Is the constant misinterpretation of Feminism ignorance or wilful misunderstanding?

Buffy

"I know many men react angrily because they take feminist analysis personally. That's because men are used to being treated as individuals whose views matter and who are judged only on their individual behaviour. But unfortunately, men taking feminist analysis personally is evidence of those men not having understood feminist analysis properly."

"you can also be in the fortunate position of not yet having awoken to your oppression"

This is meant as a genuine question, not an attack, just in case it seems that way. But why is the female colleague of the OP someone who hasn't woken up to being oppressed, rather than someone who is treating things on their own individual behavior like you make reference to guys doing? Could it not be the same thing?

I guess the last part is well explained by your later post. Individual experience being both a good thing, but also masking trends in the bigger picture.

Buffy

"But I'd thought that the OP was more about how opponents of feminism smear it so it seems like a set of extreme and unpleasant set of man-hating beliefs promoted by fat ugly women in dungarees."

Whhhhhaaatttttt? It's not?

The socialisation part is an interesting point - what is cause and effect. E.g. are there more women caring/ nursing because biologically they prefer that, or is it just because of social norms? I think there is a big social impact, but there also must be some biological stuff going on. For example different mental illnesses tend to be related to different brain chemistry, and we group roughly similar conditions into groups, which often are linked to those chemical differences.

With male and females having (on a general scale) much more similar chemistry within their "group" then there must be stuff each group prefers. As I mentioned before it's certainly not a case of ignoring the cultural pressure, but is it also worth (or better?!) to have some focus on getting nurses (stereotypical female job/ volunteers) paid better, and (male - overpaid) footballers paid less? If it is just social pressure then in theory it's no problem getting any job to be equal. However if it is chemistry then it's much harder in theory to get people to do something they don't enjoy as much.

LurcioAgain

Yes, from reading your latest post I didn't properly understand what you were meaning. I think I still don't - but that's more my own ignorance probably! I agree it's important to reward good work, not the time you sit at your desk. However if you are rewarding someone on how long they learn the job, and it generally takes, say, 3 years. Then if a female has missed 1 year looking after a kid will that not mean in practice she takes 4 years (assuming average employee learning) to get promoted? Therefore a male starting at the same time would move into a senior position to her more quickly, resulting in more senior positions being dominated by males? Pay may be relatively similar, since the mum staying at home got paid the same as the guy who was working, but since the promotion would normally be associated with higher salary he would in practice earn more too?

Snow: " I wasn't meaning it was unfair the woman was paid more so much as it is an individual case, more than is it fair that less experience is rewarded?"

I think you still haven't quite got the hang of principles behind structuring job roles/ promotion/ progression that I was trying to get across. If you're a manager of a company and you have a job which it takes 7 years (the length from entry to "rate for the job" of old-fashioned UK civil service grades), then you've designed the specs of the job wrong. You should have two jobs there - a junior and a senior one, with progression from one to the other according to publically stated criteria. The issue should be one of defining what it takes to do the job properly, not simply rewarding length of time served. Yes, part of what it takes, in more senior roles, will be the wealth of knowledge that comes with experience - but again, that should be played out in terms of outputs (widgets, papers, sales figures, etc), not simply years served. (Apart from anything else, people gain the necessary experience at different rates - are you going to hold back the high flyers and reward the plodders?) And I say this as someone who works in a knowledge industry (in a scientific research establishment which, in my field, is ranked number 1 in the world on citations) where there's a hell of a lot of background knowledge needed - there aren't many of us who don't start in the job with a PhD, often postdoctoral experience.

Length of service on its own means diddly squat, and simply entrenches (albeit usually unintentionally) institutionalised inequalities in pay. The UK university sector is a prime example of this. Women academics don't just earn less than men because there are more male professors (the typical inverted triangle). They earn less when you compare like with like - lecturer A, lecturer B, senior lecturer, reader, professor. The same is true in a lot of other jobs.

Which is kind of the original point in the OP, isn't it? Why don't men - and women - understand feminist analysis properly? Clearly Messy's colleague did not, otherwise she would not have made her comment.

Or just to add to that last point and to link it to what BuffytheReasonableFeminist said...

I really don't feel I have done anything like oppress someone for being a girl. So when you get accused of being misogynistic for arguing something from a guy's point of view/ for a guy's issue then it makes you react against "feminism" - because that's the thing attacking you as it were.

Hopefully this isn't read the wrong way, and I don't think Buffy meant it that way at all from seeing her other posts. But hopefully it's an example to show why some people might react against it when they feel they are being attacked for something they feel they are innocent about?

cailindana
Snow1, I know it's a slight derail but you said: "it is very hard to guys to stop a long term girlfriend getting pregnant if she wants to." Could you explain this? What's the stop the guy in that relationship using condoms?

It's more an observation from anecdotal evidence, but I know a lot of guys have raised this question. The general outline is that in a long term relationship if you are insisting to still wear them you will get questioned about lack of trust. You would only wear them to stop the other person getting pregnant, or getting an STD. Either says "I don't trust you" and so will destroy the relationship in practice. I know a lot of guys who have suspicions that their partner "accidentally" got pregnant. I mentioned it in the list of things as I saw a discussion about it recently on a male dominated forum. The question was about did the person feel ready to be a dad, and it seemed to be that a lot of posters said no, but their partner had got pregnant anyway (they also pretty much all said it turned out to be the best thing that had happened to them, but that's a bit off topic). The other stereotype is some women getting pregnant to try and save a dying relationship.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying it is very normal, but there certainly is a number of people who feel it is something that has affected them. Also it will be more noticeable since people don't really affirm a negative.

LurcioAgain

Some really interesting stuff there that I had no idea about, particularly about the pay scale and changes there. Great to hear. It is Norway, I believe in the case from my personal experience the person who got a lower salary increase was also on the same grades as the person who was away. I wasn't meaning it was unfair the woman was paid more so much as it is an individual case, more than is it fair that less experience is rewarded? There is a perfectly valid point to be made that a lot of the skills from being at home with a kid will also benefit the company. However I guess on a personal note a huge amount of the work my company does is related to knowledge and experience. So to get nothing extra despite having this could be viewed as unfair. I don't mean this as me being against feminism, but more that a fairer way is having a more equal spread of time looking after the children and therefore the "lost" experience (and learning of new skills at home) can be used. As an aside my company also seems to be giving graduates higher salary increases than those working, so it's certainly not an anti-woman point, but it's not related to this conversation).

SevenZarkSeven
There's just no point in pretending that things which don't affect men and women equally the same, do, or that they should be tackled together as the root causes are different.

I understand what you mean, and completely agree that different problems require different solutions based on the actual problem. What I am meaning by it being treated more equally is that guys feel it is much easier for women to raise an issue without being called sexist (for example the very real problem of rape), but if guys come out with "guy" issues they get called misogynistic/ sexist and that we should be thankful we have it so good. Which then leads to feeling more annoyed/ bitter about feminism. Therefore if it was more under equality then it removes that "them" versus "us" reaction. I think OutragedFromLeeds has a very good point with this - put the focus on the sexist people, not on the normal ones. Otherwise it does portray it more as a rivalry, not working together.

No, the colleague was a woman of the female persuasion. From Messy's post after the OP....

But you see my colleague DOES subscribe to the same beliefs as me. She is a female who works for a living in a male dominated job and would be horrified to be paid less than her male colleagues.

You don't have to be a handmaiden to have these feelings towards feminism.

I meant enlightening as in the expression of some of the difficulties those women had with feminism and feminists. I don't think those women saw themselves as currying favour with men by denying their feminist principles. As someone said, the whole of MN - not just this board - is overflowing with practical, feminist-y thoughts and actions. And yet I think some of them found engaging with FWR to be problematic for one reason or another.

I think people can agree with much of what feminism proposes, and yet at the same time have problems engaging in feminist discourse. Maybe that is what the OP's colleague was referring to? And, go on, be honest - how many people here made the initial assumption that the OP's colleague was a man?

I did see it. I didn't quite get people's problem. If you want to have theoretical discussions, have them (I like reading them sometimes), if you want to talk activism, do it, etc.

It's not like there's a finite amount of internet restricting who can talk about what.

That's interesting - my instant thought was that I don't think of feminism as a political movement (Ha, what were your saying about us all being different :) )

For me feminism is more than a political affiliation - it's a way of life, a way of raising my kids and interacting with everyone, not as theoretical as a philosophy, more important than being the member of the labour/libdem/green/whatever party.

Perhaps that's me stereotyping political movements though.

I wouldn't deny that that sort of stereotyping does go on, Chunky. But Feminism is, at heart, a political movement, and political movements always have opponents and detractors. There was a discussion on here a few weeks ago about why relatively few women frequent FWR, and how feminism on MN was perceived. It was quite enlightening. Did you see it?

The best I can ascribe it is like lesbian. For all my growing up lesbians were not individuals but a stereotype. Dms fat denim and short haired is what I would remember as lesbian in the 80s. Now it's cool to be a lipstick lesbian. Ie pretty, well dressed coiffed and attractive. God forbid if you're now lesbian and ugly... Or worse a straight girl pretending for catching men.

So feminism became a stereo type. Hippy dippy or strident ball breaker/hater. It's not real.

True Nojacket - but on the other hand, the version of feminism most of them project is man-hating male baby-eaters.

Vanishingly few of us are that.

Which makes me feel that it's willful belittling in many cases. Either to put us back in our place, or to curry favour.

Back to the OP's question - How did this happen? And the people who misunderstand feminism - are they just being ignorant of what it really is or are they wilfully misunderstanding in a conscious attempt to dismiss it?

Are they just ignorant of what it really is? Hmm. Ask ten feminists what feminism is, and you'll get ten different replies. As is so often pointed out, they aren't the Borg. It's lots of different things to different people. So who's version of feminism do you want them to 'get'? And what would that be?

Snow1, I know it's a slight derail but you said: "it is very hard to guys to stop a long term girlfriend getting pregnant if she wants to." Could you explain this? What's the stop the guy in that relationship using condoms?

And of course there are links which come together later, right, when you look at Rochdale + the BBC + all teh 70s slebs + the children's homes + the stuff with various churches 1 + the police telling people to get stuffed and you realise that there is a monumental porblem that needs tackling.

But again it's going to be women and children that are most affected and if you don't like that fact well tough.

Strangely men who don't like women talking about rape never seem to be off helping charities for male victims of sexual violence. Just as an observation.

Hmm that didn't read very well.

The bit about Rochdale was that if you know gangs of men are targeting girls in certain circumstances for grooming then you concentrate on that. You don't say well this sometimes happens to boys too although actually it isn't in this case so we need to give 50% of our time and energy to protecting boys otherwise it's not fair or something.

Similarly when people look at gangs targeting boys then that should be the focus as with the appalling situations around various boys homes.

I just think that having to have everything do do with sex made "fair" so that the focus is on males as much as females even when one or the other is a clear majority and the approaches needed to tackle it may differ, is ridiculous. And I guess what people who say that really want is resource diverted away from women and girls and spent on men and boys. Yet you never hear them arguing for resource earmarked for men and boys to be diverted away, IME and as far as I can remember.

There's just no point in pretending that things which don't affect men and women equally the same, do, or that they should be tackled together as the root causes are different.

For instance it is no good having a campaign around child victims of sexual exploitation in Rochdale when the victims were in the vast majority girls. You don't get this argument around other factors do you. If people say that children in care are more at risk of sexual exploitation you don't get people saying oh but children not in care are as well and what about them. Well that's true but at the moment we are focussing on children in care.

Similarly the recent (unsurprising to many feminists) news that the police are still basically telling victims of sexual violence to piss off. The vast majority of those who approach the police about matters of sexual violence are female. It's OK to therefore talk about the problems women and girls have getting these crimes recorded and investigated. Incidentally the work done to improve this will improve matters for male victims of sexual violence as well. So that's all good isn't it.

Similarly the statement "The research results also show that as many men as women also have been victims of serious physical violence and domestic violence" but the causes and things around that will differ. I'd be interested to see the source of those stats, and whether they include sexual violence. I'm guessing not, as sexual violence, and sex crimes in general tend not to be included in these figures for some reason.

Anecdotally though I would imagine that for instance males are more likely to be involved in gang violence, street violence, pub-related violence (if we are excluding rape etc). The drivers for these things are not the same as the drivers for much of the violence against women (well patriarchy but under that it differs).

If you want to tackle gang violence in inner cities it is no good saying well women in Devon are the victims of violence in the home as well so let's look at that at the same time.

And vice versa.

And this doesn't seem to happen with other things. It's only when women and girls are identified as the group, or the majority group, who need assistance in some way that everyone says "well hold on a minute".

It's really depressing.

Been thinking about Snow1's eg of a woman on maternity leave who gets a bigger payrise than a male colleague who's present, and I thought I'd explain (to the best of my understanding) the position in UK law (used to be on my Trade Union Branch council and was involved in equality issues, so know a bit from a lay-person's perspective about this).

It used to be the case that many workplaces, especially public sector, had long pay scales. This was deemed to be discriminatory because typically it entrenched a structural sexism whereby women ended up paid less for the same job than men (in fact in some job roles in my current workplace, this is still the case - my union's waiting for someone brave enough to stick their head above the parapet and be the test case). Now there are two attitudes you can take to a long salary scale - one is that it rewards loyalty, and the other is that in general it takes about three years to get good at a job (barring rocket science, corporate contract law, that sort of thing), and people should be paid for doing the job, not for the length of time their bum's been on the seat. Current law doesn't explicitly rule out long pay scales, but they have to be carefully designed not to lead to indirect sex discrimination.

As for the specific example - well, it's worth thinking about how the situation of a man who's been in work all year getting a lower rise than a woman who's been on maternity leave might arise. In my work place, we have a form of performance related pay (that's a whole other discussion - broadly speaking, most management scientists agree that PRP is divisive and de-motivating, unless you are managing say a bunch of merchant bankers - in which case the problem is that it motivates them so highly they start running insane risks and bring the economy of the whole country to the brink of bankruptcy - but I digress). We have 3 markings at the end of year - exceeded, met or unsatisfactory. Women on maternity leave are given "met" as a default because there's no evidence one way or the other. So a man who got a lower pay rise in my workplace (I say lower - we've had a 3 year pay freeze followed by a 1% deal so we're talking peanuts here - cf comments about motivation above) would in effect get that because he was being punished for being a screw-up (and he'd also be on an improvement plan which he'd have to meet or find himself going through formal dismissal procedures). So it wouldn't be that he was being getting a lesser pay rise than the woman on maternity leave in particular - he would be getting a lesser pay rise than all the people in the firm who'd been deemed to be doing their job properly. (Note also that an indivdual woman might have a track record of getting "exceeded" in every staff report for the last 10 years - she'd still get "met" for the year she was on maternity leave).

Of course, I don't know how it works in Norway (apologies, may have forgotten what country). But it's important to be clear on how the law works, and company procedures work, and not cherry pick individual cases without relevant background information to give a misleading impression of unfairness when, without information about how the pay system is designed in terms of equality law and PRP, we don't actually know whether the individual in this specific case was treated unfairly.