Early signs you were a feminist (light-hearted)

[Lio]

By chance I heard Simon & Garfunkel's cover of Scarborough Fair the other day and had a Proustian moment. I'm guessing I was 6 or 7 when I first heard this song, and I hated it because of all the 'tell her to make me' stuff. Gah! What if she didn't know how to make a cambric shirt? Make it yourself.

What early signs do you remember?

Loving and saddened by all these in equal measures!

Mine would be at the age of 6 or 7, reading a Janet and John book for the first time ever (mid 80s) and feeling outraged for poor Janet. My mum had banned them from the house and i had Puddle Lane instead. I could instantly see why!

Mine was when I was about 12 and my mum was out somewhere. She had left us our tea but my Dad then tried to make me wash up afterwards.

I said of course and my brother could dry only to be told by my Dad, no, it's womens work. I had to do it all.

I refused point blank and took the grounding. Only to get a bollocking from my mum for not helping her out. Meanwhile my unemployed father slept in the chair.

I think The penny dropped when we were asked at school, at some point in the mid eighties, to write about an inspirational person. My best friends chose Madonna and Janet Ellis from Blue Peter (not bad choices ). Being the daughter of ea leftie feminist, I chose Harriet Harman. I got mucho resoect from my female leftie feminist teacher for that...

I remember when we had to write fake diary entries or letters in history at primary school, I always made sure I wrote as a female character and made her life sound as great and exciting as possible, in contrast to the NOTHING that was usually written about women in history books. I really hate(d) the appended "and women stayed at home but could win respect if they were good at housekeeping" paragraphs in textbooks we had, I always felt that it was lies and women - being much the same as they are now, inside - must have had friends and jobs and some of them must have learnt things and travelled etc etc.

Recently found an old exercise book where I was writing about sexism (aged about 8) and referred to it as "a lot of old nonsense". :o

No Damascene conversion either - brought up by a Feminist mother, back in the days of the women's movement. It was hard-wired into my thinking. Which meant I spent a lot of time either bemused that other girls had such strange ideas about what they could or couldn't do, or arguing, this being the 70s. I used to sit in English classes reading Spare Rib...