Hello, I should probably let you all know that I'm male and apologies for posting here, but I've been doing a lot of reading recently regarding feminism and radical feminism and it's dawned on me how depressing the whole situation is. Femonade and RadfemHub seem to be full of articles on how men are violent, power hungry, selfish etc... and to be honest I can quite understand this point of view just simply looking at examples in my own life of the kind of priviledges I've had compared to my female colleagues, friends and family. Anyway, a couple of those arrticles suggest that this preponderance of men to do these things seems to be inbuilt, i.e. genetic which kind of got me thinking, if this is true what possible solutions are there for Radfems except to remove the Y chromosome from the genepool? Suicide is then on the cards for me!
Now, writing as a man I don't feel as though I have some given rights to exert power over women, (I try not to act in a biased manner but I'm pretty sure at a subconscious level and due to societies scruples I almost certainly do). So I'm kind of thinking that maybe the biological argument isn't necessarily true despite the pretty convincing arguments, and maybe things could change through behaviour/society rather than genetic. Is this the general opinion of feminisim? (yeah, I know generalising about feminism is a pretty dangerous thing to do).
Also, while I'm writing and accepting that this is a sort of stream-of-consciousness like post, I'd like to ask a question or two about PIV and sex in general. I got into the whole feminism thing because I was trying to figure a way out of a sexless marriage, DW I think used to enjoy sex but after a couple of kids and a lack of self confidence that side of our marriage has all but disappeared. After reading up about sex and womens perspectives on it I realised that most of the assumptions I'd made were probably wrong. I.e. I'm not sure she does enjoy it (PIV or other for that matter), or ever did. I understand that society (patriarchy) persuades women that it is for mutual enjoyment, a bonding exercise etc. to try to mask the underlying power exertion, but in reality it seems a lot of women don't necessarily agree with this but have become conditioned. I've tried to speak to DW about this suggesting that this could be a possibility, unfortunately she doesn't like talking much. So I suppose the question is: Is this as common as I suspect? What kind of quantity of women are being pressured into situations like this without consciously realising it? Finally any ideas on the best way to handle it?! I love her and want her and the kids to be happy.
Just realised, this post should probably be split between Feminism and Relationships, but I think I'd rather get the feminist perspective before boraching the subject elsewhere. At least then I should know if my expectations are unreasonable and/or immoral!
Sorry about the long post.