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.

My micro-feministing today:

I was walking along the wide pavement. A group of friends/family had stopped. A young man was among them. I had to steer around him as he didn’t move.

It was the first time I had ever realised the thing about needing to own the pavement. Next time I will make eye contact and broaden my shoulders.....

There's a group of 3 or so dads who always block the pavement immediately outside the school gates, nearly every morning, just standing there having a gossip/chat. Every time I encounter them I walk right up to them and ask them to move. I seem to be the only one who ever does this. I see so many women with small children, pushchairs etc detouring round them onto the verge and it makes me so cross!

The Princess Leia thing has reminded me of the time I got DD (age 5 at the time) to watch Star Wars. I sat her down and we watched the opening titles, she asked me doubtfully what it was about and I said "it's about a princess." She watched about 45 mins before remarking "there's a lot of robots in this..." and wandering off.

I would have been disappointed, except she opted to play Lego instead, and built a theme park.

Family BBQ at inlaws DM proceeds to gather all the women to clear up, while men sit down.

I stay sat down (which I know isn't very helpful).

I watch.....earlier the men got served first, bigger portions, best seats in house. MIL does everything for DFIL...I vow to bring my DS up differently.

When you look, you see it all the time. I read on here that feminism was starting to spoil some women's enjoyment of films. They're right. Tomorrow I will watch Silence of the Lambs or Alien to remind myself...

This is a great thread. I do some of the aforementioned but I really love hearing my 8yo dd ask her friends how the know the spider/bee/etc is male. When they invariably ask why she thinks it's not, her reply is "more than half of all creatures are female so that's more likely to be a girl" . I was also delighted when she and ds had a race to the traffic lights to press the button for the green walker and waited nicely for the red stopper to change.

I think my DD would have been more interested in the robots than the princess, but building stuff for themselves is better than watching anyway.

Grainne -brilliant example of feministing combined with grasp of science, logic and probabilities!

for those eho follow the christian religion....god and female: people were created in the image of god, both male and female... ie god is equally female... thus your dd is right!

there have been far too many men in charge though influencing the narrative.

She's a smart cookie alright, Erroll

She is also a total fashionista and has free rein over what she wears as long as it's not utterly inappropriate. I see it as building confidence in expressing herself in a way that's really meaningful to her even if that many patterns make my eyes bleed

I always make sure that girls interests are given equal importance to boys interests. Pretty pink things aren’t frivolous or a waste of time in this house. I encourage the playing of sport but not cheering on a bunch of other people playing a sport. We adore Lego in this house too but it never had any male/ female connotations for me.

Not automatically getting out of the way for men - it’s hilarious when you start doing this. I was in a pub recently and a man looked at me walking towards him and then just kept right on walking. He rammed right into me (oh dear, did that happen to be my elbow in your rather ample gut? And is that your pint you’ve just cascaded down yourself?) and seemed so startled I hadn’t moved that he just pretended nothing had happened and hurried away!

We share jobs in the house, and when I return to work from maternity leave we are both going part time to split childcare, so my son will learn it’s normal for men and women to go out to work, and to spend time at home looking after children and the home, and that these jobs are different in their content but not their value.

Oh another thing I do, I just remembered.

I have a building society account and a few shares (only in 4 companies) when I get the paperwork to vote for the panel of directors I vote for any women and against any men.

I love this thread, it has lots of great ideas.

I thought of another one - I have a short pixie cut, and I encourage other women to have their hair cut short (so many women would love to do this).

"I have a building society account and a few shares (only in 4 companies) when I get the paperwork to vote for the panel of directors I vote for any women and against any men."

I never thought of that, does that apply to Nationwide? I usually put the paperwork in the bin.

I've reached the age where most women do have their hair cut short (or at least, significantly shorter) so I won't - got to fight ageism too!

speaking

Yes.

Usually you get an annual report and a voting card. If you are a shareholder or a BS member you can usually attend the AGM, I've yet to do it but I might.

I do sometimes wonder about offering to grow my armpit hair as some kind of version of Movember.....

I love this thread, what a good idea. I've nominated it for Classics.

I, too, am now revising all my emails to weed out any 'weak' phrases and will use 'she' when talking about professions/animals etc.

I always remember a friend's DH ringing me while his DW was hundreds of miles away with work because he didn't know where to collect his children from. They were at an after-school class which they had been attending several times a week for 7 years!

Armpit April? I like this idea more than wearing pink for breast cancer research.

Lots of these. I change characters around as well as doing the pronouns - especially with Enid Blyton. So Fanny has the brilliant idea and Dick has to stay behind and plump up the cushions.

My friend's little girl has a t shirt that says - '50% of all T-Rexes were Female'.

DD now comes to me with examples of sexism. She has this brilliant contemptuous voice for examples of the Beauty Myth where she says, 'Urgh look at that advert mummy - it's all Oooh look at me, I'm a girl and girls have to be pretty' love it

I have been loving this thread and taking notes. Things I already do:

• refer to animals / toys as both sexes
• walk in a purposeful line and refuse to get put of the way of men who believe the pavement belongs to them
• take up my space on train / tube seats and claim an arm rest
• refuse to remember the birthdays of / buy the presents for my husband's huge family, meaning he has to do it himself
• explained to my husband that I don't like being referred to as a cis woman, and that this doesn't make me anti trans.

Things I would like to do in the future:

• Not join in with / ignore / condone misogynistic "bantz", online or in real life.
• When I go back to work, use less apologetic language in emails - I didn't know this was a thing until I read this thread, but I totally do it!
• Raise my son to understand and respect the importance of women's rights (long term goal, he's only 7 months...)

I'm also on the hunt for feminist kids stories for when she's a bit older.

The Emily Brown books are fantastic and I am amazed by how good Pippi Longstocking is. MIL bought us that one, I assume without reading it as she's the patriarchy made flesh...

I channelled this thread in a meeting yesterday when someone smirked a bit and said 'well if we were going to use gender stereotypes we would say -' and I cut them off and said 'shall we just not?'

And actually everyone there was really clearly happy that I had done it too...

LOVE THIS THREAD

Everything in this house is male except me (even the pets) so my car is female.

DS (6yrs) and I read the book about the greatest women and when he came home telling me re the first man in space, I told him re Helen Sharman. I let him cry when he is upset. He is very snuggly and affectionate. We have the best snuggly hugs. I bought him a princess dress to stop him raiding my wardrobe and I have let him experiment a bit with my make-up too. He is quite a stereotypical boisterous "boy". Anything to tone this down is good!

DS loves to "boys" vs "girls" in any games at home, which leaves me outnumbered. I won't do it. We either all play together or we are all on our own against each other.

Was a Ms (despite hating the sound), now a Dr.

I have an old ankle injury which occasionally needs elevating which leads to unintentional manspreading if I have to put my ankle on my knee. I shall now own this rather than sneak into it. I am going to try the straight line thing as well. And take out some of the justs in emails.

The in laws have a real thing about sex-divided activities e.g. men play golf, women go to the spa or shopping. I try to thwart this regularly. It really winds me up especially as DS is not included in the designated male activities!

I just took "just" out of an email.

Looking forward to armpit April already!

speakingwoman *Verbena87

Armpit April?