A lot of things annoyed me yesterday. Here is my list.

[EllieG]

1. DD got given a barbie for her birthday. It was a doctor (as a nod to me as I often rail against them). She was a paediatrician with lolipops in her pocket, pink high heels and a sparkly white coat. DD complained that she doesn't stand up because her feet are too small.
   

1. Went out for tea with female friends. Got mocked for about 15 mins as I said 'oh, I joined this thing called UK feminista today'. Best mate told me in so many words that I was boring and worthy and blah blah for my 'new obsession' about feminism and that it was just my latest cause and it was stupid. She asked how I personally felt oppressed - I said I didn't much but other women do and that is why I am a feminist. She asked me to state how and I said well um, how about the tiny percentage for conviction for rape cases, I was laughed at for being boring (in so many words)
   

1. Best mate went on to say that she thinks about '70 per cent of women are stupid and boring' and that she thinks she gets on better with men.
   

1. Friends moved on to talk about other friend's job as zoo keeper and managed to have long and serious discussion about issues to do with dogs. Dogs, ffs.
   

1. Now I was laughing throughout this, I know I was being ribbed and my friends are all very empowered and strong women who laugh at many taboo subjects and are actually very feminist, but I am getting slightly pissed off about having to pretend I don't care. I need some feminists where I live......

[TeiTetua]

These are your best mates? Let's not hear about your worst ones.

[EllieG]

Am making them sound a bit horrible, they aren't that bad, am just getting a bit tired of having to laugh at everything...

[BigSooz]

Depressing@EllieG. You need to acquire some new feminist friends!

My 18 yr old niece told me the other day that she thinks 'feminists are all hairy, lesbian, man haters'. I found that really depressing. She opened her mouth ad I heard a Daily Mail-reading, woman-hating man's voice talking, basically. FFS!

[EllieG]

I don't post on the feminist threads much as I am such a newbie to it all and feel a bit out of my depth at times, I but read loads and lurk a lot and am learning so much here, I would really love to join a feminist group locally, but there isn't one. Bah.

One of my other mates also started talking lots about how fabulous porn was. I gave up at that point.

[SueSylvesterforPM]

I thinks its a bit rude for them tto laugh at you, its not like you've joined a cult it does good stuff

[TethersEnd]

One thing and one thing alone has annoyed me today. well, saddened me actually- this thread

I can't believe some people think that 14 yr old boys pulling a 7yr old girls shorts down and filming it is not a sexual assault, and just a 'prank gone wrong'.

Sorry to hijack EllieG, and not good form to discuss another thread, but I don't want to post on it anymore. It's making me sad.

[HerBEggs]

They're threatened.

If you sat there and started taking the piss out of the boring dog conversation, they would rightly have pin-pointed your behaviour as rude.

But they feel so strongly about your interest in feminism, that they are moved to take the piss out of your interest in it?

That either means that they have very little respect for you, or that they feel very threatened by your new interest as when you talk about it, they might have to have that cosy blanket of denial pulled away from them and they just don't want to feel that draught...

[EllieG]

Tethersend - I felt exactly the same, glad I was not the only one.

Thank you. This keeps happening at the moment. I love my friends, I know they would be there for me at any moment (indeed have been at very dark times in my life) but I wish they wouldn't take the piss out of everything.

Am going to start taking the piss out of dogs. That'll learn 'em. Maybe then they might not start finding it so ridiculous that I care about people.

[EllieG]

Oh, and anyone else who has a list as well as TethersEnd, feel free, 'tis not all just about me....

[HerBEggs]

Ah OK this is my list of what annoyed me yesterday:

Idiot yelling at me from a van while I was running.

Idiot in-denial friend declaring that rape is so hard to prove and that's why the conviction rate is so low. Then declaring that I thought all men are rapists. Then being horrified when i pointed out that DS is more likely to be raped by another man, than he is to be falsely accused of rape by a woman, but not showing any horror about the fact that 1 in 4 wmen are raped or sexually assaulted. Then generally taking the piss re all the factual arguments I put forward, because all her's were based in rape myths not fact so the only thing left was to take the piss.

Same friend urging me to serve male friend first at dinner because "he's been working". Um, so have we actually, we've all been running around like blue arsed flies preparing dinner, cleaning house, organising and decorating house and dining table, making sure everyone is catered for. But his work was carpentry related, thus "men's work" and therefore more valuable than our "women's work".

DD and friend not going to bed at reasonable hour.

Oops, last one doesn't count as patriarchy-related annoyance, does it?

[EllieG]

Have your friends been talking to mine HerBEggs?

You can have the last one - am sure we can shoe-horn children going to bed too late into a feminist issue somehow, is ever so annoying

[EllieG]

Seriously though - how to deal with the mockery? HerBEggs - that's not a funny topic, and you were making serious points, and you got the piss taken. How do you respond to it? I can cope with anger and denial and people being aggressive, but I am lost when it comes to people laughing and telling me feminists are hairy/men-hating/fanatics/lesbians/boring/ugly/not proper woman etc. And if you don't laugh you are somehow confirming all those things.

[EvenLessNarkyPuffin]

Are you allowed to say, 'Of course you wouldn't want to worry your pretty little head about that' or 'thinking too much might give you wrinkles'?

[EvenLessNarkyPuffin]

BigSooz a lot of women read the Daily Mail and think like that. A lot of the juries that don't convict in rape cases are female dominated.

[HerBEggs]

oh well the friend I'm on about is a bit of a loon anyway tbh so I don't take her that seriously.

But with the ridicule, it really is because their arguments aren't good. Tehy start with the ridicule when telling you you're wrong hasn't worked and you've come back with factual stuff whcih you are better informed about than them.

So I think the way to deal with it, is to recongnise it for what it is - a determined technique to hang on to their reality and not have their denial disturbed by the truth. Their probelm, not mine. A year ago, I'd have been upset and wound up by it. Yesterday, I was extraordinarily detached as I sat there and recognised what was going on. It was fab!

Thank you all on this board for that actually. It's because of here that I could feel so totally unattacked and unthreatened and know that I was the one who was attacking and threatening the worldviews there. I wasn't remotely uncomfortable, though I think everyone else was. [Sociopath emoticon]

[HerBEggs]

Oh shit I'm not going to be invited back am I?

[Honeydragon]

My dh's friend who -after dh and he had been to the pub - was lucky enough to be given dinner at ours. Dh had asked if there was enough. We all sat to eat outside and I had made homemade burgers. Both dh and his friend had doubles and ds, dd and I single.

When we were finished I asked ds if he wanted the last one, as he had been active all day and was hungry. Dh's friend visibly and obviously winced when I asked ds, without offering it to either him or dh first.

The man was lucky enough to intrude on our meal, I know my dh well enough to know when to suggest splitting something between him and ds and I am still peed off a whole day later at the friend.

Gah"!

[EllieG]

You have a point HerBEggs - I'm still profoundly uncomfortable about an awful lot of the things I thought before I starting exploring feminism, so I guess that's where it's coming from. I like that thought.

Honeydragon - rude person. Don't invite him back.

[Honeydragon]

EllieG - Sadly I can't its Dh's best mate and they are in business together. I made do with pointing out to dh that the man was a twit and I felt sorry for his wife.

[Flisspaps]

I got annoyed by some children's building blocks yesterday. They were about Noah's Ark.

One was 'This is Noah' - fine
Another was 'This is Noah's son, Japeth' - fine
Then there was 'This is Mrs Noah'

What? It appears that no-one ever bothered to find out what Noah's wife was called, so she's just been known as Mrs Noah forever (and the same for the son's wives) Way to go to teach DD and DN from a very early that having their own identities isn't important.

Also got annoyed by MIL telling DD she was GORGEOUS every two minutes. Not clever, not funny, not anything else at all - just gorgeous. And everyone laughing at her comfy but short shorts (she's 1) instead of being made to wear a dress (which means she struggles to climb steps)

It would be nice if some value was placed on something other than how she looked.

[queenbathsheba]

The church seems to write most women out though according to Jewish tradition Naoh's wife was called Naamah.

Is it that some people mock things that they do not understand. It comes down to ignorance.

Also people seem to turn away from anything that they feel uncomfortable about.

I had a terrible day on saturday. DH asked when I was going to tidy up my bikini line! and then asked me to hurry up and help him build the new shed. WTF. He couldn't see the docotomy in his two requests.

He is a very scared man at the moment and so uncomfortable, his reaction is to laugh things off.

[queenbathsheba]

dicotomy becoming a feminist hasn't improved my spelling though!

[EverSoLagom]

If it's any consolation (and i realise it doesn't make things less infuriating at the moment), i was pretty much one of your stupid friends until fairly recently. I did the whole "i get on so much better with men than women", and "women just need to stop complaining and realise that nobody is really oppressed anymore, feminism is over" thing. Kept it up all the way through university.

Even though you're getting negative reactions and laughs, hopefully every now and again something you say is going to chime with them and one day they'll have this massive eye-opener. Or they will chance upon this thread, get curious and start reading. Presumably your friends are all intelligent, nice people, otherwise they wouldn't be your friends! It just takes some of us a little while ;-)

Yesterday things that pissed me off:

1. Work colleague who we were visiting for the day suggesting that only she and I, and not her dh or mine, were capable of changing the baby's nappy or putting her down to sleep.
   
   
2. The presumption from a guy who was trying out for the men's rowing team that I must be a spectator, rather than his new coach. He actually referred to me as a wag.
   
   Thing which made me happy:
   
   Hearing about the Reclaim the Night event happening in Cambridge next month.

[EllieG]

Flisspaps - I get irritated by children's toys ascribing stupid gender roles too. In our farm set we have the farmer and the farmers husband. DH tried to say oh no it's not that it's the farmer and his wife. Says who, says I.
DD thinks the farmer goes out on her tractor to work 'just like Mummy does' (not on tractor though, sadly)

The Church as an organisation is horribly sexist - my Mum is a priest in C of E and recently was denied a (non-paying) job because she and her partner aren't married. He, on the other hand, was told it was fine for him to work for them and welcomed with open arms by bishop.