Feminist Pub IX. Newbies and regulars welcome - pop your cognitive dissonance down outside and have a gin.

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

Right, thought I'd better start a new pub. I warn you, my knowledge of Roman numerals conks out shortly after this one, so either buffy will have to start the next thread, or we'll have to go Arabic.

Everyone is welcome in - if you want to chat, or just jump in with a question/link/gin, please do. Especially if it's too small for a thread or you don't feel up to thread-starting.

The old thread has, at my count, about 9 posts to go, and it was here: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/2126791-Feminist-Pub-VIII-not-as-prolific-as-the-Swaggerers-but-there-are-cushions-and-consciousness?

We were just chatting about feministy light reading, and will doubtless meander onto other topics shortly.

Just saying hello, have been away here and there since start of school holidays and missed the pub very much. Also, I didn't know there were exercise threads! I need to find them and get motivated again, I went for a run last night, the first one in a while and it was a bit embarrasing!! Anyway, hello everyone!

Hello!

Hello rosebud - the exercise threads are here - I find them very useful for keeping motivated. I've managed to exercise 4 to 5 times per week every week since the start if June

Having a rest day (with gin) today...

Ok, I may have been hallucinating as I've had an insomniac week, but wasn't there some talk somewhere of what a feminist rom com would look like? Can't find the thread now. But at about 3 am I suddenly thought, a feminist rom com would be a woman who says no until she meets a man who actually listens to and respects her.

The 'com' bit could be a sequence of hilarious dates where she says no to increasingly bizarre situations, with the odd serious no to a man who thinks he'll be the one. The Rom bit could be her finding a genuine man, possibly in her 50s, who actually likes her.

May not be a Hollywood blockbuster, but would be just as funny and true to life as any other rom com I've seen.

So I went to get my wedding/engagement rings resized today because I am become a fatty. All fine. But when the shop assistant was filling in the paperwork, I didn't get asked my title, as per usual (and I am a Ms, like a proper feminist). "Mrs" just appeared on the form, presumably because the fact I was in sorting wedding rings means I am obviously married and therefore, ipso facto, a Mrs.

I HATE Mrs. It gives me the rage. So does Miss when used for an adult female. Now, people can call themselves what they like so I don't go ranting about it except when applied to me directly. Today I lacked the mental energy to argue with the shop assistant. Doesn't make it any less depressing though that by default women are still categorised by whether or not they have managed to get a man to confer respectability and an adult title on them or not.

Grrrr.....

"Isn't possible to discuss these things rationally without all the snippy 'HTH' bull?"

Why yes, as long as the rational discussion is also free of mansplaining.

Snippiness from feminists is rather an occupational hazard if you come into their pub and tell them what's what.

This is actually really interesting

" I was responding to Kick's point about a sexualised child and a hand creeping towards her knee. I don't see that at all.
Isn't possible to discuss these things rationally without all the snippy 'HTH' bull?"

It's really good. It is a great example of at best a difference of opinion, and at worst shoddy and inadequate perception and analysis, being deemed "rational" just because it is one's own opinion and the holders of the other opinions are women. I love it because "I don't see" comes just before the stuffy demand for "rationality". No. you don't see. That's not our fault though. It's not because we're irrational. it's because you don't see. you can't get any clearer than that about what the problem is.

Ask AskBasil pointed out what I find most boring and disappointing about this is that the publishers' sense that there are interestingly dark undertones to CCATCF go directly to - this. It is really worrying, and very very boring, that a twisted sexuality is perceived as the only sort of twistedness we have access to.

dp put some old Sesame St on youtube today for the dcs - OMG it is a work of genius. some of it is awful, I remember later - 80s? - sesame st being tedious as fuck when it is all about Big Bird and his friends tediously and endlessly modelling cooperation or something. but the puppet parts - and the animation - so hilarious, so subtle, so great. I was wondering where all this capacity for oddness and strange shades of meaning had gone - CBeebies seems to operate in such a limited palette in comparison. (was just reminded of that by the default to twisted sexuality, yawnety yawn)

But of course politically it is such a brilliantly optimistic show in a way that seems so strange now. Urban optimism: city as a site of equality and interaction among normal people building a bright future. Nowadays we know we have fucked up civic life and basically abolished cities or the public realm as places of cooperative interaction, so all new kids' TV has to feature animals or at the very least, if human, people who live in woods or other very heavy handedly coded rural settings

Good point, vezzie. I don't think I've ever used a "cab gee discuss things rationally" phrase on MN, or elsewhere - even to folks pushing conspiracy theories.

I disagree with kickass's interpretation of the hand - plus it's clearer in the uncropped image - but it's not an irrational interpretation, and the image is creepy, hand or no hand.

"Cab gee = can we"

What the fuck, autocorrect?!

It's a brilliant image in its way, just free of the context of CATCF.

When you first look at it, the dolled up kid looks neutral. When you look at a close up (on the original fashion shoot) I think she looks scared. I don't know whethr that's down to the photographer's genius or what, but it's quite striking.

Sigh. I've just been accused of being an troll just for suggesting that Christianity is as much a culture as a religion in the UK. Really? Disagree with me if you will, but it's a bit gormless to shout "troll" just because someone holds an opinion different to your own.

But small rant over and onto what I wanted to post about. Yesterday I was sorting out the DD's skirts and was sizing up skirts that still fit DD2. She is 6. Two of the skirts that fit her are age 4-5. Another two are recently handed down from DD1 and are age 9-10 (DD2 is 9 in 2 weeks and these skirts are already too short for her).

So I sat the skirts on top of each other to compare the size. All four (from a variety of brands) are identical in length, and have only about 1cm difference in waist size. Size 4-5 and size 9-10. What am I supposed to think about this? All I can conclude is that girls are not supposed to get any wider as they grow from age 4 to age 10, and that while they are expected to grow taller, their skirts are expected to ride higher and higher up their legs, from knee-length in 4 year-olds to show-your-knickers-if-you-bend-even-slightly mini skirts in 10 yo.

So fucking depressing.

And the fact that both DDs are awash with skirts because it's impossible to find nice shorts for girls is a rant for another day.

Crikey.

Was that on here or elsewhere? I'm Christian and I think Christianity in the UK is about culture.

The skirt size thing does sound a bit poor - it's not possible it's just brands being useless? I've got (adult) clothes that are different sizes from the same maker.

Anyway, about rationality. I think I've made this rambly point before, so sorry if it's boring. But:

The idea that being 'rational' is the pinnacle of human achievement and immensely superior to intuitive or emotional reasoning is something Renaissance Humanists like to think they've invented. Arguably, they're just being dicks about Catholicism and the Middle Ages, but they go in for 'rationality' in a big way. It is not coincidental that they also go in for gendered education. This movement gives us the origins of the school/university system where boys and men are quite deliberately taught different subjects, with more intellectual rigour, than women, even at a very early age. Women are effectively denied the intellectual building blocks that would help them construct arguments according to principles of logic and debate. 'Rational' thus becomes a loaded word with a back-history of crowding women out.

The Victorians come along and load on another set of biases, by claiming that women are inherently irrational because our wandering wombs make us unbalanced.

I don't think this has completely gone away, and it's one of the reasons 'irrational' annoys me as a buzzword.

Plus, purely from the point of view of someone wanting good debate, if you think someone is illogical/irrational, you ought to be able to point to the flaw in their logic, and it ought to be more than disagreement.

• Yes, I used 'dicks'. I am a terrible man-hater.

annie on what basis were they arguing against that

LRD on the money, especially the last point. "irrational" is not just a snooty way of saying "I don't like you, you - you menstruator". If you claim privilege on the grounds of superior rationality, can we have a little induction, deduction or analysis, please?

I am by nature (and latterly by education) a very rational person and I have found that rationality is often treated, in real life, as aggression. Sometimes this is because I am actually being a dick about something, prioritising an argument over someone's feelings in a case where that's just fucked up priorities so I deserve to be put in my place. (I am getting better about this all the time, honestly, I had a lot to learn about feelings when I started work because I wasn't brought up to think that compassion was a legitimate part of life in a results-centred environment, I never received it so I didn't know you were supposed to apply it, I am doing better now)

however, sometimes it is because I am being rational to a MAN and he is very angry because I HAVE STOLEN HIS GUN AND SHOOT BETTER THAN HE DOES

It was on Facebook, LRD. An acquaintance is a bit of a politician and posts a lot of political stuff. He posted something about a racist comment someone had made in the newspaper ("I'm not racist but they're taking over" type nonsense). I replied, in an attempt to add my own anecdote to the conversation:

Someone on a forum I frequent was complaining that there are "whole streets with only Muslims living in them" around her way. I would imagine if a street-by-street analysis of the country were conducted, the "whole streets with only white Christians living in them" might still win by a considerable margin.

By "Christian", in this context, I meant culturally. As in, most white Britons still celebrate Christmas and Easter instead of Eid, Hanukkah or Diwali. But instead of taking this in the context it was intended, a huge argument broke out about how most white British don't identify as Christian any more and I must be a troll or "silly" if I think that Britain is broadly Christian. And they got very cross when I said they were being ridiculously pedantic and managing to completely miss my point.

Sigh.

I mean they deliberately locked all the weapons up when they sent us to flower-arranging and secretarial college instead. What feminine wiles led us to locate the key?

Thinking of any kind in a woman is sneaky, cunning, manipulative, unfair and unexpected.

Thinking by a man is just exercising his rigorous intelligence

Expressed in a most excellent manner, vezzie.

annie i think you're right. and in my totally non-evidenced-based opinion i suspect that the people who complain most about "muslims taking over" are also not that bothered about CofE or catholic schools, easter eggs, christmas trees, calling first names "christian names" etc

so they don't mind christian culture, because for them it equals british culture (brownies and scouts, church fetes, hot cross buns, god save the queen and so on)

vezzie - ooh, yes, that's exactly it! I have stolen his gun and shoot better with it.

annie - that sounds tedious. Besides, don't more people than we think identify as Christian? I forget the numbers, but it's still a surprisingly high proportion of society ... even if that does just mean culturally.

Britain so clearly is culturally Christian. If you came in from Mars, someone would have to explain Sunday closing laws, and Easter and Christmas holidays, and prayers on Remembrance Day, and acts of worship in primary schools ... you'd never get to the end of it.

dp's family is jewish (he is atheist), mine is christian, so we celebrate all the christian and jewish festivals that involve delicious food and exchanging presents

"I am by nature (and latterly by education) a very rational person and I have found that rationality is often treated, in real life, as aggression. Sometimes this is because I am actually being a dick about something, prioritising an argument over someone's feelings in a case where that's just fucked up priorities so I deserve to be put in my place. (I am getting better about this all the time, honestly, I had a lot to learn about feelings when I started work because I wasn't brought up to think that compassion was a legitimate part of life in a results-centred environment, I never received it so I didn't know you were supposed to apply it, I am doing better now)"

Good paragraph.

Annie, I don't live in the UK, but I think you made a good point - religion is about culture. Look at catholicism, for an example of a transnational christian religion. Practiced worldwide but in distinct ways, depending on the local culture.

Having been brought up catholic but as an atheist now, it's very easy to understand religion as part of a wider culture.

Petula - us too. DH and I are both atheist Jews, though I converted so my family are Christian. So we celebrate everything!!

Apparently these people on the thread are very offended at being "tarred as Christian" (I have never said being culturally Christian is a bad thing!) and that I'm being just as offensive as someone saying all brown people are Muslims.

Now, these folk are absolutely entitled to not want to associate with Christianity, to not celebrate Christmas or call it Yule instead. But there's still no denying that culturally, the UK is currently Christian. And that given the amount of bling that gets splattered on the front of most houses come December, there certainly are a great many streets in Britain entirely occupied by culturally Christian people.

Still, they are idealistic young 20-somethings (apologies to LRD and anyone else in that category) and I can't blame them for being so darned antsy about their opinions.