Small and random acts of feminism

[MulhuddartDrive]

I sometimes feel so overwhelmed by the challenges facing women that I've decided to trying to do small things to support the cause.

I'm currently building a database of contacts for a client. Wherever possible I'm picking female contacts (all other criteria being equal). I've probably increased the number of female contacts by 10% while maintaining the integrity of the data.

I felt a small victory today when ds (5) referred to a dog in the park as "she". I call all creatures of not immediately obvious sex female so it's rubbing off!

That’s a much better reply sonic thanks!

I added “she” and “her” to my DD’s tricky/high frequency word list. It only had he and him. Trying to get her reception teacher to add it to everyone’s....

I’ll use those ones in future too seren

Choosing books for my 9 year old DS. He normally gets a new book at least for Christmas and his birthday. I put books away where boys have adventures with boys. What I am looking for are books where girls and boys have adventures, preferably with a female central character and more than one girl (and nothing that involves horses and boarding schools, as they mostly fail in featuring boy characters). I hope this sets DS up against the stream of films and books where boys and other male characters have adventures with boys and other male characters, sometimes with a token girl or female character thrown in (of which mum mostly stays at home).

I sent out about 100 letters today addressed to "Dear Madam/Sir", which felt like a nice small victory.

Thanks for all the ideas above, I'm going to try to work more of them into everyday life.

I try never to refer to adult women as "girls". This is surprisingly tricky when talking about my friends.
I pick up on every single sexist comment made in front of me, whether casual or not.
I never comment on the appearance or sexuality of anyone in public life.
I always use female pronouns when talking about a real or hypothetical person of unknown sex.
I put couples' names in strictly alphabetical order.
Does praising my female cat for being a fierce little tiger count?

I try never to refer to adult women as "girls". This is surprisingly tricky when talking about my friends.

I think it's incredible how ingrained referring to adult women as "girls" is by many, especially individual women. As you allude to, it's to the extent that it can sometimes feel odd to say "the woman" when people routinely say "girl", yet no-one would ever say "the boy" for a man of the same age and it'd be perfectly natural to say "man". I think this is important - males are afforded the status of "man" at 18 (sometimes even before with "young man" - I've even heard one of my brothers being referred to as such) yet women are still referred to as "girls" well into adulthood.

Does praising my female cat for being a fierce little tiger count?

Definitely!

This thread has really made me think. I also sent out a few letters this week to Madam/Sir and it felt great! Also enjoyed questioning a new software provider who were pitching to us...why on earth did they need to have male and female figures (completely irrelevant to the purpose of the software) and why was the lady in a dress? Awkward silence.

Anyway it’s inspired me to try and make small changes, thank you.

I try to use and make people use human instead of man. As in man made, for example.

I teach in HE and I think it's important.

I love this thread. I think all these little things are so important. I try to refer to pirates/astronauts/soldiers/scientists etc as she when playing with my DS unless it’s obviously a man. It does feel weird when you first start but you get used to it! Keep telling him I don’t like pink too when he tries to give me the pink toy/make me be the pink character.

YY to human instead of man.

I always try to use gender neutral nouns; - police officer, fire fighter, postie, etc.

I've also been recently dabbling with "womyn" :)

Work colleague recently moved in with boyfriend. She was going on about him "helping" her with housework. How he would do the vacuuming "for her". Had a chat to her and the whole team about this. They had all brought ideas about housework from their homes. It was great to see the lightbulb go on in their heads and lead them to think differently about responsibilities of co-ha biting early in their relationship.

Once, I responded to someone telling someone else to "grow some balls" by saying "balls are pretty fragile, you should try growing a vagina as they can take a pounding“

I’ve recently had a conversation with my eighteen year old daughter regarding the fact that men (and sadly also some women) sometimes remark on it being “that time of the month” any time a woman is seen to be standing up for herself or not jumping into line as is expected of her.

Between us we decided that we could reply that even if women were “hormonal” once a month, some men were filled with testosterone all the time, and are thus permanently assholes.

I hate that women are considered to be irrational because “hormones” yet there is little doubt they can have an effect. I fight so hard to be utterly rational at all times so nobody can accuse me of this, but there are times when it is really hard work. Does anyone have a better take on it?

I refer to the green person instead of the green man when crossing the road.

viso

I love the narnia series great for good female leads (polly/Lucy/Aravis/Jill)

And I actually quite like that the 'baddies' are women.

I make my CEO OH check that there is equality of pay between the sexes in whatever organisation he's working in and address it if needs be. Not that I need to 'make' him per se, as he's pretty hot on this stuff but he's in a position of influence and I get him to fight the corner too.

badbadhusky - glad I skipped that one! But I did read American Pastoral by Philip Roth which sounds very similar - you can bet that a novel by a woman featuring a 50-something woman pondering ponderously on the meaning of life for 500 pages would not be hailed as a modern classic!

Lost that was my teenage reply when told there would never be a woman president as 'menapause' i pointed out bc testoerone didn't do anyone any favours. I don't much like that now as an adult, implies he had no control. I don't like images of poundong vagina's for rapey images it throws up. I tend to tell people to find a fucking spine already.

Re hormones- i have pmdd, and the hormonal changes worsen other disabilities at this time also. Imo this is the base line, so this is the reasonable standard as opposed to the rest of the month being normal and this beimg irrational. So if i can't cope with something at pmt time then the rest of the time i am being too fucking accomedating and need to stop being that way. Does that help any?

With regards to the op i am that parent loudly sayong watch for the green person when forcing kids to wait at traffic lights. No doubt i've been slated on aibu for 'performance parenting'.

I am also secretly thrilled my girls see my dh doing more cleaning, bringing me breakfast and other cading duties. He bakes with them also. And we have a male cleaner, male tutor and female gardener. All my choice, albeit not intensionally based on sex but i like that my girls see these role reversals in our home.