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

[EBearhug]

Yes, I was hearing it at work, slightlyeggstained.

Surely part of becoming a parent is realising that you will have to put up with some really boring stuff over the years. You can't (shouldn't) just pick and choose the fun bits.

[JeanneDeMontbaston]

Hello!

May I pull up a chair in that dark corner near the door?

[MsDragons]

I know a few couples like that too. The sahd just doesn't do everything with the children that his wife would do if she was home. The dcs are fine, the house is in a reasonable state, but none of the extras get done if she doesn't do them.

That's not the way it works in our house. Dh works part time while I am ft term time, so he goes to anything he can with dd2, swapping his days off if necessary, because I generally can't take time off in term time. Dd1 is at secondary school, so her stuff tends to be in the evenings, so I go to her school stuff while dh stays at home with dd2.

I do get loads of comments about how lucky I am to have him, where nobody would ever tell a man he was lucky to have a wife who does the stuff dh does. It's normal for a woman to work pt and do loads of the childcare/school stuff, but when a man does it it's praise worthy.

[MsDragons]

Hi Jeanne

[EBearhug]

May I pull up a chair in that dark corner near the door?

Come over into the light and talk to us.

[JeanneDeMontbaston]

Hi dragons.

I know couples like this too - it's depressing.

My dad still insists - quite sincerely - that he just didn't have the skills for multitasking and being good at coping with small children that my mum has. Now he has grandchildren, amazingly, those skills have developed - but only for a limited amount of time and offset with lots of more 'fun' things.

[JeanneDeMontbaston]

Cross post.

Thanks EBear, but I am enjoying the grungy corner of the pub. I'm picturing a nice dark real ale, a slightly grotty floor and perhaps a dog-eared copy of Dworkin lying on the windowsill ...

[YonicScrewdriver]

[bettyberry]

MsDragons it happens to single parents too. At a single Parent group its just expected that women can be single parents but the sympathy poured onto single dads is incredible. Its hard for anyone but for a man its always seen as something... heroic?

[JeanneDeMontbaston]

Thanks yonic.

Is that column in the Guardian annoying anyone else? Man with a Pram? I don't have children so fully willing to be told I am out of line, but ... www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/series/man-with-a-pram

[MsDragons]

That's true Betty. I only know one single dad, but he has 2 teenagers, who are going through very rebellious stages. Everyone seems to think he's an angel for dealing with them, and the scorn heaped on his ex for "abandoning" them is incredible. Yet the same rebellion in teenagers from a home with a single mum is seen as being her fault, because they don't have a father figure in their lives, she's too soft, etc. It's complete double standards, especially as the absent father doesn't come on for anywhere near the same level of criticism as the nrp mother.

[bettyberry]

I've been blamed too MsDragons for my DSs challenging behaviour because he doesn't have his bio father involved. OH took him out a similar tantrum/meltdown occurred 'oh he doesn't like shopping then' and I usually get glares and tuts!

There are complete double standards and few people really get to see it because It is so ingrained. People accept their 'roles' without question.

[LauraMipsum]

I know a single dad who was considered a hero for "managing" when his wife left, although he was a very capable individual. The weird thing was that a lot of the women heaping extreme praise on him for coping were single mums themselves who didn't see what they were doing as anything out of the ordinary.

[ChunkyPickle]

Weird little thing I noticed just now - I was watching a film, and some bits were in French. One character called another Madame Whatever, but the subtitles translated it as Miss Whatever - she was a grown, professional woman, character looked late 30s, unmarried, for which there is a perfectly good word, but it was still translated in a traditional manner.

Following the monster recent thread, it was very noticeable and jarring.

[INickedAName]

Has anyone read Cybersexism by Laurie Pennie? I've just finished it (it's only 42 pages) and found it interesting. I wondered if a general thread about sexism women face online is something worth starting if it hasn't been done already? (I've not looked through archives yet.)

[bettyberry]

LauraMipsum Its a funny thing isn't it? I mean, its what men are supposed to do too. Look after their children just as their wives/girlfriends/exes have done.

If I behaved like a man in the stereotypical sense. Leaving the OH to hold the baby. Swanning off to work things. Not bothering with uniforms, school plays etc etc I'd be called amongst other things a bitch and many would wonder why I had children! I do wonder why men decide starting a family is great If they're not going to be so hands on :/

[alexpolistigers]

Chunky I try not to read too much into subtitles. I have seen LOTS of them. Just now, in fact, I saw 'Thursday' translated with the Greek word for 'Tuesday'.

And on another occasion, a diplomatic incident nearly ensued when a translator mistakenly used the Greek word for the mental illness when translating "economic depression".

[slightlyglitterpaned]

Jeanne - oh god. I read the titles of the Man With A Pram, that's annoying enough. No, it's not just not being a parent, it's just not very interesting.

Thanks to whoever mentioned twitter.com/manwhohasitall earlier in the thread btw!

[EBearhug]

I've read Cybersexism. I mostly read it during lunchtime at work. I am not sure I should read things like this at work, as it increases my anger levels and reduces my tolerance for men I work with. I'm currently reading Lean Out, which is a series of articles written in response to Lean In. Most of my current stack of to-be-read books are feminist, but I think I might have to intersperse them with some trashy fiction or something which won't be so bad for my blood pressure.

I quite like reading subtitles (as I was yesterday, as my ears were playing up after swimming) - live ones tend to be funniest. That's hard-of-hearing subtitles rather than translation ones, mind you. I don't see why in the case of French, you even need to translate the title - most people would know who Mme Legrun is Ms/Mrs Legrun, wouldn't they?

[ChunkyPickle]

My favourite ever subtitles were on Timmy Time (CBeebies show about farmyard animal children at the farmyard school) - for which the subtitles go something like:

Timmy: Baaa, baaabaaa Teacher:Hoot, hoot Duck:Quack

There are no words, just animal noises, which are carefully transcribed. It's Awesome (also, fun-fact, the Ubiquitous Justin provides voices for it)

It was mid-conversation, so it would be hard to pick out the name if you weren't listening as well as reading.

[INickedAName]

Dd turns in the subtitles whenever she can, she likes to look for mistakes.

I've just read about the Swat on Justine and another MNer, that must have been frightening.

I have Lean In ebear but haven't read it yet. Is it heavy going? I've been picking up lots feminist books but I'm not very good at actually reading them. I've been reading Delusions Of Gender, but it's taking me a while, because I struggle with some of the language, so keep re reading sections. It's fascinating to me though.

[MsUnicorn]

I've just read about the swat on Justine too, it sounds really scary. I've had to re-register (just like I did last time mn was hacked) because I use my "spam" email address to register for mn, and I don't check it so I have no idea what my password is for that email address, so I've set up yet another disposable email address to be able to come back to talk to you all.

We like the subtitles in our house too, the best we've found are the Peppa Pig episodes on YouTube, where the words written on the screen are only vaguely similar to what they are saying, and quite regularly there's a swear word on the subtitles that I'm quite sure Daddy Pig didn't say.

[EBearhug]

Lean In is quite readable, but it's written from a position of privilege, and I think assumes everyone is on a meteoric executive sort of career. Maybe I'm being unreasonable - it's been a while since I read it. Lean Out is more varied, as it's a collection of articles from different people, and one or two of them, I just don't like the style. But there's quite a bit of it which I am nodding my head at. It's also quite readable. I'd say they're both easier than Delusions of Gender, but not as good, and of course, they're covering a narrower area, working in corporates/IT. DoG is great, though, so it's worth sticking with
.

[kickassangel]

What happened to Justine? I haven't got regular internet atm and don't appear to have an email. Can someone fill me in? Please?