Feminism?

[teyla]

As a rule, I try to keep out of feminist discussions, because they usually end up giving me a headache. But I just had a conversation with my sister which made me wonder what you guys would say.


Picture this: In a city where most bus drivers are male, there's a female bus driver whose driving quite objectively sucks.

Question:

Is it the duty of that female bus driver to change her driving style so as not to enforce some people's prejudices about women and driving,

or

should the female bus driver keep driving the way she drives because if people see their prejudices justified by her driving, it's a problem they have to work on themselves, and nobody should expect the female bus driver to change her ways just because of those people?

Discuss! ;)

ETA: Of course, whether or not the female bus driver should change her driving because she's endangering people by driving suckily is another discussion entirely. This is just about whether or not the first point above is a valid point or not.

Comments

[teyla]

Why are most of the bus drivers male?
I don't know. In my city, they just are ;).

I think using this particular scenario is distracting to people.
Yeah, true. I just used it because it was what my sister and I were talking about - there's this one female bus driver we both know and think drives suckily, and that's how this discussion developed in the first place.

if you are deliberately acting in a way which goes against some misogynistic expectation, you are still on some level giving that expectation some credit.
Hah, you guys all have so many better ways to put this than I had. This is exactly what I told my sister. She didn't agree with me, though. Even though usually, she's the more feminist one of the two of us.

Which only makes me wonder once again how useful and constructive some feminist ideals actually are.