What was your first feminist conversation and how old we're you?

[Kayano]

I'm just remembering (coming from a background where my mum did all the housework and ties herself in knots to please my dad and going to an all girls school that encouraged cooking and seeing as the things women do...)

I remember in English class myself and my friend discussing music. I was about 13? Or 14? And she was a fan of Westlife. I remember her saying she would not listen to them again (I was quite pleased because I hated them anyway lol). When I asked why she said that she had been listening to the lyrics and hated the way they objectified women. In particular 'when you're looking like that'. So we both had a listen on our break and discussed it at great depth and it was a really good chat! She was my best friend and we both used to write stories and fiction with strong female characters.

Ironically enough it was a man who came between us and I regret it to this day.

When did you first start thinking about feminism?

Only a few months ago that I started to read into it actually, and have only started talking openly to my friends about it as I thought they would laugh (grown up I know!!)

Its strange as id always had an uneasy feeling about 'nuts' and 'zoo' and about how many of my friends had suffered violence from their partners but never put it down to feminism or explored those feelings.

Now I have its like something is clicking into place, and I am coming across literature that is explaining these things to me from a feminist perspective.

I am 26 btw, so not that young, and im shocked that these views are quite hard to come across.

Aged about 4, I challenged the idea that God was a man. Cue much eyebrow raising at Sunday school...

I was about 10 I think (I am now 52). I suddenly reaslised that there were many things women were not allowed to do and were excluded from. My grandma (inspirational) used to talk to me about women and the things they achieved during WW2 but were written out of. She hated the way that women had done jobs during the war but when it was over they were made to go back to the kitchen. I had the most amazing PE teacher who taught me alot about the way women were seen in the world. I then listened to women like Erin Pizzey, Gloria Steinham etc etc and then there was no stopping me. I joined the RAF where women were treated like dogs. I fought it all the way. Am still fighting, but I am sooooo tired! I hoped it would be over by now but sadly it is not.

I am so proud of the young women who are getting involved now but sad for the women who just accept the status quo.

When I was about 8 I organised the other girls into a picket line across the football goal in the school field until we were allowed to play

I was about 11... this would be mid seventies. My Dad's friend was sat in our garden, drinking a glass of squash - think they'd been somewhere together. He was sounding off about how "all the women should give up their jobs so the out of work men can have them". He was famously bone-idle and jobless. My mother, a woman who had worked from age 15, snatched the glass of squash from his hand, said that he wasn't having anything her wages had paid for, and told him to get out of her garden!!! She also gave my Dad a rocket for tolerating this 'friend'.

We then had a very interesting chat about how the only person a woman can count on in this life is herself and why it's important to be financially independent, work hard and have your own money. Because if you end up dependent on a man like our Bone-Idle Gobshite Jobless Squash Drinker you're stuffed. :)

My first feminist action was at 6, in our infant school the boys got to do woodwork (in an exciting little shed at the end of the playground, no adult supervision). And the girls had needlework. I agitated for the girls to be allowed to do woodwork, the teacher agreed, and my friend and I spent a happy afternoon making, ahem, dolls' house furniture.

I remember being small, perhaps 4 or 5 and saying to my mum that I couldn't be a farmer because it was a man's job.

She said very scathingly "Don't talk such rubbish, you can do any job you want when you are older"

Interestingly had a similar comment about doctors from DD when she was the same age and I said exactly the same thing to her.

It wasn't really a conversation; but I was sent when I was 11 or 12 for some maths "help" to a brilliant woman scientist, aged in her late seventies who my parents knew through church. I was too young to appreciate just how amazing it was for a woman of her generation to have been to university and had a career as an aeronautical engineer. My younger brother had previously been sent for "extra, fun maths" because school wasn't stretching enough.

Now it is true that my brother is far better at maths than I am; but my parents always underestimated me and overestimated him. She spent most of the afternoon telling me how I should never believe people telling me that I was less clever than my brother because they only said it because I was a girl and that girls could do anything boys could do and better.

The converstation never left me; but I only really realised its significance too late to thank her properly

Cant remember a conversation as such. I do know that at school I wasnt bothered about the whole boy thing. The most popular girls all had boyfriends. Pah ! I wanted friends, but not all that. I felt too young, in retrospect. I was the first girl at school (in the 70s) to do metal work and went to Guides once. They were having ironing lessons (early 70s).
Being a punk was fab - punk lads were great, talked about music etc, and were much more egaliterian than the disco gropers.
I bought a copy of Spare Rib (remember, anyone ?) and I really felt as though there was a choice for women other than the norm.
I joined a consciouness raising group but didnt like it.
What was all that stuff about "choosing" to be a lesbian, and the separatist movement ?