Aimeé
Most families don’t all share the same politics, but it can still be shocking to discover what someone in your family believes that you never knew. Redditor u/yakkyjakky found out she and her sister have completely different views on feminism after an argument came out of nowhere, and she was afraid she reacted the wrong way. She went to r/AmItheA–hole for advice under the title, “AITA for telling my nieces that how they look IS important and something they should care about?”
The OP says that things have blown up so much she’s been disinvited to Christmas. It started when she was babysitting her two nieces, who are nine and eleven.
“My sister is a big feminist (so am I) who always makes her feminism a huge part of the way she’s raising her kids,” she says. “Like, talk about raising her kids at all, feminism comes up.”
The three of them were playing dress-up when the older one called the game “silly” because “it doesn’t matter what you look like, it’s what’s on the inside that counts.”
This is a very nice idea, but a little vague. The OP told her niece she didn’t have to play dress-up, but she’d like to know more about what the girl meant:
She happily told me all about how caring about your appearance is “vain” and people shouldn’t care about what you wear, how much you weigh, what color your hair is, etc. That girls who are really into fashion or makeup had bad parents who should care more about making sure they’re smart and do well in school.
Then she asked me why I cared about things like that because she always thought I was “too smart” for that.
At this point, the OP wondered if she messed up by being honest with her niece:
I told her that I care what I look like because I want to be respected by others, I want others to be attracted to me, and that no matter what we tell ourselves, society does care and does judge men and women for how we look. I tried to explain that sometimes society cares too much, but that grooming ourselves, wearing well fitting and clean clothes, etc are things we should all care about. I also said that being interested in fashion and makeup don’t make anyone less intelligent, that they’re both ways of expressing ourselves and can be very artsy as well.
The kid apparently was really bothered by this and told her aunt that she couldn’t believe the OP was “one of them.” Later on, her sister called her and was furious at the OP for “poisoning her daughters by forcing unobtainable feminine beauty ideals on them.”
“At no point did I say that they had to maintain a size 2 figure, shave, have long hair, spend thousands on designer clothes, etc.,” said the OP. “But she’s making it out to seem like I babysat her kids and now they’re destined to become Serena Vanderwoodsen.”
Almost no one in the comments thought the OP was being an a–hole. Feminism isn’t about forcing all women to like the same stuff—books—and hate all the same stuff—looks—because it’s about choice. Being super judgmental about what other women like isn’t going to do anything about gender equality.
But a few people did think the OP f–cked up. Caring only about looks isn’t a great way to go through life, either, and it is good to have a conversation with kids about how societal standards force people to do stuff they don’t want to.
This seems like a moment to have more conversation rather than shutting out family members over a dress-up game gone wrong. Feminism is complicated, it’s not going to get worked out in one yelling phone call.
More best of AITA 2020:
- Woman Cancels Gift-Giving After Years Of Getting Tacky Trash From People And Wants To Know If She’s Being “Spoiled”
- Mom Flips Out On Teacher Who Told Daughter “Life Isn’t Fair” When She Was Stressed Out
- Guy’s Question About “Most Physically Painful Thing” Sparks Argument About Childbirth (30 Tweets)
- Woman Asks If She Was Wrong To Blame Her Friend’s Breakup On Quarantine Weight Gain
Featured Image: Pexels/Dhemer Gonçalves
