The Feminist Pub - come on in, chat, ask a quick question, ramble ... whatever you like!

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

Hello and welcome! Pull up a chair!

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.

Old thread is here: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/1875250-The-Feminist-Pub-is-Open-Chat-Rant-or-pull-up-a-chair-here. But don't feel you need to read or catch up - just jump in.

I'm having a nice cup of earl grey but there is wine mulling as requested.

What can I get anyone?

I understand. Chivalry is one of my pet hates - always good for a rant. Sorry about that.

Sounds as if you could do with a large helping of and a

Oh God yes Tunip. When I started working in my early 20s I identified a phenomenon I called 'smug middle-aged man syndrome'... I can now see the first signs of this amongst my own social circle. It can only get worse.

oh my goodness, look at this:

www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/06/swedish-cinemas-bechdel-test-films-gender-bias

Ok, so I am thinking about submitting a short talk for a conference, it's about being a trailing spouse and how that's like being a sahm on steroids, particularly as many trailing spouse women are higher educated.

The mummies on the bus study astrophysics would be perfect as a title. Can I use it? Can I? Can I? (Ok, may I, I know.)

And yes to smug men aged 40 plus. They all believe that they got to where they are because they are so feckin great, so start feeling entitled.

In the words of Obama, "you didn't do that."

I think I hate it most (the smug 40 year old man thing) when they are in family situations and trying to make out that all these lovely children are to their credit somehow, yet they hardly seem to know anything about them. Their wives are always saying things like "no, he doesn't like strawberries" and "Sleepy Rabbit isn't Michael's, he's Justin's." Quietly and discreetly, so as not to bust their cover.

Men like this often call their sons "mate" as they crawl off their laps and search for mothers or siblings. "Come on mate, what's the matter? Don't you want Sleepy Rabbit?" It has a horrible false note of familiarity and you always expect the two year old to say "don't call me mate, you know nothing about me". Often they just cry and you suspect this is what they mean

Kickass - It's not mine to give away (honestly can't remember who came up with it first, it could be 18 months ago) but from my perspective I would be very proud if you used that title!

"Well, patriarchy isn't just about rule of men, it's rule of older men, and as men get more firmly ensconced into smug successful middle age they get more comfortable in their seats at the top of the pyramid."

Yes, I have noticed this too. I also notice that common consideration decreases markedly in this group. I can think of two examples off the top of my head:

• When I was heavily (so not mistaking it) pregnant and commuting, smartly dressed middle aged men rarely gave up their seat on the tube. Nor did younger men unless with their partner. The people who commonly jumped up were women around my age, male teenagers/students ( perhaps unexpectedly, I would say this was the most common group of all) and men in work gear (builders, etc).

• Where I live, I often have to turn through heavy traffic to get into and out of my road. You can be there ages unless someone lets you out. Most common groups to let you out: trade vehicles and buses. Middle aged women are pretty good too. Men in smart cars very rarely do.

I am wondering about the 40 plus smug man thing.
I think I agree on the whole. I think much of it (or how I feel about it anyway- my dh is 50 now) is to do with the converse being true of women. We become less powerful as we age, so because they don't experience this decline their power in middle aegis more apparent in contrast to our diminished status. Or is that rubbish? I am very tired.

I also feel I'm agreement with much of what youretoastmildred is saying. Equality is a long time coming and sometimes it feels as though the fight isn't worth the casualties. I am not sure there will ever be equality tbh. They are bigger, stronger, we bear the children....

I think that is definitely part of it Amanda. Men in that age group have increased status against their female peers in many ways. But as a woman in her mid 30s, I definitely notice the trend amongst men generally IYSWIM.

Yup - the lower down the social hierarchy you are, the more pro-social your attitudes are likely to be, and also people tend to be more considerate towards and aware of the needs of people above them in the hierarchy than people below. (According to some research I read about once.)
Maybe the point of chivalry was that it is the people at the top who need these codes most to rein them in because otherwise they will just stamp on everyone.

I experienced exactly the same as Penguins - the people least likely to give up their seats where the smartly dressed middle aged men. Meanwhile I experienced all sorts of loveliness from other groups of people while pregnant including the Asian teenage boys in Leicester who made me go to the front of the queue in the sandwich shop.

Teenage boys are, IMLE, lovely to heavily pregnant women. I don't know whether that is hopeful for the future or a sign that men do get more entitled and oblivious as they age in a society which supports that behaviour!

I agree about women losing power, how they become invisible is well documented.

One of the examples of dominant male thinking that I come across, even in mainly female settings, is the idea that women don't want to age. I am proud of my age: the alternative to growing older has far less appeal. In addition, I have gained knowledge and experience which I work hard to put to good use.i believe it is better for me at work to be seen as older and wiser, more experienced. But still people talk about not asking a lady her age, or they refer to me as younger and newer to the job etc.

I am 44 and damn proud to still be standing. The only issue I have with getting older is that there is less time left, and there is still a fuckload of living that I want to do. I need to live to be at least 105 to get half my dreams put into place.

Agree with you absolutely about ageing, Kickass.
For this reason I like my greying hair. I hate the way it's often a given that women want to look younger. In threads about grey hair there are always lots of people saying 'But dyeing it makes you look 10 years younger!' as if that is self-evidently a good thing.

Ah the invisibility thing. I actually find I've gained power from it simply because I care less about what people think and now have no hesitation in disagreeing with whatever the current zeitgeist is.

I feel less invisible in a work context because men aren't eyeing me up. I know they do ignore me until I say something that forces them to stop ignoring me. This is ok, it is something I can and will do. But in the past when I was young and pretty they ogled, belittled and blatantly "negged" me - I didn't have a word for it then - perhaps I am not using the word correctly because I am not using it to mean that they negged me in an active attempt to pick me up, but that it was a reflex to put me down professionally because they found me attractive. It was much harder to have any professional presence even though I was in a sense getting a lot more attention.
Also I didn't know my stuff as well as I do now and therefore had less confidence, of course.

I think it's largely about money.
"older" men are still working and likely to be at or around the peak of their income/ earning. They a desirable. Loads of younger women bang on about liking older men. I think this is (In part anyway) later to money and the fact that if you' with an older man you appear, by comparison, younger. And the desire to at least appear younger is very strong in most women I know. Even when that conflicts with their feminist ideals.
really old men (maybe when they are generally poorer) are generally less desirable. There's obviously a cut off age. I don't know what it is But it's much higher for men than women of course.
It's one of the aspects of sexual inequality that really makes me feel personally sad. There's always the looming possibility that DH will run off with a younger woman. That's not an option for the DW on the whole.

And fertility, Amanda, I'm sure.

My ex always used to call DS (also his son) "mate". My mum said it always struck her as really false and horrible.

My dad defo did the smug 40s thing. I was a teenager at the time and in addition to the "Look how well I am doing bringing up my family" (and moaning about having to pay maintenance for his old family ) he had no idea whether to treat me as an adult or a little girl so he frequently did both. He was a smug twat. He had no idea of the damage he did to our relationship. I think he still doesn't.

Now he's in his 50s and has realised he was always secretly a hippy and has decided to throw off the suit, grow a beard and start smoking weed. Bizarrely we get on much better

Yes Doctrine. Probably more fertility in fact.

A part of me wants to be a "trophy wife". Which I know is outrageous. But I like the idea of not having to work and being looked after in a way.
But it's too fragile and short lived and laced with trouble and entirely unequal and ripe for abuse.
But I can see the attraction tbh.

Oh yes, I am a lazy arse and would love the excuse to sit around and do nothing all day except make myself look pretty (glossing over the fact I haven't the slightest interest in beauty treatments and "pampering"!)

But, I think it would get boring and lonely pretty quickly. Seems very... false and empty.

I was thinking about things like this... I was thinking about the shower of lazy, free-loading losers (current dp not included in said shower) that I have been romantically involved with, and realising that (all this was subconscious) my determination not to be oppressed by a certain kind of traditional patriarchal relationship was read by lazy gits as a self-sufficiency that gave them carte blanche not to lift a finger. I didn't want to play a woman's traditional role, which sent the message that I didn't want a man to play a traditional man's role, which was read as that I was fine with a man who didn't bother to play any goddamned role at all, neither providing nor nurturing nor cleaning nor organising, just nothing.

I didn't like it but I didn't think that I had a leg to stand on.
I slightly deliberately (unconsciously) missold myself as being more self-sufficient than I am because I do not like to show vulnerability and then thought I couldn't complain that I had no one to support me.
I was lucky I did not have children by any of these men.

anyway I am lucky I have dp so it is not an issue but if I were looking for a man now I would rather have a provider who expected dinner on the table, than a lazy freeloading shit of a stoner.

Oooh, it's been busy in here - and lots of learned debate.
I am hopeless with names, in RL and wrt historical figures/writers/actors so I had to look up most of the names you mention upthread.
Except for Norman Mailer who even I recognised as a class A arse

I get tired too.
I get tired by listening to intelligent, well-educated, nice women telling me how their lives have improved so much since they embraced being a 'Surrendered Wife'. Although I suppose you could argue, at least they've made a choice of sorts?
I am v tired of smug 40something men (I may be married to one, but he is also tired. About some other crap. And I am quite fond of him...)
I am also tired talking almost day in, day out to women stuck with at best feckless, at worst violent partners; and everything in between.
And I am tired because I was watching Game of Thrones series 1 last night until 1.30am. On a school night!

So, I won't last long tonight.

Oh, just briefly: I can kinda see the attraction of being a trophy wife, but it would finish me off. I am just a bit too selfish and not that interested in never, ever having a challenge other than to make HIM happy. And I hate foundation [misses point spectacularly]

I'd love not to have to work, but surely trophy wives have to spend so much time on their appearance and propping up the ego of their husband then it must be like work. At least with my job I know I'm getting better at it the longer I do it rather than worrying about losing my husband to a younger woman.

I would very much like to sit on my arse all day and do nothing, but I'm simply not going to make myself pretty for anyone ... (Lost cause anyway. . Besides, who wants to be pretty when you can be awesome? )

I am another one who bloody loves my middle-aged invisibility shield, at times anyway. With every advancing year, I give a few less flying fucks. It is a very, very underrated thing about ageing.

Also agree about the hierarchy of how helpful people will be - in my experience, teenage boys are often the first to go to the aid of elderly people who've fallen over, too. The same sort of order-of-action applies.

It works the other way round, too. In my job, I sometimes have to be confrontational. The people who respond with the most anger and unpleasantness are smug middle-aged men, usually "business travellers". Women can get pretty arsey as well, but it's nowhere near as volcanic. Teenagers of either gender normally roll over fairly quickly.