Something that's been bothering me

hmm - did you see my post challenging the idea that it did equate to sexuality and looking at how instead the sexuality might be in the eye of the beholder rather than in the woman's behaviour? i talked about how if a woman regresses, potentially through lack of confidence about being assertive and making a demand for time/attention, to childlikeness that equates to 'girlishness' and it is the beholder who translates girlishness into something sexual in a way that 'boyishness' ie. a man regressing would not be perceived.

i thought it was quite key to this. you're assuming this is something sexual the women are doing but actually we only know that it was interpreted that way.

how come girlishness is seen as sexual and boyishness is not? worth answering that to yourself imo.

Nyac, the sacking reference was Dustinthewind, and to me it read as sarcasm (Dustinthewind Sun 01-Apr-12 14:59:51). I think she was trying to show an alternative course of action that the OP's hubby could have taken to drop said women in the shit. As it was, he took supportive action.

There have been several women on this thread who have said they have seen similar 'breathy' behaviour from women in the workplace as the OP's husband, so I think it's safe to say it does happen. Yet because he is a communicative husband and discusses workplace issues with her, he is somehow a grass 'running home telling tales'. This smacks of being one rule for men and another for women, which is sexist.

spot on, BC

AF if you want to get into that game, I'll also call you on the not making accusations, but still implying it you did on your post which I deliberately ignored as I didn't want to get into it. Deliberate discredit by association - appealing to paranoia and fear based on a previous event which in this case is groundless in its suggestion. You are playing a card, if you are putting a post like that one.

I'm pretty sick of people saying that people are trying to silence feminists, and yet seeing stuff like this at the same time by the same people. I want an open debate, and an open debate relies on it being made clear when one is using underhand tricks rather than relying on the merits and content of the actual debate.

The debate is only still here because people challenged what was said and have pointed out whats happening.

Anyway referring back to the OP, I'd like those who were very critical of the DH to answer what a man put in a position, where a woman is trying to manipulate a situation with her sexuality, should do? Should he make others aware its happening to try and stop it? (Which could include having a moan to his wife) Should he indulge it by simply ignoring it as otherwise he's seeing them in a sexist way? Should just shut up and not say anything to anyone? Should he be going around having a go at male colleagues over it? Is he really actively supporting the patriarchy in this situation?

From where I'm sitting, I actually don't know what a man should do in that situation given what was said by some posters. I think that what some people were doing was very much nitpicking and having a go for the sake of having ago, rather than looking at the problem properly. However he handled it was going to be wrong in their eyes. And I think its important to actually discuss that as much as any other aspect of this topic.

The women I know who said they would do it, were highly intelligent and saw it as a strength they could use on men, they saw as weak. Their attitude at the time really shocked and quite upset me, that they didn't want to just use their talent and if it was something that could give them an edge they would use it, in the same way they would use anything else that would give them an edge. It certainly wasn't about playing up to a particular attitude in a particular office - so what the OP's bloke did and whether he addressed or didn't address his male colleagues really aren't the problem.

It is about a wider perception and also stereotype of men just as much as a problem with a patriarchal system. Its a symbiotic relationship and attitude. Its not exclusively being caused by men and we shouldn't just be focusing on that. Stereotypes come from somewhere. And peddling the patriarchal system as being to blame, is spewing the same old shit, just from a different direction. Until you start trying to break those stereotypes - both in women and men you support it, even where it doesn't exist. The fact that the OP's DH didn't like the behaviour and it pissed him off, is a sign that actually there are men who don't pander to the old patriarchy system and perhaps it isn't as widespread and in every company and every walk of life that some people insist it is.

To stop it happening, it requires a cooperation between men and women to encourage talent without the need to resorting to the use of sexual manipulation. You can't heap the responsibility all on to men when you are doing your best to reinforce it too.

That might mean trying to get men to view it with a dim eye and encourage other talents - which it seems the OP DH actually did do. And yes it might mean challenging male staff too as part of the process. But I certainly don't think that the guy deserved 'labels' as he did do something that wasn't supporting the problem. It was both grossly unfair and its about another agenda of creating this ideology of men are the enemy.

Ultimately, I do feel that unless you give men a reasonable options and encouragement where they can constructively contribute to this rather than being critical of everything, all you are doing is kicking them and not helping the situation either.

The Op asked a question. She framed it within her personal experience. There were ways that we could have explored it without making the Op feel stupid.

That isn't about performing gender. That's not being rude and I don't buy the straight-talking argument. There are lots of regulars on this board who manage to make excellent posts without belittling people. Sakura regularly gets treated like shit for her opinions but she never gets rude in response and she doesn't play the preformative gender game. Scaring away the Op is hardly a feminist act. Women's voices are shut down by men so frequently. It's distressing to see the same thing happen on this board by other women.

I already linked to this upthread (thanks to JosephineB who posted it on another thread). Here it is again though because it is exactly what is going on here. I'm going to give mumwithdice the benefit of the doubt and think that she posted her OP without having considered the feminist analysis implications.

We should be able to discuss those implications though and express them without skirting round the subject IMO.

There are the insidious assumptions guiding our interactions?the supposition that I will regard being exceptionalized as a compliment ("you're not like those other women"), and the presumption that I am an ally against certain kinds of women. Surely, we're all in agreement that Britney Spears is a dirty slut who deserves nothing but a steady stream of misogynist vitriol whenever her name is mentioned, right? Always the subtle pressure to abandon my principles to trash this woman or that woman, as if I'll never twig to the reality that there's always a justification for unleashing the misogyny, for hating a woman in ways reserved only for women. I am exhorted to join in the cruel revelry, and when I refuse, suddenly the target is on my back. And so it goes.

I agree with Basil that there are two subjects here. There is the subject of women's socialized behaviour. But the elephant in the room is men's socialized behaviour and the fact that the society that socialized the women is male dominated.

Also it is not a sign of liberation or women's freedom to be able to use crappy badly designed computer technology. Like I said the ability or inability to is the measure of nothing in particular. Certainly not a measure of whether a woman is supposedly letting down the feminist movement.

Men who like to pretend that computers are the be all and end all and design them to be so complicated that only a few people will understand them are however much more of a problem.

If the OP had just made it a general question, we could have had the discussion about how women have to survive in the patriarchy.

Instead we had a report about all these women that her husband works with who apparently are letting the side down with their breathy voices and the fact that they can't unzip a zip drive. Why is he running home telling tales about them to his wife? Why is he being so derogatory about them? In that context, he's the problem, not the women. Someone on here even suggested they should be sacked, just based on this man's report. That is so sexist it's hard even to know where to start with it.

I think one of the things women do to comfort themselves is to imagine that it's always that other woman over there who is doing it wrong, and that they themselves would never behave like that so they're safe from this kind of criticism, when in fact sexist men will always have stereotypes to draw on (like the alleged breathy voices or the inability to use technology) and people will believe them, no questions.

I know people want to move onto the issue of why do women perform femininity but I have something I would like to add about the tone of this thread.

There are posters here accusing other posters of trying to intimidate others on purpose.

That is a pretty serious accusation and it is a personal attack - and the accusations of bullying, having an agenda and being riddled with propaganda are akin to accusing people of being trolls. And that sort of thing is hardly going to encourage debate is it?

Personally I'm amazed that anybody is surprised that there were some straight talking responses to the OP. I often use analogies about racism to explain a point about feminism and why we sometimes react the way we do to stuff.

So imagine if this were a forum where predominately people of colour discussed racism issues. And a member posts an OP saying;

"I've been discussing stuff with my white partner (WP), my WP says that in his work he is always coming across people of colour who act in a stereotypical way, you know that sort of Uncle Tom, comical all round serviceable good guy sort of way. My WP does his best to discourage this sort of thing, but they still do it.

And what bothers me is that I feel these people are harming other black people by behaving like this, they're making it hard for black people to show that they have ambition and can get ahead too. I feel these people are doing a disservice to the rest of us and harming the civil rights movement."

mumwithdice I hope you come back to this thread. Personally I found your OP a bit naive and I think that may be why you got some sharp responses. It unfortunately came across as though you wanted us to bash these breathy women your DH has been telling you about.

i think it is also helpful to think of feminism as a political movement dedicated to the liberation of women. i try my best to never blame women personally or attack them for the compromises they feel they need to make to keep body and soul together, or those that just make life easier - i make compromises too.

however

i am not going to pretend that those choices are feminist, or not harmful if that is the case.

in any case, i am more interested in attacking a system that privileges those choices, rewards and facilitates them, rather than the women themselves- one is oppression, the other is a response to it; they are not the same

It's interesting though that people are still desperate to focus on these women, through a third hand report, when we have a direct report of a man behaving in a sexist way, that deserves far more examination.

Women get stereotyped and degraded in the workplace by men. i think this is one of those instances.

The first post I got deleted was saying that joining in with your husband sexistly (if that's a word) criticising women he works with was indeed undermining to feminism.

The second one was me saying I didn't believe him as far as I know.

Neither were personal attacks, both were indeed robust, but I'm sick of seeing feminism being used as an excuse to bash women in sexist ways, particularly when it was a man instigating the bashing. As Chibi says, Mumsnet is the home of bluntness and robustness, weirdly though it's only in the feminism section that we really get hard time for using it.

KRIT - this could be in internalised reflection of the expectations of patriarchy

completely agree. i think society makes women feel not good enough (in appearance, to apply to a job, as a parent, in sex) and even in feminism. so we act a moral police, not only of ourselves, but other women, even those who are feminists.

IMO part of shifting the goal posts is to see other feminist views as 'good enough' to make progress towards equality.

I also consider being accused of "playing a card" to be an example of what you say you don't want to happen on this board

HmmThinking, then we will differ

because you think the early posts on this thread were an attempt to shut down debate and I don't

I think they were a valid viewpoint that opened up further discussion for and against....people are free to disagree or disagree as they see fit

the woman over the road from me came across yesterday as I was helping my husband shovel a ton of gravel onto the driveway and said - oooh stop doing that my husband will think women are capable!

Silly cow.

'Dust/Tilly...but debate hasn't been closed down has it ?

We are still here

OP may not be, but it was her choice to not stay and debate her POV. Nobody forces you to stay or go.'

Agreed, I've been on the fringes of FWR boards a while and find it fascinating, and it has certainly moved on my understanding from the 1970's based feminism that I arrived with.
And as KRITIQ posted
'What IS interesting to me at least is a discussion on ways we can subvert the assumption that women will play femininity and men will play masculinity in the workplace and elsewhere.'
That's a set of issues that I was interested in way back, and it is somewhat disheartening to see that it is still a key issue in so many scenarios. So.on with the questioning and the subversion please.

"What everyone wants is people to feel free and able to discuss feminist issues or to ask questions right?"

I feel that I'm a fairly "robust" poster but I think twice about posting on Feminism at times. I'm sure there are others.

Can I just point out that some of the straight talking responses on this thread have come about because feminists consciously try NOT to do socialized feminised behaviours like the sort being cited and criticised in the OP.

We try to throw off the notion that women should always be nicey nicey and caring and concerned about everyone and everything. Some things can just be said - they shouldn't need to be dressed up in fluff for people to be able to hear them. I agree with chibi - the debate on other parts of MN is much harsher than on here.

And this thread is sort of eye opening because look what has happened.

Nyac and a couple of others came out with some straight talking feminist analysis. And they are being attacked for it. Which is sort of horribly ironic considering that the premise of the thread was to criticise women for not being straight talking. Non?

And this on a feminist discussion board and by other women. We need to be careful with this stuff. And really think about it.

Only my opinion, of course, feel free to robustly disagree with me.

Its still here despite attempts though AF.

The fact there WERE attempts does not make the OP a wuss. This section is intimidating and there are people who do that quite deliberately to intimidate.
Robust debate does not give a licence for intimidation.

Plenty of ways to debate without straying into that. I think its great that people are trying to stand up when it is happening. If it encourages more people to come here, its good.

What everyone wants is people to feel free and able to discuss feminist issues or to ask questions right? You want more people to be interested and get involved don't you?

So please don't play that card over "how awful this board is". Perhaps there are people who want to make a positive contribution to stop that happening and unless people actually stand up and say "hey too far" or simply "stop talking utter bollocks" then it won't change.

Oh, and before I forget, I wanted to give a thumbs up to slug for the example in her post of 01-Apr-12 18:02:57. It sounds like in doing her job, she is very much being an "outlaw," and in the process, encouraging women by example to stretch their abilities and confidence to do stuff directly and for themselves. But, she's also not colluding with the entitlement of the men in her workplace. If they insist on playing the big male "I am," then they won't be able to do their work.

Personally, speaking, I'm not particularly interested in a discussion about whether or not the OP's DH is a tool, a good guy or a garden gnome. What IS interesting to me at least is a discussion on ways we can subvert the assumption that women will play femininity and men will play masculinity in the workplace and elsewhere.

"If you pose a question, you should be prepared to see all different POV's even if you don't agree with them."

Absolutely. But I suspect the OP felt that she was going to be shouted down rather than have her point debated. I agree that there have been some very good points made and it's a shame it got off to a tricky start.

But we don't know what the OP's DP's response is apart from that he finds it a 'difficulty' and 'He tries to manage this by showing them how to do whatever it is not doing it for them'. Neither response seems in the least problematic. Assuming that he is being totally honest about the situation and he is he isn't the thread is a waste of time.