Feminist Pub VII - Chat, questions, random thoughts too small for a thread ...

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

Just setting this up while we finish off the last few posts on the old thread. Come in and pull up a bar stool!

Margaret Atwood is coming to the Cheltenham Literature Festival.

Why thank you. It is easy for me to get to the festival, so if I can get tickets then I am definitely going. Eeeek. I have been an Atwood fan since I was 17 and read The Handmaid's Tale in school.

Yes Rosa there are indeed tshirts for baby and toddler girls proclaiming "porn star in waiting". Next door's little girl had one until I pointed out how hideous it was, then they claimed it was bought by an uncle as a joke and I've never seen her wearing it again.

And yy to being called girls. I am a teacher in a secondary schools and senior male staff regularly say "speak to the girls in the office" or "the girls of department x". We do not employ girls, we educate girls (and boys). I would accept women or ladies (we don't actually employ any ladies either but at least the men are occassionally called gentlemen so there is an equivalence), I do not accept girls, but I think they think I'm a bit humourless.

I'd LOVE to go to that festival Penguins. I love Atwood as well, although I've only recently discovered her via a thread on here.

That is really shit Tortoise. How dare they not invite you!! Are you going anyway?

I am indeed; I asked them to send me the invitation* on the grounds that 'possibly Martin has overlooked that he only sent the invitation to the CEO'. Said CEO cannot attend anyway, so if they want our business involved, they get me. It's just SO frustrating. And of course now I'm already on the defensive about proving that I'm a valuable contributor to this working group, etc.

*Invitation = appointment request. Not embossed ivory cardstock.

Penguins I am so very envious.

Tortoise, that is really fucking annoying.

I am going through something a bit like that at the moment, but it's internal. Our head office is leaving me out of something my local senior team keep trying to pull me back into. I want to be in it, and I know I will be good for the project, but I also can't help but feel there is something pointed about how I keep being dropped out of the communications on it.

I am trying to think unemotionally about this: just keep getting myself back in there, my team here have my back on this, just don't let it lead to a thought worm about why I maybe don't really deserve to be in it

I read this

www.amazon.co.uk/Self-made-Man-My-Year-Disguised/dp/1843545047

Following the recommendation on here. (or some other feMNist thread, not sure)

It was really interesting, but an astonishing case study in "what about the menz" also.

I did feel that living life as a man didn't necessarily have to involve going repeatedly to strip clubs, as a regular. I was uncomfortable with that really and also the use of "titty bar" in none quoted author's prose.

I thought that the unchallenged acceptance of the burden of male sexuality was interesting. Is it really necessary to be an arsehole if you are a man just because you are so terribly desperate to get your rocks off with a woman all the time you can't help it? This was pretty much implied or accepted in places. And by extension, our sympathy invited for the othewise decent men who couldn't help being arseholes and deserved our sympathy for that in itself, the pain of being an arsehole.

Where Ned (Norah as Ned) invited our sympathy as being the guy trying to get dates I couldn't help feel that there is a fundamental inequity being glossed over - by the author.

The necessity of men to be on the offensive to get dates – I get that in a way – and in a way, being generally forced into being on the offensive in society at large – but women didn’t make them do that. Women did not invite this situation where men cannot show vulnerability, etc. Women did not invite the situation where their sphere of influence, of activity, is so meagre that men then feel that they have do goddamned everything.
The idea that men have to be romantically on the offensive comes directly from an idea that a woman who takes the initiative is romantically unacceptable. That wasn’t our idea. If they didn’t want to have to be pushy arseholes to get dates, they should find a woman asking them out not disgusting, slutty and threatening.

Seeing things from the man’s point of view – women have all the power because men want so much to date and fuck them – this is such a mistaken point of view and I am sad to see it from a soi disant feminist woman.

The author is a lesbian and has maybe forgotten, or never really been up close and personal with, the fact that for a woman to have power over a man through sex is a very precise, individual scenario where that particular man wants something of that woman AND is prepared to be a gent about it. AND outside sex and romance, women have no other power. This power is so small, so circumscribed – the power to let a man, this one man, touch you or not, if he complies, if he wants to – it doesn’t go near all the other men, in the realm of sex, and goes nowhere near, at all, any other realm than sex. That is it. That is your one power. You can say no to the guy who wants to hold your hand. And then he might slag you off or even be violent anyway.

The eventual conclusion was of course that gender roles are damaging for everyone.

I think the author places too much responsibility with women for perpetuating damaging gender roles when the women, more than even the men, are just getting by within them. Men at least are free to make a living and need never hassle a woman for sex ever in his life. He is perfectly free to do so. Women making a living – not the same.

I found myself thinking a lot more about psychological sex; psychological gender; men only spaces – have no time to write about that now

I also found myself thinking that the emphasis on the burden of the man and his responsibility was not fairly explored because in comparison with a single childless woman, yep, sure life is hard. Try being the mother in that family though. Does he really have a greater, more unrelenting burden?

queenmab I heard about this but didn't read. Agree with what you say in general without reference to the book.

The idea that women have any power at all is interesting. In the domestic way, lots of conventional families I know would have the husband deferring to the wife in decisions about where to go on holiday, who and when to invite to come round, what to bring to a BBQ etc etc, and these things are dressed as man deferring to woman's authority ("the boss"). But of course what it is is that the woman is responsible for these things. It is not authority but burden.

Aww, my tree discussion went "pfft"!

I know Bill. I was enjoying the thread a lot.

"But of course what it is is that the woman is responsible for these things. It is not authority but burden."

Yup. Cause the boss would say, "Miss Smith, I want to have lunch somewhere very meaty, outdoorsy, with lots of smoke, arrange it, please, after you've dropped off my dry cleaning and typed up my messages" - right?

It is also that you give the illusion that the balanced have tipped the other way, that women are in charge. "Well, in our house it's my wife who makes all the decision. So there. Why are you still going on about gender equality." In reality a woman is to be in charge of all the things that makes men's lives comfortable.

Quite right. I do the meal planning, food shopping and most of the cooking in my house; DH defers to me to the extent that he now knows to ask before eating what looks like leftovers in the fridge, because they usually represent part of a plan. That sort of thing.

But that's not freedom. Freedom would be if I then turned around and said, we're having lentil soup for dinner all this week. Whereas actually what happens is I say there's half a cold roast chicken left, or some slow cooked meatballs, or some curry in the freezer, and he says but we had roast chicken two days ago and I ate the meatballs yesterday and I'm sick of curry. What else have you got planned?

What else have I got planned. Because I'm the one who knows the contents of the freezer and the chest freezer (a purchase which, by the way, he deemed unnecessary and extravagant) and run the budget, so he knows that he's "not allowed" to just go get a takeaway.

Woo. Look at me and all my being in charge.

Oh, yes.

DH is actually good on the food side of things and doesn't do this, which is brilliant, but my dad does it all the time, usually with self-pitying comments about how he knows he can't just eat what he fancies, oh no .... .

I have a way round that one, Buffy. I often find myself saying, "I feel like I should thank you for doing the washing up. But it's your responsibility as much as mine, so you shouldn't really get thanked for it. So, thanks, and don't forget to congratulate me when I've finished drying up."

It's a bit of a mouthful and not an ideal solution though. At least with meals we were both brought up to not just thank whoever cooked it, but praise the meal's deliciousness too.

Stormy That's what I say too, more or less, in varying volume. I must say that after years of training the DC now do the kitchen/meal stuff with minimal fuss. They also put away laundry when told to. I want to get to the stage of not having to tell them. Last night I asked DS1 to consider why he would ask me "what pants?" when faced with a pair of pants on the bedroom floor...

Dp is good with the food thing, he does all our shopping (except he doesn't buy any chocolate, snacks or fizzy pop so i still have to go to the shops) and meal planning (what little planning happens) and most of the cooking. I'm the person who has to ask what we're having for dinner, and basically if I can't see/smell it by the time I've put dd2 to bed then it's obviously going to be a takeaway. He also does the laundry and I don't thank him for doing it. Dd1 cleans the kitchen, bathroom and hoovers downstairs. I don't thank her either but I do pay her which I think is better than thanks)

The bits that annoy me are present shopping. He just abdicates all responsibility and says "you know what people like, I'll just give you the money" which is fine if it's MY family and friends, less fine for OUR dds, annoying when it's HIS family and friends, rage-inducing when it's for ME.

Or holidays. He's quite happy to just say "I'll bow to your judgement", meaning that it's me who has to research holidays, book it, and then take the blame if anything goes wrong. And he always has to be forced/cajoled into going on family days out, which I plan and book, all he has to do is turn up, then he moans about being ordered to come out and miss his "relaxing weekend". It's not FOR me, it's for the dds, they want to spend some fun days out with their dad.

On presents, cards and so on, I sat DP down and told him straight - it's not him who gets judged when he can't be parsed, it's me, so if he doesn't want his family and all their friends judging me, he can bloody well sort out his own mother's birthday card himself.

We've also talked (by which I mean I've talked and he's nodded in the right places) about the evening meal. I'm not prepared to do the thinking and the shopping and the cooking every day for the rest of our lives. This means we have daily discussions which either go:

"What are we having for tea?"
"Dunno, what are you cooking?"

Or else:

"Pick a dead animal."
"...Sheep?"
"Pasta or potatoes?"
"...Yes?"

The path to equality is slow and frustrating at times...

I once asked DH if he could take the DDs out to Legoland instead of me as I had something also to do. He rolled his eyes and said he'd rather not because he really didn't enjoy "that kind of thing". He was absolutely astounded when I informed him that I really didn't enjoy it either, pretty much every moment was either mind-numbingly boring or absolutely terrifying as I try to keep track of rampaging toddlers in thick crowds, but it was all about the DDs, not either of us. Up until that point, he had genuinely thought these days out were an absolute joy for me.

After that particular revelation, he's been much better about coming out on days out with us (previously he always stayed home) and taking the DDs out by himself.

Astounding how the myth continues that women enjoy all these responsibilities that seem to be expected of us. Perhaps that's how the "nice guys" justify their laziness to themselves.

"else", not "also"

Yes, I take dd2 swimming pretty much every week. Dp doesn't come because he "doesn't swim". Actually he can swim, he just doesn't enjoy taking a small, non-swimming child to the swimming pool and lounging around in shallow water. He did seem completely bewildered by the fact that I don't enjoy it either but I do it because I want dd2 to learn to swim. I would enjoy it a lot more if he came too because then at least I would be able to go and do some swimming in the lane while he looked after dd2, and he could go and swim a few lengths while I looked after her. He stays at home, so he now does the laundry as an equivalent to taking dd2 swimming.