The Feminist Sibling

45 thoughts on The Feminist Sibling

1. I’m twenty and have an eighteen-year-old sister and a twelve-year-old brother. I’m basically my sister’s feminist mama, and she’s become a lot more feminist in the past year. My brother is a different story. My parents are both conservative, and my dad openly scorns feminism, so any education on the subject for my brother falls to me. So far it has basically been failure after failure.

   He automatically worships any band I tell him is cool…unless a woman is singing.

   He looks over my shoulder to see what I’m doing whenever I’m on the computer around him…until he sees it’s a feminist blog.

   I asked him if he’d be interested in going to the pride parade in San Francisco this weekend, and he said he wasn’t gay. I told him you didn’t have to be gay, it was just to show support for gays, and he said, “Well, I’m not against gay people, but I’m NOT GAY.”

   I’ve tried to talk to him about this stuff a couple times recently, since I’ve been seeing him more often than usual because I’m home for the summer, but he just starts shouting until I stop. Then he says, “I’m not for Barack Obama or for John McCain. I’m just not into politics.”

   I’m really interested to see what other people say in this thread, because I would like to have more success with him.

2. He automatically worships any band I tell him is cool…unless a woman is singing.

   Perhaps introducing him to boys his age who are comfortable with a female singer might help? I mean, obviously, this sort of thing happens organically, and you never know if just might blow up in your face, but you can always broaden his horizons without making him feel like you’re beating him over the head with the stuff (not that I’m saying you’re doing that, but that’s how kids feel sometimes).

   I’ll also be curious to know if anyone else has any advice.

3. Read Anna Akhmatova! Lesya Ukraiinka! Women with inner worlds! Caught up in the struggles of their time!
   BB: I read them in school already, sheesh. Anyway, I take it you want to be just like them?

   I read that line thinking you were all in the US and went, “WOAH! What school does he go to?!! My kids will be going to that school!”

   I have two younger brothers, and sometimes it’s rough. One of them hates sociology and the like, and therefore dismisses feminist theory immediately, but he also firmly believes that everyone should use all of their potential. This has caused a lot of friction between us, because I’ve been depressed and I’m not living up to my potential. The flip-side is that he definitely has a kind of paternalistic attitude towards women, like they need to be protected and taken care of, and he can be really dismissive of his female peers. However, the specific peers that he’s talking about really are incredibly flighty, so I don’t know if that really counts.

   The other brother is definitely a feminist, and the two of us are FAR more liberal than the rest of the family. Well, that’s not technically true. My family immigrated, so we’re liberal on immigration issues, and we’re all supportive of things like socialized medicine and affirmative action. We part ways when it comes to issues like gay marriage because everyone else is more traditional in our culture and religion. So he and I will toss ideas back and forth, but he does have trouble seeing past his privilege sometimes. He also has pretty low self-esteem because he’s not that tall and he’s skinny, and therefore doesn’t meet the traditional beauty ideal for men.

   So my big issues as a feminist sibling are:

   1) How do I get the elder of my two brothers to let go of the idea that he needs to be the protector?
   2) How do I get the younger of my two brothers to let go of the idea that he can’t be good-looking because he isn’t tall and ripped? (And, I suspect, white.)
   3) How do I do this within the context of our culture?

4. My younger brother is in his mid-twenties, and I keep thinking it’s too late to change his views. He considers himself politically moderate and while I haven’t discussed the subject outright with him, I think he doesn’t consider women’s issues or LGBT rights high on his list of Things To Be Concerned With.

   He can also be a bit patronizing when I do something “silly”, like not maintain my car or insist that women should be allowed to breastfeed during professional meetings.

   It’s partly upbringing. He has never had his male privilege pointed out to him (I wish I’d done something about that early enough). He also went to school in the US south while living at home, while I lived on my own in los angeles for 4 years.

   I suppose I should still try to get through to him, but I think I’ll do a bad job of it.

5. I have two sisters, 6 and 10 years older, and they don’t take any shit from anybody. Just being around them helped me a lot, to have close personal examples of intelligent women who would call me and other people out when they said something stupid about gender roles. Our parents are very traditional, but they did teach all of us to treat people fairly. That core idea extrapolated into things like feminism and equal rights for gay people, even though our parents are for rigid gender roles and against gay rights.

   I have a roommate who also has a strong older sister, but also thinks women basically exist to serve men. He doesn’t talk to me anymore. But he also has a lot of other stupid ideas, like if you make a lot of money, you must be someone worth emulating.

   I think feminism exists within a larger egalitarian mindset. Like, as a guy, at some point you have to decide that what society is telling you is bullshit, and choose to change. That’s a really difficult thing to do, because misogyny is so pervasive, and it means giving up some of your power. If you’re not already inclined to treat people fairly and not exploit them, feminism is just too big a jump.

6. I have a younger sister, she’s 19 years old. And, well, she’s a failure. I live in UK so I see her few times a year (my family lives in Poland) and every time we see each other, we talk a lot and it goes ok until we start talking about feminism and some related topics.

   She knows I’m a feminist but she thinks all feminists are dumb bitches and she hates them,. According to her, if woman get raped, it’s her fault, if woman gets paild less, it’s her fault, if woman get pregnant and won’t an abortion, she should shut up and give a birth – it’s her fault, she shouldn’t have spread her legs in the first place… According to her, all women are stupid and deserve to be treated like shit. Well, all women except her of course, she’s the pricess that always gets what she wants.
   She hates gays and lesbians (but can’t give a reason why) and she’s also a racist (although she’s never seen any person of colour).

   What’s funny is the fact that she sometimes acts like a feminist, never lets a man tell her what to do, has sex when she wants to and if someone forces her to do it, she can beat the crap out of him. And she already took some “abortion pills” few times…

   So for me she’s a lost cause, especially with this double standard of hers. Never listens, never reads what I give her. Any ideas what I could do? Or maybe I should leave her alone and let her be?

7. This string has me in complete disgust! Let me tell you all…all of you feminist, male bashing\hating\demeaning bitches, you are the reason so many American men are looking for (and finding) beautiful , intelligent , talented, warm and loving women abroad …Ukraine and Russia in particular, because they are disgusted with your feminist bullshit! Go to your Gay Pride parade but don’t expect any intelligent and decent man to accompany you ! You just don’t get it … Men were not created to have sex with men….they cannot procreate and neither can a woman who wants to role play being a man with a strap-on! Take your LESBIAN feminist bullshit and look for some ignorant mama’ boy and turn him into less than a man.that is the feminist goal and that is why REAL American men despise all of you and look for FEMININE …..REAL women , who love being a woman and LOVE and RESPECT REAL men and need to go far away to find a WONDERFUL woman he can truly love and Respect and create a FAMILY with with intentions of remaining married FOREVER !

8. Falka, you can’t teach empathy. As young as your sister is, I hope she will develop some as she grows older. Please don’t give up. Keep trying to give her
   hope that she doesn’t need to be the ‘princess’, who men will take care of and approve of if she just recites their stupid script. She is just afraid of disapproval like a small child who echoes what her parents say for fear of rejection.

9. What a great post! You can’t force anything on anyone… so true. I’m a feminist Big Sister of a Little Brother and I hope he listens to me about how to treat his female friends!

10. Falka, the most you can do is give her an example of what a real feminist is. Just do your own thing. Don’t lose touch. Maybe eventually this will convince her that if her loving sister is a feminist, not all feminists are automatically “dumb bitches.”

11. The most amazing thing to me about this post is that I’m reading the whole thing picturing a “typical” American sister and brother, and then I get to the end and you’re a Ukrainian living in the Middle East. I love the internet.

12. I approved Steve’s comment because it’s funny as hell, especially in the context of me being half-Russian (on mom’s side) and Ukrainian. The jokes write themselves.

    Ой, Steve, иди-ка ты на ***, а? Не мешай взрослым людям говорить.

    (Surely, as a, *cough* admirer of Eastern European women, Steve will be able to understand the above pleasantries)

13. Steve,

    You may have a point in there somewhere (I doubt it), but your hateful ignorance proves nothing about the original post, but speaks volumes about you.

    Natalia,

    A) LOVELY name (my daughter’s name too).

    B) I had this experience in reverse. I am big brother to a wonderful little sister. I think that the lessons you are teaching your brother are worthwhile. This ghetto crap of protecting your rep won’t lead him anywhere.

    But, I found that more than telling her what to do or think, and more than giving her literature that might suggest what to think, I made sure to always buy her gifts in the form of books and movies that would make her buck the conventional wisdom. She’s a remarkable independent woman today, and George Carlin and Jack Kerouac had as much to do with that as anything else.

    Teach your brother to simply break free. He’ll come back to ask where to land.

14. With teenage boys (or girls, I suppose for that matter), the most important influence a sibling, step parent, or adult mentor can have is through role modeling and subtle influence. My experience is that lecturing teenage boys, nagging them, or engaging them in direct debate on these topics is usually not that helpful. Sometimes it is. Sometimes it’s appropriate, and it has its place. But the whole role modeling-thing, and influence-thing in my experience is far more effective in helping shape their attitudes. I had this stepson who’s biological father was an outright racist, homophobic and sexist. His dad wasn’t a horrible guy, he just grew up in the south and grew up in a backwards environment. So, I sort of had to try to deprogram some of those horrible attitudes my stepson inherited from his dad. It was not only attitudes towards females, but also towards gays and various ethnic groups too.

    I tried to expose my stepson to gay people I knew. Normal gay people with jobs; people who were contributing to society. And I tried to let him see that most gays, like most human beings, are fairly decent, hardworking, non-threatening people. I tried demonstrate to him my tolerance and respect for gay people, mexican-americans, african-americans, whatever, without being patronizing or lecturing. He used to really be insulting to homeless people (which I’m sure he got from his dad), and I told him how I was homeless at one point. I tried to explain that homeless people aren’t bad or lazy. That a lot of them have emotional, mental, and/or financial problems and hardships. I had a crew of mexican-americans that did our lawn, and always told me stepson that those guys were the most honest, hardworking contractors I had ever hired (which was true). And I figured it planted a seed in his mind, without me lecturing him. With regard to women, I always tried to be a role model, and demonstrate my own personal standards for how to relate to women. To relate to them as your peers and your respected equals. And to expose him good female role models. We had a female family doctor, a female dentist. Again, I tried to plant seeds in his mind rather than lecturing him. I always tried to make a point of saying how awesome our doctor was, and I always tried to subtly point out and praise good female role models. Without lecturing him too much on how to respect females. I figured my own behaviour was more of an influence, than anything I lectured him on. Granted, I had to be very proactive in discouraging the use of words like Ho, or b*tch, as well as a bunch of other inflammatory homophobic or ethnic slurs. I think eventually he lost a lot of his dad’s sexist, homophobic, and racial attitudes. But, its always an evolution, it always takes a lot of time to mentor teenagers and shape their attitudes. And you’re not always going to be 100% successful.

15. My older brother and I finally parted ideological ways when he insisted that women were stealing his jobs in the symphony after the changeover to gender-blind auditions.

    *sigh*

16. I’m 29, my brother is 26.

    While on some issues – internal family crap mostly – I feel that I have an easier time getting through to him because I’m not a parent, on political and feminist issues it’s never really been neccessary.

    Our mother is very open minded, sort of a feminist herself, we’ve grown up with lots of working moms, queers and what have you in our parent’s circle of friends, so my brother too grew up to be conscious and open minded, and respectful of women as ell as just people in general.

    A few years back, we had some strong disagreements about sexuality and body images, but I feel it helped a lot to just stay calm, argue rationally and go into the debate with a positive attitude.
    He had a few extreme anti porn/sex work/kink tendencies at the time, and it sometimes felt very patronizing while well intentioned.
    By simply showing him, over and over again, that I made some very different decisions in life, and that I’m happy with them and not objectified or degraded, I seem to have slowly won him over.
    He’s much more accepting of different lifestyles now.

17. Re: the OP. I think one way to help your brother may be to frame it in terms of who he’s trying to impress. The mindset that produces these attitudes is one that already says that the woman is an object to be possessed, and the violent response as proving oneself, is therefore a display not for her, but for the other males. In this mindset, a woman’s role is simply to award the prize at the end.

    So frame the discussion firstly in terms of “why do you want to prove yourself to them anyway?” – maybe along the lines of, “if they think any less of you for behaving like a human instead of an animal, then what kind of friends are they anyway?”

    Secondly, in terms of making her the focus of the matter. If she’s seeing someone else, what does that mean? Give advice to your brother on how best to talk to her about it, and how to respect her decisions. Maybe on how to negotiate “going steady” with one another, if that’s important to him.

18. I hate anything that goes -[some group member]- is a decent, hardworking person! I understand how some people feel that they need to use it in deprogramming against certain attitudes, but to me, fundamentally, that phrase is about extending an entitled sentiment further and is ultimately anti-egalitarian.

    I think ranting against that would work as well as ranting against the use of an unlabeled sarcastic “Nice Guy”. When every bastard and his brother uses “Nice Guy” in a way that diserves a little sarcastic retort, there’s not much hope for it. Similar dynamics with …decent, hardworking person…

19. My younger brother is in his mid-twenties, and I keep thinking it’s too late to change his views. He considers himself politically moderate and while I haven’t discussed the subject outright with him, I think he doesn’t consider women’s issues or LGBT rights high on his list of Things To Be Concerned With.

    I don’t think it’s necessarily to late for him to change his views. I am easily the most feminist member of my family (no matte the gender), and certainly the lost tolerant towards LGBTs. I didn’t really start on this path until I reached twenty or so (before that I didn’t really think about those issues).

    A family member, who is quite homophobic, is actively working on changing hos attitude, and he is in his mid-thirties.

20. I consider myself a feminist. My younger brother (8 years difference, I’m 35) has been a complete fuckup, on just about any axis you like – dropped out of high school, married at 18, fathered 2 kids and then ran away. Stupid criminal trouble, screwed over family on multiple occasions. Honestly, his ex is not that much more responsible. The children are being raised by grandparents who are adherents of one of our charming goofy religious sects.

    My problem with dealing with him is that he just accepts that he’s behaving abominably. He’ll happily cop to it, and say something like, “well, yeah, I should be better at that…”. He simply refuses to deal; he acknowledges it, and carries on.

    I’ve told him that I won’t help him again until he starts behaving like someone not raised by wolves. Haven’t heard from him in three years.

    I hate to say it about my own brother, but some people cannot be redeemed.

21. I have a 16 year old brother who I am quite proud of, especially as my parents had very old-fashioned views on womens role in society. In fact my mum told me that she was not as worried about my exam results compared to my brother’s because “he is the one who will have to be the breadwinner”. *rolls eyes*

    Anyway, my brother is a lot more respectful of women than a lot of guys I know. I guess most people would be too if they had 6 feminist older sisters!

    The only thing that disappoints me is that sometimes is when we go on a rant about sexism/male privilage – he gets really defensive and pulls out the “men are victims of sexism too” card.

22. Well, my little sister is sixteen and in high-school. I graduated from the school she is going to now, and I know what a dirty word ‘feminist’ is in a high school environment. So, what does the big sis (me!) do? (Besides freaking out and thinking she’s totally *not* old enough to drive and date guys older than her! Then, I remember that I dated a guy three years me senior when I was her age.)

    Anyway, I gave my sister Full Frontal Feminism, which told my little sis about feminism in a way that she could understand. I told her that she could make her own decisions on what she would read, but she never really told me what she thought of the book. She only said that she liked it and lent it to several of her friends. (And I was very happy.) If she is interested in feminism, I have no doubt she’ll pursue it on her own. Maybe she won’t really know what to do with it until she gets to college. Whatever happens, I just want my sis to know that there’s so much crap in this world, and that she doesn’t have to take any of it, no matter what my parents are going to tell her.

23. Oh wow, this is a deja vu thread for me. My little cousin, J, gets farmed out to various aunts and uncles every summer (the mother was a little young to take care of him, this way he gets some structure). When we got him, he was a little sexist- would talk back/ contridict/ interrupt women, was rude, hit people (as long as he felt he could “take them”) and had weird ideas about what was okay for girls and boys to play with.

    By the end of the summer, we got him to stop the hitting, interrupting, and what was okay for people to play with (he discovered he rather liked playing with the easy bake oven). Some of the change was because of playing with the little neighbor girl and her brother: in our house, each person gets to pick what they want to play each day, and the neighbor girl loved micro machines and the brother liked dress up. Some of it was him learning that women (like me and my mother) had important things to say, and watching us interact with other people.

    And, part of it was that after he hit me I wrestled him to the ground, pinned him, and had a long, boring discussion about when it was approriate to use violence (ie for self-defense only).

    So, I think it’s just creating an envirnment that is feminist supportive. That’s hard, sometimes, when your parents are contridicting it, but it is possible.

24. he gets really defensive and pulls out the “men are victims of sexism too” card.

    It goes both ways, you know. Except men usually don’t bitch about it. It’s not in our nature. Victimology is the bread-and-butter for feminist rationalizations.

    “he is the one who will have to be the breadwinner”.

    LOL If he’s smart then he won’t be. Feminsts are very disrespectful, demanding and unappreciative of good men. Only a fool will give you deluded, spoiled harpies the time of day, outside of a quick roll in the hay.

    Without government (taxpayer) aid, this feminist picnic will wither and die.

25. I approved Steve’s comment because it’s funny as hell, especially in the context of me being half-Russian (on mom’s side) and Ukrainian. The jokes write themselves.

    I found the Steve Troll funny as well. Especially since my “intelligent and decent” American (and may I mention heterosexual) man has absolutely no problem escorting me to a Pride Parade.

    I have my own problems with my teenage brother. He absolutely believes that women should be equal and believes in all the feminist ideals although he’d never call himself a feminist. But he still has trouble actually living up to these ideas especially when being in a relationship; it’s very often his way or the highway. I think part of the problem is that he has never dated a strong woman. My mother and I joke that he needs to date a girl that will call him out on his crap so he’ll realize that he can really be quite an ass.

    He of course keeps dating really submissive girls who think the worst thing in the world is not having a boyfriend. It can just be very hard to get through to a hormonal teenager.

26. This is an interesting thread for me to read. I am the little sister, with two brothers 8 and 12 years older than I am.

    My brothers are reasonably feminist and arguably more liberal/progressive than I am. However, they do have an unfortunate tendancy to revert to treating me as a child (I’m 39), and/or start telling me what I ought to believe about feminism. I think it’s more big sibling problems than sexism per se, but it’s seriously infuriating nonetheless.

27. Want an easy way to point out the pressures and taboos of young women to him?

    Have him watch the movie Superbad with you.
    Now have him try to imagine the main characters as girls.

    Interesting discussion guaranteed.

28. He looks over my shoulder to see what I’m doing whenever I’m on the computer around him…until he sees it’s a feminist blog.

    I asked him if he’d be interested in going to the pride parade in San Francisco this weekend, and he said he wasn’t gay. I told him you didn’t have to be gay, it was just to show support for gays, and he said, “Well, I’m not against gay people, but I’m NOT GAY.”
    

    None of this is particularly rocket science, but …

    Lauren O, twelve is a tough age for everyone. It’s pretty standard issue for boys that age to want to emphasize standard-issue masculinity. He’s gotta be comfortable with himself before you take him outside of his comfort zone, conservative parents or not.

    Keep talking to him — you’re going to have a huge influence on him — but don’t push him or get pissed if he doesn’t give you the “right” reaction. Don’t even express disappointment. Just let it go …. you’re going to be a lot more effective over the long run that way.

29. I’m 17 and I have a 14 year old brother. Of all the heterosexual boys and men I know in real life, he and my best friend are the less sexist ones that I know.
    My brother doesn’t view women as inferior and he doesn’t stereotype women (most of the time), he knows that he doesn’t have to behave in a certain way because she’s a man, and that there’s nothing wrong with not fitting in the typical definition of “boy” or “girl”.

    I think that has a lot to do with the fact that he was raised with me. I don’t talk with him about feminism all the time, but once in a while we have small discussions. However, I know he would never call himself a feminist. He doesn’t fully understand what a feminist is. There are a lot of points we don’t agree on. He can’t understand, among other things, that chivalry is based on sexism and that female “privilege” is not actually privilege. I may have some influence on him, but we live with our parents, and they are not feminist. My father freaked out when I mentioned I was a feminist. I’m pretty sure I’m the only feminist he knows, and I don’t think I’m enough to change his views completely.

30. I have no siblings, alas, but a fairly common topic of discussion between me and my partner is how to raise our kids, particularly any sons, without all this gender-divide bullshit that’s just so damn pervasive.

31. My brother’s actions are very feminist. He’s pro-choice and I’ve never heard him say anything sexist. But he won’t call himself a feminist because he took a women’s studies class at college and had a bad experience. Actions speak louder than words though, right? 🙁

32. he gets really defensive and pulls out the “men are victims of sexism too” card.

    If your sisters and you do not believe that men can be hurt by sexist notions and traditions as well, then I can see why your brother might get defensive.

    Coming from a culture where women are increasingly becoming more empowered (in the real ways, not faux-empowerment) day by day, which is all good, and the perception of what it is to be a woman in today’s modern time is constantly being upgraded for the better, the perception of what it is to be a man has undergone nowhere near as fast a change….there might not have been ANY change at all at how society perceives a “real” man to be.

    For example, in Chinese society, where young women are joining the workforce in greater numbers and their earning power increased, it is still expected for the men to be able to support his family and be the “main breadwinner”. The thought of a husband actually staying at home to take care of the kids, and his wife being the sole breadwinner is alien to many, as it would indicate that the man lacks ambition and can’t give his wife the proper care and attention she deserves. It is also deemed to be “unmanly” and may turn some women off. This is just one example.

    I am sure that there is the same issues in Western countries, where women are able to do more and more things, but men are still limited to a stricture definition of what it means to be a man.

    So while teaching your brother (s) to treat women equally and pointing out that women are suffering from sexism/Patriarchy is a great thing to do, it might also be rewarding to understand that yes, perhaps sexism/Patriarchy hurts men as well, as men have their own “societal standards” to live up to, and unless you can understand or at least empathise with “male culture”, it might be harder for him to not feel defensive.

33. well my brother… he’s 4 years older then me (I’m 22) and has some… issues.
    I don’t know what to make of him sometimes, he’s very dismissive and negative about things. Ive noticed him actualy get mad about people working to change the world for the better, just because he seems to think it’s a futile waste of effort. How do you talk to someone with that level of apathy and negativity?
    I at least talked to him a while ago and he doesn’t refer to women on the television as ‘Slag’ or ‘Wench’ as much as he used to. It’s hard to talk to him as a younger sibling, though he acts the same around mum. It’s hard to know what his attitudes are since I know he likes ‘strong women’ ala the Xena variety but he also loves the old Conan novels which are.. well I couldn’t get through to many of the stories till I put the book away in disgust.

34. He can’t understand, among other things, that chivalry is based on sexism

    The Code of Chivalry…

    Thou shalt believe all that the Church teaches, and shalt observe all its directions.

    Thou shalt defend the Church.

    Thou shalt repect all weaknesses, and shalt constitute thyself the defender of them.

    Thou shalt love the country in the which thou wast born.

    Thou shalt not recoil before thine enemy.

    Thou shalt make war against the Infidel without cessation, and without mercy.

    Thou shalt perform scrupulously thy feudal duties, if they be not contrary to the laws of God.

    Thou shalt never lie, and shall remain faithful to thy pledged word.

    Thou shalt be generous, and give largess to everyone.

    Thou shalt be everywhere and always the champion of the Right and the Good against Injustice and Evil.

    …has nothing to do with women.

35. What’s with the trolls on this one? I always find myself wondering how they choose which random post to spout off on.

    Anyway, to actually contribute to the topic at hand, I think just making your beliefs known can be a big help. Keep in mind this is coming from the context of having no siblings, only close cousins, and coming from a fairly progressive family anyway (someone upthread mentioned learning to treat all people fairly as a big precursor for most progressive movements, and yeah, that is where I see most of it coming from in the younger generations of my family). Arguing your position and giving it a strong logical backing helps, as does letting them know that someone the respect and care about holds these positions. It may not be enough to change their mind, but it can keep them from dismissing it outright.

    Of course, this works better when discussions come up naturally and everyone there is a willing participant, which doesn’t help so much for people with apolitical families. Maybe try to bring it up in daily situations? In my mind even watching TV provides plenty of fodder for such things.

    timothynakayama, I don’t think anyone’s saying to deny that sexism does cause problems for men, but it can become problematic in some situations. One that comes to mind immediately it when people start to suggest that, if a certain discussion doesn’t involve men’s problems, they can’t empathize with it or it’s not important. Almost every thread I’ve seen on FGM has ended up with people talking about how circumcision in the US is that much more of an important problem.

36. I really like what von said.

    I’ll consider Superbad – if I can get that one past mom (she’s pretty militant as to what is and isn’t appropriate these days herself).

37. I was wondering the same thing, luzzleanne. It’s a thread about our relationships with our siblings, and sharing our values with them. I know this is on the internet, but if this was a support group dealing with families, it would be beyond rude if we were offering suggestions to each other on how to better relate to and get along with our families, and a group of guys stormed in and and interrupted us to start yelling about how we needed to submit to men and our therapy group would die without public funding. It would be equally rude for us to storm into a Christian youth group’s meeting on how they can include Jesus in their daily lives and start screaming about how Christianity is a sham and Jesus never existed.

    Apparently manners and civility aren’t family values. Or maybe it’s too feminine to treat someone else with respect?

    Either way, how can we possibly read these comments and take them seriously when they’re really just upset that they only get about 90% of the pie now, instead of 99%? And because it looks like in twenty years, they might have as little as 75% of the pie?

38. Von, that is good advice, and I shall take it!

39. My family is matriarchal, so I have never actually *had* to teach my brothers to be feminists. My father is the breadwinner of my parents’ family, but my mother always made it clear that being a stay-at-home mom was her career vocation and a lot of hard work; my grandmother and grandfather both worked, but my grandmother managed the family money; and I, the oldest child and only daughter, was always considered the academic shining star, the person who was Most Likely To Succeed out of the entire family.

    My gay brother is feminist but rarely deals with women’s issues, as opposed to gay issues, in his daily life; my other brother is a misanthrope philosopher who, I believe, pays lip service to the ideals of female equality but is actually something of a NiceGuy(tm) who doesn’t take women as seriously as people as he does men.

    Where I try to concentrate my efforts is on my little sister-in-law. She’s 18 years younger than my husband, and was effectively raised in a completely different household — my husband’s stepfather didn’t enter his life until he was in his late tweens, but was in my sister-in-law’s life her whole life, and he apparently had a transformative (and according to my husband, not a positive one) effect on my husband’s mother. So they were much more traditional and religious than my husband.

    My little sister-in-law loves anime, so she is exposed to a lot of images of strong women, but they behave in certain very stereotypical ways. I’ve had to point out to her, for instance, that hitting boys for accidentally walking in on you changing is in fact violence, and yes, girls can really hurt boys and this is not acceptable to do just because you’re a girl. I’ve also had to point out to her that ‘gay’ is not an insult meaning pathetic. And I work on trying to change her perceptions of boys — a lot of teen girls have halfway feminist ideals, which means that they see themselves as equal to boys and able to do anything a boy can do, but denigrate boys who want to do feminine things, and to me this is currently the most destructive force operating against feminism in society, the fact that regardless of the equality of girls boys are still forced to behave like boys, which tends to drive girls into doing the girl things whether they want to or not.

40. The other thing that I don’t understand is if they feel they’ll be effective. Oh, some random troll, who doesn’t even link to a website, called me a bitch online. Another one calls us harpies, demanding, and unappreciative, and says the bald-faced lie that men don’t “bitch”. Oh dear, let me re-evaluate my entire worldview on THOSE credible statements.

    By the by, Juro, online we normally give these things called “links”. If, for instance I wanted to publish a Code of Chivalry I put it in this handy do-dad, that links to a code of chivalry.

41. Von, that is good advice, and I shall take it!

    And hopefully it turns out to be good advice! 🙂

    It’s been – crap! – more than two decades since I was a twelve-year-old boy. Twelve year old von, however, would’ve had the same reaction to going to a Gay Pride parade as your brother – and I had fairly liberal parents. (Granted, it was the mid-80s and things change, but I have faith that certain things about being a 12-year-old boy don’t.)

42. He automatically worships any band I tell him is cool…unless a woman is singing.

    Lauren O, perhaps try introducing him to Nightwish. It’s a metal band from Finland that’s female fronted. In fact, their former lead singer was also an opera singer. I never liked metal before listening to them! There is lots of “manly” metal music from Europe fronted by women. Within Temptation and Epica are pretty good too.

43. Oh, and Lacuna Coil too.

44. My experience is that lecturing teenage boys, nagging them, or engaging them in direct debate on these topics is usually not that helpful. Sometimes it is. Sometimes it’s appropriate, and it has its place.

    With some boys at that age….especially if they are already cynical about adult authority figures such as teachers and parents being overbearing with their power just because they can…doing the above is not only unhelpful, but will backfire spectacularly.

    I speak from experience as a one-time 12-13 year old 8th grader/high school freshman who had no hesitation in openly defying some teachers who seemed to get off on putting-down and otherwise demeaning young kids who had no social or other power to hold their own.* Though I was credited by classmates with driving one male teacher I had in 9th grade into retirement a year after I graduated high school, I did pay a high price for it on my high school transcript.

    In our cases, the best thing to do is to model the behavior while being supportive and understanding of the myriad difficulties children and adolescents go through….especially the PTB in school and at home.

    * It was one factor why every high school classmate I knew would recoil in disgust at any suggestions of considering K-12 teaching as a career.

    The thought of a husband actually staying at home to take care of the kids, and his wife being the sole breadwinner is alien to many, as it would indicate that the man lacks ambition and can’t give his wife the proper care and attention she deserves. It is also deemed to be “unmanly” and may turn some women off. This is just one example.

    Though there is some truth to this as I’ve experienced with some past dates, this is changing in China and in Chinese families. In fact, I have two older male cousins whose wives are the breadwinners while they stayed home and they have gotten less crap about this as the years passed by.

    However, they do have an unfortunate tendancy to revert to treating me as a child (I’m 39), and/or start telling me what I ought to believe about feminism. I think it’s more big sibling problems than sexism per se, but it’s seriously infuriating nonetheless.

    Tapetum,

    I can totally relate to being treated as a child by older cousins into adulthood as one of the youngest cousins on mom’s side of the family.

    What makes it more galling is the fact many of those older cousins act so patronizingly as if they knew far more than me despite the fact several of them f%%ked up their academic and professional careers because they goofed off too much while I managed to not only attend a well-reputed institution, but do so without having to burden my parents thanks to a near-full scholarship and working part-time and summers. To be fair, they probably are doing this not only due to extended cousins’ rivalry, but also due to their ageist entitlement and the fact they resent it when I respond to their patronizing attitudes by pointing out that I did not f&*k up like they did at my age.

45. Agreed that, sometimes, there’s only so much you can do- thankfully, that’s not every case.

    Not exactly sure how feminist I turned out- I was raised in what some people might think of as an odd mix of liberal and traditional- but I generally learned from examples first and foremost. (Including an older sister that sounds not-unlike some of the other posters here.)

    I can say that it’s more productive in general to promote ‘do‘s over ‘ do not ‘s. Also, starting at ‘ground-level’, rather than theoretical, might also be a good place to start. I was pretty well-taught that you just don’t treat people certain ways, long before I ever got to anything approaching theory.

    (Of course, that applies to a lot of things. )

    Hopefully, this doesn’t sound like a platitude, but for people in a situation where (x) is vilified, just having someone around who is (x), but clearly isn’t the stereotype can be a big influence.

    this feminist picnic will wither and die.</em

    >

    Aw, crap, now what am I gonna do with all this potato salad?

Comments are currently closed.