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?

The discussion about middle age men reminded me of this quote from The Brothers Karamazov: "He had a high opinion of his own insight, a weakness excusable in him as he was fifty, an age at which a clever man of the world of established position can hardly help taking himself rather seriously." Obviously it's not a new phenomenon.

Can't see the attraction of being a trophy wife at all. Would be quite happy to be rich but even so think I'd still want to work, need to work the brain and be challenged. Otherwise what's the point?

But there are different kinds if trophy wives.
You can be a tennis playing gym attendee, or an academic, doing some courses at uni to keep your brain ticking over, or the kind who run the PTA and are all domestic goddess type.

So long as you are younger, keep yourself looking good, and have dinner on the table by 7.

Reading. But too tired (dd woken four or five times so far) for intelligent response. Good stuff here. Yy to "provider" over "lazy arsed stoner."
Actually my dh, historically, did most of the cooking. Now I'm on mat leave I'm doing most if it and I do not like the change. Tea time to bed time is my most feared part of the day (apart from bedtime stories, which I love, love, love)
I shall help myself to an optimistically chosen camomile tea and some honey roast cashews. I fear a sleep- deprived psychotic episode coming on (half joking. Can that happen?).

I'm not sure I like invisibility - even as someone who doesn't like to be the centre of attention. Has anyone read Howl's Moving Castle? I thought it was a good study of what it is like to be an old woman, from a young woman's perspective.

Haven't read it, no - saw the film and didn't love it, surprisingly, having gone to the cinema to see it with great anticipation as I love Miyazaki! Who wrote the book? I should try and find it.

Morning everyone

Am in the very privileged position today of sitting at a desk drinking coffee while a man is at home dealing with a two year old who is emitting torrents of puke. I am deeply grateful.

Diana Wynne Jones wrote the book.

SAHD or taking his turn with the sick?

I need coffee!

Taking his turn. He works much more locally than me, and does more than his fair share of this sort of stuff in general, but he has been at a conference so I was on my own for a few days this week and he is back now and pitching in.
It will be my turn tomorrow but unless this is worse than it looks it can't (surely?) be as bad as today because the 2 year old will have settled down, and if it is the 4 year old, she knows how to vomit into a bucket.

Sorry to lower the tone on this very cerebral thread.

Just popping in to relate a conversation I had with DS1 (7) today:

DS1: Mummy what's a feminist?

Me: Someone who believes men and women should have equal rights and helps to make things that way

DS1: Ok, I'm definitely a feminist then.

You couldn't make it up!

Shrieking

Howl's moving castle - book definitely miles better than the animation. I was disappointed with the movie but love the book.

I fear the invisibility of middle age tbh
I am not especially beautiful, but have got used to being "hot" . And it is it's own currency IYSWIM. But I am aware of how it can also make one vulnerable, and of its fragility. So I have always feared losing the "allure" tbh. I am not proud of that btw. I know it sounds shallow. Well, it is shallow.
That's part of what makes it harder for me to tolerate the fact that Bruce Forsyth is still on telly while his female contempraries have been sidelined to make way for pretty young things. Even as a child I was aware of that issue. The older male tv presenter next to the young Attractive female.

Oh Grr this is so stupid but has slightly really annoyed me. DP posted a stupid 9gag joke on facebook - nothing massively offensive, just along the lines of "men stop being romantic and helpful when they get married, women start to nag and no man ever knows how to cook or clean" but all said within a computer-code way (probably, to be fair, what appealed to him)

So I put a grumpy face comment on and he deleted it and said my comment was spoiling a funny joke. I said well it wasn't a funny joke it was a sexist joke. Then he asked "How is it sexist?! Apart from the last line when it says men don't know how to cook!" He didn't really want an explanation though and said it was boring, despite me warning him not to get into the conversation with me.

Gah! Yes, it's a stupid facebook comment. Yes, the joke wasn't the sexist content but the fact it was "common knowledge" presented in computer code. (At least he didn't tell me to "lighten up" or I might have decked him ) - it just annoys me sometimes how he is LITERALLY blind to sexism and doesn't see it even when it's pointed out. He would never be sexist himself and I think it doesn't occur to him that some people might be that way. Or how it might make a woman, ie, me, feel to hear it. He isn't in any marginalised groups apart from perhaps poor, and that's one you at least have a chance of escaping. But because he has one black friend who claims that racism is no big deal and you just have to ignore the stupid people, he seems to take this approach to all kinds of discrimination.

I fucking hate 9gag, and reddit, and all of those other stupid brainless male-dominated joke sites which are so popular at the moment. "The Lad Bible" on facebook which is a constant stream of misogyny and bile. (I don't know if it still exists, because I de-friended all of my friends who had ever "liked" it in a fit of rage ages ago)

Just cos he doesn't see it doesn't make it OK. Tell him that fir the next month every time he says or does something like that you will give him the 20 min bullet pointed reason why he should have seen it. Then the month after you will expect him to see for himself and be able to explain it to you.

Maybe that will learn him

Just did a long post about Shameless and the agency that women have but lost it

Mint marshmallows? Mint marshmallows?? Where can I get these?

Berstie I hate it when my gripe about a feminist issue,is dismissed as me not having a sense of humour (same for prudishness, or being fussy) it's annoying.
I have no advice though. Feel free to grumble.

Oh please.

kickass.

S'alright. I just wanted a moan really. He's not a bad sort. He was just knackered from work and not in the mood to listen to a feminist lecture, which is fair enough. :)

Oh. Erk. Perhaps not. Turns out there is other stuff behind the overreaction :( Crap.

Sorry to hear that, Berstie... you OK?

for berstie.

Ah, feck, I wrote an insightful, pithy post re middle agedness during the coffee break of the conference I went to today and it's Not Here - stupid iPhone nought to do with my ineptitude of course.

Which reminds me of another course I went to recently all about Women's Health where 3 male speakers presenting ('tis true, there are not many female consultant gynaecologists were I am, plenty of female gynaecologists, but not in the v senior positions) and v good they were too. A summary of the historical treatment for uterine prolapse going back to the Egyptians 3.000BC via the Greeks and Romans to today was v interesting, but turned my stomach. Really, truly only a man could consider cauterising a prolapsed uterus with a red hot poker - or hanging the afflicted woman upside down, shaking her until the prolapse went back inside her, then tying her legs together for 3 days. Thankfull, the speaker was rather appalled by all these practices himself....

Anyway, I was just saying how I like being middle-aged. I wouldn't mind ataying middle-aged rather than getting older and older and ancient alhtough I do quite fancy being a Wise Old Crone .
I have life- and job experience, I don't care about other people's opinion about my opinion quite as much anymore and I feel I have 'licence' to not care about my appearance as much - I never did much, but now I seem to be 'allowed' to just be kinda clean, non-smelly, boringly dressed and I find I more easily because life doesn't stress me quite as much. Mainly because I have totally internalised 'This too shall pass, this too shall pass, this too shall pass..." Thank you, MN, for that mantra.

Mine's a cider again, please.
And mint marshmallows are just wrong . No, let me rephrase that: marshmallows are totally wrong

Oh, rubbish, x-post. Hope all's well at Chez Berstie's (hug)

Haha it's fine Pacific :)

No I won't post now or I'll blub before I've had a chance to actually talk to him about it. Don't worry about me though - just tough relationship stuff due to moving country mainly.

Quick, someone tell a joke to cheer Bertie up?

Question: How many feminists does it take to change an MRA?
Answer: HAHAHAHAHAHA

(Gives self 4/10, could do better)