The Feminist Pub (continued).

[UptoapointLordCopper]

Been busy. Came back today to have a look but the Pub thread was full! Shall we continue here?

Third episode of Borgen on tonight.

I was brought up in a fairly strict Catholic household but my parents did give me some sex education. I definitely knew all about periods for ages before mine started and my mum was always open about sanpro. School sex education was not great, it was a biology lesson and we were taught about the basic biology and then a range of contraception was displayed and talked about in terms of, you need to know this for your GCSE but will have no further use for it in your life because you will all be married before you have sex and then you'll be happy to have as many babies as you are blessed with (by a nun who obviously had never had any need for contraception). My mum was more matter of fact than that and did a lot of "wait til you're ready" chats and my parents were very understanding when they thought I was pg at 17 - I wasn't, I was a virgin but have pcos (didn't know that at the time) so don't have regular periods and they went awol for almost the whole of my lower sixth year at school. They were great when I did fall pg at 19 and had no intention of marrying the father or ever seeing him again in my life.

I'm trying to be even more open about sex and stuff with my dds. I've never kept any of it secret from them but obviously my answers to their questions are age appropriate.

I came on to have a bit of a rant about older gentlemen and their gentle sexism. I am in an orchestra which I enjoy but I'm struggling with the sexist way some of the older men talk to and about the women in the group. They are trying to be nice and they genuinely don't see themselves as being sexist but little things are winding me up, like the 93 year old man who constantly tries to help the women do things - we're all a lot more capable than he is (because he's got a lot of health issues now) but he gets music stands out for all the women and not the men. Then there's the way all the men refer to us women as "girls" but refer to the men as "gentlemen", and they think I'm being completely ott to point out that since we're all significantly older than 18 we're women rather than girls. It's all little things that feel pathetic to pick up on but it adds up to me feeling quite patronised, just because I am a woman. It annoys me.

It would annoy me as well, AntiJamDidi. That sort of thing always annoys me.

I'll be around a lot today as my son is ill and off school. Explaining the Super Tantrum and nap he had after school!

Antijam That would annoy me too. I had a frank discussion with a very nice gentleman of a certain age too at a blood donating session about why we don't like that.

What instrument do you play?

Yes, I want to hear more about what you play (both instrument and repertoire) too, antijam! (off the point)

I remember becoming very conscious of this elaborately twirly "chivalrous" behaviour that suddenly started happening (in some contexts) the second I stopped being a child. the same people who thought children were like dogs, to be stepped over, ignored, mildly tolderated, or put outside, were suddenly making a huge song and dance about physically guiding you through doorways ahead of them (ugh, the hand on the back) and jumping ostentatiously out of chairs for you and so on. It was embarrassing because of the huge difference from the way I had been treated what seemed like last week. It was like I was wearing a sign saying "NOW UP FOR SEXUAL CONSIDERATION"

hello .. never been to the pub before but I am lurking in the corner having a glass of pop.. just wanted to say thankyou to all the FWR posters as (although I don't post) I've been lurking here for a few months and what I've read has really helped to clarify my thinking on how the world actually is. It's been a bit like that bit in the Matrix :)!

Also I've been giggling at every sperm is "scared" penguins hehe! poor little things

So much for being here today. My broadband went pearshaped there for a bit! I even had to clean the kitchen! ::faints::

I hate patriarchal expectations of clean rooms in my house.

Hi Tee, monica and benid and welcome. I am a sporadic poster on this thread because I am shit at long running threads. Invariably RL invades and I lose track.

I don't know if anyone knows but it's the anniversary of the Montreal massacre today. Julie Bindel's written an article on it here

Benid - I know. Auto correct didi it in two separate posts as well. I figured you all knew what I meant. Mind you, it does sound a fairly terrifying journey.

Scallops- I am sporadic too. That is why I love this thread. just wander in and chip in without any expectations you have 'kept up'.

Things change

I had an RC convent eduaction in the 90's and came away from quite well sussed. My parents - M&D - were both open and matter of fact about periods and boys and all that. Stood me in good stead, but of course it's no magic bullet against aking mistakes and having bad experiences.

I have no memory of who 'taught' me the birds and the bees. I know my mom got me a 'growing up pack' which was various kinds of sanpro and a little booklet. But she also told me not to tell my friends, in case their mothers hadn't talked to them.

And I know we had Sex Ed in school. This was in the US, BTW, so probably different than here. It was part of health education or something like that.

My Granny (who would be coming up to 100) had a very secular upbringing but still had no clue whatsoever about periods before they started and she thought she was bleeding to death (don't tell your brothers, darling) or sex. My grandfather worked out on their wedding night that she had no clue what was going to happen and so did nothing but cuddle her, he bought her a book about it all and waited until she was ready and happy to have sex for the first time, about 6 months into their marriage.

Oh CaptChaos, what a lovely granddad you had!

Oh I think I had 'The Talk' but I suspect I broached the subject. Tbf my mum was quite good. Is it ever going to be that comfortable with your mother? She was great about periods though. I do remember not knowing what an orgasm was until I was about 16 and being laughed at by friends at school because I didn't. So evidently we didn't learn it in Biology . Clearly not important enough for us girls to know! These were the days before PHSD (if I got that right) btw.

CaptChaos, your granddad just made me do an "awww" face in rl !

My mum dealt with it all iirc, although I think we had a half assed effort at school for periods etc (but not sex ed).

My 11 yr old (yr 7) has just had a sex ed lesson (mixed sexes) this week where they broadly touched on rape, feelings and not having to do things you don't feel right about, and also cyber grooming and sexting; the next lesson is separated and is going to be about 'the sex' I think. This follows on from the yr 6 one where they were told about puberty.

Luckily at the mo he's quite open with his dad and he has been talking it over (although less in depth) with me, so so far so good (I live in dread and fear of the next 8 years though!). Definitely his school are dealing with it all quite well I think.

CaptChaos, what a gent, your granddad, in the true sense of the word, lovely .

Which brings me to the not so gentlemanly behaviour of some old goats men: yy to the hand in small of back to usher me in to a room or standing up when I entered or scuttling to get me a chair when I must have been about 13 or so. Usually by friends of my grandparents. FFS.

I hope I will be able to not look at DSs' friends when they are teens and go 'fnar fnar' in my head, I really do.

Oh, re sex ed in school, I think it is SO important, just because we don't know what some kids are told at home and how they are told it.
I wish there was more emphasis on 'relationships' though, as well as the biological facts and contraception etc.
It's ok to not want sex.
It's ok to say 'no' - and 'no' means 'no'.
If something does not feel right, it probably isn't right.
Trust your gut.
Make sure the other person feels good and chances are you'll feel good too.
Etc etc

I think our school is doing a really good job of it too (DS3 is in P1 - we are in Scotland - and they are just learning to look after their bodies and how to name parts).
Some parents were up in arms about their little girls saying 'penis' at home

I'd struggle to be a teacher and remain polite to some parents

What did they want their daughters to say?

I must say, I struggle with what to call female parts. I mean, vagina isn't even accurate for what they are talking about most of the time, vulva just sounds odd. There is no neutral and overarching word for the whole area.

Had an interesting conversation with DD1 (4) today about the fact that there isn't such a thing as a 'rude' word in itself if that word was just a body part or a bodily function, but that it was rude to say things to people in a way that was designed to hurt their feelings. A boy had called her a 'poo poo' and I was trying (and probably failing) to explain taht there was nothing rude about poo, or the word poo, but since it was our waste and had germs and we flush it away it wasn't nice to say somebody was a poo. Gee, this parenting lark...

I find it hard to keep a straight face when DC go around saying "penis". I don't know why. It's just funny... >

I struggle with a word for female genitalia too, but we say penis and vagina which is not anatomically accurate but a nicer word than vulva (which sounds a bit like vulcano or valpolicella, all wrong ).

It is funny what children learn to be offended by or to use as an insult. In our house we currently have a problem with 'racist' and DS2(9) accuses DS3(5) of being 'racist' because he called something 'brown' (like, say, a brown crayon) - where do you even begin with that?? Is this 'brownist'??
They obvious talk in school about racism and how using 'Paki' is racist, but DS3 had no clue what 'Paki' meant or what 'racist' was. But he was most offended at being called racist.
Cue much talking around in circles and finding Pakistan on a world map and talking about tolerance - he was v puzzled that people would consider colour of anybody's skin to be worthy of mention as this had not occured to him in his rather multi-coloured class!
So, now he has taken to chanting "paki, paki, paki..." under his breath while colouring in

Oh, and all of mine say 'penis' and 'willy' and moon whenever there is the least provocation. DS4 like calling his penis his 'wee penis' - he is very fond of it and goes to sleep lying on his front, holding it. Aw!

That's very funny Pacific. Loving the racist brown crayon. It's political correctness gorn maaaaad I tell you

at pacific's DS3. I hope he doesn't do the chanting thing in school. You'd be hauled in to explain things.

DC's school is pretty multicultural as well. I like it.

We talked about Nelson Mandela today.

DD's school is not very multicultural. Sadly not a very multicultural area. I miss London in that respect.

To be fair, the boys' school is not very multicultural (where we live isn't), but there are a variety of skin colours present nonetheless, including 'white, freckly and redheaded' which he found much more worth of mention

Oh, I sincerely hope he'll have grown bored of the chanting by Monday!

Somebody called me 'a little lady' today - I was so taken aback, I did not respond and just walked away seething - where is the feminist wit when I need it most??

Upto and mildred I play the flute and we play the sort of thing most secondary school orchestras play, fairly easy arrangements of decent classical music. We're not particularly good but we all enjoy it which is the main thing.

I struggle with what to call female genitalia too. Dp started calling it "lady parts" or "girly bits" so that's what dd2 calls it, but I think dd1 used to call it her "front bottom". None of those terms feels quite right though, whereas I would automatically call a boy's bits his willy.

I love the chanting by pacific's ds, I hope he gets bored of it soon. We live in a particularly white area, but do have a very few non-white faces around. Dd1 was quite shocked when she found out that her friend was a different race to her when she was 7, she had literally never noticed that they had different coloured skin (I wanted to keep it that way but other children at school started commenting and the teachers had to have a big discussion about everybody being different). Dd2 has a Chinese friend but I don't think she's noticed yet that she's got different coloured skin, she has noticed her Polish friend talks differently but that's ok apparently because they can all still understand him. I miss Newcastle, we had loads of non-white faces in my class and imo we were a lot more tolerant than kids are in my current school where there are only 5 non-white faces in the whole school of 1500 pupils.