The Feminist Pub is Open - Chat, Rant, or pull up a chair here!

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

This thread started when we all decided to imagine what the perfect local for feminists would be like. So far, it has taps with plenty of good real ale, and some decent non-alcoholic alternatives too. There are comfy chairs and there's a feminist film night, as well as lots of nice feminist-friendly books on the shelves and space to curl up and read. The open-mic nights are attracting feminist singers and comedians, and we're just sorting out the feminist creche.

Please come along, draw up a stool, and have a good chat about whatever you fancy - as serious or as trivial as you like.

For starters, I have a half-pint of lemonade. What can I get anyone?

Squite alright. Like having a conversation with my dear old dad, except gender binary would leave him somewhat perplexed. Not like me, oh no. I'm right on it. Didn't need to google reification, oh no.

I just made it up as an example of theoretical language we could then avoid, Pacific - I am v. flaky about that sort of thing myself.

Agree re the ridiculous stereotyping. Cf 'men can't multitask' - why do they rule the world, then? Surely that requires multitasking

Men do important things that can't be interrupted. W

HELLO!

I'm drunk already. Can I have carbs and a side order of not just having had the "ah, but boys are simple" conversation with the father of a girl (his theory, not mine)

Oh ffs. Me and my fat fingers need more whisky.

Gender is the idea that some behaviours, thoughts, likes are feminine or masculine. The masculine ones are allocated to men, the feminine ones to women.

I think it is a hierarchy, because the ones assigned to women are used to justify and excuse the oppression of women e.g. women are naturally better at looking after young children. And this then leads to women being expected to look after young children and men taking a much lesser role.

Oooooh, there's Lagavulin

So sorry to hear about yet another rape myth and yet another troll.
I hope everybody is finding some solace in The Pub - I know I am.

Mmh, squishy baby thighs - I love babies. Particularly other people's babies who I get to hold and snuggle with and the get to hand back .

Yy there is a gender hierarchy.
And grrrr at gender stereotypes... my mum gave DS4 a t-shirt that reads "Boys will be boys' which he loves (it has a red football on it) and makes me cringe every time he wears it AND misbehaves. He behaves beautifully or beastly whether he wears the t-shirt or not (seems to depend on the phase of the moon or summat ), but I always worry that people might think I am somehow condoning him behaving like a loon because he is a boy.

Having said that, I have seen behaviour from all 4 of my boys I just cannot imagine from a girl (good and bad).
Hm.

Yes, I am fairly sure presidents and prime ministers, CEOs and CFOs do a good deal of multi-tasking!

I will ignore the making it up just this once.

What behaviour have you seen from your boys that you couldn't imagine from a girl, Pacific?

Still seething at gendered Kinder eggs! I had a right rant at the check out upon seeing them for the first time with their princess/house Girl contents and trucks/car contents for boys.

Am multitasking, reading up on what reification of the gender binary means. I understand it as taking an abstract idea and ascribing 'living', actual or 'thing' like qualities to this abstraction. Am I on the right track?

at Penguin.

Yes mignotte, that is what it means.

Good. It took a few minutes. A day where you learn something is a day not wasted as my Grandfather used to say.

Am slowly calming down. Angry tears all over DH helped.

I am watching Angela Merkel on the news too and am feeling full of admiration for her as a Woman.

These days, on the school run, I see all these children behaving in various ways, and I try to pretend that those two girls running all over the pavement are boys, or those boys jostling each other are girls, or that girl climbing up the lamppost is a boy, and imagine what I and other people would think....

I don't know why I do that. I guess I'm trying to see how much all this gender conditioning affects me, and how other people only seem to see that boys are boisterous and girls walk nicely. Or maybe I'm just boring and have no friends and think too much.

at Mignonnette.

The gendered kinder eggs give me the rage too. Thankfully the DDs haven't clocked the existence of Kinder Eggs yet. I shall resist them at all costs now. They already have a soft spot for Happy Meals (classy eh?) so they better not mess with those.

I love Angela Merkel. I have to say, I know very little on her domestic politics, but as a politician I just love the way she gets on with being a politician, instead of having to be a 'female politician'.

LordCopper - What I find interesting is how much people filter. I had someone say the other day "DD2 is always so good on the school run. Girls are so much better behaved", when she had seen her throwing a whopping tantrum about 24 hours earlier.

IME men DH can multitask when it suits them .
DH is certainly much more able to Get Stuff Done in the presence of offspring by just ignoring them... but then again he is capable of a level of singleminded focus that is utterly alien to me.

Gendered Kinder Eggs, gendered dental floss, gendered everybloodything - aaaaargh!
I don't dislike pink as a colour particularly but I detest how all-pervailing it is. And don't get me started on navy-blue and camouflage for boys.

Wrt to behaviour one incident comes to mind: out for a walk with a friend, both of us with a baby in the pram and just barely toddling DC1s - her a girl, me DS1. Both children pick up a stick: she cradles her like a baby, he uses his as a gun.
I am quite sure that these behaviours were learnt, but it did shock me how young they were (

Penguin, yy re filtering.
I fear I am guilty of filtering the negative... .
I love my boys but feel a bit outnumbered at times I suppose.
We need a female pet!!

Pacific - I think what interests me most about your story is that it shows how, as humans we are really prone to pattern spotting and confirmation bias (though you are also challenging that bias, before I sound like I'm saying you are gender determinist about it all).

You've said you have four, so I'm guessing that (unless you have multiples and very small gaps!) DS1 as a toddler was at least a few years ago. But one incident has stuck with you. Not all the times both toddlers just waved the stick in the air. Or both of them played swords (FWIW, what my two would both do), but the time they conformed to a stereotype. You also don't know whether, for example, the little girl had just been playing with a doll before they left the house and was continuing a game/state of mind from earlier. You see it as "Aw, she turns everything into a doll."

That's how people who don't challenge it find confirmation of their assumptions all over the place. Linking lots of little events whose frequency may have been no more than chance.

I totally accept behaviour and sex seem to be correlated in many ways. I can accept that there may be a genetic or biological element. The step I cannot get to is evidence of a causal link, though too much junk science claims there is.

Oh, I know, Penguin, I don't disagree anything you are saying.

DS1 and 2 have only a 12 month gap and I have often said to interfering family members that I am very glad they are both of the same sex, because their personalities are SO different that I am sure if they were a boy/girl or girl/boy combo their differences would be attributed purely to what genitals they had .

Having said that I though there was some evidence out there that v early infant, even fetal, brain development differs between XX and XY?? I may just need to go a search a bit...

Just as long as you don't come back with that fecking Baron-Cohen 'mechanical mobile' study .

I am pregnant you know, it doesn't do to get too worked up. Though actually, I'm having issues with low blood pressure, so maybe it would be a good idea....

I have one "of each" . They're very young. I imagine they'll be different and alike all at once.
I struggle with everything the gender issues and nature/ nurture thing because I believe there's a bit of both at play. I am consciousof the risk of limiting their options if I buy too much into the "nature" camp but also I don't want to (and this might be a little too flowery for the feminist pub) deny them their "biological destiny" by ignoring or damping down what might be there naturally.
It's hard to be unbiased because no child exists in a family bubble, because observations of behaviour are so subjective and, well, loads of other reasons I'm sure.

I don't believe that woman are better than men at multitasking. Or that men are more "visual" (excuse for objectifying females) but I do think that females might have a leaning towards certain aspects of nurturing behaviours. I could be wrong but I think that's probably ok. It's good for our children as species because it's women who "carry" babies and feed them, so it makes sense that we might have a biological disposition to be more "caring" than fathers. Although. IMHO, one one of most important aspects of being a "good father" is to take good care of your child's mother.

The issue with brain studies is that all you can really tell with a foetus (or even an infant) is what the architecture of the brain is like - not what it does, or whether different architecture necessarily means different functions (we know examples where it doesn't).

In the past people thought the fact women's skulls were smaller was incontrovertible proof women had less intellectual capacity.

I am quite wary of drawing conclusions from modern findings.

(That should have an 'as I, a poor fool and a non-scientist, understand it' caveat. Apologies.)

Oooh, you get worked up, it must be a boy you are expecting
Or: do you have heartburn? Must be a red-head
Or: wriggles a lot? Will be a heart-breaker

Sometimes I miss knowing I'll never be pregnant again (I think I liked the attention ) and then I remember the shite people spout and the feeling passes.

It may be too close to bedtime for any meaningful research, but I'll get back to you.
And no, no Baron-Cohen, Sacha, or otherwise

See, I think mothers being more caring is more to do with the fact that they are left to it more. This is my own, highly personal and not-at-all scientific opinion. I don't have a mothering bone in my body, but I jolly well learnt. The hard way. From a very high-needs first baby. Whereas DH swanned off to work.
He only recently admitted that he was relieved to be able to leave the house to get away from the screaming .

The flip-side is that I am much more in tune with the boys, I listen far more (I mean actual listening, not just hearing with your ears IYKWIM) and they tell me more.
Dh is v good at other stuff.

I sometimes wish I had run away and left him to it - that would've learnt him . I am joking, honest, but with a small kernel of truth...