Is the AlphaParent anti-feminist?

Now that is interesting WayHarsh

Mini - you are positing what you think getting rid of class would do as if it is undeniable fact. It isn't.

You're trying to imply that intersectionality is somehow an outgrowth of liberalism. It isn't and Kimberle Crenshaw (who coined the term) would strongly reject such labelling or her theory.

What on earth do you mean by saying "politically correct language (which itself is discriminating against the working class)" -this is patronising rubbish of the worst kind.

As if not being an offensive arse (which is what being politically correct ultimately means) is something working class people can't quite grasp?!

As if working class people (who can also be ethnic minorities, disabled, etc) don't themselves prefer people not using offensive language about them.

And you claim to be some kind of class warrior?

GoshAnneGorilla, how do you think feminists should decide what is feminist? By poll? (seriously. this seems to be what you are saying. Look at our govt, we got this at the polls, does this represent the People?) or - ????

I don't get the problem with specialists or experts. when the shower is leaking I don't poll a group of well meaning randoms as to how to fix it. I call in someone qualified.

It's not just anti-feminist tripe, it's anti parent.

I can just imagine my younger self, when having dramas BFing DS1 doing a Google search for BFing advice and coming upon that blog. The messages that if you can't do it, you're just not trying hard enough? Not helpful.

I think (if she's who I think she is) that she posted on here while in the throes of PND and has a horribly unsupportive husband.

I think it#s fair to say the woman has some issues.

The blog is horrible stuff, and I say that as a 'hardcore' BFer.

It depends what you mean by accessible, if you mean that some of the work is incomprehensible I would agree. I'm trying to read about language and pragmatics and some of it seems pretty odd and not really grounded in a way that people might think it relates to the realities of their lives. But there lies the real problem with academic work or with politics in general......liberalism creates a narrow discourse itself whilst engendering this idea that we are all somehow very individual, disconnecting the individual from any statement or propositions that are abstract or general. I believe liberalism and neo-liberalism is particularly fertile for theories such as intersection. In the last 30 years I think we have seen lots of cultural changes and we have liberalism spewing forth politically correct language (which itself is discriminating against the working class) thinking must be shaped by the language we use.

And I would disagree with you, doing away with class will absolutely level the playing field for people of colour and those with disabilities. Racism is a product of material exploitation. We exploit and we must find vindication that exonerates us. No one got off a boat in Africa, surveyed the locals and said "ooh must make them work for nothing because they look a little dark" no we exploited slavery and robbed those countries of their resources because we could and we wanted to, the racism came after the fact. Cultural imperialism is used to extend Christianity and Western ideologies compatible and useful to the system of capitalism. The same could be said for disabilities. At the moment social value is mediated through capitalism. As an example motherhood has no social value because it goes unrewarded financially, the same for people who can't work. The discrimination towards people with disabilities is growing because the economic situation of scarcity and austerity means we must create also the cultural/social thinking that justifies the material exploitation and hardship we inflict upon them.

Also, while I absolutely support having feminists in the academy, much academic work is not accessible to the general public.

It is frequently only available via costly subscriptions and is often written to be read by fellow academics, not the general public.

Mini - I am certainly not attacking anyone and everyone who mentions capitalism. I understand that you are a Marxist feminist, hence your primary focuses will be on issues such as class and labour inequalities and how they influence impact women. I am not a Marxist feminist , so my viewpoints will differ.

So I would disagree with B) because ironing out class differences does not eliminate racism or disablism, to name but two factors.

In a simple response to your last paragraph, all women suffer from inequality, but we suffer differently, in different ways, for lots of different reasons. There is no one universal solution to overcome this. .

I can see both sides of this argument, is it possible to be fair or to have democracy over decisions and actions unless everyone is involved in the debate without an unequal balance of power. But I agree with Zut that not all statements can be feminist just because the one who makes the statement claims to be feminist or claims that what they say is feminist.

Its often argued that feminist thinking is dominated by white middle class intellectuals and academics who take no account of the struggles facing working class women and women of different race and cultures. These women have privilege because their statements are listened to and their opinions respected. But I do think it is necessary and part of a process that we have women studying women's history, culture, gender politics etc,. These women do not make pronouncements and rules we must all follow and their work is peer reviewed and read and critiqued by the rest of us. Just as we discuss and debate and we often don't reach a consensus.

GoshAnne Am I right in thinking that you are very interested in intersectional theory???? If feminism has been dominated by the concerns of middle class white women and if you believe that feminism doesn't pay enough attention to working class/women of colour & different cultures, why are you attacking anyone and everyone who mentions capitalism? because it seems to me that if you want to

A) understand how cultural imperialism works and who it benefits, one should try and understand the link btw economic imperialism and cultural imperialism. How does cultural imperialism sideline the concerns of different women and why?

B) If you want equality for ALL women then you would also want ALL women to have equality with ALL women. The only way this can be achieved is by undermining the material differences, ie ironing out class differences.

I'm just interested in how you think that women are not equal and why you think that is and what in your opinion can be done to ensure we overcome it?

It sounds like you want a Mao's Little Red Book of Feminism, an endeavour that is doomed to failure.

Zut - such a lot of words yet you still haven't explained:

Who will be deciding what is or isn't sufficiently feminist?

Where will this discussion take place?

What if other feminists disagree?

GoshAnneGorilla, I do not equate feminism with the bunch of people practising it any more than Christianity = self-styled Christians. I don't get your point, you seem very keen to inform me that groups of people are prone to power struggles etc but I can't see what that has to do with feminism as a school of thought.

The larger issue is, that just because some decisions are made by abuse of power (sadly), it is stupid and wrong-headed therefore to say no decisions can be taken except by polling everyone with some sort of nonsense attempt at "fairness". some things are wrong, some are right. In some cases, sorting out which is which, should not be done by some waffly "taking it all on board and finding a balance" process, because then what you get is just a consensus based on the popular, unexamined view of the moment. There are various different ways of making different kinds of decision. If the question is "where shall we have our summer picnic?" then fine, open it up to everyone to have input, maybe it doesn't matter that much that it is a bit of popularity contest with certain people having disproportionate sway in making it somewhere convenient for them; and putting that issue aside, and pretending for the moment that there is no such lobbying and power groups, then the right answer is the one that most people support. If the question is "What is the patriarchy, and how does it affect me in my life?" the answer is not a matter of concensus because the power of the patriarchy is so great you will get a majority view of "the patriarchy does not affect me" and "I like women to be feminine" and "well she did go home with him so it was not real rape".

What I am getting at is that properly structured thought protects us from the powerful and oppressive hegemony of the moment (patriarchy, neo-liberalism). Some people aren't going to like it. They're either wrong, or confused. Sorry if that sounds harsh. But taking care of people's feelings is a different job from analytic political thought. I think feminists are unfairly and disproportionately expected to pander to people's feelings because they are women, and pro-women, and this makes everyone think of cosy kindness and collectivity. Not every woman is a feminist and not every thought expressed by every woman deserves a place in feminist discourse. Every person deserves the space to think and speak, as a person, of course, and to be listened to respectfully. But a lot of what a lot of people say will be wrong.

Sounds pretty anti-feminist to me.

'well, did you want a career or a baby' is their mantra when it comes to mothers and careers.

Zut - if you honestly think there are no power issues within feminism, I am not sure what else to say to you.

Many, many times I've heard feminists deny any such issues and claim that within feminism all women are equal and that feminist theory is untainted by any other prejudices and privileges, but in reality this is never the case.

You've put forward something that is unworkable at best and actively harmful at worst, just saying "because feminism" isn't a valid response.

ZutAlorsDidier yes I agree, I think its partly a good strategy because in a sense it proves that women can take some power and can earn independently and make different choices.

GoshAnneGorilla I think intersection is an interesting way of looking at class, gender, age, race etc, how they combine together to create particular oppressions but going forward isn't a useful theory that points to any sort of positive antagonism to either the economic structural or cultural hegemony that is at the root of all oppression.

And yep, fess up, I'm a leftie but I certainly don't think we women need a vanguard party of elite intellectuals. We do need solidarity and academic philosophical thinkers on which we can draw theoretical knowledge but I don't agree with mimicking existing structures, that is not the route to liberation. But neither is playing oppression top trumps.

I suppose, if you can grasp this, I am talking about feminism rather than feminists. To break it down. Clue - one is a body of thought, one is a group of people.

Gosh thanks GoshAnneGorilla, thanks for the clue. HMmmmm think about that. I'm trying but I'm not quite patronised enough to get it, at the moment. Could you patronise me a bit more?

You're missing the point. Feminists qua feminists do not have structural power over "lesser" people of any kind. As academics, as white posh people, maybe - not as and through feminism. Maybe they are snotty to other mothers at the school gate, etc. But this is not part of feminism. This "pyramid" has nothing to do with feminism. And in fact, if you are trying to talk about intersectionality (I think, bless you, you might be) the pyramid is completely the wrong image. Because a pyramid is a structure in which every element is below or above every other element. You need something more flowing and rhizomatic.

Mini, part of the reason "traditionally masculine"values were embraced so heartily by a certain strain of feminism was because having access to money other than through marriage was simply vital to the project. If women were paid for all the traditional things they do / did, outwith the arbitrary and discretionary goodwill of the good, bad, or ugly individual she happened to be married to, perhaps pretending to be like a man would have seemed less important. I would still like to see that.

And part is just good old internalised misogyny

Zut - to break it down, do you think all women are equally oppressed? Or that there are some women who have it harder then others? Clue - think about class, race, disabilities.

The idea that feminists are pure souls, free from any societal prejudices is a myth. I mentioned a pyramid for a reason, it's not just about whose at the top, it's all the hierarchies in between.

Of course that is why we hear so much anti-structure stuff. So much of the language of "choice" and "freedom" is rhetoric that means "stay out of my way while I use my privilege to get what I want". Some people who have little or no privilege buy it because they sound like lovely cheerful noble words. It's tragic. and I know this sounds awful and patronising, but some people don't know what's best for them. People who vote for low taxes who are completely dependent on public infrastructure (as we are, we use the nhs and the libraries and our children will be state educated and we can't afford private hospitals or private schools or gated communities and will never be able to) but who don't grasp that they are voting for rich people to pay less, because they can afford to do all this privately and don't care if the public goes to the dogs.

Similarly, people who are all pro-"choice" (not "pro-choice" which I definitely am!) are pro "nobody stopping the bullies from pushing everyone around"

GoshAnneGorilla, you are extrapolating all sorts of things that don't apply.

"those at the top if the pyramid will get to set the agenda" - in the world in which I live, those at the top of the pyramid tend not to be feminist women. They tend to me more or less openly or consciously anti-feminist men and women who put up with how those men want things, more or less willingly. If you are implying that there is some sort of philosophical power-"pyramid" which operates alongside the other power structures in our society and awards rigorous feminists equivalent power and therefore potential corruption, then, oh please.

I think you are imagining that there is some sort of Feminist Club which has a bunch of bullies on the committee which keeps announcing potentially oppressive things that suit them personally, like "this year we rule that feminists can't wear dresses" and all the feminists who love pretty dresses sigh but have to obey to stay in Feminist Club. Obviously that is stupid, but it isn't like that, and it is not oppressive to say "x is not a feminist point of view". The person who holds that view isn't stopped from doing or saying anything. They will be annoyed, perhaps because something they want or value is being threatened, but it doesn't actually stop them from doing anything. then there is an argument about it, and good, argument is good.

But the thing about feminism, and so many other things, that it is not a matter of personal preference. If you say "I love the film Pretty Woman!" I can't say "You are wrong, because I hate it". Of course if you love it, you love it, and you are free to say so. But I am right to say it is not a feminist movie, and if you disagree because you like it and you want to say you are a feminist, well you might get annoyed, but it doesn't make you right.

The thing to bear in mind is that while structures can oppress, the lack of structure will definitely oppress. So while we have laws against certain things (GBH, child labour) what we are doing is curbing the opportunities of the rich or physically strong to use their advantages to abuse the weak. It's a good thing. Similarly, if you just wave your hands and say "whatever, it's all good, it's all choice" you are failing to oppose the vested interests who are actively working against us for their own reasons

Zut - of course it's problematic.

All you're suggesting is a feminism where those at the top if the pyramid will get to set the agenda, so it's exactly the same power dynamics that exist in wider society, but because it's women dictating to other women, it's somehow beneficial for women as a class.

You seriously don't see any limitations with that approach?

er, I'm not advocating anything

I suppose you could argue that it is quite possible to be different and equal that equality is not the same as being identical. In which case it would be safe to say, "hey I don't want your job, nah I prefer knitting and homemaking" (except few can). A division of labour doesn't in and of itself create inequality. Being a SAHM doesn't have the same value as being a CEO or some such because value is denoted by economic value. Something unpaid has less economic value and is socially regarded therefore as having less value. Who wants seemingly to be of less social value? very few people. A division of labour where people might perform fairly gender specific roles doesn't have to entail making judgements of value. But it does now. Its a little like me saying to DP "I can drink you under the table" I can't and I don't want to be able to. Maybe that is socially conditioned but maybe I would still choose a glass of red over a pint, or the cross country over the rugby or whatever. Why does masculine culture whether it be chasing bonuses or chasing pints have to be emulated. Even women must to some extent have been guilty of agreeing to this system of values because many haven't sought to challenge it but to emulate it at work and at home. But then what makes some behaviour and some desires masculine/feminine and I am puzzled about how that came to be, was that as a result of material conditions? probably but can't think straight at the moment.

I don't have an opinion about what we should do, I would love it if every woman had free choice but we simply don't.

BF is biologically determined, some women seem intent on ensuring that women do not have bodily autonomy. I would like to know what some of the Breastapo think about abortion and rape.

Sheshelob - I think you can critique the way capitalism limits our time with our families without going into silly biological determinism. I would love to spend more time with my children but not more than my dp. I wish we could both work less.

I really do think my children need more of me than they are getting. They get a lot of a good childminder and they get a reasonable amount of dp, but they need more of me, not because I am a woman but because I am their mother. If I were to stop woh and dp take up being out 14 hours a day, that wouldn't work either. they would miss him terribly. but it doesn't stop them needing me, either