The woman behind the mum?

[Combinearvester]

Another well known parenting site is running a photo competition to find pictures that represent 'the woman behind the mum'. I use this site fairly frequently and find it useful especially for local stuff, so I don't want to enter into a discussion about the site itself. However I was pretty surprised to read the following ideas suggested by the website team for photos 'that make you you':

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• A photo of how you relax - your fluffy slippers, a bar of your favourite chocolate and a big glass of wine
• An image of you in your favourite outfit that makes you feel good about yourself (could be your oldest most comfy jeans or a lovely new top)
• A photo of your favourite pair of shoes (could be your scruffy Converse or your glamorous knee-high boots)
• A picture of you out with your girlfriends having fun and just being you
• A photo of your new haircut or styled hair that makes you feel a million dollars
• A close-up photo of your lips showing your favourite lipstick that makes you feel like you again. Or maybe a snap of your DIY or professional manicure

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Am I being old fashioned or are they bloody awful?

It does sound very ick. It seems to reduce the concept of "woman" to the following:

• slippers
• chocolate
• wine
• clothing
• shoes
• socialising with girlfriends
• hairstyles
• make up

:(

Yep, sounds horribly cliched. Are we all about chocolate and makeup? Course we're bloody well not. Some of us are too busy juggling multiple jobs, our own interests, the family and friends to even find time to paint our fucking nails.

God I'm crabby tonight.

do it now. i insist. (the protest pics)

it's like the boots christmas catalogue.

i'm almost tempted to dig out a picture of me toting a blardy great rifle, or crossing the finish line of the london marathon.

are you sure the contest isn't called 'prove how essentially feminine you are and reduce yourself to a stereotype'?

actually, does anyone have any spectacularly good 'favourite t-shirts' - where are our goths? i'm afraid i'm way too conservative to make that particular point...

i have a photo of me graduating with dd1! it's very funny. i'm all gowned and beribboned and she's stuck under my arm looking like phil mitchell.

do you have to join to see the pics?

How about a picture of you all burning your bras, in your hobnail boots stomping all over men?

Yawn...

my favourite tshirt says "Queen of the fucking Universe" on it - is that the sort of thing they means?

No-one burns their bra anymore or wears hobnail boots. Honestly, move with the times if you want your insults to have more impact.

why would i want to stomp on men?
i think you might be guilty of the same sort of stereotyping that led to those ^^ suggestions

why be boxed at all?

individuality is so very important. and it's so very important that individuality is recognised and applauded. conformity to some outdated notion of slippers and manicures isn't really something that floats my boat. i'm happy for it to float other women's boat, but not to the exclusion of everything else that has been deemed non-U. the many faces of woman - not 'this very narrow ideal is what you should look like'.

I think the concept is a good one, but those are awful examples.

or 'show me who you really are' by a pic of your lippie or of your manicure?

i'd rather not be reduced to a single body part with fake embellishment. they may as well have said 'show us a pic of your tits in your pink wonderbra - no faces necessary'. lips no good without lippie, nails no good without polish, and tiots no good without a good bit of stuffing and uplift.

i do admire the emphasis on 'real'.

i do like a nice glass of vino and good choc though. but i wouldn't say they defined me.

tiots?

i think is great we 'no longer stomp all over men'. i have size 8 feet & the legs of an England footballer.... i would have to wash their blood off my hobnail boots when i want to piss around on MN have better things to do

Did the feminists of the 70s really stomp over men? I will have to ask the older women at my activist group.

lol toffee, that was my first thought, hence my comment about the boots christmas catalogue.

Tell you what, I could take a picture of myself at the keyboard, reading my way through Mumsnet. That would be pretty representative.

rofl @ 'your favourite lipstick that makes you feel like you again'.
Is that what lipstick is meant to do?

perfect!

could you super-impose the nm logo over the mn one, though?

Well I'm all about for the chocolate. Not so much the make-up

lipstick always makes me feel like someone else.

i can't act naturally at all if i'm wearing it. it's very odd. like i'm playing a role.

They will need to have a future feature on 'the person behind the woman behind the mum'

Then you'd be able to have pics of you doing a presentation at work, playing the piano, going for a run, telling bad jokes, painting, cooking, reading, writing, swimming, debating, laughing with friends, having a romantic evening with DH, hula-hooping, gambling and designing.

It's all so... surface their idea of a 'woman'.

I suppose what particularly annoys me is that these suggestions are from women who run the website...so wouldn't their photos be more like 'me running my own business' or something? Not lipstick and outfits? I don't have a problem with the socialising one, but all the rest of it has nothing to do with me as the woman behind the Mum. The suggestions smacked of the way Sun journalists patronise working class people, pretending to be like us them but actually aping a caricature.

YY at 'gifts for her' and also love the graduating woman.