Tiny Acts of Feminism

[littlecabbage]

I’m interested to know what other “tiny acts of feminism” other feminists here like to perform on a daily basis. I like to think that every little helps when it comes to equality of the sexes. Some of mine include:

Always making sure I say the gender neutral “firefighter”, “police officer”, etc when talking about jobs to my kids.

Addressing letters/cards for people to “their first name” “their surname”, i.e. avoiding the use of titles which distinguish whether a woman is married or not, but do not distinguish the same for a man.

Making sure that when on long journeys in the car as a family, I drive one way, and my husband drives the other (in my family growing up, Dad always did the driving, even though my Mum was perfectly capable).

Ensuring I speak to the maitre d’ at a restaurant on behalf of DH and I, at least as often as he does.

I would love to hear about other minor acts I can incorporate into daily life.

Amending official forms from gender to sex

Correcting relatives etc who excuse sons behaviour when boisterous saying he’s a boy. No, it’s because he’s x age, but even so we expect y....

Having a DH who does housework and me doing diy or car oil checking or driving etc.

I make a massive effort to say “she” for all animals, characters in books etc. If you watch out for it you’ll be really surprised to notice how often you default to “he”!

Eg: Oh look DS, there’s a doggy, shall we go and say hello to her

Also I cross out any reference to gender on forms and write sex. Yes even the one at the dentist, snooty receptionist who got all shitty about it.

This is more of a decent human thing but if there’s a dickhead customer, male or female, being an arsehole to a (usually) female (usually) young member of staff I’ll speak up and stand up for them. I’m early thirties myself so it’s often a surprise to the arsehole that I would dare. Well I fucking do dare and I will politely shame you to your boots in a nice loud voice with a big fuck off smile on my face.

I saw policewoman - she's a woman. She doesn't deserve to have her sex neutralised to be considered equal.

*say

I constantly have to add 'or she' when people assume it's going to be a man. It's such a common assumption. Once in a while I'll do the opposite, but 90% of the time there are huge assumptions that a man will be doing it.

Corrected everyone who called dd princess by telling them her pet name was prime minister.

Have got my Girl Guides to sing sister bond instead of brother bond in the welcome song.

I also have just started calling out sexism by simply saying hash tag everyday sexism.

Engaged in a couple of facebook discussions.

Send letters to madam/sir

Don't move out of the way when walking towards men

They're not called policewomen at work though. They're called police officers. The point is to avoid constantly saying police man when it's not relevant. That's not neutralising someone's sex, it's refusing to arbitrarily categorise someone by their sex when it's not relevant.

When my son and his friend were knee skidding on the floor earlier I made sure I didn't say "oh are you polishing my floor for me" - I said "oh, are you polishing our floor for us?"

I was about to say the former but checked my self quickly.

I've stopped addressing couples in my family as Mr and Mrs (mans initial) (surname) as my mother always told me was the proper way.

Some brilliant suggestions here, thank you. Some I’ve realised I already do, such as referring to animals whose biological sex I do not know, as “it”. I have only recently started refusing to move out of men’s way, after reading about someone refusing to on here. Until that point, I hadn’t noticed I did it, but I realised I did after that thread.

I also make a point of buying non-pink clothes for my nieces when buying them presents, or buying books with strong female lead characters, such as scientists, explorers etc.

Re the police officer thing - I wasn’t sure whether female officers are still referred to as WPCs sometimes, but I was mostly talking about when I talk about the role in general, rather than about specific people.

Keep ‘em comin’!

I said "oh, are you polishing our floor for us?"

I think I do slip up on this one a lot. Will try to notice it more.

Why don't you just ask people what titles they prefer ?
I know my DSis would be very upset if I didn't put her preferred title, and just put her name.

If you walk with purpose in the street and keep your eyes fixed on the middle distance, people get out of your way. Even men. It's like they sense you are an Exocet missile. I started doing it when I was working in the City and was sick of being bashed into by men (and some younger women who also seem to dislike middle aged women). I am just over 5 foot and they certainly were not intimidated by my size.

If there are professionals in stories and nursery rhymes (especially doctors) I change the sex to female. Might also start changing nurses / secretaries and similar to male.

(Not that there are many secretaries in kids' stories..!)

Why don't you just ask people what titles they prefer ?

Because I think women having to show whether they are married or not is inherently sexist. I must confess that I have only come to this opinion since getting married ten years ago, and so am actually legally a “Mrs”. I don’t really like Ms though (not critiscising anyone who does use this) and have not (yet?) reached the stage of wanting to alter all my documents. So I try to default to just using my first name and last name wherever possible.

I know there are women who do prefer to be called “Mrs” and are proud of that, but I guess I’m just trying to spread an awareness that this isn’t the right way of doing things (in my opinion).

I am aware that my reasoning is slightly contradictory!

Love these. Micro feminism.

Have recruited massive, military OH to the cause. Just waiting for his: Man: adult human male t shirt to arrive.

There's no legal/official requirement to be a Mrs on marriage. Your title is yours to choose, you can be Miss or Ms or Mx if you want. No one can force you to be referred to as Mrs.

AssassinatedBeauty

Yes, I know. And if I was getting married now, I would have a conversation with my DP about which surname we would adopt, as I would still want to have the same one as my kids. And I don’t know whether I would choose Miss or Ms. Don’t really like either. Unless “Miss” was just universally adopted for all women, rather than usually indicating an unmarried woman .

Apart from projecting, legally you are what you say, so if you call yourself Miss cabbage then that's your name.
I'm married, but my name is Miss Birthname.
Why don't you call your friends what they want to be called, rather than what you think they should be called ?

I have to confess, one of my failings is that I'll stand up to offer a seat to a woman. I fight it internally, but I still do it. It's a product of upbringing, but there's no real need to do it.

I write "Dear Madam or Sir" instead of "Dear Sir or Madam"

I ask women if they're okay if they're being intimidated in public by a man.

Why don't you call your friends what they want to be called, rather than what you think they should be called ?

I’m not calling them by a title they dislike or don’t use. I’m just trying to avoid using a title at all for addressing women, incuding myself. I want the title to be less important to use at all.

I also change “Dear Sir or Madame” to “Dear Madame or Sir”, and as I work in a school I change letters from “your son or daughter” to “your daughter or son”. I try never to say make collective nouns such as “guys” to address mixed groups, I try to just say “everyone” instead.

*male collective nouns