Yes, I'm Still a Feminist!

People are complex.  At least we all like to think we are, anyway.  I suspect most people have seemingly contradictory elements in their personalities and lives to a greater or lesser extent.  Not many people actually fall into a stereotype completely, as much as we like to try and hammer them into those cliched shapes.

I am a vegetarian all for recycling and foreign aid...who is also completely for vaccines and GM crops.

I am a pro-breastfeeding, 'baby wearing', previously co-sleeping mummy.  In many ways I fit the 'attachment parenting' mold...but I use disposable nappies and - shock, horror - did controlled crying with both cubs.

I have been an atheist since I was abut eight, I love Richard Dawkins and still get upset thinking about the death of Christopher Hitchens...and I'm pretty close to my fundamentalist Christian aunt (hi! - she kindly reads my blog, too).

I have a degree in English Literature, love Shakespeare and Blake and Charlotte Bronte and T.S. Eliot...but I can't stand Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights.

I drink five or six cups of tea a day...but enjoy the odd cup of cof-  Ha!  I couldn't finish that.  Of course I don't drink coffee - it's disgusting.

And then there's the fact I'm a feminist...who is a stay at home mum and who took her husband's name once married.

There are many stereotypes when it comes to feminism.  According to the less intelligent members of various comment sections on the internet a feminist is an ugly, probably 'butch', man-hating bitch.  I'm not going to insult your intelligence by explaining why that's a moronic assumption.  I refuse to believe any of the clearly superior beings who read my blog would hold such a cliched and idiotic view.  Whilst we're on the subject, is the whole bra burning thing still a feminist cliche?  Or is it a bit outdated now?  Because after having two kids and stopping breastfeeding I'm struggling to find any bras that fit me and between backs riding up on some bras, my nipples trying to peek over the tops of others and the rest crushing the life out of me, I'm about ready to burn the whole damn lot of them!!

Anyway, as insidious as the ugly man-hater stereotype is, it is less hurtful than the view often put forth by some feminists that if you choose to stay home with your children instead of work you are somehow letting down the cause or cannot be considered a feminist.  I will try to tread carefully because I am not looking for a SAHM vs working mum argument.

When we talked about having children, the Wolf and I discussed our expectations and priorities.  We both preferred the idea of having one of us stay at home with the children rather than work, at least whilst they were young.  It was important to both of us.  The Wolf offered to be the one to stay at home (incidentally, he also offered to take my surname when we married but after conducting a highly specialised survey of my Facebook friends to find out which name sounded better for a writer, I decided to take his name) but it wasn't very practical.  We wanted the cubs to be breastfed for a year or so and his career had a higher earning potential (I'll come back to that).  Plus, I wanted to stay at home with the kids.

I don't think I should feel ashamed to admit that but part of me does.  I have read enough times that I am failing as a woman and a feminist if I don't have a job because my kids will grow up thinking a woman's place is in the home, because I shouldn't rely on a man to support me, because after the cubs are grown up and have left home (assuming they can but that's a whole other blog post) I will be left without a career or anything of my own, because I'm perpetuating the misogynistic cycle by being an ineffective little housewife instead of a productive member of society.

Well, bollocks to that.

Feminism is about equality.  You know the best way to ensure equality?  Choice.  Give people choice.  How is pressuring women into work any better than pressuring them to stay at home??  And, yes, I know women who do go back to work also have certain judgements and assumptions levelled at them (and according to all research done recently are also still expected to do the majority of housework and organising childcare even when working the same hours as their partner).  I'm not saying they have it 'easier'; in fact, it's all part of the same problem (as is the taboo surrounding stay at home dads and I won't even start with the problems single parents face because that could spiral into paragraphs and I should really think about wrapping this post up soon).  I am also aware that the pay inequality in this country - and most  other countries - means even when there is the illusion of 'choice', a couple is basically forced into choosing for the woman staying at home because of a low salary.  As I said earlier, the Wolf's earning potential was higher than mine.  He works in a fairly typically male-dominated line of work, which pays better than the sort of work I was likely to get.

We still have a very patriarchal system set up, which both steers girls and boys towards certain careers and then rewards the ones for boys more highly.  This, in turn, gives everyone less choice and I would love to see that change.  I already wrote about some of my thoughts on gender stereotyping in my post Yes, I bought My Son a Dress.  However, when people - like me - are lucky enough to have a choice I don't think it's helpful or very helpful to the cause of feminism to try to limit that.  The way to equality is to strive towards everyone having opportunities.

The way I have chosen to use my intelligence and education  is by spending most of my time with the cubs and teaching and nurturing them.  You know what, not just my intelligence and education but also my compassion, humour, dedication and all manner of other characteristics because actually intelligence and qualifications in Maths and English aren't the only attributes worth having regardless of what our current government (who very much encourage the notion that making money is the only worthwhile expenditure of time) might think.  One of the most important things I'll be teaching the cubs is that men and women are equal and both are deserving of respect and kindness.  And I won't stop there because when you believe in equality and choice and opportunity for everyone, this is the case regardless of other arbitrary qualities like race or sexual orientation or - importantly for the cubs - regardless of whether someone has a disorder like ASD.  I think the best thing for both me and my cubs is for me to stay at home with them.  That is my choice based on my situation and values and children and experience.  As a feminist, I would love to live in a world where every parent has the equal opportunity to make those sorts of choices.

Except for the coffee drinking Wuthering Heights fans.  Frack those guys.

Yes, I Bought my Son a Dress

Tyger loves Frozen.  I already mentioned his love of the film - and the infuriating gender stereotypes this threw up for me - in my first blog post here.  Tyger especially loves Elsa.  In fact, one of the nicest compliments you can receive from Tyger is 'You're Elsa' because, by that, he means you look pretAty and he likes what you're wearing.  He really likes Elsa's dress...as do thousands of other little kids (and probably lots of adults) and - just like thousands of other kids - he has a little dress-up version of his own.

Yes, I bought my son a dress.

Most of my friends and family are of the more liberal and/or educated persuasion so I don't have to put up with many comments from people I know but I go on forums, I read the news and I know pretty much every workman/engineer/delivery man/random person in a cafe who has spoken to Tyger has assumed he's a girl simply because he has long hair.

Oh yeah, my son has long hair as well.  And, in an age when it's generally pretty socially acceptable for teenage boys and grown men to have long hair, I really wasn't prepared for just how baffled people would be by it!

There have been a few 'he needs a hair cut' comments (ha! - I'd like to see you try.  When I trim his fringe I strap him into his dining chair booster seat, give him a biscuit and then hack away as much as I can before he finishes the biscuit and starts thrashing his head from side to side so I don't know how anyone would manage to cut more off) but for the most part people simply don't consider the possibility he could be a boy.  They see his hair and assume he's a girl.  And, no, none of these times were when he was wearing his dress.  When he's dressed in typically 'boy' clothes (jeans, a t-shirt with cars on, navy and green dinosaur trainers) all anyone seems to look at is his hair.  I mean, both the clothes and hair are based on silly stereotypes, obviously, but apparently one massively outranks the other.

'She's lovely.'

'Ha!  She's chatty, isn't she?'

'You're a very confident little girl!'

These are pretty typical.  And what - ypu might wonder - do I say in response?  Nothing.  Because there's nothing wrong with being a girl so I don't see it as an insult and because Tyger doesn't care.  He's only just started to be aware of gender/sex.  In fact, yesterday morning's conversation was as follows:

Tyger: Daddy's a man.

Me: Yes, Daddy is a man.

Tyger: You're a girl.

Me: Hmm...a girl or maybe a woman?

Tyger: No, you're a girl.

Me: Oh, okay.

Tyger: I'm a boy.

Me: And what's Baby Bear?

Tyger: A monkey!

Plus - and let's be honest here - all babies and a lot of toddlers look pretty androgynous.  Babies look like wrinkly, purply bald men whether they're male or female and toddlers often look pretty indistinguishable in terms of gender (if you remove all the markers like hair clips and gender specific toys and clothes...and hair styles!).  So, I don't get angry about Tyger being called a girl, I don't make a fuss, I don't say anything at all.  But it does perplex me.  I currently have short hair (well, right now, I actually have a mess of hair that was short and has now partly grown out into a bit of a bird's nest) but I have never had someone mistake me for a man.  People accept adult men can have long hair and adult women may have short hair but small children must always fit into to comfy gender roles society has laid out for them.

This is the same reason some people would object to the fact Tyger has - amongst his train set and cars and dinosaurs and rocket and cuddly tiger - a toy kitchen, a doll and buggy, a doll house, a cuddly unicorn and pink slippers.  You know one of the worst arguments I've read on a forum?  Having dolls might turn a little boy gay.  (Yeah, seriously.)  Now, let's think about this for a minute.  I'm going to go ahead and assume the sort of person who thinks a plastic toy can change a person's sexual orientation is probably the same sort of person who objects to gay marriage and LGBT people having/adopting kids.  Given this, they probably associate parenthood with heterosexuality  Sooo...they are saying a boy pretending to be a parent - generally achieved through having sex with a member of the opposite sex - will somehow make them want to have sex with members of their own sex.  That's on a par with boys calling each other gay because they show an interest in girls.  It makes no logical sense whatsoever.

Now, I feel I should point out that whilst I in no way think Tyger playing with these toys or wearing pink or dresses or a Goram bin bag or anything else will turn him gay/bi/transgender, the Wolf and I would not be in any way upset or disappointed if it turns out he is.  Because a) we're his parents and we love him no matter what and b) who cares??  What harm does it do anyone?  Why is this even an issue in 2015?

So, I'll carry on buying Tyger (and Baby Bear as he gets older and has his own preferences) whatever toys he shows an interest in because there are no 'boys' toys' and 'girls' toys', there are just toys.  And, I'll keep his hair long until he is of an age when he can decide for himself what length he wants it.  And, I'll carry on letting him wear a fracking dress if he wants.

The dress is actually sat on a shelf right now because Tyger managed to rip it and I'm patching it up.  My sewing is functional, if not necessarily as aesthetically pleasing as it could be, but luckily Tyger won't care if the stitching is visible because he'll feel special when he wears it.  He'll feel like a princess, which I can only see as a good thing.