Happy Patriarchymas!

[thunderboltsandlightning]

I know, I know - but this is the feminist section and christmas is about celebrating the birth of the son of god, with women's spirituality and power completely written out of the story. It's the classic patriarchal mindfuck for women. Even Santa's a man, but who does most of the present-buying and wrapping?

Then there's the fact that christmas is all about women doing most of the work, with men enjoying the benefits.

Each year I find it a little more difficult to have to go through it all. Once you've seen what it's about, it gets harder to ignore the brainwashing.

Hope everybody has a happy peaceful time, whatever you are celebrating.

Yes, exactly. And I think it must've been a guilt-trip, too. I mean we're horrified at Tom Cruise expecting Katie Holmes to give birth without screaming in the 21st century, but imagine feeling you had to live up to an example of a woman who didn't feel pain 500 or a thousand years ago.

Anyway, I'm off to my mum's for Christmas dinner we're having tonight, and I am so glad I read this thread first, as you can probably guess which category of people she and my dad fit into.

I'm not sure people talking about their own christmasses and therefore any societal analysis is wrong, are so much missing the point, as that they are totally mindless narcissists tbh.

I mean, who would declare that because I'm fat, there's no such thing as starvation, so why doesn't everyone shut up about famine in such a such a country? Or that because my husband is nice, there's no such thing as crap husbands? I find it so childish and self-centred and well, just a bit stoopid, tbh. What must it be like to have them as christmas guests? Imagine the mindlessness of their christmas conversations.

It's mostly women who do it, exceptions are just that, exceptions.

Sexist stereotyping is always excused now by "women want to do it", "it's women's choice". Doesn't make it true. Women are conditioned from the time we are tiny girls that it's our job to undertake the domestic chores, including cooking. And it works. Women end up doing the majority of this kind of work.

Unless you can show that the majority of christmas work - planning, shopping, present-buying and sending, wrapping, cooking, decorating - isn't done by women, my argument stands.

Of course it's done by women. As is most domestic work and childcare.

In my household, it wasn't; but that's not the point.

OTOH I do think it is up to individual women - because as a collective gender, we are composed of individual women - to say 'sod off, I am not doing it'. We are not quite as abandoned and isolated as to make that utterly impossible. Women have been saying 'sod off' to housework for a few decades now.

And we utterly stop need to confuse domestic servitude with 'being nice'.

(sorry, that was utterly incoherent. Let me reword it: We utterly need to stop confusing 'domestic servitude' with 'being nice'.)

indeed!

nice can get to fuck

I am very not nice

Tyr wouldn't like me

I am quite, quite happy with that

Personally I couldnt care if the magic of Christmas for children is attributed to Father Christmas, the Tooth Fairy, or aliens from Outer Space.

So long as it's magical.

Just thought I might add... I may have been rumbled by DS... Handed him a present from "Father Christmas" yesterday, and he told me it wasn't, it was from Mummy...

Lol. Just read whole thread. The anti-fems really have no sense of humor do they?

Hae you headed over to AIBU yet, Messy?

Some women report almost painless births even these days, some women report orgasms! Fortunate lot that they are wish my first birth had been like that and with my second I did feel physical ecstasy although there was pain too....being a woman is NOT all about being in pain and subjugation. To say that if she didn't feel pain was/is people likening her to an incubator is missing the point...she gave birth without pain...what a fortunate thing. She had a very human part in the Christmas story highs and hardships combined. Her birth rocked, empowered IMO.

I agreed with those saying that the gifts, decorations and meal aspect is expected to happen via women in general. Like paddling ducks. The threads about doing all the wrapping as if men cannot wrap or choose presents does go some way to provide examples of how society in general expect the work to be done by women. I don't agree with that point of view and here we've managed a more equal Christmas festivities with us each cooking/buying to our strengths. Although I have no desire to be rude to those who do not have the exact same ideals as us.

I've got Bugsy Malone on in the background here. I haven't seen it since I was a child. I'm quite shocked to see how sexualised it is. It seems interesting visually due to the props all being miniturised but I'm uncomfortable with the girls dressing and dancing in a sexualised way. :( Shame I love the cars and songs :(

My two are quite little just now so I've not experienced much of the daft "pink is for girls" "only boys like science toys" nonsense but I suppose like everyone else our family will come across that sort of nonsense as they grow. We don't make masses about Santa in this house it's more about the Christmas story.

I know it's missing the point (and quite illogical) to say 'this isn't a problem for me, therefore it isn't a problem). So trying not to do that. But for me this thread - and the whole 'wifework' thing - is a baffling and frustrating aspect of modern feminism.

Yes I believe there are pressures on women to do certain things at Christmas and every day, 'conditioning' and dynamics in society and so on - we humans are all social creatures and there's always a balance between the 'personal responsibility' and 'society made me do it' extremes. But it seems to me that a lot of the feminist analysis is going way too far in one direction, and not focusing enough on women's autonomy and ability to make decisions, choose what we do and don't want to do, decide what sort of lifestyle we want.

Also it's hard for me to understand, because I personally have never felt these pressures that women talk about - I believe they exist, but it's difficult for me to 'get' it. But maybe that's a personality thing, and I'm just the sort of person who goes through life oblivious of what's expected or what anyone thinks of me! Maybe some people are expecting me to buy and wrap presents, or clean the house, or whatever else normal women do - but I don't know and don't care :)

Oh please where is Mary's birthplan and diary and mumsnet report about her birth? Where is the documentary evidence that her birth was painless? Who first declared that her birth was painless? (I bet it was a man)

It's just all made up.

The 'painless birth' thing I think was deduced from the 'fact' that pain in childbirth is a consequence of original sin, and since Mary was a one-off immaculate conception, she was excused from it. It's one of those tortuous 'logical' conclusions that people (yes very likely men, as this is the Catholic church after all!) have come to in trying to make sense of the teachings they're supposed to accept as absolute truth.

Apparently Mary also gave birth without any damage to her hymen (again the only logical possibility if you define virginity as intact hymen, and accept as absolute truth that she's a perpetual Virgin). That one makes my mind boggle a bit.

I suppose once you've swallowed the idea of a virgin birth, the rest is easy to believe.

Ephiny, why is the idea of wifework and men's exploitation of women's domestic labour baffling to you as an aspect of feminism. It happens, it's something that feminism needs to address. Just because it doesn't happen to you doesn't mean that feminism is mistaken in addressing it.

Architien, Mary was a twelve year old girl married off to Joseph and raped by god, and then expected to worship his son. I'd be interested if you could elaborate the "empowerment" aspect in that scenario.

Look,it's all just make believe! Like elves,pixies and the Equal Pay Act.

I know, I thought I was clear in my first line that 'it doesn't happen to me' doesn't mean 'it doesn't happen'.

Why is it baffling? I tried to explain as well as I could in my post. This is an over-simplification, but I guess I have difficulty visualising how anyone gets into a situation like that, why exactly grown women are running around doing all this Christmas wifework stuff if they don't want to. Often it seems to come down to 'I want it to be done, but without me having to do it'. Which is how I feel about the paper I'm trying to write! But it's not a feminist issue, and I don't blame society or the patriarchy for it.

This is what I put in another thread. :

"I am fed up with being constantly told how 'lucky' I am because my dh does literally everything for christmas - he buys and wraps all the presents, does all of the preparation, cooking and washing up and has today, while I've been in bed all morning, has taken the children to the gym. Oh and hoovered, and cleaned the mess up.. Am I 'lucky'? Or have we just sorted out our 'roles' in a way that suits us?"

It's not automatically every woman who does everything

Well no, it's not simply make-believe lollygag. Christianity and its beliefs are an institutional part of our culture and society. They have, and still have a strong effect.

Ephiny, if women are being domestically exploited by men, and the culture supports that, then yes it is a feminist issue.

Norris.
'It's not automatically every woman who does everything'

     Wash your mouth out.We can't have that kind of namby-pamby thinking on this site.I will talk to the moderators about how that got through.

Pleased to see that "I'm all right jack" mentality is live and kicking on this thread