Which entrenched views need to change in society

[rainbowinthesky]

The following are things I've noticed in my time on mumsnet

the view that childcare costs come from the woman's wage

men are not able to cook/clean/do laundry because they are men (always with a lol after stating this)

men need a list in order to look after their own kids

and so on

That young women are liabilities to an employers because they'll only run off and have babies and leave their employer in the lurch during their maternity leave. While men are safe bets who can be more highly valued (in salary terms) and given greater responsibility.

Give new fathers and mothers equal time off after the birth of a child and this can change.

I would like schools to realise that parents need notice of things. And that we are not all available during the working day to transport children to football matches/violin days and so on. I didn't expect to come up against this but the last 6 years have taught me that actually schools don't seem to expect mothers to be working at all.

That being stick thin is the be all and end all to attractiveness - sometimes I think we're getting there with that one and then it all goes tits up again.
(Note - there is NOTHING WRONG with being thin if that is the way you are naturally and I DO NOT mean it is ok to be morbidly obese)

Too much energy is wasted by too many people being made to feel overconscious of their bodies because they don't fit some fashion designers' "ideal"

Thinking that women are somehow less capable of understanding "technical" stuff and are generally poor at science and maths - it's still happening! Why??

I would like to see the phrase "honour crime" called what it actually is - murder.

That women can't reverse park

That feminism = man hater

That equality exists simply because we have some women in well paid jobs

That it is acceptable to leer at schoolgirls as long as their breasts have developed

That it is automically assumed that the woman will put her career on hold to look after the couple's baby.

But Laurie - work is primarily there in order to enable people to earn money. Women fought, in the name of feminism, to be able to earn money on the same terms as men.

The entrenched view that women have a less sanguine view of work and earning power than men do is probably right...

That, upon marriage, a woman should automatically be addressed as "Mrs Husband's Firstname Husband's Surname". I have had many a battle about that...

The idea that a woman without a ring around her finger is like a dog without a collar around its neck - something to be both pitied and controlled.

The notion that I, as a woman, give a SHIT about the tidiness of my house. I may, or I may not, but it won't be because I am a woman.

The fact that when a woman hits the menopause and who you are is no longer definable by your breeding capabilities, you become a nonperson. You aren't hated and reviled, but you aren't heard. You aren't seen. Clever make up to hide the wrinkles, clever underwear to reduce the hip/waist ratio to that of a fertile woman and the breast to those of a younger woman, and hair dye to hide 'those tell tale grey hairs' - as if experience, patience and wisdom are something to be ashamed of and must be disguised when held by a female human.

That the loss of control that is crying is seen as more shameful than the loss of control that is shouting. Both are a loss of control. Both are toddler behavior. Both are weak, not just the one more commonly associated with women.

The fact that non resident fathers can take their kids for one night a week, cough up £30 and a MacDonalds a week and they're "really good, isn't he? Most dads don't bother!" If a non resident mother does that, "she's abandoned her babies". Why is that?

The ridiculous idea that a man left at home, alone, with a child should be forgiven for low level neglect such as inappropriate clothing for the weather, and inadequate food simply because he has a penis and that is the only reason.

You know how 'Pregnancy isn't an illness'?
Having a penis isn't a learning difficulty. Breasts produce milk, not Persil Gel and Flash multisurface, and furthermore, they do not come with a clean-sock-radar.

That a woman or girl who is raped ever "asked for it"

That a woman dressed comfortably, in shoes she can walk in properly without risking her posture and clothes that won't rip or ride up/down when she is doing something practical is dressed in an 'unfeminine' way.

We don't mean unfeminine, do we boys and girls? We mean non-sexually and that is not the same.

Round of applause for Coldtits.

Coldtits I love 'a penis is not a learning difficulty'!

more applause for Coldtits - brilliant!

That the potential "second income" earner is de facto the woman.

Pregnancy isn't an illness. But it does require special care and understanding...

A UK centric one here:
That sport = football. And that the only sport that matters is the sport that men do.

for football read rugby and that could be Australia just as easily, slug.

Ah yes thumbwitch. I'm a Kiwi so I appreciate the Antipodean singlemindedness with respect to rugby. I remember the hours of TV allocated to watching paint dry the America's Cup when it was in Auckland.

That baby boys should be dressed in blue, and baby girls in pink. and that it really matters if someone mistakes the gender of your baby.

even amongst otherwise sensible, equality-promoting people, this one still prevails it seems. bizarre.

To borrow from misogynist bingo, the belief that "the gender dynamics of our cave-dwelling ancestors looked curiously like those of 1950s America"

That a career must be a straight, smooth, upwards trajectory, not a jumble of stops, starts, ups, downs, pauses and accelerations. That your most important working years are your 30s

(there's another thread somewhere about Camilla Cavendish's column on this)

in defence of childcare costs being the woman's costs - it's easier to think of it that way when the woman is going back to work from ML - as the net increase is her wage - childcare. That's certainly what e've done. Obviously that doesn't mean I pay for them.