I’m 46, I’ve got an education (Phd engineer), I’m not white, I have a 12 yr old daughter.
I work on a mine site in Australia. I give everyone a chance (usually 6 months) I am totally fed up with the racism, sexism and general red neck stuff. That goes for the young women too I guess they didn’t take the red pill or read Germaine Greer.
I get paid about 30% less than a man, doing the same job. When a man hands over to a woman, he reads out the list of handover information. When a woman hands over to a man in Australia, she prints out the list and he reads it back to her. OMG thanks for a little bit of Sanity on your site.

Every day, I get up, smash the patriachy, then get on with running the plant. bless you for your touch of humor and not ignoring the hard issues, like women in Pakistan being murdered.

I experimented with not plucking my eyebrows for a month and do you know what? It didn’t affect my competence at doing my job.

Kate

I want to say “up your’s” to every guy I encounter and nothing says it better than not wearing the uniform.

Well put, Spiders.

Luxdancer:
“The entire concept that frilly skirts and nail polish are “feminine” as in “an attribute of being like a woman” as opposed to just being frilly skirts and nail polish, without gender categorization, is the problem.”

That’s actually what I was saying.

And I never mentioned frilly skirts. I rarely wear skirts at all.

AK-LA, please re-read my comment.

This is what I meant by “do what you feel like”, that nail polish or whatever isn’t inherently feminine. Similarly high heels were originally for men.

People do want to adorn themselves. As long as there is no pressure to do so, why shouldn’t they?
Would you object to men painting their nails, wearing heels, etc. and if so, why?

The enemy is not nail polish, it’s that certain appearances and ways of behaving are ascribed to one gender or the other.

And whose lip-liner and stilettos? I don’t wear either. I never said I was a girlie girl.

That’s my point, right there. There is a thin line between that women should not feel compelled to enact grooming beyond a bare minimum if they don’t want to, and a kind of victim-blaming, seeing women who do comply with “feminine” as enforced by the patriarchy as mere “sexbots” who can’t possibly have a brain. The devaluing of anything seen as “feminine” is in fact misogyny.

Also worth noting is a mainstream (if fabulously old-school, productionwise) movie called Qaid (Prison). It tells the story of a rich young woman from the city (complete with her own jet ski and SUV) who falls for a reformed chauvinist pig. Her daddy stipulates that he must move in to her house (very unconventional) and he finally agrees. They get married, have a daughter and seem to be the perfect liberated, urbane family. (Being a South Asian movie, that part is told in a song and dance number.) They arrive home after a trip to the ice cream parlor and find a group of scary-macho tribal guys sitting in the living room. They inform the young man that his father is dying and that he needs to come back to take over the tribe. She can’t believe that this is happening — and is even more horrified when he agrees to go. Still, she has faith that he’ll change the tribe for the better.

Well, before you know it, he’s lounging with dancing girls and mustachioed guys with AK-47s and she’s relegated to the zenana (women’s quarters) having all the accouterments of traditional femininity forced on her by the evil mother-in-law. Oh, and she discovers that he’s actually engaged to an elite tribal girl. The only people who have any sympathy for her are the three transwomen and one young woman who is in love with an ‘unsuitable’ nomadic shepherd lad. When the woman planning elopement is murdered by her family, the heroine ends up locked up in a shed and her daughter taken by the tribeswomen. The girl escapes, runs to the shed and, crying pitifully, tells her mother (through the heavy wooden door) about how the mother-in-law is trying to brainwash her about being a ‘proper woman’. The heroine is desperate to save herself and her daughter, and the transwomen come to the rescue. They free the mother, give the pair food and water and smuggle them out of the compound. When the men discover what’s happened, the transwomen confront them about their unjust customs and are summarily killed for their efforts.

The city mother and child, unfortunately, get lost in the desert. Their water runs out. Far in the distance, she can see her father’s truck. On the other side, though, she sees the armed warparty led by her husband. The men on horseback catch up just before her father arrives and she knows that they’re going to kill her.

But hey, turns out they were coming to say that they’ve realized the error of their ways — oh, and there’s the not-really-dead girl and her gypsy fiancee and hey, it’s all good! With brilliant low-budget abruptness, the film ends. The tribal women gained their rights, patriarchy was dismantled and everybody lived happily ever after.

I don’t know how it was received in Pakistan, but the fact that a mainstream song/dance/fight/love/angst film was released with this kind of storyline has to count for /something/!

I’m sorry for the obscenely long post. However, I feel it’s important to show that sick fellows like that senator don’t represent the only view in town, or that concern about these kind of issues aren’t solely the purview of insensitive white feminists!

(Not to say that there’s not still an a**load of patriarchy to destroy.)

And when we live in a post-patriarchal society is the only time we’ll be able to not bag femininity. Until then, it’s simply too costly.

What else do we need to carry around?

A large water bottle, in this climate. Sunscreen and SPF chapstick, and a hat. When I was pregnant or lactating, a snack or two. The book I used to always tote has been replaced by an iPod shuffle with audiobooks on it, which reduces the lugging a bit. Sometimes, something warmer or cooler to wear, and/or a raincoat or umbrella. Tissues or hanky (yay hayfever). Medication.

When I had longer hair, a brush or comb and scrunchie. When accompanied by a baby, I needed lots of other stuff (nappies, change of clothes for him and me, EBM, and so on.) Some people need reading glasses.

But I use a backpack, either small or large depending on how much I need to carry, not a purse.