Monthly Archives: July 2012

Jul25

I am collecting phrases and words that, if we change how we use them and change there meaning will change the world! Examples are, ‘babe’, ‘chick’, paternity instead of maternity and many others.

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From Jody, via Changing Women on LinkedIn

Let’s change “stay at home mom” to “stay at home parent“. I am a mom and the working parent in my household. This makes the title applicable to dads as well as moms and helps us change the attitude that if one parent stays home with the kids it doesn’t automatically mean its the mom.

Good idea Jody, “Stay at home PARENTS – I will add this to the list!  You are so right.  The current term discriminates against men who choose to stay at home and will help to change attitudes.  Interestingly, I am in correspondence with a men’s group in India who are trying to ‘change women’ by getting them to accept that men can do traditional female roles!  We take this for granted in the western world, but fathers and husbands in India are having a tough time convincing women to share the traditional feminized roles of carer, primary parent and stay at home manager.  They argue (and rightly so I think) that women need to accept that men can do these roles as well as women and this action will help the fight for the equality of women because men will start to accept their own ability and responsibility.  They currently feel hindered by the enormous cultural pressure and history of women as carers, supporters and primary parents and feel that men that choose to express themselves in using the stereotypical (soft) ‘female attributes’ are being discriminated against by feminists.  It’s an interesting discussion and I am currently encouraging them to join our Changing Women.org site so we can start to discuss each issue one at a time.  It is vitally important, I think for those of us who have a voice to help those who want a voice to be heard.

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Jul20

More language talk – changing Maternity

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The way we use language is so important to the way that we are seen and the way that we percieve and understand the world. I believe that we can change the world through changing our language by pulling apart the words and phrases that we use, and by changing them we can change the world because we have given the words new meaning. Here are some examples;

- spoilt children

Normally when the world spoilt to used it means that something has been negatively effected and if you think of food that is spoilt, then it is food that we would throw away and not generally eat. Children are not like this, no children are spoilt in this way.  We would not think of throwing a child away because they were ‘spoilt’ so why do we put those two words together?

Maternity leave -

When we use the word ‘maternity’ we reduce the effect of parenting to just one person, the female. Instead of empowering women’s rights as a parent, the word reduces child raising to a ‘women’s role’ instead of a parenting role that is the responsibility of both mother and father, male and female.  In effect using the word ‘maternity’ instead of ‘paternity’ takes accountability for child care away from the male and increases the burden of child care on the female, or the mother.  We continue to associate child are as the primary role of women, but by using the term parental leave we are both inclusive and enabling of both parents and I believe, send a strong message to society that raising children is the responsibility of society, not just a mother.

The continued use of the word maternity disadvantages women, particularly in the corporate work place where women’s careers are still likely to be more effected by this leave of absence than a man’s because it is under the guise of ‘maternity leave’.

The use of the term, ‘parental leave’ forces us to recognise that being a parent is the responsibility of both parents, not just a mother, it takes a male and a female to produce a child even in a same sex relationship. The use of the word parental forces society to recognise that we are all involved in the act of child care, even those who don’t have children, need children to sustain our society.

 

Jul4

He is a bit feminine because he wears a scarf and is an actor.

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Beckham sure looks good in one!

In the car of the weekend with my 14-year-old daughter and a couple of her friends, when one of them commented about a male friend that they all have in common.  She was heard to say of the boy, “he is a bit feminine”.  When I asked her what this meant she said that he wore scarfs and was an actor.  Interesting I thought, seems we are still teaching our young girls to look for the ‘jocks’ and value the stereotypical ‘mans man’ attributes instead of the very attributes that we expect to see in a female‘s and would most likely form the basis of a relationship based on equality, trust and care.

For this boy, showing attributes like care, consideration, showing feeling and being sensible enough to wear a scarf in the cold pale into the background for many girls who would rather be with a boy that demonstrates attributes like arrogance, disdain and disrespect.   What seems to still be the most attractive for girls looking for a boyfriend is his status or his standing among his peers.  Add to these attributes a reluctance to show feelings and an inability to communicate effectively and you have the makings of an unbalanced relationship.

The feeling nurturing attributes that are so important in female’s, often seem undervalued in a male’s.  Why is this still the case in 2012?  It’s not like caring is only possible if you are female, many men care deeply even if they don’t always show it.  We so often see fantastic examples of men who are incredible communicators, Bill Clinton springs to mind and there are others who capture the very essence of the mood, who communicate feeling, value and comfort so easily, so why are these attributes still undervalued in our young men?

There has been an argument that women naturally seek out the strongest most dominant mate to father the healthiest of children but I dispute this theory.  Girls are constantly exposed to this message but having a caring mate would surely be the preference for most women.  I am sure that the ability for parents to raise self-confident and self-sustaining caring children into adulthood requires more than the most dominant genes.  How much easier would it be to have a partner who had some of those ‘female’ attributes’ of compassion, empathy and unconditional love.

We continue to pit girl against girl in the search for the best male partner, and over time women have developed some competitive behaviors that are so destructive.

Enough is enough!

Teach your boys to be strong independent men, confident enough to be themselves, to express themselves fully using all the male and female attributes available to them.  Teach your girls the same thing and lets stop girls and women fighting amongst ourselves!

Many of the most loved, sexy and popular  men are actors, and some would be sensible enough to wear scarfs and as adult women we appreciate the sensitive side to them.  The most popular movies for women often show a strong, yet sensitive male, one who is able to communicate and care so why do we still have our young girls scoffing at the notion?