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

Sera - I get this. DP isn't bad, but he finds it uncomfortable that I occasionally rant about something - he doesn't understand why I get angry (although my retort this morning of 'wouldn't you?' actually seemed to hit the mark a bit)

I also just got into a conversation on Facebook - friend of a friend posted an image of an (admittedly biased) anti-rape poster, which said that if a drunk man and a drunk woman have sex, then the bloke has just raped the woman. The comment on the poster being that 'that was equality was it?'.

My sister posted that she agreed, that no-one should be at fault if both were drunk. I waded in with all the stuff we're familiar with - that women know when they've been raped vs. bad sex, that men manage to not drive or kill people when drunk, so not sticking their penis in someone shouldn't be too hard etc. The MRA-type and his brother waded back with the standard MRA lines about never getting drunk again, and that women can rape men too etc.

It's all so disheartening, but I just feel like I can't let comments like that lie on a public site. Someone needs to say something against it, and don't care what people think of me so I do.

For those interested, I've started a healthy living support thread for feminists. Please join me if you'd like to enjoy some mutual feminist support in getting healthy.

This article just popped up on my twitter feed, it's 15 reactions from men on the idea of taking their wife's surname on marriage. It's ummmm...interesting.
15 men react to the idea of taking their wife last name after marriage

INicked - I got angry half way down, then came back to it and can't stop laughing at this gem:

Listen, I’m a feminist. But we have to draw the line somewhere. .. goes on to give some tradition-based reason he shouldn't have to change his name.

Some of them had okay answers. But this one was awesome:

“If hoards of men started taking their wives’ surnames, it would be an unfortunate and perhaps irreversible step towards a matriarchal goddess culture, which blows for guys because those cultures used to routinely kill male infants and treat males like slaves. In a world where there are already very few incentives for men to get legally shackled, this is one slippery slope I wouldn’t want to slide down.”

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!

"n a world where there are already very few incentives for men to get legally shackled,"

Well, don't get married then, I'm sure womankind will be devastated.

Totally agree Buffy. If any man thought he was doing me a favour by marrying me rather than sharing my mutual delight at the prospect, he could FOTTFSOF.

Sharing/mutual overkill there. Oops.

Mil tried to tell me I was very lucky that dh wanted to marry me and if he was good enough to do that then the least I could do is change my name. I repeated her argument back to her just swapping him for me, and explained that he was welcome to change his name to mine. We agreed that both of us keeping our own name is probably best. I think we're both lucky to have each other, but tbh I think he's the one who benefits most from actually getting married due to our respective jobs and pensions etc.

Some of dhs family thought he'd married me because I was dying!

After we married I only changed my name with hmrc/council and couldn't be arsed with filling forms with everything else. At the time, I really didn't give it any thought, it hasn't been an issue as I'm very very rarely addresses by both names, and when I am, I don't realise they are talking to me. Dds school just changed it to dhs after dd told them were married, and when the call me mrs xxxx I've ignored because I didn't realise they meant me.

After reading lots of threads here, I want my own name. It's unique and I like when people when get it wrong and say how they haven't heard it before. My surname is one (only) interesting thing about me and I actually like it. Every now and then someone will say "oh I met a xxx once, are you related?" I've talked about it with dh, and he said he doesn't mind, it's just a name, but at the hosp last week, when they called for me with my own name, he asked why they used wrong name and why hadn't I changed it? looked hurt when I gave him a "wtf I have bigger things to worry about" look. Didn't have time to address it and it got brushed aside.

We were hanging out the washing on Saturday afternoon and heard the church bells start up. I said to DH it must be a wedding, and he said it sounded far too happy for wedding bells. Just an instinctive response from him that marriage=misery for men. He was baffled when I pulled him up on it and said that if marriage is so awful for him he's welcome to leave. FFS, at "best" (from their point of view) men get sex on tap and a domestic servant. More likely they get a companion, someone to share raising children, to half the responsibilities of life and at least half their meals cooked for them. What's so fucking awful about that?!?!

Why is it a negative stigma for men to be married? Aside from that they're generally expected to stop shagging about (but often don't). Bizarre.

INicked, why would they think that? Because he couldn't possibly just love you for yourself? That seems like an extreme assumption. (Unless you have some serious health problem, in which case my apologies for the blunder, and much sympathy)

DH and I thought about just picking a name to become our joint name, but decided to go with his as he'd already changed his name once, was born in N Ireland and was starting to look a bit dodgy security wise. I hated my last name so was happy to do that. I kind of wish we had changed to something else, but having got green cards, the process would have been a whole load harder if we'd done that.

kickass nope wasn't ill or anything at the time. I mean I'd lost a little weight as my dad had died suddenly, but nothing drastic. I think the thought process went something's like, "why have they got married out of the blue?, they've been together 13 years and have a dd, so it's not a having a child out of wedlock or living in sin because they've been doing that for years, she has no money so he can't want her for that, hmmmm, got it, she must be dying!"

herring Thank you for that link. I'm going to donate.

The marriage thing is weird, because don't the stats say that married men tend to live longer than single men?

I hate the pass thing, too. Why not just say, "I need to check if we've got anything else planned at home"? I usually have to say that, and I live alone, so don't have anyone to coordinate with.

And the way they use work as an excuse to get out of going to school concerts or special assemblies or whatever, then laugh about how clever they've been.

Wow. You work with some colossal dicks EBearhug. (Er, assuming you're hearing this at work that is).

In contrast, while I have heard the term "pass" from colleagues, it's been ones who appear to consider childcare equally their job (& use the term to women too "so if your DH is visiting the in-laws, does that mean you've got a pass for the night?" so it doesn't seem gendered IYSWIM?).

I have a friend who's DH has not attended one single play, assembly, presentation, he lost his job a while ago and decided they would switch roles, he'd like to be a sahd, in reality he does nothing and friend now works and does everything in the home too. I've taken their dc to birthday parties because he'd miss out if his mum was working, as dad would just refuse to take him, because they are boring, because they are full of nattering women.
On the few occasions the parties have been held in a pub he turns up then though, insisting his wife go to work, that's it's crazy for the family to lose money when he's at home. He'd buy a pint then piss off into bar leaving the dc with me, but somehow him just walking through the door was enough to make him The Best Dad Ever.