I'm giving up.

I think it's unfair to say the younger generation is apathetic towards feminism. I'm early twenties and a hell of a lot of my friends and peers, especially those from uni, are really tuned in. I think there's some weight to the argument that although radical feminism is apparently dying a death, this period of "post-feminism" really matters. Our generation may not have had to contend with the vote etc but I think other issues are emerging which still need feminism to solve them, for example the beauty industry and Naomi Wolf's argument that we may be more constrained than previous generations because of it. Please don't quit and assume noone cares - fight the good fight

GarlicShake

I see it all the time with my undergrads. But have heart! In the lat couple of years they seem to have suddenly become political again. They are seeking ways to explain & counteract the creeping horrible misogyny they encounter all the time. It's a shock to them, as they've been told that women now "have it all" and we're post-feminist now.

It's bollocks, as you & I know.

I do my tint bit by teaching feminist courses for the handful of students who seek the knowledge. But what depresses me (and the Green Party "non-male" debacle did depress me a lot), is that a lot of these young women, seeking to be politically active, don't read & learn from the wisdom of earlier feminists, going back to Wollstonecraft in 1792. So they have no systematic understanding nor analytical tools to pull apart patriarchy.

I just feel sorry for them, really. They've been sold a pig in a poke - neoliberal identity politics.

I'm not sure there has ever been a time when a significant majority of women have identified as feminists, has there?

It would be interesting to see a robust analysis of women's views of feminism going back 50 years with comparable demographics, methodology etc. Does anyone know if this data is out there? I suspect probably not.

Shouldn't feminism be gynocentric? Isn't that the point of it?

It is.
I wonder why olivia would be "bothered" by the fact that so many women don't call themselves feminists. It's not like she is interested in the goals of feminism, they are all too gynocentric for her tastes, so ... why worry?

"Maybe I put those stat's in the wrong order."

It doesn't matter which "order" you put them in. Time flows in only one direction. If 14% of women said they are feminists in 2012 and 23% said so in 2015, that is a huge increase in just three years.

"They dont understand, dont know what it means and haven't thought about it? Thats a bit condescending isn't it?"

No it isn't "condescending", at all. I would have said that I am not a feminist up until several years ago. I just had not thought about the greater struggles of women (because I was alright Jack) until that point. These threads on MN have opened my eyes and made me think about feminism. So now I say I am a feminist, although my opinions differ in some respects from most others.

"Condescending" would be telling you that you need to learn to convert fractions to percentages properly if you want to use numbers in a debate, or that there is no apostrophe in the word "stats" (plural).

Shouldn't feminism be gynocentric? Isn't that the point of it?

They dont understand, dont know what it means and haven't thought about it? Thats a bit condescending isn't it?

So it doesn't bother you in any way that women have been distancing themselves more and more from the feminist movement. That a growing number of them associate feminism with anger and hostile rhetoric and don't want to be associated with it? It bothers me. . I'm actually concerned greatly by the divisive, gynocentric, paranoid turn feminsim has taken and that's why I and most women I know, of my age (50 ish), as well as the young un's have turned away. This needs addressing and if anything the young women (the future of feminism) need to reclaim it.

Maybe I put those stat's in the wrong order. They move around a bit it's true but generally speaking across all the polls taken in the past decade in the UK, a microscopic 7% of women describe themselves as feminists. The decline is clear and obvious however much you insult me for bringing it to light.

Anyway re "feminism isn't popular so ner" as an argument":

(1) It is not a popularity contest.

(2) Women might not call themselves "feminist" because they don't understand what it means or haven't thought much about it before, but if you ask them whether they believe females should have the same rights and opportunities as males, they will overwhelmingly answer "YES". Which means they are feminists.

"A Yougov poll I read in 2015 – are you a feminist? only 23% of women identified as such. Net mums did a survey in 2012, it found - 1 in 7 women call themselves a feminist. I could go on, the evidence for decline is obvious and overwhelming."

You don't seem to know that 1/7 = 14%

Or that 23% in 2015 after 14% in 2012 shows an increase.

i like to pull out that french short film where the male/female roles are flipped and the man is subject to harassment.

Of course thats only one small aspect. no we cannot experience life as the other sex unless we transition, and then as much as we might experience it, we're still coming to it from being raised in the 'norms' of our supposed gender.

However, this is where empathy comes in.. and i find very few men empathetic about how it is to experience life as a woman, to be seen as less capable, less strong, less intelligent, just... lesser, because we dimple instead of dangle.

Men have not grown up being told to dress sensibly so they don't get raped.
Men have not grown up being told they're cunts for refusing the offer of dick
Men do not get abused for choosing a career over their children
Men do not get paid less simply because of their sex
Men do not have to travel in groups for safety
Men are less likely to suffer domestic abuse
Men are less likely to die at the hands of a spouse

(Of course these things are not 100% correct, there will always be cases where those things have happened.. i am the sister of a man who was domestically abused by a controlling wife who still makes his life hell 3 years post divorce.)

But none of those lessen that feminism is STILL necessary, because we do NOT have equality... and until then, there are battles still to be fought.

(Off the top of my head, day to day things like: little or no pressure or judgement concerning our appearance? Weight automatically given to our opinions? The kind of things that we all know are unequal, but of which only men will generally have felt the benefit. IYSWIM?)

Stats: A Yougov poll I read in 2015 – are you a feminist? only 23% of women identified as such. With ethnic minority and working class women are almost not there at all. Net mums did a survey in 2012, it found - 1 in 7 women call themselves a feminist and most recently, in the U.S ( U.S -UK stats tend to be roughly similar) a Time/CNN poll which showed that although 57 percent of the women felt there was a need for a strong women's movement, but 63% didn't consider themselves feminists.

I could go on, the evidence for decline is obvious and overwhelming. Don't take my word go and look for yourselves.

It 's probably going to far to say feminism is dying. IMO It will always exist in some form. But if it doesn't reform it will continue to spiral towards irrelevancy and that saddens me.

Excellent post Process. I agree with the sentiment re some women probably believing they have equality because they haven't experienced what life is like for men. The flip side is that I can't easily quantify that as I haven't experienced what life is like for women.

It's my thought that some women think they have equality with men because they don't actually know what it's like being a man. If they did, they'd realise what they were missing out on.

Process, I too would like to know what you mean by this.

Garlic it is because of reading these boards and women like you that I have woken up regarding feminism and how it is just as important today as it was when our Grannies were fighting for the vote and the right to work.
I see inequality everywhere (and I used to believe we were equal). I see trans rights being given more oxygen that actual womens' rights. Age has also given me the confidence to actually start calling men out when confronted with blatant sexism.
Don't give up the fight

Just wanted to say that my dd, 32, has recently become a feminist. I've never been an activist, to my shame, but my mother was a feminist and I have always identified as such. My dd always listened to me, but never expressed much interest in my political views, but since she became a mother, she is really indignant about the treatment of women.

And I have to say, the idea that anyone would think that women should be called non-men is totally shocking. Like the term unmarried mother of my youth, makes it sound like something is missing.

English women could legally be fired when they got married: I'm reading until 1950, but my mother was 'required to leave' her job when she married in 1954.

I think the Civil Service marriage bar was the last to go, in 1973, though I suspect in practice it was mostly ignored by then anyway.

Annoyingkid

I have a legal responsibility to protect and care for my DC and much of what we all do as adults is geared towards carring for and protecting children. Do we live in a society that treats children as equal to adults? Do we let them vote, drink, drive, have a mortgage? Of course not. In significant periods of our past, women were treated as children. The lawmakers and intellectuals saw women as infantilised and hopefully submissive adults the husband could, amongst other things, have sex with in the same way that you take kids out on fun day trips whether they want to go or not. How fucked-up is that?

I'm sure there were women who did well and occasionally they even landed positions of power. But this was always despite the system, not because of the system. Any equality was down to against-the-odds determination. And don't cite rare exceptions to a rule as evidence that the rule doesn't apply. That's poor logic, because their very infrequency shows that the rule is the norm. If women were regarded as equal to men in history, how come the history books are not full of them? Or did feminism erase hundreds of successful women leaders, writers, artists, composers, philosophers and scientists from history just to further the concept of the Patriarchy? "Someone had to look after the kids" I hear you cry. Perhaps, but you do know that a huge proportion of history's most famous men came from wealthy backgrounds where the history makers had sisters who didn't have to look after their kids either? Many of the poor artists and writers didn't have jobs, which was a choice any hopeful woman artist or writer had open to her if she had been allowed to take it and had been given the required education.

As for single parents? Statistics show that the absence of a father figure post-divorce is linked to a host of social ills. As far as I'm aware feminism does not encourage men to abandon their kids. In fact, I'm pretty sure it encourages men to play as active a role in their children's lives as possible, whether mum and dad are together or not. You don't blame feminism for men not loving their children, do you? Or do you blame feminists for disempowering men and stopping them from being loving dads? Hint: co-parenting, loving dads generally do not lose equitable custody of their kids post-seperation.

As a man, I personally would like to thank feminism for encouraging and enabling me to form the kind of deeply emotional relationship with my DC that would not have been possible 50 years ago. The same goes for the great relationship I have with my mum, and the valued friendships I have with women. I see all the women in my life as my equal, and I hope they see me as their equal.

From my perspective, feminism is important because it looks at the patriarchy from outside. This is something that's impossible to do if you're a man. Hopefully one day we won't need feminism any more, but we're certainly not there yet. It's my thought that some women think they have equality with men because they don't actually know what it's like being a man. If they did, they'd realise what they were missing out on. Or they'd realise what men don't have to put up with, which may be more relevant these days.