Ramblings

Fuck the patriarchy!

How to train your sexist little piggies to be less sexist little piggies.

Yesterday morning, just before school there was a gigantic and epic hissy fit thrown by Bella who claimed that her younger brother was sexist. She’s brilliant at throwing tantrums so this was nothing new. I listened to her complaint with interest.

It wasn’t blatant sexism per se. It was that casual, underhand sexism that boys learn from a young age in the playground.

All he stated was that “it’s twice as bad getting burned by a girl!”

If you’re not up on the lingo of eight year old boys, “burned” means “put down” “wittily mugged off” or “verbally chastised in a humorous way”

I talked to him about it and he claimed that it wasn’t a sexist statement. To be frank, he didn’t get what he’d said at all. He’d just copied what he’d heard at school and tried to apply it somewhere to make himself sound cool because he’s a bit of a dick sometimes. He didn’t really understand what being “sexist” was so myself and militant feminist Bella, tried to explain to him.

I’m fucking determined that my boys won’t grown up to be sexists!

I tried to explain it to him in very easy terms whilst Bella carried on foaming at the mouth and claiming that the boys in her class were sexist too. On the way to school I tried to explain in really unbelievably simple terms, female emancipation.

Somebody should make a video game about this subject as that’s the only thing that he’s interested in. It should have a dance in it.

Let me just say that some eight year old boys might get this subject but Oscar was bewildered. Either that or he’s outwitted me and he’s the slyest twat around.

We talked about the suffragettes but he didn’t really get it because trying to explain how government works and how a political party gains power can’t be done in five minutes. Oscar just looked perplexed and asked random weird questions to prove that he understood nothing of what was being said to him.

“So what about the queen Mummy?”

“It’s got fuck all to do with the queen darling, nobody mentioned her!”

As we hurried towards school, late as usual, I explained to him about the eleven year old girl who’d been shot in the head by the Taliban because she stood up for girls rights to education. He seemed to understand this a little better. I thought that the timeframe would be better for him to work on given that it was only a few years ago.

“SHE GOT SHOT IN THE HEAD! AND THE BULLET CAME OUT AND SHE LIVED?”

“EPIC!”

“Yes darling” I said, feeling proud that finally I’d got through to him.

I carried on with my tale of a young girl honoured for her bravery and triumphing in the face of adversity.

As I walked home from school drop off I thought what a clever Mummy I was.

“What nice boys I will raise. They will be domesticated and thoughtful. They will take an equal share of the household work. Their future wives will bow down at my feet and say what a good mother I was to them”

This morning, warming to my theme, I showed both boys the video of the lady that ran the Boston Marathon when women weren’t allowed to. If you haven’t seen it, it’s worth a watch and the comments on it are worth reading too because they are fucking hilarious. It’s doing the rounds at the moment. I explained to him that in 1967 his Nana and his granny Juju wouldn’t have been able to run a marathon if they’d have wanted to because the men said that women couldn’t run that far because they were weak.

“But Nana and Juju can’t run!” Oscar offered as only Oscar could.

“Yes but when they were twenty, if they’d wanted to run a marathon, they wouldn’t have been allowed in the race because of the sexist patriarchal society darling”

As we watched the video of the horrible race official grabbing at our heroine Kathrine Switzer for simply running a marathon, tears ran down my cheeks. I read out the words on the short video explaining how she’d finished in four hours and twenty minutes. Whilst I did this, I internally high fived myself that I’d done better than her because I’m a bitch like that.

“How many marathons has Daddy run darlings?”

“Err none”

“How many marathons has Mummy run?”

“A few?”

“That’s six darlings, six!”

“So fifty years ago women weren’t allowed to run marathons because of male oppression. So you know about sexism now and you understand that you shouldn’t say that girls aren’t as good as boys”

“Oh yeah”

Just then, Dangerous came downstairs and scratched his balls.

“Oscar and Ted have been learning that they aren’t going to be sexist pigs when they grow up! What do you say Daddy?”

“Yeah, where’s the coffee?”

“Darlings tell Daddy what we have learned about sexism please.”

Oscar looked vacant so I jogged his memory

“You remember what we talked about on the way to school yesterday…”

“Yes, Daddy, a girl got shot in the head with a big gun by some bad guys. Her eye was hanging out and her brain was all gooey but she was fine the next day so she came to live in our country!”

“No, we talked about sexism and the oppression of women and girls didn’t we”

Dangerous looks at them and said “an impression of a lady? I can do that..”

And then like the great father and humanitarian that he is, he put on his best falsetto, stood on his tiptoes, to suggest that he was wearing high heals, fluttered his eye lashes and squeaked “I’m a lady, look at me, I’m a lady!”

As a wise woman once said “fuck the patriarchy!” I think it was my militant feminist daughter.

I’m teaching them to hoover up after themselves though. It’s never too early to start.

I am now mainlining Silver Fox Gin whilst wearing;

Zara t shirt from last year about a tenner
Zara trousers from last year – under a tenner
Epic scarf from Rew