"Women against feminism" WTF?!!

Did I say that?

Why, no.

I objected to you referring to human beings as 'the underclass,' because it's perjorative and shitty.

Ok?

Plenty of feminists are and have been part of the group you're being so rude about, you know.

Ah yes, the underclass deniers. Because it would be preposterous to suggest that there are whole swathes of the population subsisting at a socio-economic level beneath anything you've ever encountered.

There are big class issues in feminism- as there are in society. I notice you sidestep the points about contraception and abortion. And you dismiss the point about rape with a flip comment.

I won't take on your outrageous comments about schools and teachers- they are for another thread.

Right then.

Seeing as I don't believe there's an 'underclass' and don't spend my time being shitty about people who're not middle class, we'll have to agree to disagree.

Hakluyt, she is a mother of twins and she is sixteen years and ten months.

LRD, I doubt there is any such thing. I don't believe there is a working class any more, you see - only an underclass.

greedy, what about feminists who're not middle class?

I agree feminism has big class issues, btw.

She has been raped at least once. You said she was a 16 year old mother of 2.

A decent education is not available to her because there is still this little thing called 'class inequality' and 'socio-economic deprivation' which means unless she is middle class with affluent parents she is only ever going to be 'educated' at a sink estate school where the teachers don't give a shit about her future prospects because they, too, are middle class and care only about themselves. Again, please tell me how feminism has helped this young woman. Oh, and she hasn't been raped. Not everyone has, you see.

"Sigh> Why does every opinion that is not yours have to be a wind up? Tell me what feminists have done for the sink estate 16 year-old mum of two and I will retract my statement."

Well, for a start, there was education, contraception and abortion available to her. It's crap that she didn't avail herself of it, but it was there. The man who raped her, should she have reported him, might have gone to prison, and she is less likely to be held responsible for her rape. Not much, you might say, but better than it would have been 50 years ago.

Well, I meant to encircle the rapist's loins like lionesses ready to rip his balls off.

Why does every opinion that is not yours have to be a wind up? Tell me what feminists have done for the sink estate 16 year-old mum of two and I will retract my statement. And please don't witter on about how she at least now has the super duper opportunity to go out and get herself a top-class education because she bloody well can't.

"Feminists simply care about financial equality and then only for themselves."

Would you care to back that up with anything?

Oh, and the expression "girding your loins" means to prepare yourself for a challenge.

I am being perfectly serious. Feminists simply care about financial equality and then only for themselves. The lower working classes are in the exact same boat they were in a hundred years ago. If anything has changed in their fortunes it had nothing to do with feminism.

Gird: to surround; encircle.

Greedybitch-just checking. Do you mean that or are you being ironic? I don't want to answer until I'm sure.

'As long as we have money we don't give a shit about equality. We have equal pay now and most of us won't ever suffer the horror of being raped by our husbands.'

Erm ... what?

We don't have equal pay. We only have the law saying you mustn't discriminate (and only in the UK, not everywhere). We're a long way from equal pay, and what's more, the situation is worse for women of colour in many places.

I don't know who 'us' is, but statistically, if you mean 'women in the UK' ... yes, a significant proportion of 'us' will be raped by our husbands. It's horrible, I know. But it happens.

Go and take a look at one of the AIBU threads from yesterday where the OP was bewailing the 'atrocious attitudes' of some fathers when it comes to childcare. Apparently, attending toddlers' birthday parties isn't really a 'dad' thing and that is appalling, sexist, lazy, blah, blah. Guess what? The massive majority of posters came on to say 'who gives a shit?' Their husbands had a season ticket for his football team and would rather go there than some party for rambunctious snotty-nosed tots. It was the mums who dragged themselves to these parties; mums who slaved over birthday cakes and party bags; mums who shopped for all the kiddie shite. And no-one complained. They accept that it's not a dad's 'thing' and no, they didn't bemoan the inequitable nightmare of it all for them as feminists. They really don't care.

As long as we have money we don't give a shit about equality. We have equal pay now and most of us won't ever suffer the horror of being raped by our husbands. That isn't because feminists have girded the rapist's loins - or even forced that curmudgeonly, sexist judge to pull his socks up -it is because society has moved on - largely all by itself.

Are those the only things you disagree with, Vivienne? Are there things you do agree with?

That should be "potential rapists" in my first line. Whether they are potential racists is a whole other thread!

I don't know anyone who says that all men are violent. But all men are potential racists- in the same way that all human beings are potential murderers. There are circumstances in which you have to have that thought in mind.

Abortion is a really difficult one. The problem is that if you believe in a woman's right to choose then the logical extension of that is that there can be no conditions. I have struggled with this since I became a feminist in the early 1970s. I know that for me personally a non medically indicated abortion would be impossible. That would be how I would exercise my right to choose. However, I have to support other women's different choices. And the "abortion to term' thing is always brought up as a smoke screen when women's reproductive rights are being discussed, and attempts are made to curtail them.

As I said earlier, feminism sees to be the only movement that some people think you have to accept anything that any feminist has ever said or you have to reject the whole movement. I am a lifelong Labour voter- and labour politicians have said many things I don't fare with over the years. That doesn't mean I started voting conservative!