Thought for the day…

So, I was on my way to my daughter’s yesterday – waiting in lane to get onto the motorway. I heard someone ‘sitting’ on their horn. Can’t be for me! No lights on my dashboard. In the right lane. I looked at the car, the number plate. Pretty sure I don’t know them. Moving as fast as I can in fairly heavy traffic. It quickly became obvious that it was me this person was noisily harassing! It seemed that I wasn’t going fast enough or moving out of the way for them. This person continued to sit on their horn as we joined the motorway and as they passed me, whilst giving me a long final blast of their horn!! I gave them the middle finger!!! As you do!

BUT HERE IS THE POINT…

As I watched them weave in and out of traffic ahead, at way passed the speed limit, I thought to myself – got to be a man, acting like that! OHH!! Almost immediately, I wondered if I should be thinking that? Was I being sexist? If I said that out loud to someone, would it be socially unacceptable?

BUT HERE IS THE THING!…

Not so long ago, it was quite acceptable for men to make jokes about women drivers. Women drivers were worse drivers than men. Women should not be allowed behind a wheel of a car. Blah, blah, blah!! But now, you don’t here those jokes anymore. I’m guessing, they are socially unacceptable and seen as sexist. Back in the day of course, this was all part and parcel of the patriarchal view that women should be in the home, looking after the house and the children, and of course, their husbands, and I guess it was therefore out of the question that women should be able to drive because this gave them independence! Men needed to drive because they were the providers and had to go to work. Where did these beliefs come from? I want to know how these beliefs came to be. Still, it would appear that things are slowly changing and those sexist jokes about women drivers are, mainly, a thing of the past. So, here is the thing…if that is the case, then I am given encouragement that we can make domestic abuse socially unacceptable, which of course, you all know, is the mission of my beloved NCDV, but also my personal mission too. I didn’t really think about it until yesterday when I had to question my own thoughts and whether I was being sexist and saying something socially unacceptable. We all do it, of course. We all think these things even if we don’t say them out loud to other people. And I think that is fine. Because even if we don’t immediately question ourselves, as I did, if we think things, rather than say them, it shows that we are all aware of what is ok to voice and what isn’t. And I feel that our behaviour very much plays into this. I’m talking very much in general here.

Just wanted to share my thoughts with you all.

Still think it was a man though!!! WHOOPS!!