little things you do each day that are a tiny bit feminist

[speakingwoman]

They can be big, or small, or misfire even....

Here's mine.
I'm working from home, on a call to a colleague. The doorbell rings.
I answer it still on the phone. It's a friend of my husband's. I ineptly signal him in and beckon husband in from garden whilst continuing call.

Once off phone, I pop into to kitchen say hi and apologise for my inept/stumbling signals saying "I'm no good at multi-tasking."

He replies "I'm not either.... but I'm a man....." and then looks a bit confused. He knows there's something askance about what I said and he's waiting for me to rescue him.

I don't. I don't qualify my statement that when engaged in work I find it difficult to simulteneously perform a domestic favour for my husband. I smile and leave.

It's small, it's crap, it's nothing really but it's done now and if another woman says it to him he might just begin to wonder whether multi-tasking really is something that women have to do but he doesn't.

I refer to every animal to my young children as female.

Eg “look at the squirrel in the tree. She is looking for nuts”

“Ooh a snail. See her shell?”
“The dinosaur has mud on her”
“Watch that ant or you will squish her”

Etc etc. Often they look confused and say “how do you know it’s a girl” and I say “oh I don’t, so I just say her if I’m not sure” and they look even more puzzled but go along with it :) (age 6&5)

the snail is a hermaphrodite. But apart from that, unless you can obviously see the tackle, good principle.

On similar lines, unless the forename clearly indicates otherwise, try assuming female for anyone titled Dr. (Or in the CofE nowadays, Rev?)

At work, I address formal letters as 'dear madam / sir', not the other way around!

lol hermaphrodite snails!

Emphasise the achievements of the England women's football team recently to my 5 year old ds. And reminded Dh.

Which I had to google

I gesture and make men walk through the doors at work first when they try to stand back and let me through. I'm sure it does bugger-all and it mostly seems to confuse them, but at least I don't feel so patronised inside.

(Yes - I know most people wouldn't think twice about this, but I do)

Crayons and Errol you’ve made me realise I default to ‘he’. I’m going to stop doing that. Thanks.

@Verbena87 now you’re aware of it you’ll get SO irritated hearing everyone else around you say “he” every time for all animals. I tell my DH off for it all the time and he swears he says ‘she’ 50% of the time but I’ve NEVER heard him. He says he. Bastard (love him really!)

But seriously. Now you’re aware of it you’ll notice it everywhere.

At work today they male colleagues wanted to name groups after key people in history. They had three women and 6 men. I made them get rid of 2 men and add 2 more women.

They didnt see why it mattered. I said not knowing why it matters to have balance is male privilege.

I change the sex of characters in books when reading to my 2 year old, so that I'm using she/her at least 50% or more of the time.

I try not to apologise before giving my opinion, and I try to gently question any casual sexism from colleagues/acquaintances if I think I can do so without being labelled a shrill feminist harridan.

I insist on "Ms", even though I hate the sound (like a bee in a jar).

I do that too TheCatFromOuterSpace!

I too insist on Ms despite hating it.

I also correct "girls" to "women".

My colleagues hate me

I am going to start doing these!

Re 'girls' - in some contexts, a mild 'girls? oh, I didn't know they/we had work experience school kids in at the moment' can do the trick.

Watching for tips

It's the Men's World Cup in this house ( Although I'm fairly sure that isn't where the apostrophe goes...) according to my very wise 4yo DD.

Oooh lots of really annoying things...

I also correct girls or ladies to women
I hold the door open for men (but accept graciously when they do the same for me)
I carefully use neutral pronouns when I don't know the sex
I use Ms or nothing at all
I point out every example of inequality I see to my daughter, who gets very cross with me. I am incessant, but I am bringing up the next generation of feminist (even if she doesn't know it yet).

Girls>women
Gender > sex (on forms if I can amend it)
Sir/madam > Madam/Sir

Enjoying saying "Men's football World Cup" as well.

Today at work one of my team, a man recommended we advertise in Cheshire life. Apparently it is read by "Cheshire housewives" and he was implying they might be looking to divorce a rich hubby. I could help but call him out on blatant sexism.

I prepared a pitch document yesterday. When choosing official branded images i left out any with people in as they were all men. My pitch is full of pics of birds in flight instead

I work in a male dominated creative industry that is quite technical.

Often I will have customers come in and ask “Can you run this past that man over there to see if it can be fixed?”

My male colleagues and I take great pleasure in them responding that they haven’t got a clue and that I’d be the best person to ask.

It’s a good thread.
I try to

• not apologise or minimise what I do all the time
• pull H up each time he is treating me as ‘lesser than’. Sounds bad but it’s more about all the little things he does that shows he is only helping with HW or parenting. So leaving stuff for me to do when it’s a little bit harder, taking for granted he can do x and y wo checking with me first etc... and doing the same wth my two teens boys.
• rephrasing anything from my dcs that has ‘girls did ...’ (or boys for that matter) and make them replace ‘girls’ by ‘people’. It’s sinking in very slowly.

I use Ms and I've been referring to the men's world cup. I've also stopped moving out of the way when men walk towards me - I own the space that I'm occupying.

Protested (in a reasonably articulate way) when a female trainer made a hilarious joke that was meant to illustrate a serious point about 'all men are crap at talking, eh girls'. Done with that shit.

I try not to apologise for things I don’t need to apologise for. I used to apologise just for asking for something- nonsense.