Is the constant misinterpretation of Feminism ignorance or wilful misunderstanding?

cailindana
Snow - my point was, if the guy didn't trust his partner why was he having sex with her? You say he would "demand" to wear condoms - what would stop him from explaining his fear of pregnancy and coming to an agreement with his partner that it'd be best to take extra precautions?

He might well have trusted her (or been niave), up to the moment she got pregnant. Things might work out for the best (that the guy loves being a dad in many cases) but it does remove the choice from the guy. Seems you and Yonic are way too reasonable! :D It would be interesting to do a pole on here to see what most people would think?

I think Buffy means feminism has perhaps changed more from protesting against obvious issues (like the vote etc) to focusing more on the subconscious things holding females back because of stereotypes etc., now that a lot of biased rules have been replaced.

Started writing this post a while ago before getting distracted by children, so may be answering things a page or two back.

cailin I think you're deliberately misinterpreting me there. Of course I agree rape is an issue. I'd call it a criminal justice issue. I don't see that labelling it as a feminist issue does anything to get it solved quicker. I'm not convinced oppression is the right word for being statistically more likely to be a victim of crime.

I think I owe you an apology though for jumping on the word oppression. I had no idea that using the word oppressed for women was a feminist Thing. I know a good few people who self-identify as feminist and none of them have ever said women were oppressed before. Does kind of back up my point that different people mean different things by feminism.

buffy, I think you are making a good case for the inner city poor being oppressed. Not women. ?

"What would you think of a guy who you'd been going out with for 4 years who demanded to wear condoms (effectively telling you he doesn't trust you)?"

I would think it was his body, his choice. I might well stop taking the pill, if he was using condoms, as I don't dope myself on hormones for fun.

Yes I've learned a lot from you catkind. I won't worry myself with 85,000 women raped in the UK every year any more. After all, it's not really a problem is it?

Snow - my point was, if the guy didn't trust his partner why was he having sex with her? You say he would "demand" to wear condoms - what would stop him from explaining his fear of pregnancy and coming to an agreement with his partner that it'd be best to take extra precautions?

To use your own analogy, you're basically coming along to Christians and saying Jesus didn't exist.
Can't resist that one. I'm an atheist so would say exactly that. Generally find Christians more than happy to engage with me about religion, I've had plenty of interesting discussions and learnt a lot. Perhaps what we're learning here is that feminism is not an evangelical religion.

their message sorry.

I think when it comes to Feminism there are women who are so aggressive in how they convey there message they put other women off instead of capturing their attention.

Some of the women on this particular forum are a perfect example of it.

So how did it come to this? For me the answer is obvious - some women scored an own goal.

In practice I see women having different aspirations, and I wonder why that is and if that would be less so with less of the well intentioned underlying sexism. I don't see women wanting to be in science or in management or in engineering and being blocked from that path.

mimi, I genuinely don't recognise oppression as describing women's situation in our society. Feel free to educate me but it's just not what I see, not really even by buffy's description of civilised oppression which I admittedly hadn't heard before.

Like that phrase. It's the unconscious (sexist) assumptions of the well intentioned people I spend half my life being furious about.

I wouldn't describe the result as women being silenced or discredited or lacking in self respect though. I just can't recognise that description as being anything like typical. This forum is I believe mainly women and on the whole we're a confident, assertive and often argumentative bunch. And that reflects women I meet in real life too with very few exceptions. And now I've fallen into trying to generalise about women as a whole which is far too large and diverse a group to generalise about.

I don't think I've seen the victim-blaming threads - is this the Ched Evans stuff?

cailindana

"My question is, if these guys were so afraid of pregnancy why weren't they taking steps to avoid it, either by refusing to have sex without a condom, refusing to have sex at all, or ending the relationship, given that they couldn't trust their partner? The only way a woman could be pregnant with their child would be to have unprotected sex with her, which is an active choice made by the man."

(Just to make clear, this is certainly not a majority of guys, but certainly from different places on the internet seems to be discussed sometimes)

Generally it would come down to the woman was/said she was taking the pill. Some guys would have trusted her, but then she "accidently" got pregnant and some may not have been sure but were niave and thought it would work out. What would you think of a guy who you'd been going out with for 4 years who demanded to wear condoms (effectively telling you he doesn't trust you)? It would destroy the relationship, and so the guy then destroys the relationship or doesn't wear a condom and potentially gets her pregnant.

PuffinsAreFicticious

"Snow, you might want to revisit your post about mental illness and have a bit of a goggle for some facts. Because it was light on those."

I was trying not to go toooo off topic! Trying to keep it short, but for example with my experience bipolar then it is a combination of genetics, chemicals (serotonin, dopamine and noradrenaline) and lifestyle/stress. However it still is not fully understood and there is a lot of debate.

Catkind
I disagree with your argument that we are not opressed. Yes we may have access to every profession and equal rights in law etc as you say but only in theory. In practice this is often not the case for many women. I think you are perhaps choosing to ignore the facts but I can't imagine why...

Thanks buffy, you live up to your username.

That sounds to me like a description of a victim of domestic abuse, not western society as a whole. (And in my experience domestic abuse is roundly condemned as a crime by society as a whole.) Is that what you're talking about here, or do you feel women as a class are subject to Civilised Oppression? Not a rhetorical question, I'd really like to know.

I was originally trying to answer the post title which accused people (I suspect including me) of ignorance or wilful misunderstanding. By suggesting that different people understand different things by the term feminism. Perhaps they're talking about a different version of feminism to yours.

Then admittedly digressing slightly to explain what I saw as a linked subject, why some people do not subscribe to the label of feminist despite feeling strongly on issues of equality.

There's no point in engaging with feminism
I found that insulting. There's a point in engaging in discussion because I feel strongly about many of the same issues you feel strongly about. There were threads recently about why there isn't more involvement in the FWR board. So I can't join in discussions here unless I think women in the UK are oppressed? Really? There are people in this world - women in this world - who are truly oppressed and we aren't it.

Ok then catkind. No one is asking you to engage with feminism. Coming into a thread full of feminists saying "there's no need for feminism" is a bit pointless really. Do you expect us all to say "Oh you know what catkind you're right. Our years of research, political analysis, personal experience and understanding were all bollocks. Thanks for your wonderful insight!"
If you believe there's no need for feminism, good for you. Off you pop.

30% gender pay gap, 148 out of 160 MPs are women, 1 in 4 women will be sexually assaulted during their lifetimes (and yes, some men get assaulted too - but interesting the vast majority of the perpetrators in both cases are men), only a tiny fraction of rapes make it as far as a successful conviction (but any attempt to talk about the reasons for this attracts vast swathes of idiots who want to talk about the even smaller fraction of false rape accusations), we don't legally have abortion on demand (two doctors have to sign to say it's needed for medical reasons)... yes, everything in the garden is rosy, isn't it.

I don't think you can lump every issue that statistically speaking affects one gender more than the other together and make it an "ism". Or you can but I don't think it helps to solve the issues. And it can result in sexist assumptions, for example if carers' pay is raised as a feminist issue, what does that say to male carers?

Sexual violence is a criminal justice issue. No-one except criminals thinks it's okay. It can by its nature be difficult to prove beyond reasonable doubt which is what the courts require for a conviction. I don't see what putting the feminist label on it does to help solve that, and again it seems to be saying to male victims that they don't count, and to the vast majority of males who think it's just as abhorrent as I do that they're somehow part of the problem.

If you seriously believe women aren't oppressed in western society catkind, then there's no point in even engaging with feminism.

So welcoming. I'm a person who's passionate about equal rights. I probably agree with you about the vast majority of what you would call feminist issues. I just don't agree about the label. And you say there's no point my even engaging in discussion?

Oppressed is a very strong word. We have the vote. We have education. We have access to every profession. We have equal rights in law. We have generous maternity leave and pay in law. We have anti-discrimination laws. There are women at the highest levels of every profession. Sorry but that's not what I call oppression.

For me, feminism is about recognising and correcting imbalances of power within our society (which is still very patriarchal).
It is about challenging inbuilt assumptions about male superiority and rich male privileged - all based on the power imbalance they benefit from.

If you can understand the point, feel free to address it.

If not, feel free to ignore.