Is it easier to be a feminist if you are a lesbian?

"yes you can regain a career or build one for the first time but none the less a woman who is married and relies upon her husbands income can be left suddenly and find herself in a very difficult financial situation and that career won't be instant and won't be easy to build whilst raising small children solo.

not saying the gamble shouldn't be taken just that it exists."

Yes, I see what you're saying. Does it work the other way around? There are men who are left in the lurch by women who abandon their families. Not just a feminist issue, then.

If women are brought up have high self-esteem and a good understanding of relationships and the politics of relationships, then are they less likely to find themselves with an unreliable partner? My mother was brought up in a very secure family but came to feminism as a young woman and certainly wasn't brought up in a feminist family - her first marriage was to a charming shit. Her second was to someone very like my husband. I have been brought up in a feminist household, and decided I would never marry when I thought men were all like my real dad. My step-dad restored my faith in men (not all, obviously, but in the potential that there are men out there who aren't shits) and I married someone very like him in terms of values and principles. I was lucky to find him, I know. But I wouldn't have let myself end up with a shit - I have too much self-respect to do that...thanks to my upbringing from my wonderful mum and step-dad.

At the times when I've felt most pissed off with men I've begun to wish I were a lesbian. I've even tried to persuade myself that I could be lesbian (against all evidence).

My DH would describe himself as feminist - but I think the social conditioning goes so deep that I'm not sure any man could truly be a feminist.

It's a bit like psychological experiments about 'aversive racists' - on the surface they proclaim anti-racist views but in psychological experiments their responses to priming tests demonstrate a hard wired level of prejudice that not even they are aware of or would consciously want to ascribe to.

I think ultimately all men are a bit like that about women - the mass exploitation of women that has gone on for generations leaves its mark on the most apparently enlightened of men. The evidence of this seeps out at unexpected moments. (Like in a heated debate with my DH when he suddenly announced I was 'lucky' that he did 'so much' childcare, as most men were 'so much worse' than him - this is what psychologists would call the use of societal normative standards to justify inequality).

So all in all, I think it must be easier to be feminist and lesbian because by not having to consort with men, you must ended up feeling less sullied by having to collude (however unwillingly) in their warped value systems.

Rant over. And actually I do love my DH, but not his conditioning into certain male modes of behaviour.

No, I suppose that's true, SAF, except that I am working very part time self-employed, so I am making Class 2 NI contributions. I see that is not necessarily the case for most SAHPs.

Sakura - Sorry...making my way through this fascinating thread!

"I have been entirely faithful to DH for the 5 years we've been married. It has been okay, if a little dull compared to my pre-married life, and obviously my babies have more than filled the gap, but I don't think it's a natural set-up, just a societal one."

The tv prog I mentioned took the presenter to a longstanding free love commune in Germany, where they all tried to live with those principles. People still felt a great deal of jealousy and hurt when their lovers took other lovers.

Sakura: "I think marriage, I mean the idea behind monogamous marriage, is an ENORMOUS leap of faith and naivety optimism.
I mentioned on the another thread that SAHMism is very similar to prostitution and society has been set up in that way. "

Hmm...I disagree, actually...well, I mean, I don't entirely understand what you mean. My DH and I entered into monogomous marriage in a spirit of openness and honesty and trust and both believing in the security that having two parents who live in harmony with one another can give to children. I do agree that far too few couples go into marriage like this. Far too few couples talk to eachother honestly and openly and discuss issues giving eachother equal respect. I know I sound very smug, but I kind of am - DH and I work very hard at our marriage; keeping it equal; keeping us both happy; changing things as and when necessary to maintain that. I don't see that it was a leap of faith for us.

Also, is it all SAHMing that is akin to prostitution in your opinion, or just coerced SAHMing?

Bearing in mind how many people change career in their working lifetimes nowadays, does your concern about how you have no chance to gain any real power if you choose SAHPing hold water for people who have children very young and go onto have long, successful careers later on in life?

I ask because I had my last (of 4) baby aged 28 and, even if I don't start doing paid full-time work until she's 18, I'll still have plenty of time to have a fulfilling, exciting career.

Interesting point SAF about some people preferring the cut and dried notions of gayness/straightness because it makes their own attraction to people of the same sex easier to explain. I have a friend who calls themself gay, now lives with someone of the same sex, yet slept with a lot more people of the opposite sex before this relationship began. I met with a stony response when I suggested that sleeping with loads of opposite sex people might indicate something more complex (towards bisexuality) than just plain 100% homosexuality. Not sure why really. (And before you say it's because I was being a nosy bat, we are very close)

Its the equivalent of champagne socialism isnt it - saying that you're one thing and then doing something else. Though I'm aware that I wouldnt want my own feminism judged on this score.

My dh wouldnt say he was a feminist anyway - he would say he was a humanist or in fact a libertarian. Although he has read more of the feminist literature than me and did a lot of gender studies at university.

yes omnishambles, I don't think men can be self-proclaimed feminists. I think that's an oxymoron. I think feminists can nominate a few men (I nominate David Mitchell, and academic Daniel Dorling) but neither of them would probably describe themselves as feminists.

I think wrt men being feminists - they sometimes find it easier to talk the talk but then not follow through.

For example my dh finds it quite difficult at work - he is a manager in a very old school company and sector but is working flexibly and never really goes out after work - he is the only man in the company in the UK to do so - out of 100s of men -he is the first. He is doing it because he believes its right and that other men will follow him but its a very difficult and lonely place to be - I wonder why others dont - is it that the ones that do are already in industries where its easier (media) or have retrained to be teachers or whatever.

Time and again we hear from our friends that they simply cant do it as it would be the end of their careers and yet they are happy for this to be the case for their partners.

And yes I know he could be the first out of the door in a redundancy situation but sometimes you have to stick your colours to the mast.

Yes, agree about the passive receptacle idea. Although on the other hand I think men sometimes have strong reactions to lesbianism because its an out an out statement that they're redundant.

swallowedaFly, I agree our sexuality is warped, I know mine has been. I have certain "tastes" that I know have not sprung forth from my own imagination. It pisses me off that the societal and cultural messages have had such a profound affect on my psyche.

But I have to say, and I've mentioned this before, when I was a young teenager this wasn't the case. It was only as I grew older (say, 17 or so onwards) that I really began to feel the full force of the messages i.e women's sexuality doesn't exist; women only exist as an extention of male sexuality.
I think porn is very confining, not liberating at all. I compare it to reading the book then watching the film. NOthing pornography can show me beats what I know and learned as a young teenager. All it can do is detract from that.

SO I believe I've had a taste of real freedom but I think it was confined to when I was younger.

Adults have got it wrong. They think they "know" about sexuality. They know shit. The only people who are really free are teenagers, boys and girls, or at least that has been my experience.

When I had wonderful girlfriends sharing a flat with me and have not met DH yet, I always wished I could choose. But I did not get to choose either. I am wholly hetero, and just had to wait patiently to meet DH.

We are both feminists. He is politically more active and trained, so he is probably more of proper feminist than me. Also, back in Hungary I did not really encounter mysogynist behaviour to the same extent, as I do in the UK as a professional woman. Maybe I was tougher or just less experienced.

It may be easier to be a feminist if one is Bi-sexual.

sorry yes I am arguing for sexuality being plastic. I read "set in stone" instead of "being plastic"

no no not arguing for sexuality being plastic. I've never understood the entire concept of naming sexuality. Some would say I'm a bi-sexual no?, that's what I mean by chaotic, I've got no idea because sexuality isn't plastic. But definitely my marriage was pushed for by culture, definitely.