to find some modern aspects of feminism patronising to women?

[glitterkitten]

I say "modern aspects" as i am more than aware that historical feminist activism has led to my being able to work in a professional job, has given me choices, has improved the general quality of life for women since etc etc.

An example of what i find patronising to the extreme is the recent protest by feminist groups at the opening of the Playboy Club in London.

wild haired, wild eyed women waved placards and protesting about how playboy exploit women, how evil men were manipulating women and that essentially, women who worked within such industries needed to be saved.

how can these women think that they need to save other women, who are simply exercising their right to make independent choice regarding how they make a living?

these women will deny / ignore the fact that some women working in such an industry (in all its guises) CHOOSE to earn a living that way. they earn a good wage, shock horror, they may even ENJOY it!

i find it so patronising. Intensely.

as i said above, i work in a professional career. i have no issues with strip clubs, lap dancing bars, playboy etc. i have accompanied my husband to such clubs on occasion. those women if anything, are taking advantage of the men who sit and dribble at them. the women have the last laugh with the money they make which is undoubtedly higher than the national minimum wage. would a feminist seek to tell me i am wrong??

[DoMeDon]

[glitterkitten]

do you mean ?

[winnybella]

[MadamMemoo]

Yabu and a bit thick

[DoMeDon]

Meant - tis slang innit - as in you make me want to vomit HTH

[glitterkitten]

my opinion makes you want to vomit for what reason??

[scarlettsmummy2]

have you ever read any feminist literature??????? exploitation?? Go and get some Andrea Dworkin.

[RitaMorgan]

Going to strip clubs with your husband? Why not take the kids, make a day of it!

[nijinsky]

wild haired, wild eyed women waved placards and protesting

Would it be better if they went to the hairdressers first and held candles in the air while simpering?

You are obviously very open minded. Not everyone finds the sleazieness and associations with trafficking of women from very poor countries as appealing as you.

Its nothing to do with being a feminist, and all to do with personal boundaries.

[GeekCool]

What has their hair got to do with it? Are feminist expected to have perfectly coiffed hair these days?

[glitterkitten]

i'm not advocating trafficking or exploitation ffs. way to overreact and exaggerate!

i'm also not surprised at the responses tbh. i had hoped that some reasonable debate could be achieved.

to be called "thick" for having an opinion that doesn't comply with another is somewhat indicative of the insulator's own IQ.

perhaps i should clarify my point.

could someone with a feminist "persuasion" ever accept that a woman can be a lapdancer/playboy bunny/hooters waitress or whatever through free will, and that that woman might enjoy her work and the lifestyle that brings? or would the assumption be that said woman was exploited or "thick"....

[seeker]

Yes, I will tell you that you are wrong. There may be a few - a very few women in the sex undustry who have made informed choices and who earn good money. But those few are the tip of an iceberg of exploited abused women who earn very little if anything, and who have no choice, and who are often destroyed, body and spirit, by a battery farm industry in which they are mere comodities - to be used up and discarded - to be replaced by more desperate, poor, choiceless women.

And the Playboy Clubs are there to make it look glamorous, like a career choice, and to deflect our eyes from the real issue of eexploited, abused women and girls.

[ZumbaRumba]

Feminism, for me, is not about women doing whatever the hell they like and saying 'But I am a feminist, making my own choices'. That is the katie Price world of feminism, where we are all supposed to pat a woman on the back for making money out of showing her tits to men.

Why? Feminism shouldn't be about attacking other women, no, but it certainly shouldn't be about condoning or supporting behaviour that adversely affects other women, including our own daughters (which I believe the sex industry, on the whole, does).

Feminism is about striving to ensure equality for women in all areas of life. And a world where (mostly) men pay to ogle at naked (mostly) women isn't an equal one.

Those 'wild haired' women were bloody well within their rights to make a fuss about that.

p.s. if the women had been beautifully manicured and coiffured, would it have made a difference to you?

[hobbgoblin]

Extremism either way is not pro-feminism imo.

We can object or condone as individuals - what makes this a feminist issue is the underbelly of exploitation. The vast majority of strip clubs, massage parlours and brothels are designed to disguise this reality. Until there exist FairTrade, organic locally sourced knocking shops one cannot take a feminist approach to getting off on frequenting such places.

I quite like watching a partner salivate over naked sexuality btw.

[ZumbaRumba]

and what seeker said!

[RitaMorgan]

Yes, some sex workers enjoy their jobs and earn good money - don't doubt it.

It's still a misogynistic industry and damaging to women as a whole though.

[GeekCool]

Well said Seeker

[nijinsky]

But by using this "industry" you are supporting the more unsavoury aspects of it. You cannot simply divorce the bits you like!

You are not getting the reasonable responses you hoped for (i.e. ones agreeing with you) because your OP is so biased.

Do you do everything that your DH suggests? Do you believe everything that people with an interest in pulling the wool over your eyes tells you?

In answer to your question at the end of your last post, IMHO the best way to deal with this industry is to keep it as restricted and out of the mainstream as possible. Once boundaries of personal decency go out the window, we are all at risk from the consequences.

No doubt you will next quote the cliche of the Dutch experience - except there they have found that their open minded and regulatory approach isn't working and has simply made the country a haven for trafficking and are now changing the regime to a much stricter, less encouraging one.

[catinboots]

Is it me or has MN gone BONKERS recently.

Every thread I click on is MENTAL....

[SybilBeddows]

OP is one of those naive people who doesn't know about trafficking I think.

rofl @ 'wild haired, wild eyed women'. Not a feminist yourself then OP?

[BettySwollocksandaCrustyRack]

YANBU - I so agree with you....I think sometimes they make such ridiculous issues out of certain things that they trivialise their serious issues and no one is willing it listen to really important stuff as they get written off as loonies!!

I go to my spin session with a great girl who used to be a lap dancer......she did it coz she loved it, the money was good and the hours really suited her for childcare..........I dont class a lap dancing club as being in the sex industry either!

[hobbgoblin]

I disgaree somewhat with the above position. There isn't a demand for the male equivalent in quite the same way. Is that because of female repressed sexuality or because of gender specific sense of sexual self? To be equal is not to be the same.

[MarianneM]

"Going to strip clubs with your husband? Why not take the kids, make a day of it!"



YABU OP, and an idiot. Is this a wind-up?