'It's OK to be single.' I think that's probably the most important message feminism has to offer.

In fact, I'd go further and say that the daily threat of rape and violence that women face, encouraged by the media, benefits ALL men in tangible ways.
Women don't even realise how vigilant they have to be to survive in a patriarchy; they forget that they're moderating all their behaviour in order to not invoke men's violence, whether on the street or in their own home.
Women are experts at diffusing situations so they don't get out of hand, they're highly adept at gauging situations, whether they should walk down a particular street or not, and they don't even notice because they're so used to it.

It's interesting to hear transsexuals talk about this.
Female to male transsexuals, who take hormones and have had surgery, say they never realised what a burden it was to look female until it was gone. Now they feel much safer and freer. What does that tell us about the way women are so used to being in state of constant vigilance that they don't even realise it.

And a very honest transsexual male to female said that he hadn't a clue how to avoid danger. he'd noticed that real women have to use everything about them to survive: their instinct, intuition, general knowledge and every piece of intelligence they had. He said something like "I'm going to get killed one night walking home through New York"
And he's probably right. Because walking around looking like a woman makes you a target for predatory men, and not being raised as a girl, he couldn't catch the cues and he didn't realise where the danger spots were.

Race crimes are male crimes. White women don't go around popping off black men, or black women for that matter. But black, white and ASian men kill and rape women of all races, all the time.

Female oppression is the original prototype, the original model for all other oppressions. Women were the first slaves.

When you are able to dehumanize half of society, it's then very easy to go on to dehumanize other groups: Black people, Jews, Gypsies, Ethnic minorities, which do then include men.

So I strongly believe that male supremacy, i.e patriarchy, is the root cause of every other oppression, including class oppression and racism.

I'm white, my husband is Asian. We live in a white-supremist world, but white women's racial superiority is derivative i.e it derives from white men's status. White women are still bitches, like any other women. Just look at porn, if you don't believe me, and the way women of ALL races are hurt and abused on there, by men of ALL races.

Hardgoing, the day women go out and mass rape men, will be the day your argument makes any sense. Men rape and kill women. Men rape and kill men. And most of the time they do it en masse , I mean in many wars it's actually not just soldiers doing the raping because civillian men are drafted into the army en masse and they end up raping as welll.
WTF is wrong with men?
Can somebody please tell me the answer to this question.

Yes, HB! I was waffling around the thought that not too many men do recognise the disparity - at least, not consciously enough to deliberately mitigate - and that, while I don't blame them really, the non-thinking option keeps patriarchal patterns in place.

I'm still waffling, aren't I ...

Yes the fact of it may be a constant presence, but is that necessarily totally negative?

It's just something there. You can't get round it. So long as it's acknowledged, I think you can live with it. But you have to want to work with it, I think if you try and pretend it's not an issue, that's when it becomes a problem.

I've had several mixed-race relationships (am a white female) and the relative privilege issue does interfere quite a lot. Going by what my non-white female friends have said, it tends to balance out in the long-term because of the relative privileges afforded to men. But it's a constant presence, both in terms of past histories and everyday events.

I know there are plenty of men with awareness of their gender privileges - I know some myself - so bear it in mind as I bore my "whiteness" in mind back then. I suspect it takes a special kind of awareness, though. As we know, most people prefer the easier option of not thinking too much; can't say I blame them, but the sum total of all those blind eyes is what perpetuates the patriarchy problem.

Such musings could lead on to a revisitation of chivalry, I guess. Leaving aside the knightly origins of the word, isn't the principle supposed to be about men smoothing the passage for the less-privileged female on his arm? I was told the coat in the puddle story was a symbol for that.

Am definitely overthinking now

Yes I disagree as well. It's like a friendship - if someone is from a BME group and you are white, if you're working class and your best friend is middle class, if you're gay and your mate is heterosexual - as long as the other person "gets it, I think you can have an equal, happy relationship.

I disagree that a heterosexual relationship can never be truly equal because the man always has privilege due to his gender. I'm perfectly aware that my partner has privilege I don't, but since we can't change that overnight, I'm not going to let it get in the way of something which makes me feel happy.

I can see that it affects relationships in a day to day sense if one partner has more options than the other, WRT things such as whether one partner works and the other stays home with children, for example, but on a personal level it just doesn't and I think that it's possible to be aware of these things when making decisions which are going to be affected by outside factors while staying equal in how you see each other.

Do you think that a mixed race relationship would be unequal in a similar way?

when the opportunity is there to rape without getting into trouble it's taken must be an over-generalisation, SAF! That's not true in everyday life, neither does every man in a gang-bang situation take their turn. It's often one of them who blows the whistle.

Also, women soldiers were implicated in the military prisoner abuse atrocities. Being led by men, certainly, but the problem is more complicated ... of course, it is men who rape. I just wanted to show that's not the same as "all men would rape".

It is also a marking of territory.

Women aren't really human, they're the property of the vanquished enemy. Shit on their property, you're symbolically shitting on them.

Hardgoing, I heard Sakura's question as being "Why do soldiers rape?" rather than "Why do men go to war?" Both questions have been exercising philosophical minds for millenia, but the point here is that rape is not a strategic or tactical action in war.

I have to say I don't understand it either. I know quite a bit about pack mentality, dehumanisation by command: reasons why men who are not usually rapists do this. But I still don't understand why it happens in the beginning.

Oh yes, those wars where only women get killed/raped and all the men survive...

fucking hell, that was an insight into the mind of a member of the dominant caste wasn't it.

is that why the male "caste" tries kill as many members of the female "caste" as possible?

coz they're not only jealous of our life-giving capacities (which is why they created an entire religion pretending a man in the sky created life), but they're also jealous of the fact we live longer

Better kill as many females as possible and even it up, like?

I think you've misunderstood the word "caste" , Hardgoing. "Caste" is a socio-political reference, nothing to do with biology

men kill a hell of a lot of females, for example . two women a week are murdered by their spouse in the UK. This is a societal issuel, especially when men get away with those murders by claiming they were playing sex games (which is the current fashion among perpetrators), or if they get on average only 4 years in jail, whereas a woman gets 16 for murdering a rapist.

So yes, females are biologically superior, absolutely, due to the fact that an X chromozome contains lots of life-preserving DNA, whereas a Y chromozome doesn'T contain much of anything.

But we're not talking about biologically superiority here, we're talking about a caste system

Men still die younger, Sakura. How does that factor in as an advantage to their caste?

It really scares the shit out of me that in every. single. war, men mass rape women. IN every culture, throughout time and place. The British have done it, the Germans have done it, the Japanese have done it, the Americans have done it, and nearly every other country in the world has done just this, and continues to today....
It's got nothing to do with whether these men's mothers raised them right.

It's just men.

yes I agree, although I also agree with TrillianAstra in that it's not the most important message has to offer but it's certainly a big one.

I'd go further and say that while we live in a patriarchy (and we do), then an equal relationship with a man is near-on impossible, because regardless of the personalities of each individual in the couple, you can never escape the fact that the man belongs to the dominant caste= male, and the woman to the subordinate caste= female.
If you don't think we live in a two-tier caste system then you should look at the crime statistics where women, for example, are far more likely to get a custodial sentence for a first offence simply because they're women. If women step out of line in any way, society comes down on them like a ton of bricks.

I think it's very difficult for women to come to terms with the fact that their partnerno matter how great, liberated or "equal" he appears to be still benefits enormously from male privilege--- and I don't think there is a man alive who is willing to give up male privilege over females.

As for raising sons, it's a minefield. It annoys me when women say "Well I'm going to raise my son right-- because it implies that for thousands of years women haven't being trying to do just that. OUr foremothers weren't stupid. They've all been trying to raise their boys not to become rapists, war-mongerers and casual murderers.
It doesn't work.
You can'T blame women, namely mothers, for the crimes men choose to commit, although patriarchies certainly do try to blame women for men's crimes, scapegoating mothers in particular.

So all you we can do is change society: ban porn ( patriarchal propaganda which depicts women as sub-human), punish rapists (most rapes aren't even reported so MANY rapists aren't punished, make sure no woman has to live in economic interdependancy with a man.

But yes, "It's OK to be single" or "Daughter, don't get married" are very good mottos for feminists

I have 2 sons, and both are being raised to respect women and chivalry, I am still shocked when a male runs to open a door for me, its only happened twice, and once by ds1, the other was an older gentleman. I think it would be funny if the younger generation tipped their baseball caps to us (giggles). but i just want my boys to realise that women are equals they deserve the same treatment that they themselves expect, ds1 is being taught how to cook things out of a tin at the mo, and how to use the washing machine etc. He also loves mopping

i tottally agree with Gossipwitch[9.21]
ive also experianced crap from professional people sometimes.
theres many a time ive thought"if i was married and i had a fella by my side this wouldnt be happening".....and theres been loads of times ive had to really stand my ground.
it feels like[sometimes]they feel they can take the piss out of you because theres no one else there hearing/seeing.

sparky

I am a single parent and the crap I get from professional people sometimes is shocking, whats even more shocking is when I tell them I was once married before I even conceived ds1, and they turn it around, or look at me astonished. Yes I got married too young, yes he was a prick, and yes I divorced him so my young child didn't have to witness daddy hurting mummy, funnily enough since then my trust in men isn't brilliant. Maybe instead of giving single women/mothers shit perhaps they should teach the wanker's who have no respect for women how to treat women right, that might then stop so many of us being single, and enjoying the single life!!

Totally agree it is a fantastic time to be a single/independent woman (though of course this depends on one's personal circumstances to some extent). Interesting article in the Economist recently, looking at the decline of marriage in Asia. Apparently lots of women have started rejecting marriage, not because they're cohabiting instead but because they no longer need a husband for financial support and are turned off by the traditional gender roles still expected within marriage.

'Japanese women, who typically work 40 hours a week in the office, then do, on average, another 30 hours of housework. Their husbands, on average, do three hours.'

www.economist.com/node/21526350