Feminist Pub XX - may the summer rains wash the patriarchy down the plughole

[NoTechnologicalBreakdown]

Ooh ooh! Do I get to start it?

Wine and cake all round. And a celebratory burst on the patriarchy-blasting cannon!

Old pub here

Bah to dress up!

DS1 doesn't do dressing up - every nursery play, there he is in his uniform jumper among a sea of obedient costumed toddlers.

Then, all of a sudden he got a token for the disney store and bought the silver stormtrooper suit (Captain Phasma - a female character - he bought it because it was the shiniest), and has insisted on wearing it to every party since. None of which have been fancy dress.

Children. What are you going to do with them.

I think I might have actual wine tonight. DS was 1 of about 4 boys not dressed as a pirate so not too bad. It was going OK until he tripped over someone's foot and now he's got a massive lump on his head.

He's not even in school yet, I really won't cope with doing this 20 times a year. Dh is in work, lucky sod.

DS2 nearly out of primary school now. We didn't get as many as 20 parties a year!

Arg! Need to rant! Trying to avoid derailing a thread by arguing with someone who thinks that young, childless women make worse teachers that older ones who are parents. Seriously, at what point do women get to be judged on their individual skills rather than their age and inclination (or ability) to have kids?

Maybe I should have married the fuckwit and had children - at least then my teaching would be judged on my skills. Though, I guess then I'd be judged for working while being a mum.

Jessica Women are just no good at anything apart from making the tea and sandwiches. Even then it depends on how available you are.

What does this person think of childless male teachers? Or even male teachers who have children but are not the primary carer?
Those would be crappy teachers according to that person's line of reasoning, right?

(Except men do everything better and know everything about children without even having seen one.)

That's maddening and quite horribly offensive, Jessicas, I can see why you're cross. Grrr. And in answer to "when do we stop getting judged on age and childed/non-childed status", sadly the answer from my experience is just about never.

You could equally argue it the other way - because you don't have children, then you're much more open to the huge amount of variety in children's behaviour, aptitudes etc, and how you can teach them as individuals because you don't have a dog in the fight, and you're not starting from a position of "this child is the same as/different to my child". Or you could just tell them to get stuffed

Oh but men bring so much to teaching! They are more sporty and can actually kick a football around! And they are more strict - little boys don't listen to female teachers, you know? (Actually said to me. No homicide was committed, but it came close. That is why I don't talk to people)

Thanks folks. I'm pretty rubbish at making tea and sandwiches never. I'm pretty good at teaching quadratic equations to teenage boys tho!

I decided to just disengage. The reasoning was that young, female, childless teachers like girls (because they sit nicely and read books) rather than boys (who are too boisterous for them to handle), and have no idea about family life (presumably because we all magically appeared, fully grown at 18, with no family and don't know any families / children outside work). There was so much wrong with that I didn't even know where to start!

I'm finding it increasingly hard to just ignore the sexism, but maybe that's because I'm facing an onslaught at the moment. DSis who keeps telling me how I'll feel "when" I'm a mum (I have no plans to be in the near future), a range of people expressing shock / concern / pity because I ended my relationship with fuckwit ex-fiancé (literally in the same breath "you seem so much happier" and "don't worry you'll be married with kids one day"), colleague making sexist "jokes" then getting annoyed when I point out that casual sexism isn't funny.

Fortunately it's nearly the end of term, and I'm having a large glass of Baileys when I get in tonight, watching the space shuttle dock with ISS and admiring my beautiful Christmas tree in my own (rented) house.

WRT pirate costumes when the time comes, Ds will be wearing flip flops, cut off shorts and toting an AK47.

never, the strict thing is such a load of crap! Boys certainly do listen to female teachers (at least in my school), and the "strict" teachers often are ones who have to resort to shouting (usually due to having no other behaviour management strategies). I'm pretty sure I'm not alone in thinking that having kids be afraid of you is simply not a good way of teaching most kids. Who the hell learns well when they're scared?!

I decided to just disengage. The reasoning was that young, female, childless teachers like girls (because they sit nicely and read books) rather than boys (who are too boisterous for them to handle),

Well, that evens out rather nicely, then, as studies have proven most teachers give boys preferential treatment without even noticing.

Hooray for more childless female teachers!

(I know it's bullshit, don't worry. )

Strangely enough people who tell me that boys don't listen to female teachers are people whose sons are a bit "boisterous"... I think it's just excuses made for their children's behaviour.

I also find this fear-as-a-motivation thing a bit odd.

It's the glass escalator effect - I think Cordelia Fine talks about it. People are uncomfortable with men in traditional female roles and try to promote them to roles where they get to order people about. Or some such.

I think the stats are not as outrageous as that of secondary school teaching, but I don't know for sure.

It's the same with men in childcare. How men could contribute so much that women can't! I am all for more men in these roles but for goodness' sake can we not do it without putting down women further?

I don't know the stats Joan, but I'm almost certain you are right. It is true in my (limited) experience. As yes, choosing to be a primary teacher for a man is considered awesome and supposedly demonstrates how kind and caring he is, whereas when women choose teaching it is assumed they want to work less hours / fit in with family life. Like single parents. A single dad is "aww how sweet he loves his kids" but a single mum is "she should have had an abortion / not had sex".

I was wondering about that never. Its not a hard leap really to think that the kind of parent who thinks poorly of young, childless, female teachers are likely to also be passing along sexist messages (such as boys are boisterous) to their children, and blaming the teacher rather than thinking "of course DS should be able to sit still for 5 minutes in yr6".

I've seen the same stats for nursing.

I've seen kind of the opposite in Tech - women always end up getting moved out of first-line/technical roles and into management/project management.

I've seen kind of the opposite in Tech - women always end up getting moved out of first-line/technical roles and into management/project management.

Do they pay them more, too?

Isn't that the same situation in tech? Women are seen as being good at planning and people so are pushed into those roles? Leaving the fixing things to men. I don't really know what tech is so I may be missing the point.

A while ago I started mirroring the men in my team. Here's a little summary so far:

Woman organised a charity bake off, lots of email exchanges between female team members about what a great idea it was. I promised myself I wouldn't express any enthusiasm unless a man did. None of them did. Felt like a bitch.

Man sent around an email saying that we should all donate to charity instead of exchanging Christmas cards. Everyone agreed. I received Christmas cards from all the women anyway and so I kept repeating that we'd agreed not to. Felt like a bitch.

We had an Xmas lunch, organised by a woman. It was a bring a dish buffet type thing. We all enjoyed it. As soon as it ended all the women started to clear up and the men stayed sat down and started talking business. So I sat down and joined in with the conversation. Felt like bitch.

Luckily I'm quite good at over-riding the 'feeling like a bitch' thoughts. I might buy some bitchy shoulder pads though. Those are still cool, right?

We had an Xmas lunch, organised by a woman. It was a bring a dish buffet type thing. We all enjoyed it. As soon as it ended all the women started to clear up and the men stayed sat down and started talking business. So I sat down and joined in with the conversation. Felt like bitch.

I sometimes feel women are their own worst enemy, why didn't every woman come and join you or organise the men into jobs helping the clean up with the immortal words "it won't do itself"

I'm constantly asked if I know where my (male) colleagues are - nearly always by men. My response 'I have no idea - I'm not their secretary.'

I bet no one ever asks them where I am...

Well I thought I could ask the men to help but then I'd be a nag instead of a bitch. That's much worse. It's the big Christmas party tomorrow so I'll see how that goes.

We had a tea-and-biscuit thing once and I just sat firmly on my bottom while the (male) organiser organised tea for everyone. It was nice. (But I did have to keep telling myself to sit firmly on my bottom...)

I don't drink tea or coffee so that's a good excuse to not get involved in that side of things.