I worry that living with my boyfriend, I'm starting to take up the patterns that women in my family have always followed. Every now and then those little angels of my feminist conscience pop up on my shoulder and tell me I should leave his laundry for him to fold, I should just eat dinner by myself and let him get his own when he gets home. In reality, things are very equal and shared between us and I don't think that he expects any sort of domesticity from me at all. It's more my natural tendency (as a cancer, I suspect) to be homey and make things nice. Still I worry...

In my first marriage, when I was younger, I fell into the trap of doing it all... I even went on strike until the sink filled with mold and the house was not fit for human habitation. He didn't care, but I did. Serves me right for going with a mama's boy....

Since ditching him a couple of years later, I've learned to do plumbing and to realize that I really hate sewing. So now I only sew when absolutely necessary, and the blond guy and I, once we melded households, have figured out a way to share most chores. He still does the heavier lifting because he's 6 inches taller than I am and outweighs me by 50%.

I am the mother of a 4 year old girl. My partner is not her "natural" father. My daughter and I were together on our own for two years before he entered the picture. At any rate, as the one who gave birth to this child and as the one she is most familiar with, most of the child-rearing is up to me.

Oh - my partner is a wonderful help in lots of wonderful ways. He tends, however, to be more like a "fun uncle". They do lots of things together, have tons of fun, and get really messy, and then he brings her to me to be fed, watered, cleaned up and put to bed.

I like the arrangment, and it works for us. But I worry sometimes that my daughter might be getting a skewed idea of sex roles. I do her laundry. I make her bed. I discipline her. I take on the heavy parts of parenting. He watches TV while I prepare her dinner.

Although cooking and homely chores may be what we enjoy, I think that's more a matter of being raised that way than anything else. I don't think we should apologize for what we like, whether it's the result of patriarchy or anything else, as long as we ARE conscious of it and are making a choice.

All the same, I would prefer not to bring my daughter up with those pre-conceived notions, but it's hard to avoid within our family's arrangement.

After living with my partner for 4 or so years, and after a whole lot of negotiation and education, we've gotten to a point where I'm okay with our split of household labour in the day to day. I'm more of a Suzy Homemaker (baking and crocheting being my two favorite hobbies), but he enjoys cooking and isn't afraid to deal with the dishes. We used to do the chore list thing, but we've both slacked a bit in the past few months, letting our standards relax.

But those first years were hell and I honestly wasn't sure our relationship could survive domesticity. He came from a home where mom did the laundry, bought all his clothes, did the cleaning. He was totally clueless about what it took to run and keep a house (like he told me his parents alternated cleaning the bathroom, which wasnt a big deal since it only needed to be done once a year...in a house with four kids and two parents). And it took a lot of discussion for me to get him to understand how if he expected me to a) tell him when and how to do something, or b) check to make sure he'd done it properly, I was still the one taking the responsibility. He still can't make a grocery list, but he can scrub a bathtub with the best now, so I'm satisfied.

The guy behind the counter told me there was no way my drain was set up the way I had it. Impossible. I argued 'til I was blue in the face, and then went looking for the part by myself, no luck. Finally took off the whole drain assembly from the wall to the sink, disconnected it and brought it in. Turns out that the previous owner, when renovating the kitchen, put the drain together out of leftover bits of pipe, and I had the most unique kitchen drain in the world.

I wound up replacing the whole thing, and did it myself! Necessity is indeed the mother of invention.

I do most of the cooking simply because I'm good at it and everyone including me would rather eat mine than his. And of course baking, bread, cakes, pies, scones...hmmm

Since the beginning he made a "rule" that if I did the cooking he'd to the dishes.

We both do laundry although he does it more often than I do, and we both do the cleaning although I do it more often than him.

I started doing home repairs and such at a very early age and so we share that too. I do most of the electronic stuff though.

The difficulty is that regardless of w hat you do in your home, when was t he last time you say floor cleaner, dish detergent or like hawked to men?

SO one way or another they are getting that message. Still I'm hoping that "family tradition" wins out in the end.

[ October 08, 2002: Message edited by: earthmother ]

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At least he'll have an inkling of what happens when you put something red in the washer with the whites.

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But seriously:

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I think that's more a matter of being raised that way than anything else.

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That is what convinced me to learn to do the "masculine" tasks, and I am now pretty handy. I still REALLY hate electricity, but that's mainly because I'm too lazy to turn the breaker off. (How are you supposed to see what you're doing?)

The truth is, it's really easy. I think the men kept it to themselves for so long just to maintain the appearance that they were actually working as hard as the woman-folk.

[ October 08, 2002: Message edited by: skadie ]

I've lived independently, raising my kid(s) on my own for about 15 years now, so I've had to learn how to fix things, kill big scary bugs and deal with rodent and insect infestations, do all the heavy lifting, deal with all the child crises, bumps and bruises, etc., pony up for the karate and ballet lessons and day camp, pay all the bills, file the taxes and, still, do all the miserable *&%#@?! housework. Alright already, I can do it all fer chrissakes.

Now, there looms the very real possibility that in the next couple of years I will be sharing living space/life with someone. A number of things need to be resolved before we can do that, but we do discuss things like division of labour from time to time. And the weekends we spend together represent a good dry run for discovering what we like to do and what we're best at. We can both cook, though I have more experience and have a larger repetoire of dishes, we're both accustomed to doing household chores and fixing household things though he, being a homeowner, has more fixing experience and expertise. I'm more of an artsy design person with alot of painting, plastering and papering experience. And I genuinely enjoy doing those sorts of projects. I also like looking after plants and pets, though neither of those things requires any special talent.

Whaddya think?

At one time women were trained to keep a spotless and well-ordered house because domestic skills were highly desirable in a marriageable young woman, and most women weren't really encouraged to excel at anything else. In that keeping house and raising the kids was your job, like it or not, like most men your self-esteem was wrapped up in your ability to do your gender-defined job well.

Even though women have more choices now than before, we're still pretty much brainwashed to believe that our self-worth should be defined by how clean our homes and our kids are because we're still taking responsibility for those things, as if it's still "women's work". I've yet to see a cleaning product commercial that isn't marketed to women, or see a man in a cleaning product commercial who isn't playing the hapless goof in the kitchen. It's demeaning to both men and women, but it impacts on how we see ourselves.

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Gosh, I especially like the beer commercial where guys "loan" their girlfriends out (like they're a set of golf clubs) to a buddy with tickets to some sporting event or whatever. And the sexy girlfriends just love being used and passed around like that. How fucked up is that?

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I just loathe that one too.

And they are doing this so that their boyfriends can go to a hockey game without them??

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I heard someone say recently that a woman's self esteem is linked to how clean her home is.

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I totally agree with that statement! It's perfectly accurate.

I'd just throw in a "contra-logical" twist...

The cleaner the house, the worse the self-esteem.

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The people of Vancouver needed to be made aware of how the
provincial cuts have affected women. The fear of homelessness and the actual reality of it causes mothers to loose their children, causes senior women to eat the free dog food provided for their pets so that they can afford their rent. Women live in brutal, life threatening relationships because they no longer have any options. Women's'
Centers are closing throughout the province. The only women's shelter in Victoria has just been closed. The shelters, even "the over night
only" shelters are overflowing and shelters that provide safety for women are almost non existent. ...

Safe secure housing is a right. Canada and BC signed on to the UN Human Rights Convention that ensures housing as a right.

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Make every second you have with them a memory they can take into the world with them when they go, because they do go.

My kids dont remember that their laundry was always done, they dont even remember all the kraft dinner we ate because of lack of money - they dont even remember how little money we did have !

They remember the fun they had with their father -the cad who paid no child support and didnt care if we starved. But he was good at taking them to MacDonalds and on expensive holidays.

They remember me scolding them for not doing the dishes. A lot. But they sort of remember the hikes we went on before my accident (they were so young) They remember the stray animals they were allowed to keep - the games we played in front of the fireplace when our power was shut off. They didnt even realize WHY there was no power -

Kids have selective memories ! Make sure they have a ton of them of having fun and being close to you.

Once when WCB paid me some retro benefits my daughter and I took off on a holiday together, I could have paid off debts, reduced the mortgage, but she will never forget the time we had together - and it really didnt cost all that much anyhow. As they say on Master Card commercials the memory and the time together is priceless.

In retrospect I wouldnt have kept the house so clean, or insisted the dishes be done as soon as dinner was over - We had lots of good times together but we could have had more.

In my previous marriage I was the one who did everything - even so called traditional male roles, I seemed to have unlimited energy. Worked full time, did all the childcare, all the housework, all the yardwork, did volunteer work for the agency I was working for. I was even the one who put a new alternator on the truck ! My exe just took up space on the couch - If I wanted something done I had to do it. Which is why he was promoted to "exe".

After 12 years on my own I'm in a new marriage - first anniversary coming up real soon here. If anything he does more than I do. We are also renovating, this is his first house, my sixth - I have renovated the others by myself.

How nice to hand a man the tools for a change and say "you fix the sink". Not that I have to do that, he wants to do everything and I have to take back "my" kitchen periodically just to prove I can still cook.

I have had to "teach" him a lot - having never owned a home before he hasnt had to do things - like put a new roof on the shed, rip out kitchen cabinets - fix plumbing - mend holes in walls. He cooks, he cleans, he is understanding of my pain disability - I do as much as I can but he does do more than I do, and its so nice.

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and I have to take back "my" kitchen periodically just to prove I can still cook.

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Note that one gives a higher priority to that which one is good at - which is why the ex spent his time on the chesterfield doing nothing and the present one cleans toilets.

I think that kids are not the ones who appreciate a clean house - I know I never did as a child.

[ November 29, 2002: Message edited by: vaudree ]

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Its funny, i do almost all the cleaning, all the cooking and most of the little things around the house, and i am male.

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My concern is with the patterns he falls into when we go to the 'rents for dinner, holidays, etc. I pitch in in the kitchen before, clean up after, at his and my parents house, in large part because it makes me sad to see his/my mom doing it basically all alone, and he runs off with the boys, or sits and chats. And every other man in our families basically does the same thing

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I see that as the primary problem with neo-feminism. It denies femininity for some form of androgeny that, in turn, is supposed to ensure equality. Men are better at certain roles...and women are far better suited for other roles (communication being one very important one). There are Neuroscience and evolutionary bio studies being conducted proving that the sexes do think differently and its been common biological knowledge for years that men are better at certain activities.

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I enjoy some of the so-called female traditional things, cooking, baking, sewing, decorating, I do the cleaning things he doesnt notice or think of -like polishing the taps and the silver - I am the one most bothered by "clutter" so I am also the one "tidying up" as opposed to washing floors - which he does. And in the end it seems to balance out. He brings me flowers, I bake him chocolate chip cookies - hows that for traditional?

I think the deciding factor is "do you enjoy what you are doing? Or are you doing it out of a sense of duty and because if you dont it wont get done because he wont do it?"

I am not prepared to give up the things I like to do out of fear of being labelled "non-feminist". The ranters seem to think to be truly a feminist you must dress like a slug, stop shaving your legs, renounce make up and hair dye, hate men, and refuse to indulge your "female" side.

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Its funny, i do almost all the cleaning, all the cooking and most of the little things around the house, and i am male.

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So, let me undertand your point. If you claim that you enjoy activities which are not stereotypically done by males, you are a forward-thinking male and should be commended. But a woman doing the same thing is trying to rebel against her "natural role" and force androgyny on the rest of society. Is that right? Hmmmm....

"Vacation from reality" means that I recognize that being online and particiapting in debates is not reality. Just for clarity, I have a firm grasp on reality.

My criticism of your describing your housecleaning activities may have been hasty, but you sound like a lot of guys I work with. They talk about doing little things around the house and use that as proof that they are "progressive." Then they spew sexist drivel about how lazy their wives are because they let a few housecleaning or cooking duties slide for a bit because said women also work full time. Sorta like, "Some of my best friends are...."

In all honesty, I have never heard a feminist once rail against a part of traditional roles she enjoys. I have heard only complaints that she has been restricted to fitting all parts of traditional roles publically or be labelled "androgynous" or worse.

As for neuroscience, it is a young science at that. For certain times in history, science was used to justify restricting races to certain roles as well. For their "natural differences" due to genetics.

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But its pretty much a scietific truth that women and men are better suited at certain different tasks

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On the whole men and women are "naturally" better at certain things, the major problems that exist with many of those studies (where women's bains use more centres for communication, ment for spacial reasoning problems) is that they seem to take no consideration of the fact that they are testing on enculturated beings, rather than blank slates. A violin virtuoso develops a greater number of pathways regarding finger control than me because at critical stages of development, they used their fingers in more complex ways. At later stages in life, these new pathways are more difficult and at times impossible to build. Which is one of the reasons why languages get harder to learn as we get older, and certain accents often stick with people through their whole lives. So when doing these studies, they take men who for much of their lives have been encouraged in traditional male activites that focus on and develop these skills (eg., lego and building toys) and women who for much of their life have been encouraged in traditional female activities (eg., Barbie having long conversations with all her friends), and then prove that these propensities are "natural" because more of their brain is utilized in these areas than for the opposite sex. Me say, big logical problem here.

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The ranters seem to think to be truly a feminist you must dress like a slug, stop shaving your legs, renounce make up and hair dye, hate men, and refuse to indulge your "female" side.

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But its pretty much a scietific truth that women and men are better suited at certain different tasks.

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However the idea that women are better at cooking and cleaning and boys are better at, I dunno, fixing the car, is just sexist crap.... and they haven't been to my parents' house.

I would accept that women may deal with prolongued fatigue, or pain differently than men, that men are physically stronger than women and may have better hand-eye reflexes, or something of that nature. I've heard women are better at retaining information from a wider array of subjects for longer periods of time, or "multi-tasking", whatever.

I find this really interesting and can't see any harm in finding out what instinctive differences there may be.... as long as there aren't coloured habits and songs designed around them.

My history prof, first year university was one, I used to go into a nod in her class staring at the long hair that flowed over her ankles and buffalo sandals while she ranted about women's history not being acknowledged and how "history" was a sexist word and we should also have a "herstory" class. After spending several months trying to figure out the design on her t shirt, the one she wore every single day I suddenly realized it was of the female reprroductive system ! It took awhile to grasp that because she never wore a bra either and the design was in constant motion. I assume that combing her hair or changing her clothes once in awhile would have also have been "giving in to expectations placed on women".

Granted there arent as many rabid feminists around as there were in earlier days, however believe me, it covers everything from enslaved child bearing to "the true feminist hates men and would never have a thing to do with them", including any relationships with them.

As Smith says he has met them and here on Vancouver Island they are alive and well and very vocal about how men are responsible for ALL their problems.

Did she specifically "rant" to the class that unless you all adopted her mode of dress that you can't be a feminist? Because that's what you claimed in your original post on the topic - that all those "ranters" say you can't be a feminist if you do any of those things.

If anything, it sounds like you're a lot more intolerant of her lifestyle choices than I've ever heard "radical feminists" be about any of my choices.

[ December 02, 2002: Message edited by: Michelle ]

[ December 02, 2002: Message edited by: Michelle ]

Not excellent, certainly; and when you combine femaleness with other risk factors, like poverty, not very good at all - but pretty good. Much better than we had even half a century ago, and infinitely better than a lot of women elsewhere in the world.

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long hair that flowed over her ankles and buffalo sandals while she ranted about women's history not being acknowledged and how "history" was a sexist word and we should also have a "herstory" class. After spending several months trying to figure out the design on her t shirt, the one she wore every single day I suddenly realized it was of the female reprroductive system ! It took awhile to grasp that because she never wore a bra either and the design was in constant motion. I assume that combing her hair or changing her clothes once in awhile would have also have been "giving in to expectations placed on women".

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As Smith says he has met them and here on Vancouver Island they are alive and well and very vocal about how men are responsible for ALL their problems.

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I think I met her too.

Face it people are individuals, I argued all through university that differences in male and female children were due to sexist child rearing. Drove my prof nuts.

Then I had a son and a daughter. TV was monitored in our home and they didnt watch "violent" programing. They saw shows that I felt didnt show women as inadequate - no "I Dream of Jeannie" etc. Both had dolls, and trucks - there was no "traditional" division of toys. They were close enough in age so whatever I did buy I bought 2 of so they wouldnt fight over the toys.

However there were immediate and obvious differences between them. My son gravitated towards the "boys" toys with the exception of one doll and a teddy bear. My daughter immediately went for the dolls and stuffed toys, the kittens and small animals. My son was louder,more active, made a lot more noise. My daughter would torture him verbally.

Although my daughter started "borrowing" my car when she was about 13. My son didnt have much interest until he was older, about 16.

So I think there are definitely biological differences which dictate our interests to a certain degree.

However I think genetics play a large part in it, that is "inherited traits" and "genetic memory" passed on to our children.

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Handmaids Tale? Is that the one where young women were selected for reproductive purposes for childless couples? I saw that one eons ago - rather vague memory of it. Very creepy.

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Haven't seen the movie, but the book is wonderful and unbelievably disturbing.

As I recall, some sort of disaster occurs - not sure what it is, exactly - which leaves most of the population sterile. The religious right takes over (not sure whether this is related; it's never fully explained), suspends all the rights of women, and doles out the remaining fertile young ones to its leaders - the upper class, basically - as "handmaids," child-bearers. (This being the religious right, they do not admit the possibility that the leaders - males - may be sterile themselves.) It's a totalitarian state based on a veeeeeery weird interpretation of the Bible.

[ December 02, 2002: Message edited by: Smith ]

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However there were immediate and obvious differences between them. My son gravitated towards the "boys" toys with the exception of one doll and a teddy bear. My daughter immediately went for the dolls and stuffed toys, the kittens and small animals. My son was louder,more active, made a lot more noise. My daughter would torture him verbally...

So I think there are definitely biological differences which dictate our interests to a certain degree.

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I really don't see how the existence of the personal traits you mention indicates a biological predisposition to those traits. You may monitor television, but children have powerful messages sent to them about their sex roles from every direction. Read any fairy tales lately?

I just read the Handmaids Tale last summer. It's a great book and I'm looking forward to the movie.

[ December 02, 2002: Message edited by: skadie ]

You seem determined to read some kind of agenda into everything I have to say and the funny thing is I know some of you personally, having been very active and involved while living in Regina, in politics and social issues. On a personal level there wasnt this friction. Interesting -

Let me fill you in, I started out when the help wanted ads in the newspaper were still divided into "Men Wanted" and "Women Wanted".

In high school we were told we could be teachers, nurses, secretaries or wives. That was it, no other choices offered to us.

When I got my pilots license the fuss was horrendous - I shall always remember the day I was doing a walk around on my plane and this women went screaming across the tarmac "Someone stop her ! That girl is trying to take a plane!" (her husband was a pilot).

I landed in Kelowna one day, walked into the terminal and every single person in there stared at me like I was a freak - they had been watching out the window when I landed.

I was told many times in the "good old days" "why would we hire a women when there are men out of work?".

When I worked for Sears we women mgrs and asst mgrs were paid less then our male counterparts because they had families to support and they were men after all.

When I walked into my first marketing class, the prof asked me if I was sitting in for my husband, I was the ONLY woman in the class, the only woman registered for marketing - the same with Business Law.

It was me, and other women like me who did all the ground work for all the benefits you have today.

WE marched, we protested, we demanded equal pay, equal opportunity, maternity benefits, equal representation in court, we demanded an end to martial rape - we demanded that girls have the right to wear pants to school and not skirts and dresses when it was -20C outside. We are the ones who protested if someone was expelled for not wearing a bra - or nylons -

We fought for the right to play sports and not just be cheer leaders.

We are the ones who were the first on the battle field for equality. We put up with the harrassment, the arrests, the sexist attitudes at work, the sexual harassment - We fought for sexual harassment laws. We were the ones who were told sleep with me or get fired -

And we did it while trying to still maintain our female identity, without giving up the things we did like, such as makeup and yes we were told many many times that we werent "true feminists" as long as we were still brain washed into believing we had to live up to some male chauvenist pig dominated dictorial fashion ideal. And yes if you got married you were considered a traitor to the cause -- We are the ones who fought for a balance. The backlash against early Feminists, from both men and women, from the fanatic Feminists themselves was very real.

While we were fighting for indpendence we had everyone still trying to tell us what we could do, and what we could be.

It has taken a long time for people to see it is about equality and choices - the freedom and the right to choose what is best for you. If that is being a steel worker, good, if its being a stay at home mom, thats your choice too. I dont agree with being financially dependent because I have seen too many women hurt that way but its about having the freedom to make that choice.

And yes my history prof did ask me how I could let myself be brainwashed into wearing makeup etc and still consider myself a feminist. YES there were a lot of women who believed that - and there still are.

You asked for an example, I gave you one, in response to your query about "have to dress like a slug and hate all men". You immediately turned it into me slamming her "fashion sense". Yah right, you asked, I answered -

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If anything, it sounds like you're a lot more intolerant of her lifestyle choices than I've ever heard "radical feminists" be about any of my choices.

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You seem to have confused a failure to dress according to your, no doubt, considerable taste and fashion savvy, with a political position. Perhaps instead of spending months vacillating between falling asleep in class and staring at the prof's unfettered breasts and hopelessly unfashionable hair and attire, you should have saved yourself a few hundred bucks and dropped the course.

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Within the feminist movement there are an incalculable multitude of individuals. While it's not cool for some to disrespect others, or to judge them based on how they choose to participate or identify, it happens. Some never shave, never wear makeup and don't like men, some play up their stereotypical femininity so much that they make it ridiculous--on purpose. The thing to remember is that we're all basically on about the same thing.

It's important to call each other on what we may see as flawed judgement, but it's equally, or maybe more important to be supportive and accepting of eachother, no?

My prof was an example of the fanatic feminist - of course I mentioned her dress to back up the "dress like slug" statement.

I got straight A's in her class btw so whoever said I should have saved my money can pretty well bite me.

I have been around this world longer than a lot of the posters here, and because of the various careers I have had and my life choices I have met thousands and thousands of people. From the streets to the board rooms.

As someone else said they (radical feminists)arent as visible as they used to be but believe me there are still many women's groups out there who are radical to the extreme.

Pick up some of the books and literature that was published in the 60s. Here are some of the radical feminist quotes that allegedly do not exist and are only a figment of my imagination

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Men and women, women and men. It will never work Erica Jong

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Beware of the man who denounces women writers; his penis in tiny and he cannot spell Erica Jong

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"Since marriage constitutes slavery for women, it is clear that the women's movement must concentrate on attacking this institution. Freedom for women cannot be won without the abolition of marriage." (radical feminist leader Sheila Cronan).

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"In order to raise children with equality, we must take them away from families and communally raise them." (Dr. Mary Jo Bane, feminist and assistant professor of education at Wellesley College and associate director of the school's Center for Research on Woman).

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"Marriage has existed for the benefit of men; and has been a legally sanctioned method of control over women... We must work to destroy it. The end of the institution of marriage is a necessary condition for the liberation of women. Therefore it is important for us to encourage women to leave their husbands and not to live individually with men... All of history must be re-written in terms of oppression of women. We must go back to ancient female religions like witchcraft." (from "The Declaration of Feminism," November 1971).

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"My feelings about men are the result of my experience. I have little sympathy for them. Like a Jew just released from Dachau, I watch the handsome young Nazi soldier fall writhing to the ground with a bullet in his stomach and I look briefly and walk on. I don't even need to shrug. I simply don't care. What he was, as a person, I mean, what his shames and yearnings were, simply don't matter." -- Marilyn French, in "The Women's Room"

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feel that 'man-hating' is an honorable and viable political act, that the oppressed have a right to class-hatred against the class that is oppressing them." -- Robin Morgan, MS. Magazine Editor

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"All men are rapists and that's all they are" -- Marilyn French, Author, "The Women's Room"

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"Heterosexual intercourse is the pure, formalized expression of contempt for women's bodies." -- Andrea Dworkin

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Someone asked for a list of tasks at which women and men might be well suited. I can think of several, pilot and infantry soldier. Yes, they are not your conventional tasks, but they are valid tasks regardless of what people say.

As a pilot myself, I can say that women have "the touch." Most single engine civil aircraft are classified as two-finger aircraft. That is, they require the lightest of movement on the control column to get a response. Having worked with female pilots, I find that they routinely make the best landings, etc.

Aviation also requires a great deal of multi-tasking as you are operating in a three dimensional world and not a ground based environment. I have heard that women are better at multi-tasking, but I am not always convinced of this. Incidentally, the youngest person in the world to solo was a 14-year old girl.

As to infantry soldier. A friend of mine was an captain in the army. He regularly found that women soldiers simply could not carry the loads (80+ lbs.) required on forced marches. Over the years, he noted, male recruits were continually asked to take over the female recruits load.

BTW, I am also a climbing instructor. Women, lacking the upper body strength of men, rely on their legs to move up the rock. This is exactly what is required in climbing as it is not about strength but conservation of strength.

Women also have the innate flexibility and grace of movement (some of this is learned as opposed to natural I will admit).

Again, this may not be considered a conventional task, but there you have it. As well, the first person to free climb The Nose in Yosemite was Lynn Hill, often regarded by her counterparts as the bestclimber in the world.

On the domestic bliss side, I was confronted with an angry 1/4 loaf of stale french bread yesterday, I was sadly considering throwing it out, when, allofasudden, my Dad's recipe entered my head, an hour later, voila! Bread Pudding with cream.

I have met a few very repugnant individuals like the ones Kindred mentioned. Believe it or not, they thought I was one of their own. I took a course mistakenly labeled Women's Activist training at a union run school. One of the discussion leaders there saw my very short hair and lack of make-up, coupled with my love of sports and non-traditional role-type job and made all sorts of assumptions about what I thought and felt and why.

I clued her and her partner in and received the most deadly glare ever. I explained that the job I was in was a job I got by default. Apparently, she felt me not rebellious enough because I originally wanted to be a teacher (too traditional?) My short hair is for the amount of sweat I generate during a day on the assembly line, as well as the dirt, oil, carpet fibres and fibreglass tend to make it feel sooo dirty by the end of the shift, I cannot bear to keep it any longer than it is. Also, my area of the factory not being air-conditioned, in the summer, it is merely preventing heat exhaustion.

My lack of makeup is due to having only one working eye (think about this a moment... you'll see my difficulty. Pun intended) It is not a statement that I find makeup at all repressive. As to my love of sports and watching them, there was no shortage of people not very accepting of a mostly invisible disability. When this was inevitably "discovered" I put up with a lot of bullying and other shit. My teachers even told me that the way the world was set up, to be accepted with any real difference as normal, one must excell at everything else. So I buckled down in my studies, winning the class academic award every year in my DND run schools. And I fought for and won the right to play as the only girl in the Edmonton minor hockey association for the CFB team. I worked hard and had some ability and in exchange for bumps and bruises and breaking my nose four times in 9 years, I was able to eventually gain some level of acceptance. I continued to play and watch sports because I liked them. Not because it wasn't expected.

On my job, which I acquired almost eight years ago, despite all the gains which Kindred and a lot of others have made on my behalf, I still hear from "brothers" that their sons or nephews or brothers would have a job if only I would learn my place in the world. I hear every time I injure myself that a man wouldn't complain if they got hurt, or even that a man would not have suffered an injury. I am also, on the odd occasion, asked what I would do if I had to do "a real man's job" on the line (as if *my* job, bid on with my paltry seniority were easy. Ha!) That's when I look 'em in the eye and say, "I'd try to find a real man. Haven't seen one in here yet. Know any?"

All this aside, I like to cook, tolerate cleaning and like to do my own drywalling, painting and I installed my own flooring in the finished part of my basement. I like cutting my lawn and trimming the hedges. But all of the above is NOT to conform to anyone's view of what I should like due to my gender or status as a feminist.

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Beware of the man who denounces women writers; his penis is tiny and he cannot spell.

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Mocking anti-feminist men in this way is pretty standard (and fun), isn't it? It's not the man who denounces a female writer who's mocked here; it's the man who doesn't like female writers, period, and says so...and that man deserves to be mocked.

There were some stumbling blocks I didnt have the financial means to overcome - such as going to medical school, scholarships were gender specific in the "good old days" as well.

The first time I decided to go forth without a bra, never actually burned them but they were also seen as "instruments of womens oppression", my mother slapped me silly and called me a slut.

However as one person pointed out the "au naturel" women in National Geographic had a serious gravitational problem going on, so it seems the oppression is worth the benefits.

I mean who cares what people think? I happen to be the one in our family who watches football and baseball, I have enjoyed a lot of "male" sports - motorcycles and motorbikes, I have owned four and done a lot of hill climbing, have the scars to prove it, auto racing, rock climbing, target shooting, and grew up in the country so I can ride and rope like a "real" cowboy (or could before my accident).

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Smith my favourite quote "The woman who experiences orgasm with a male is erotifying her own oppression".

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Hehe. I can just see the T-shirt: "Oppression Tickles!"

I support any woman's choice in how to live her life. If it's in a traditional marriage doing the Betty Crocker/Martha Stewart homemaker thing a la the 1950s women's mags, that's okay. As long as that is what she and her life partner want. And as long as she can accept that I need something a little different for my own self.

Women and men have some differences, but with the way we live today, here in North America, they are so negligible. Even the famed brain studies that show men and women have differences in how our brains work... Well, one study, men and women were given problems, the brains worked them out differently (PET scans showed, I think), came to basically the same solutions and conclusions within narrow margins, in close to the same amounts of time. So even though we may take different "routes", we get to the same place in the end. We are not so different.

I'd say there are only two things the blond guy hasn't been able to do around our household as a parent and housekeeper -- birth babies and breastfeed.

[ December 03, 2002: Message edited by: Zoot Capri ]

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My partner and I fight over who will do the cooking -- we both want to! Trouble is, when I cook a great meal, someone pays me the "compliment": "You're gonna make someone a great wife someday." When he cooks, people suggest he open up a restaurant. Urg.
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The response was "So when you get married, what is your husband going eat?"

My answer was "Well, if he wants something to eat, he can bloody well cook it himself."

Their response was silent looks of horror. Now, years later, my partner (now fiancee) does all the cooking, and a marvellous cook he is too!

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(Not to mention that he does all the housework while I work full-time. Good thing too - I'm much more less worried about having a tidy house than he is.)

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And that is likely the best way to approach housework. If it bugs you to see something dirty then clean it. The problem in relationships is that one person (usually the woman) has a hgher standard of cleanliness than their partner and then they want their partner to change their standards to their own. I never had that problem because I like a clean place and have always figured if you want something done to your own standards you do it yourself.

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The other ladies who posted in reply to my post understtod this

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If it bugs you to see something dirty then clean it. The problem in relationships is that one person (usually the woman) has a hgher standard of cleanliness than their partner and then they want their partner to change their standards to their own. I never had that problem because I like a clean place and have always figured if you want something done to your own standards you do it yourself.

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