Staying warm - the only agenda that matters

It's been a wet and cold week so far in dodging showers and digging out warm dry stuff which really takes me to the meat and potatoes of todays post.

One area when I tend to disagree with traditionalists is over the idea girls or any other female clothing needs to be all thin and feature either a skirt or a dress at all times not least because I grew up in cold environment where it wasn't unusually for winters to be very white.

What it means is what heat our bodies give out isn't being trapped by materials that would help keep us warm leading to a situation where girls may feel get cold quicker just because of gender norms in fashion.

 In areas like mine, because of the cold, often girls did wear warmer clothing even if over a school dress to stay warm and they did include pants or even snow pants with super warm layers which were more suited for winter play.

You often had a thick padded coat with a hood on too keeping you warm.
Staying warm and looking after yourself should never be limited by ones gender because it is a basic human need for all of us.

 In some school areas uniform policies are being adjusted to allow full gender expression and options for all such as Western Australia that decided in September 2017 to allow pants or shorts to be worn by girls.

To me this is about time because uniform is about setting standards so kids look smart at school and avoiding competition in dress and not about being an instrument of gender stereotyping or oppression.

Domestic skills and the girl

It has been a damp start to the week here back at the Dorm which if you're about and on foot as I was bringing bread and that back from the stores  you'd soon notice and in a way that connects to this post and a previous one Gender Spaces. on the other blog.
Sometimes it seems to me, a good few decades of life on earth on somehow we get ourselves lost for all the very best reasons conflicting two things.
Whatever we may feel people should be able to decide fits into their own idea of gender roles, there is much to be said for spending time with the parent of the same gender because it enables them to share with you their own experiences, such as what being a girl is about because actually they've lived it and so have valuable lessons.
No amount of equality training can replace that.

It is the most natural instinct in any society for you as a child to emulate the parent of the same gender as yourself and to spend time with them and for girls that can mean making or buying similar outfits. Most of us actually enjoyed this before the gender studies people came along and said we shouldn't do this. 
Strangely enough at six or seven we do want to be a gender!

We get things wrong when we start to object to the idea a girl shouldn't be expected to learn about cooking and instead elevate the physical and academic over it not because she shouldn't learn these things too but because we fail to ensure boys are also taught and expected to help out in the home too.
Because we don't, we try to protect her by ensuring she can't be taken advantage of by saying it's not her role. The problem is we all need to this for ourselves and that includes her as well as her male siblings and so teaching nobody doesn't help. Cooking is a skill boys need too.

As many a student can recall, next to paying for food, getting the laundry done efficiently matters if everybody isn't to be suffering from stale smelling clothes so there is nothing wrong with showing your daughter how to and even having her help as some of it is bound to be hers.
The problem here is because we're so hung up about sexism and roles we start to say she shouldn't be cos it's sexist. What is sexist is not having her brother do the same, carrying some domestic 'weight' in the household and she needs to see females insisting on it.

To me in trying to fight sexism and the notion it's a females role to run the household exclusively we seem to have devalued that which just needs doing without tackling the core issue:
Putting contributing to the smooth running of the household into core responsibility of boys and men.

Gender Spaces

Another week and one update to Pale Moon and that still hasn't cured the browser of freezing over so we're still in Firefox which as much as I don't like the interface does work very well.

Spaces are a contentious issue as anyone on Tumblr knows only too well and some of that also applies into off line life too as well as what people do when we allow them into our own.
One area I think worth talking about is gender spaces where yes most of us say people should be free to mix with whoever they want, take part in activities together and not be barred from an activity just because of their gender. 
This you might think is the end product of decades of arguments won when it comes to equal opportunities and as such the very last word but today it's not.
Unlike perhaps a few of you I've been in the work place and it isn't uncommon for female employees to actually have their own social groups that they keep to just women going out together or spending time at each others places.
Even in 2018 here in Great Britain there are Universities that only accept women being founded expressly for female higher education and women have voted to keep them that way because they prefer a all female ethos and under English Law at at least a private members club can be all female only too.
Part of the argument is it is nice to have a place just to talk and share things with without men around who as nice as they are would  change the feel by just being there and maybe inhibit conversations people needed.
There is a chunk of me that goes with that, indeed in my area Secondary Education is organized on gender lines unless you go out of town because that's what people here prefer feeling it's less distracting to study and children do better academically with girls feeling more able to show an interest in things like the sciences not trying to be a 'bimbo' or letting the boys take a dominate role and boys more able to express feeling in say both English's without feeling either a 'nerd'  or a 'sissy''.
If you accept the idea that some spaces should be able to be gendered if females wish, then we have to bear in mind we cannot then object if boys and men may also prefer a few   themselves to kept that way such as men's clubs where they may socialize and talk about things that wouldn't happen if a women was there.
That's different than arguing that say a woman shouldn't be allowed to a sports club that runs competitions such as golf clubs where teams are mixed.
Perhaps more give and take on gender spaces rather than battle cries might better suit our needs?

A Mars Bar is can be claimed for anyone spotting the typo in the illustration. 😁