Thank you for blessing me with a mind to rhyme and two hype feet

Well. That little supermarket story seems to have hit a nerve and generated some interesting reactions.

I feel mean judging the mother like that, and I know that I might have taken what I saw and heard out of context. Like Amy said, it just might have been an ironic statement, though I didn't hear it that way. And like Karen said - and my sister (who has three small children) reacted similarly - maybe she would have said much the same to a boy who was banging inappropriately or annoyingly on the trolley handle.

I would probably buy this explanation, except that the child wasn't just banging or shouting, she seemed to be gleefully and not that loudly saying 'hammer hammer hammer' which makes me think she was actually acting out hammering specifically and maybe had been watching someone do it recently (or someone playing with a toy hammer). And the mother didn't sound annoyed or irritated, she said what she said quite sweetly to her daughter. Maybe she was annoyed but trying to be a "nice girl" or nice mum.

And that's the thing, even if she wasn't really telling her daughter to be girly and not play at carpentry, it's that phrase "nice girls" that really gives me a chill. I hope that was ironic. It's the sort of script that can replay in your head all your life.

Julie alluded to the risks of being brought up to be a nice girl. I've seen this idea in feminist and abuse survivor writing, about the stuff that women and girls will put up with, and the strategies they choose (and don't choose) in response to uncomfortable situations, in order to be nice and not make a fuss. It is ingrained deep in us.

On the other hand, to some extent we should all be nice. Human beings should on the whole try to be nice to each other. Why should it be the responsibility of women?

I agree with Dr K sometimes it seems like we have gone backwards. I don't know if this is just the 'jetpack effect' - that you would think that a lot more progress would have been made by now. I think there has also been an increase in religious fundamentalism in many parts of the world ... but that doesn't have a really large mainstream presence in Australia, so I don't know.

I wish gender didn't matter so much. I often find myself wishing I lived on an androgynous planet. (I read a wonderful story by Ursula LeGuin like that once.) I like and respond better to people who relate to me as a person (which of course does not exclude my gender) and not as some kind of representative of my gender.

It's 2010. We're living in the future. So where is my jetpack?

I got a rude shock in the supermarket yesterday. A woman pushed her trolley past me. Her little toddler was sitting in the child seat, happily chanting 'hammer! hammer! hammer!' and bouncing her hand up and down.

And the woman said to her daughter:

"No no, you're a nice girl, nice girls don't hammer!"

Wow. This woman must have been about my age. It's so depressing to see someone unthinkingly blurting out this poisonous muck. Or, I suppose, the alternative is that she is deliberately and consciously reactionary about gender roles - in line with a fundamentalist religion for example. Which would also be depressing.

There ain't no genie in the bottle, or in that magazine

Wearing docs or similar flat lace-up shoes was pretty normal for us in our late teens (I was 15 in 1990). You often wore sneakers with your jeans but a plain pair of black lace-ups was a smarter look. Many girls the same age these days wear fancier shoes, even heels, to school - though I have noticed the classic lace-up school shoe seems to be making a comeback.

I often feel sad for teenage girls these days. Such tight, revealing, uncompromising fashions give them nowhere to hide. And even when they can get away with wearing a big baggy hoodie, the jeans or tracksuit pants have to be tight and low slung.

When I was passing through those ages, at first it was the late 80s and your jeans and t-shirts were both baggy and oversized. Not super attractive but very practical at an age where you are not necessarily very confident in your body. Granted, there was that white scoop neck bodysuit-with-jeans fad. (Erk. I had no interest in wearing a top with crotch fastenings.) But even those bodysuits didn't show off your bra straps like the now ubiquitous spaghetti strap tanks do.

Then in the 90s came grunge and the op shop look - anything goes, some quite ugly combinations, but certainly no need to be revealing. These fashions didn't require a big emphasis on femininity. And looking back I think that was a blessing. I was sensitive about my very small bust and I was in my early 20's before both changes in fashion, and in my own confidence, had me starting to wear more fitted clothing.

Does anyone in my age group remember it differently? I guess being a teenager always has its challenges, but it does seem the pressures on girls to be sexy (ie exposed) have increased a lot.

In this vein, The Butterfly Effect is doing wonderful work in the area of body image and self esteem for teenage girls. Taking it a bit further, if you have an appetite for some serious radical feminism - check out I Blame The Patriarchy. Twisty is brilliant, cutting and often hilarious but at first I had to take this in small doses - the truth of it all and how mired we are in it, can seriously get me down.

Set the rest of us free

Today was a first - I wore hand knit socks all day.

I only have two pairs - two finished pairs, that is - and these were only finished last year after it was too warm for wool socks. The first pair are made from a cheap Spotlight wool/nylon blend that didn't feel particularly great on my feet the time or two I tried to wear them.

I do have sensitive feet and I have always had doubts about the 'grainy' feeling of hand knits. I should try those first ones again on a really cold day though - it's when my feet warm up that they get more sensitive and irritable.

For these socks I employed a strategy I've seen suggested here and there. I'm not sure now if I thought of it independently, probably not. The sole of the foot is knit in reverse stocking stitch, so that you wear the smooth side against the skin. You can get much the same effect wearing plain knit socks inside out - this just looks (arguably) a bit more polished.

This was the simple train knitting project during the work trip to Europe last September. I got the first sock done during the trip and the second one soon after returning. People often think my socks look small while on the needles (I have average sized feet). I remember whipping off my shoes and demonstrating the fit of the toe on a train somewhere in Norway. I think they look small because I tend to knit them at a fairly tight gauge on 2mm or 2.25 needles, another strategy to avoid the grainy feeling.

Hand knitted socks are perfect with my new Docs, a bargain on ebay recently. I finally had to admit that my beloved cherry Doc shoes that I bought so long ago (1992?) really were too small. I hadn't worn them much in years. They always needed very thin socks, but my feet have also widened quite a bit over time and they became unwearable. So I passed them on to a friend and now have these ones a size up.

I am loving wearing them to work with my dress pants, on days when I just feel a bit irritable about femininity in general. Sometimes I wonder how I became this person who wears ladylike shoes, carries a handbag and wears makeup every day (very little of it, but definitely essential). I was strongly opposed to all of these things when I was younger. I even wore flat shoes, and no makeup, to the Year 10 and Year 12 graduation formals. Now I enjoy these things - especially a variety of shoes. But I also enjoy having the option of wearing nice sensible lace-up shoes like men do.