I'm a feminist but...

The point is, SAF, is that we can't disentangle the way we want to look from what has influenced that, and the argument is that the patriarchy could well have rather heavily influenced us in terms of whether we like to shave our legs or not.

Yes, it's a relatively unimportant consequence of living in a patriarchal society, but it's a consequence none-the-less. Are we only ever allowed to discuss the 'big' issues on here?

No one is saying that feminists must reject the idea of women being hairless and made-up; we're just saying that we can choose how we want to look but be aware that it's not necessarily the way we would choose to look if we were not of this culture. We are conditioned and socialised whether we like it or not.

I was going to say that feminism and femininity are not mutually exclusive, but tortilla beat me to it, word for word!

snowmama, it's different because you're not actually selling any part of you: you're selling the products of your intellect, not your intellect itself. So it's at one remove from selling your body. And, of course, a man could do exactly the same thing (I assume), so it's not gendered, whereas prostitution couldn't be more so.

My stereotypically unfeminist things are that I do all the cooking and love it, and I am a rotten driver. Really bad, I keep thinking I should do one of those advanced courses, but since we don't actually have a car it's always a long way down the priority list.

You could maybe argue that with prostitution and pornography the transactional nature of selling your body(often under varying states of implicit and explicit duress) - is different than free ownership of your own body, with which you choose to do whatever you may wish (whatever society may think).

Where I come unstuck though is I 'sell' another part of my body - my brain/intellect as intellectual service.... so how is this different from another part of my body as sexual service? Because for me it is different.

WoTmania - I was thinking of that book too. Debbie Stoller talks in the front of it about how lots of people were so surprised at her knitting when she was a feminist, "shouldn't you be doing woodwork?" sort of thing. But why is knitting undervalued, and made fun of? Because it's seen as a woman's hobby.

And yeah, knitting, cross stitch and sewing are my things. But I don't cook, wash up or wear make up, so hopefully that cancels them out.

Thats what I meant, we can only be equal to a man (def of feminism) when we stop worrying about it, or what others think, not stop doing it. Because men(in general) don't worry about it!

Interstingly, will feminism only have achieved its aims when it ceases to exist? Because there is no such thing as 'hominism'

I love what FlamingoBingo says about SAHMs. I am one too and I love it. I consider myself very lucky to be one, but I hate it when people (mostly women who presumably are also feminists) judge me badly for it!

Btw, do you think Emmaline Pankhurst worried about shaving her legs??? Seems feminism still has along way to go!!

Interesting that this has started a debate.

In my specific case it's not a culturally conditioned problem - driving wise. I come from a long line of motoring experts of both sexes - Grandfather a racing driver, aunt ran a rally team, mum worked in her dad's business as assistant mechanic.

I'm just shit and having lived in city centres for 18 odd years never really had the day to day practice. Both my sisters are good drivers.

oh, driving!
I have never seen a feminist take on it but I was thinking about it the other week after a talk to my SIL who, like me, is a scared driver.

the context was that a friend of ours was tragically killed less than two weeks after passing her test. It is not entirely clear what happened but it looked at that point like the most likely scenario was that someone had cut her up a bit and she had panicked, failed to hold her road position and come off the road.
SIL and I were discussing how we know so many women who have trouble with driving and how it is often this aspect, the having to assert yourself in space, that women struggle with.
We decided, thinking about it, that it makes sense that women should struggle with this as you have to behave in a different way to the way you behave with other pedestrians when walking along the street: women, more than men, constantly cede position, step back to let people through, etc. When you are driving you are fighting against these instincts.

I don't know if there is anything at all in this but it seemed to me to partially explain the fear.
Of course there is also the fact that boys are conditioned to drive from very early on. Ds1 has vehicles on practically all his clothes!

and of course a wide-ranging cultural belief that women can't drive as well as men would have an effect.

I've got the worst one - I'm a rubbish driver. Really does embarrass me and let down the sisterhood but there you go.

I also find Bill Hicks and Reginald D. Hunter hilarious. And I love Hemingway and my favourite film directors are Hitchcock & Roman Polanski.

But I really am a feminist.

If anyone is thinking of resisting the pressure to perform femininity a little bit more, I have started a thread