Santa - It's festive sexism

[MrsTerryPratchett]

I have been mulling this one over and read this article about race and Santa and come to this conclusion... There is no boring, hard, expensive thing done mostly by men where the credit is given to an imaginary woman. Or is there?

In my childhood home, my DF did the stocking buying and Santa took credit for only the stocking. But there seem to be lots of houses where women buy all the presents and they ALL come from an imaginary man. And those women seem to be the most vehement about the 'magic' and not taking credit and being selfless and never telling the kids.

It's festive sexism.

[grimbletart]

Well, GFs do tend to be slow on the uptake Kacie. Takes time to get both brain cells whirring.

[Kacie123]

Bit of a late shit-stirring response there Patriarchy.

[MrsTerryPratchett]

'on' clearly, not 'in'.

[MrsTerryPratchett]

How come dept store Santas always seem to be white? And I've heard of white people having a go when people have black Santas in their desk or whatever. Over invested, again.

[triafemm]

Festive racism too. How come dept store Santas always seem to be white? I think it's time we lobbied for quotas or no-whites-allowed-shortlists to ensure we get more Santas of other ethnic origins.

[SanityClause]

Why are people insistent that the Easter bunny is male? I have honestly never considered whether the Easter bunny is male or female.

Is it ever depicted with bollocks?

I just asked DH, and he said the Easter bunny was male. DS (12) said indeterminate. Which is what I would say, too.

[onahorsewithnoname]

Probably gets to him because Santa is a dead saint, and Father Christmas is a pagan

[bumblebeerat]

My dp gets so annoyed if the children say santa he insists he must be called father christmas. I'm not sure why it gets to him so much.

[PlaysWellWithOthers]

It is massively overthinking!

It's also pretty light hearted...

Father Christmas is a particularly English thing, whose roots almost certainly go back into pre-Christian times. He's the Ghost of Christmas Present in a Christmas Carol and is more of an anthropomorphic personification of the jollity of the festival with it's Lord of Misrule, 12 days of feasting and gift giving and the generosity of spirit that was expected of people than an actual person.

As noted earlier though, he's becoming a sort of homogenised fat old man, probably because that view is American (although the idea that he wears red being down to an advert isn't correct) and we mostly watch American films, especially Disneyesque ones.

[treaclesoda]

He has always been Santa in Ireland too, as far as I'm aware. I've definitely never known anyone to talk about Father Christmas, we've always known him as Santa, even my 80 year old parents would talk about Santa visiting when they were wee. In fact, recently we took the kids to an event which kept referring to Father Christmas and they were a bit confused because they weren't familiar with Father Christmas, just Santa.

[MrsTerryPratchett]

I live in Canada. He's Santa here. I always said Father Christmas in the UK.

[onahorsewithnoname]

Father Christmas isn't Santa.
I can put up with Father Christmas, at a push.

[howtorebuild]

You know when I was a little girl, we called him Father Christmas, now we all call him Santa.

[rivierliedje]

We have saint nicholas here and most kids don't get presents from santa claus on christmas day, they get them from saint nicholas on the 6th of december. I quite like the story behind him: apparently gave dowries to poor girls so they could live on their own terms rather then being married off to whoever would have them.
I think saint nicholas and the british father christmas merged in the US in to santa claus.
This country is tiny, yet the two halves manage to have completely different background myths to saint nicholas, one has a horse and comes from spain, the other is a sort of strange messenger from god sent from heaven! I had friends in primary school who had one parent from each half so had both stories. Then there are small pockets of the country that don't celebrate saint nicholas at all and do saint martin instead in november!

Anyway, feminism, I think probably just another part of patriarchy, rather than actually set up to bring us down.

[7Days]

I definitely am one of the over invested in Santa brigade. Don't know why but I am. Agree in principle with the downplaying of Santa but the heart says no. Also don't mind the wifework of Christmas but hate it the rest of the year. More amenable to tradition at this time of year I suppose.

[onahorsewithnoname]

WRT policemen, he is quite worried about them having,when he was 2, being caught trying to leg it, by a community police officer.

[onahorsewithnoname]

Bloody santa, and the school have made him believe, I told them he didn't, and they have tried indoctrinating him.
He now doesn't know what he thinks, and I can't even think about it without getting the rage.

[onahorsewithnoname]

I was trying to explain to DS (4) about why I won't have -feckin- Santa in the house, and in the end we read this together
//www.timetravel-britain.com/articles/christmas/santa.shtml

[MrsTerryPratchett]

I imagine a male tooth fairy like this.

[MrsTerryPratchett]

My DH does the naughty list nonsense with DD. He's been told but he gets to the end of his parenting skills before DD gets to the end of her massively inventive arsing around. Resourceful child.

[Mehitabel6]

It is massively overthinking!

[PlaysWellWithOthers]

A male tooth fairy raises all kinds of interesting questions!

[Kacie123]

When I say "behaviour dependent", I'' not saying that there are many parents who would actually cancel Christmas for a naughty child (in fact a thread here the other day likened that to child abuse, though I think that's an extreme), or just bin the gifts they'd bought them or something.

I'm also not saying that more gifts equal a better Christmas as there are some households (like my DHs childhood) where kids get extra gifts hurled at them rather than affection.

But overall I think that Santa is used as a threat and cajolement yes - not just Christmas carols, but in shops this past week I've heard lots of phrases along the lines of "Santa's naughty list / have you been a good girl this year for Santa / one more tantrum and Santa won't come". A bit like "that policeman will tell you off if..." sort of threat.

I imagine it's slightly lazy or exhausted parenting that works sometimes, especially when kids are over-excited. Maybe not in the MC world of Mumsnet but definitely in the cities near where I live.

[ErnesttheBavarian]

Is it only to good children though? I eg Germany, Austria, Switzerland there's the tradition of a Krampus, santa's bad side kick for the bad kids. There's no such thing AFAIK in UK. And in all my years I never knew a naughty kid who got nowt. The opposite in fact. Loads of naughty kids getting stack of shit. Miles more than I ever got. So clearly not behaviour dependent at all, despite what the songs may say.