family

mj

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my dad literally can’t go a day without yelling at my mum bc i don’t know how to cook traditional Bengali dishes/curries at fifteen and apparently its HER fault I can’t cook. he’s constantly talking about how no one would want to marry me because I wouldn’t be able to provide them with decent food after a day at work and then when I asked him how he got married without knowing how to cook, his answer was ‘well im not the daughter in the family, why would I need to know shit like that’. I told one of my teachers at school about how sexist my family is and they called me ‘white-washed’ and ‘western’ and said that that’s just what life is like with immigrant parents. … my teacher’s a middle aged white guy from Manchester-

Maddison

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I’m only going to talk about one instance, but know that I have a list just like everyone else does. This one particularly hurts, because it involves my grandmother. I love her, but she has a deeply ingrained notion of “men coming before women.” When I was really young, about 5 or 6, I would regularly go with her to our local church — Baptist. This particular day, the church was having an event in which the entire thing was run by the kids. In preparation, I told my grandmother that I wanted to be the pastor, which she told me wasn’t possible but humored me nonetheless as I looked through the Bible and found passages I wanted to share. When we got to church, and I proudly exclaimed that I would be the pastor… I was laughed at, by everyone in the room. It was an absolute nightmare; I know now that they thought it was cute that I wanted to do this, but at the time I was horrified. They told me women couldn’t be pastors. I remember spending the rest of the night locked in the bathroom, sobbing, while my grandmother tried to coax me out. When I look back, I think this was a really big turning point for me in a lot of ways. It didn’t only show me that being a girl wasn’t going to be easy, but it also distanced me from religion as a whole. I’m agnostic, now, because I learned to fear god; he wasn’t on my side. I wonder if this outcome would be any different if they had just let me pretend to be the pastor.

Serafina

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My grandfather expected my uncle to learn engineering mechanics, learn by using the tools straight after by grandfather showed him by age 14, right? Well with my mum, according to my grandfather it wasn’t necessary for her to learn how to do that kind of stuff. Another thing is that when my uncle was stressed at work (my uncle is not the bad guy btw) my grandfather was sympathetic but when my mum was stressed at work he said “well you shoul see how stressed your brother is!” And every time my mum had a miscarriage, he would blame it on her job and when she finally got pregnant, all he said was “Finally!” LIKE THATS ALL A WOMAN CAN DO?!!!

20won

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Ever since i was little, i have had to face sexism and misogyny at the hands of my brother and father. Even today i still have to deal with their warped views. Almost every time my brother sees or hears a woman, or even a mention of one, he feels the need to go on rants about how women are the worst and are evil. Even if nothing was attacking him, he still feels attacked whenever a woman is shown in a positive light. He used to regularly insult me and my mother, demeaning us for being women. I would be called stupid and dense for things as simple as not knowing where something was.

Rebekka

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My father-in-law was visiting along with his wife and we shared the happy news that I am pregnant. After expressing his happiness he said, in that supercilious manner he has, “you know, it’s probably for the best that you aren’t doing any carpentry.” I am a very bored construction laborer who would much prefer to be doing carpentry. I hadn’t realized he was so sexist.

Anon

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The guys never have to help out with cooking during family holidays and events. It feels so blatant, so overtly sexist that I have never been able to bring myself to verbalise it. It makes me feel ridiculous! Standing at the kitchen counter peeling potatoes with my aunties and female cousins while the men are in the sitting room sat watching tv?! It makes me feel crazy that nobody talks about it. It’s so obvious! But it’s the obviousness that makes it feel so impossible.

Lamha

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I know this isn’t much to share, but… Since i was born i was treated differently in my family, all the women were. I the women would clean, cook, and do everything. When the women would ask the men to help out with work, they would laugh. The weird thing is that most of the women are fine with it. But it all starts off with my grandfather. Whenever he would visit, he would stay for 2-3 months. He would tell me to sit on his lap, and i would say no. I would always be scared to actually say NO, so i would shake my head. My family members would tell me to not say no, one my aunt which is one of my grandfathers daughters told me not to make a face because he doesn’t like it when I do that. She was trying to make me hide the fact that I was sexually uncomfortable. After i would sit on my grandfathers lap, he would rub his hands down my hands and up my thigh. I would want to cry because while im there screaming inside, my family members are laughing and smiling, not seeing what wrong. This still happens, this has been happening since i was a baby.

anonymous

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idk what this classed as but my uncle ones touched my butt and it made me super uncomfortable i’ve never told anyone but it might not be meant in a wrong way kid a silly joke i’m not sure (11-12 at the time)

Cameron

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I’ve always felt very feminine, even as a child. But only know as a 23 year old have I actually been able to express that. My family, and my old friends were apart of that subtle and unsubtle rhetoric about females, femininity, and such. Because of that, I buried everything and tried to pass very androgynous. It made me feel so lonely. It was through a passion for reading feminist critical theory that I started to see how even I was othering myself. I still feel incredibly confused about myself and currently I dont really know if I have any gender dysphoria or if I’m just so adverse by my own masculinity because it felt like a straight jacket and I dont know how to process it. I finally feel comfortable to dress in women’s clothes and it does make me feel like myself. But since then, I’ve also found that my other Male colleagues dont always look me in the eye in conversation. My mother – and much of my family – do treat me differently, referring to my clothes as ‘wacky’ or as if I’m trying to ‘make a statement’ or as clear as ‘men shouldn’t wear women’s clothes, you don’t want to be a transvestite’. And so I’ve found that I’ve had to draw those relationships to a close because no matter how many conversations we have, all they can do is pass it off as ‘something different’. And that’s been hard. I’m not entirely sure what my point is. But what does hurt is that my partner is uncomfortable with me wearing makeup. I understand in the 5 years weve been together, I went through a very sudden and hasty change, but I do wish I could without feeling guilty or anything. I also understand that my issues here are in no comparison to what so many other people go through and so apologise if I’ve wasted anyone’s time or space in this project.

Leyla

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So i (15f) have a cousin (20f). A few months ago my cousin was going to her home when the brother of a close friend of hers harassed her. He was really drunk. She told him in a ferm voice to leave her alone. He kept bothering her and stopped when she called her brother and the guy heared a male voice. This al happened in a slim and a bit shady street. Today the topic came on and my grandmother got mad at my cousin for even going into that street. I got upset when I heard her say a thing as such and told her it was not her fault that it happened and that if they wanted to blame someone they should blame the guy who harassed her. She again said that she should have taken that path home (the fastest and easiest route) and that her mom told her before she should take another path. When I repeated myself she turned around and told me I should stay out of it and shut up. I of course got mad at her and told her that she was only telling me to shut up because she knew I was right and that she was a sexist. My mom yelled at me and I just went to another room ’cause i couldn’t take it anymore. My mom always tells me that she’s sexist but that i have to accept it because she’s old. She’s in her 60’s. When we were alone half an hour later my mom told me that i should remember where I stand and that I was disrespectful.