre. Since then, i have encountered it constantly in every call centre job I have had - and there have been a lot!

Am now a very committed feminist. And trying to make converts.

Though I am very forbearing with MIL, who keeps telling me how to iron DH shirts... I'm not sure we have an iron. He would never have the neck to ask me, either - unless he had both arms in casts, I was doing a batch of ironing anyway, and e had an interview that day! We SPLIT the housework! Apparently it was all different in her time, and she's too old to change. I never realised age automatically entitled the bearer to bigotry.

Sorry. A bit of a rant. I saw her again over the weekend, and it builds up...

Being pissed off at school that, because I was at a girl's school, I had to learn to cook and sew. Boys at the twin school did woodwork and metalwork.

I did an OU course in 2004 and that gave me the vocabulary to describe what I'd been feeling for years. The tutor was a feminist and encouraged me to question why I'd always wanted to be a mum - was it really me or was it partially to do with society? And I was horrified and angry to find out that rape in marriage was only criminalised in the 1990's - 20 years after I was born. I'd also watched my DM be the victim of DV... and so on.

There was a feminist teacher at my school, known fondly as Ms (as she was the only teacher who insisted on that, all the others were Mrs or Miss). But it was a girls' school and I think the school had been shaped by feminist attitudes even if they weren't always explicit.

As a result of Ms's influence I and some friends used to read feminist books and pass them around between us. There must also have been some feminists among the staff of the local library because I used to find heaps of Virago and Women's Press books in there.

My other seminal moment was reading 'Wimmin: The Private Eye Book of Loony Feminist Nonsense' and deciding it mostly didn't sound that loony to me, it sounded quite sensible

Mumsnet feminism (especially Dittany) has re-radicalised me and since then I have learnt so much more. The Feminism Book Clubs on here have been a big factor (thanks Stewie!)

Cosmopolitan magazine which I started reading at 12 (so 1992). Don't laugh - it is rubbish now but back then was really very strong on feminism (I remember clearly the first article in it about the validity of post feminism). It was very strong on education - every summer there was a supplement with what you should do with your CV, university, careers - for instance there was a series of interviews with very senior civil servants at a time when the civil service was very male dominated in the upper echelons. It was very inspiring and had articles about feminism every month, and linked to works which I later read.

There is NOTHING the equivalent of that in modern glossy publishing, which saddens me.

I think print media is now too commercial and tied up with advertising - this generation of girls is simply not going to get what we did out of it. However there is the internet now.

College, a few years back. I've only recently begun to understand it propperly as a concept. But now, I wouldn't have it any other way

I came from a family where, even though our mother was head of the household, misogyny ran rampant through the house. Even as a teen, used to get into physical fights with DB

I can vividly remember deciding to become a feminist after the Ealing Vicarage rape case in the mid eighties (1986?). I would have been 17 and I simply could not believe that a) the men who raped the woman got the same sentence as the men who simply stole some stuff b) that the ringleader, who tried to stop the rape, got double the sentence of all the others and C) that the judge said the woman (who was raped by two of the men, vaginally, anally and orally) ' had not suffered that much' and D) that the media betrayed her anonymity while the rapist's retained theirs (such was the law at the time- and soon will be again, thanks Cameron!)

These are very interesting stories.

I think I was always a feminist by instinct, before I had the words. i think a lot of kids are really, after all most children have very highly developed sense of justice - 'It's not faaaiir!' - but it gets worn away by degrees. And the need to fit in. My dad was a big influence on me, (in a good sense), I remember his rants about the necessity of good education & independence for girls - these were particularly frequent during his Dbro & SILs seperation, his SIL was given a hard time over sharing over assets etc.

I took a Feminism course in college, but was sure it was no longer relevant, and to my shame spouted the usual nonsense common to the (self assessed) daring iconoclast

I do find it difficult to live it all the time. I don't really care about pube waxing and lipstick and SAHMing and those sort of things, I think it's more important to analyse the WHY's rather than whether a particular individual does them. I mean it's much much cosier to comply with other women chuckling about daft important men, and cutsey little pink girls and tough little boys.

I suppose I mean I'd prefer to fit in.

A big fat YES to the "why"s, SinicalSal. Those are what brought me out of my "I can do anything a man can (whilst effectively living a life of stereotype)" version of feminism. I came to my current version via some heavy-duty soul searching in the aftermath of a headfuck of a relationship and the posters (with a nod in particular to dittany and HerBex) on this section of MN have challenged me to look even deeper into the why and given me the tools and the clarity to do so.

I find it difficult to live all of the time too and I have learned to pick my battles and try an "attraction not promotion" approach IRL. Not so much on-line, it has to be said.

(only read the op)

I was 18 and a student nurse working in drug & alcohol rehab. I was assigned to shadow a woman going through alcohol withdrawal which involved spending hours at a time with her. She was brilliant! I'd sit there rolling fags for her (she had a broken arm and bad tremors) and we'd pore over her subscription of Spare Rib and have the most fantastic conversations. She gave me a reading list and off I went! I hope she's well, wherever she is.

MN feminist section has been a re-awakening for me. The 90's and 00's seemed to be wilderness years for feminism and I quietly and resentfully fitted in, especially when I had kids and realised how many battles we were told we had won but in fact were only paid lip service to.

Lots of things have gone backwards since the 80's but I'm more hopeful now than I have been since then. It feels like there's a bit of a resurgence going on and a whole new generation coming through, not just on MN - there are conferences happening and 'feminist' doesn't seem to be quite such a dirty word as it has been.

I'm lucky though - I've found work in a strongly feminist environment, have a decent bloke, a DD who cares more about her career than her appearance and have just had a sensible and constructive conversation with DS about rap lyrics. When I read the relationships section or read about the Congo, my heart breaks and I realise how much work there is still to do.

what a brilliant story PlentyofPubeGardens.

yeah the 90s and 00s were weird. In the early 90s I was always buying books by famous feminists that turned out to be strangely unsatisfying - like Wolf's Fire With Fire and Steinem's Revolution From Within. In the late 90s it felt like you were totally on your own when trying to do activism and by the 00s there was a feeling that feminism was a bit simplistic and not terribly sophisticated and queer theory was where it was at, and everyone went all culturally relativist about stuff like FGM and if you wanted universal human rights you got accused of being racist. But perhaps that was just the people I was mixing with

thank goodness things are getting going again now.