it's not Narnia, it's the Feminist Section!

Oh, well, since you have chocolate cake ...

PIV = penis in vagina

As I understand it:

• PIV is only one way to have good sex - so if you live in a society where contraception is fallible (all of us!), or problematic in other ways (eg. it's expensive, or makes you feel bad, or whatever), or non-existent, you could choose to have an orgasm in some way that doesn't risk pregnancy.

Even in our Western society and even in the UK where contraception is free, unwanted pregnancy happens a lot.

Historically in the UK, and still in many parts of the world, pregnancy is a huge killer of women, not to mention unwanted pregnancy being bad for mental and physical heath.

Of course, it's true pregnancy risks are largely/partly (not completely) our biology. But the fact that PIV is seen as the definitive, and standard, way to have recreational sex, that suggests somewhere along the line, society developed to privilege as normal the kind of sex most likely to endanger women's lives.

I've got a question for you all - I am fairly new to discussing feminism so still get my head round all of it, and mn has been fantastic in that regard.

So I was reading this article which was posted upthread

radicalhub.com/2012/01/31/fun-with-numbers-the-sex-positive-equation/

And the author says PIV = female risk

But she doesn't explain why as far as I can tell (I'm pretty tired), she just says PIV might get a woman pregnant or kill her. I am not sure how it will kill her unless via childbirth or STD's. However STD's affect both sexes and I don't think the patriarchy made childbirth dangerous, or the only way to have a child. I am also not 100% clear what PIV actually stands for although I pretty confident about what I think it means (penetrative sex)

If I should be starting a new thread to ask these kind of questions let me know, but seeing as you are all here I thought I would ask.

I'll be bringing chocolate cake btw

I'd just like to point out that people are fully not aware of the effects on marketing on their subconscious beliefs and attitudes which then manifest in action.

I have seen work done by this company using this basic premise as a starting point for their research into the effectiveness of marketing.

www.cogresearch.com/implicit-research.html

So even if on a conscious level you think you are aware of all the marketing (or covert power structures) on a subconscious level you will still be internalising some of those messages and that will be influencing you and your behaviour even if you think it isn't. nothing new there, but what is interesting about these people is they can show how marketing affects what they call your 'implicit mind' and they can prove it!

I am always puzzled by the references to "extreme" feminists. Nobody can ever give me qn actual example of q rql life person expressing the views ascribed to "extreme" feminists. They say vague things like "oh, I know someone who was told off for wearing nice shoes" or " I heard that someone was told that she couldn't be a feminist and live with a man" but there are nor any actually quotations and references. It does sound a lot like the anti feminist rhetoric that the right wing press has been peddling for years.

There will be jaffacakes for all come the revolution, my friend!
(unless I get there first, in which case, there will be jaffacakes for ME.)

Did anyone here say cake?

Lies.

Blackcurrants has no feminist card. If she did she would know we shun cake as a badge of women's domestic servitude.

No cake here, never was ...

I bask in your sycophancy! Does any of it translate into you doing my dishes? [oppurtunist emoticon]

I think I find more and more connections between my feminism and my parenting, as I get more old and dogged and further into parenting. "Pick your battles" fits here as in most things.
There are some things I won't let slide, some lines I won't cross, some things up with which I shall not put. And there's some stuff that I think, oh buggerit, it's shallow/probably not hastening the revolution, but I am going to do it anyway, I don't think it's hurting anybody.

It doesn't hasten the revolution, but it probably doesn't kill people. I'm not perfect. I do my very best, but my energy is limited and the patriarchy is everywhere. I think most of us work out what's really important and where we're going to focus our energies, and work from there.

FWIW, I read a lot of threads on this board that start with "Can I still do X and be a feminist?" and I very rarely read a FWR regular poster who responds with "No! your feminist card is revoked! Come the revolution you will NOT be allowed any of the cake!" - there's usually discussion, but there are rarely fatwahs.

It's just easier isn't it to wear the damn lipstick or whatever, rather than launch a Year Zero type assault on your psyche and purge it of all associations and expectations. Some things aren't worth the battle, and everyone can draw that line for themselves.

WW well yes of course - nobody is stopping you. Unless yourself, of course, now that you have the information/another perspective.

Blackcurrants how about
BLACK CURR ANTS!
BLACK CURR ANTS!

(feeling a bit sycophantic at the mo but what harm )

WW - I think most people still want them!

sinical - I don't know what you mean, I find it positively catchy!

One for MWR I think.

"I think the key is to think about what you want and why you want it, and to know the forces that are designed to manipulate you, and to try to be as free of them as you can possibly be, preferably while helping others to liberate themselves from oppressive expectations and restrictions based on gender."

Can I still want them though, even if I'm aware of the cynical marketing ploys which make want things?

THREE WORD CHANT!
THREE WORD CHANT!

WHAT DO WE WANT????

to know the forces that are designed to manipulate us, and to try to be as free of them as we can possibly be, preferably while helping others to liberate themselves from oppressive expectations and restrictions based on gender!!!!

WHEN DO WE WANT IT??

Now!!!

See what you mean, blackcurrants

WW
"The key is spend your money on what you want."

I think the key is to think about what you want and why you want it, and to know the forces that are designed to manipulate you, and to try to be as free of them as you can possibly be, preferably while helping others to liberate themselves from oppressive expectations and restrictions based on gender.

But you'll never get that into a chant-able slogan, alas!

I refer you back to my posting of 15:29 to illustrate the background to my opinions on make up.

If you don't want to wear make up, all the power to you! Make-Up wearing should not be compulsory, ever. But if you want to wear make up, there's nothing wrong with that, and I don't give a fuck whether it's socialising which made you like make up or not.

The key is spend your money on what you want.

Absolutely not.
But analysis does not inherently lead to coercion. It's often stated 'feminists want to stop everyone wearing lipstick' - yet I've never seen feminists try to do that, here or elsewhere. That conflation is really what 'gives feminism a bad name' but it's not the feminists who are doing it!
Of course, people may come across feminist analysis of lipstick wearing, it may chime, they may no longer want to do it. Fair enough, sez I.

widow, do you think you're conditioned to play guitar because of your gender? Really?

If so, then yes, it matters that they're expensive.

Beauty practices are a big industry and most of the cost is on women. It's the imbalance between men and women that is concerning, not the individual action.

SinicalSanta I've nothing against analysis of what drives fashion. I'm just arguing that the analysis shouldn't lead to coercing people into giving up things they really want to do, because they like them. That would be doing the same as what you're condemning in the first place.

"I think it matters hugely. It's expensive, for starters."

Good guitars are expensive - is that an argument against taking up guitar playing as a hobby? If I really want to?

If you rather spend your money on other things and don't really want to, of course you shouldn't feel obliged.

'Because I want to' is only the start of the analysis, surely, rather than the end.

Not that every shaver, for example, should have to analyse their reasons, but not to get personally defensive when other people want to analyse the factors on a societal level.

In 1988 lots and lots of young women just wanted a big bubble head of hair. A coincidence? Fashions come from somewhere - even Antipodean soaps. It's illuminating to examine the factors that feed fashion, and how and why and where they manifest.

'But if the answer is "because I really want to", then that's cool and it doesn't matter much whether it's through patriarchal conditioning.'

Why not?

I think it matters hugely. It's expensive, for starters.

"Things like shaving our legs are not that big a deal. Things like who gets to rule the world and hog the material comfort are however. And they are part and parcel of the same thing."

They are and they aren't. Of course anyone should ask themselves why they shave their legs (or do other things) - if it's because they feel they have to rather because they want to, then it's maybe time to stop. But if the answer is "because I really want to", then that's cool and it doesn't matter much whether it's through patriarchal conditioning.

Thing is, I guess my background of having spent a large part of my teens and early twens in a subculture where both men and women wear make up, stockings and suspenders, sparkly things, jewellery, provocative clothes and hairdos which take absolutely ages to do up, which was all not overly accepted by society (and I guess in part we did it because of that, but also just because we liked the look) probably informs a lot of my outlook on especially questions of dresscode/shaving/makeup whatevs.

Most of the time I now wear little make up because i can't be arsed, but I still think, if it's what somebody likes doing, all the power to them. Ditto short skirts (can't really get away with the majority of my outfits from back then anymore because I've got 3 st to lose

Personally, I think it's more important to tackle coercion where it is felt, and teach girls and boys alike that they are free to like what they want, and to say "no" to things that they don't want. Pressure to conform to norms in sexuality affects men and women alike. By arguing with the overarching patriarchy concept, it comes across that it's a thing that only men do to only women, not humans to humans.

I know you don't want to do a disclaimer all the time, and I don't want this to come across as yeahbuttery, I guess I'm very much against a lot of the same things you are, but my idea of how it is best attacked is different.