My favourite colour is pink. I love when my husband opens doors for me or brings me flowers. Buy me an appliance and I’m in heaven. I enjoy cooking Sunday dinner (actually, I enjoy cooking meals). I handle most of the grocery shopping, household errands and chores. I love to take bubble baths, gossip with my girlfriends and Cosmo’s are my favourite drink. I choose to go old school and be that “strict” mom instead of the “get down to their level” parent.
I’m not sorry for these things. I am not setting feminism back 100 years. I like what I like, I do what I believe in and that’s it.
When I wrote a list of my top 4 “Must Have Smart-Phone Apps For Women”, I was coming off cloud 9 after discovering a grocery list app that practically transformed my life. Ok, so it didn’t quite , but with 2 active school-aged kids and a husband who works long hours, anything that makes my day easier is worth screaming from the rooftops. I decided to expand the post and discuss apps that I thought my women friends might not know about and would enjoy. It was simply a list of the 4 apps I use most often and why I like them. Next, I’ll probably share my favourite games to play while waiting for the kids school bus to arrive.
Apparently I upset at least one reader because my choice of apps. Her comment was as follows:
“So all women do is bleed, shop and whine about stuff? Really? Shameful.”
After my attempt at explaining the point behind my post (which was literally just to share my favourite apps and start a discussion about what apps others find useful), she had more to say:
“But to say that the top 4 apps for women are all cliche apps that help ladies out with their super difficult lives is just a little ridiculous. There were so many other options for you but you choose to go the stereotypical route.”
Ok, this is where I get fired up. Part of being a woman, and a proud woman, is being able to be who you want to be. Some women opt for the career path, fulfilling themselves in work and social activities and fitness. Others opt for motherhood, mini-vans and mai-tai’s with the girls every other week. Then there is everything in between. There’s nothing wrong with making the choice that is best for you. All valid and each representative of what women are: amazing, vulnerable and beautiful. To say that being a “stereotypical” woman isn’t modern enough, or feminist enough, is actually anti-feminist.
Be who you are and don’t apologize for it. I will not apologize because MY tastes are “cliche”. I will not apologize because these smart-phone apps actually do help me in my day to day life. I will not apologize for being a stereotypical “woman”. I’m not being sexist or anti-feminist – I can still put on a dress, pop out babies and write down my feelings, while being a strong, modern day woman.
However, I won’t deny, I bleed, I shop, I whine. I’m not sorry for that.
Jenn Perry
On her Blog: http://thats-what-she-said.ca/
Twitter: @ThatJennPerry
Facebook: www.facebook.com/ThatJennPerry
8 Comments
Hear hear! Thanks for sharing and although I’m the working-balls-to-the-wall-i-prefer-black-over-pink mom, I still love you because you’re amazing and everyone else can just stfu.
YES! Way to go, Jenn. The goal of the feminist movement was NOT to eschew all things “girly” – it was about CHOICE. You made yours, Gloria Steinem made hers – we ALL make our choices and should never have to apologize for them. I consider myself a feminist also. Some of the things I enjoy? Having Huzbo drive me everywhere, not doing yard or car or garage work, having the door opened and held for me, and not taking out the trash or shovelling snow! Why are we as women so quick to judge and criticize our own gender? Love this post and I hope it makes your blog troll go “hmmm….”!!
I too tend to do all the shopping, love pink and (because I am still able to bear children) bleed. Nothing wrong with it! I also have a husband who does 75% of the cooking, vacuums and splits the bedtime routines with our daughter as equally as possible. He’s a pretty modern guy. 😉
I can honestly say, my modern husband would be interested in exactly ZERO of the apps you mentioned. I was definitely interested in the shopping list one! I wish I had of read that blog before I pulled a very typical move of writing out a grocery list and leaving it at home! The other three aren’t of much interest to me, but only because I am so in tune with my body I know where I am in my cycle, journalling has never been for me, and I’m honestly too lazy to sign up for the cash back app!
Good on you for sticking to your guns! Too bad people couldn’t have responded constructively instead of with “whining”. 😉
Thanks! Yes, the irony of the commenter whining herself did not get passed me. hehe
Things I can now add to the description of these apps now that I’ve played with them a little longer:
period app – also great for telling you which days you are safest to have nookie (hehe)
grocery list app – voice button recognizes anything, not just groceries, so it’s great for lists of any kind
diary app – can also be used as a calendar-style scrapbook – fantastic for keeping memories while on vacation
the other grocery one doesn’t have any cool “other” uses… yet! 😉
xo – J
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It’s not the enjoying of these things that risks setting off or setting back feminists. I’m a hard core feminist yet I love skirts, heels and cooking.
I think what gets people upset is the pigeon holing.
4 must have apps for women… What kind of woman?
There is also the claiming “typical women” anything.
I have a vagina and breasts… This is what makes me a typical woman. The end.
In my circle I’m very typical actually… And I’ll gladly sit down to a beer or rye & ginger while we discuss hockey or comic books…just so long as there isn’t a good zombie anything on TV cause then I’m right up in there. That is typical where I hang out.
As for the mention of pink. Um…pink was a boys colour up until the 1940’s.
So to say that these are ‘typical’ female, woman, XX chromosome anything is in fact gender stereotyping.
Feel free to enjoy what ever you wish. That’s what feminists fought and continue to fight for but don’t gender isolate and then cry fowl
In much of Europe, men still sport lots of pink and look fabulous in it!
Love your “girlness” in any shape or form. I do hate groceries and cooking though…so my top apps would be how to praise my husband when he cooks, and how to teach your children how to spot a deal in the produce aisle…do those exist. Go Pink!