Tell me lovely things about having a baby girl

[OTheHugeManatee]

I feel quite ashamed to admit this. I'm 20wks with my first child and we found out at the scan she's a little girl. Though of course I'm overjoyed that I seem to be growing a healthy baby, my second thought was 'bad luck little one, this is becoming an increasingly shit world in which to be born female'.

I think about the plastic tits, the objectification, the erosion of women-only spaces and the vanishing right to define ourselves by biology rather than ladybrain, the porn, the death of feminism, the pay gap, the Cologne attacks, the myriad ways in which women's rights are being set back and back and back and I think 'how am I going to protect my little girl against all this?'

So, feminist mothers of daughters, please cheer me up with the positives. Tell me how it's going to be brilliant, and please tell me your strategies for raising strong, confident girls in the teeth of all the bullshit.

You will raise her to be a feminist and she will be much stronger for it. My eldest DD is 8, she critiques TV shows for their male:female ratio. She plays football as well as the boys and teases her coaches when they use 'boys' instead of 'children'. She knows that women can do anything even though some silly people think otherwise and wants to be a scientist (no parental influence there at all, honest!). She came back from her Brownie camp with the nickname 'Tarzan' because of her prowess at climbing. My younger DD is a whizz at maths, loves to sing and swim and play football with her friends at football club.

I'm sure with a feminist for a mother your daughter will have the resilience to cope with the sexism the world throws at her. Because you'll be giving her positive role models, not judging her on her appearance, and giving her the opportunities that some parents don't give their daughters.

I quite enjoy dressing my girl in the frilly frothy things. It's a phase we're going through at the moment anyway. Maybe that means I'm not a feminist. but then I'm not really sure that I am - I'm just an individual who wants to do what they want without anyone telling me I can't ...whether that's being told I can't be an engineer or a truck driver, or being told my girl can't wear pink frilly shit.

I am quite shocked.

By the fact that a poster on the feminism board will admit to dressing their child in pink frilly clothes? I know!

This extremely offensive and misrepresentative of the Saudi state.Shut up with your lies.

Congratulations!

My dd is a total ass kicker! She arrived with a massive personality and seemingly indomitable. We've been recovering ever since.

She's girly sometimes but hardly ever wears make up, she hasn't touched her eyebrows.

She is just glorious and will be fine in this world I hope.

I was determined to bring her up never feeling we loved her because of her looks. It was all about what she did and who she was. Never that her value was in her as decorative.

It was very difficult when she was little because she was cute as hell and we are deeply encultured to reward beauty.

But I kept a lot of her brother's clothes and she still wears his cast off hoodies and pjs. Wearing boys clothes can maybe help neutralize the horror pink girlyness of fashion for young girls.

It's also important that our girls don't become a vessel for our dreams and frustrations, I still struggle with that.

My ds is also a wonderful person IMO but in some ways much gentler in character. Wonderful how our kids with luck and love can become supremely themselves.

While it's very odd that you resurrected a thread from eight years ago just to say this, I'm glad you did. It was a lovely, uplifting read. Thank you.

@OTheHugeManatee this thread just got resurrected 8 years on. I hope everything went OK with your pregnancy, and if so, how have you found raising your daughter compared to your fears back then?

I wasn’t speaking to you,but well done for defending Islamaphobic finalist tropes.What an incredible example.

A girl. So your mitochondrial DNA will go forward in time, mother to daughter to grand-daughter down the road of time. Only women do this. I am sad that my daughter has no children and so my mitochondrial line dies with me (not planning to die yet). My DD, though not having children, is a strong, independent woman, with a responsible job. I brought her up to stand up for herself, not to be put down, and that has worked to an extent (like me, she has confidence issues which I did not manage to cure). She takes no notice of the current fads and is her own person. I gave her books about girls who did things, let her do her own thing, ballet and football and netball. Your DD will come through as well, I am sure.