Active discussions

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Feminism: chat

Original poster

I'm giving up.

415 replies

GarlicShake · 17/04/2016 17:36

This is more of a despairing rant than an invitation to reply. Sorry! I feel like I've nowhere else to put it.

I am 61 years old. I'm facing ageism & ableism as well as sexism. I have a corner to fight.

I went on strike for maternity rights, for equal pay, even for the factory to have a women's toilet. I forged a career in a world that was predominantly male, argued for my pay rises and trained younger people up to be non-sexist. I've been blamed and misconstrued, beaten up, raped, and carefully answered the gamut of sexist assumptions. I battled for my pension rights and I threatened the bank with legal action when they refused to take my salary into account on my first mortgage. I am still fighting.

But I just can't hack fighting for younger women any more. They're throwing away all that we, and the two generations before and the one after mine, won for them. I can't even tell whether they don't give a shit or they think all their rights are safe so they needn't bother.

I'm not going to argue the transgender thing any more. I'll stick to supporting the handful of FB friends who get it, but I'm not arguing in my own voice from now. I'm giving up on explaining why "Ms" matters - it's been around for 50 years, for crying out loud! People can figure out why the Nordic model's a better idea for themselves - or, most likely, not. Women can congratulate themselves on being financially dependent on husbands, and figure that out for themselves too.

And I think this country's going to vote itself out of Europe. That'll wake a few people up in short order, I fear, but I shall be needed to stick up for older & disabled people like me as our rights will get shredded. I am tired.

I am very tired and disappointed. Thank you for all the brilliant discussions, MN feminists! Good luck.

OP posts:
Thread gallery
5
grimbletart · 19/04/2016 00:17

Annoyingkid doesn't understand the definition of matriarchy. As the man said when asked directions "well, I wouldn't start from here".

If the poster doesn't understand what a matriarchy is then we are all wasting our time. It's like trying to nail jelly to a wall.

crazycatdad · 19/04/2016 00:16

I thought this was a given?

You would think.

Out of interest, since you seem to be fairly active, what kind of actions do you actually take in regards to your various causes? I find it's too easy to simply lament obvious inequality but then draw a blank when it comes to think of something productive to do about it.

Original poster
GarlicShake · 18/04/2016 23:42

the argument that vastly higher suicide rates in men are a result of living in a modern day patriarchal society

I thought this was a given? Those who leave clues as to their reasons are generally about feelings of failure, particularly in the role of financial provider and/or masculine figurehead.

Buffy, I read something a while back about brewing history. Brewers were mainly women - it grew from the women doing home brewing alongside all the other food & drink preparation, then ale-houses started to develop as travel increased. Some women's ales got good reputations and they started brewing in bigger quantities for export to other towns. Some of them became big business. So the licensing for brewers was changed. Under the new licences, women could only own micro-breweries and all the big ones had to be owned by men. Sorry I'm sketchy on the details, I found it by accident!

OP posts:
Original poster
GarlicShake · 18/04/2016 23:34

Loath as I am to encourage you, Very Annoying Kid, there's one thing I feel so important to feminism & sex equality that it must be answered. Though I'm sure others have answered it already!

I in fact argued against the idea that women were historically chattel,

It's hard to see how you'd argue that, since women were legally their husband's property until recently - just about within living memory in our society, and of course still ongoing in very large areas of the world.

The laws of coverture - which gave a husband the right to dispose of property owned by his wife - were amended by a series of Acts, starting in 1870 and mostly in the 20th century. French women obtained the right to work without their husbands' consent in 1965. 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. Women couldn't take out a loan or mortgage in their own name during my adult years, and of course men could legally rape their wives until 1991.

Neither of these overviews are complete, but some visitors might find them interesting:

www.theguardian.com/money/us-money-blog/2014/aug/11/women-rights-money-timeline-history

www.bl.uk/sisterhood/timeline

I apologise to those posters who feel I'm going "fuck you, younger women" ... though relieved to see it's only a couple! Of course I'm not. I'm saying I'm tired of going over the same ground while seeing much (by no means all) equality & independence being merrily thrown to the winds. And I'm at an intersection: sexism won't stop harming me while I'm alive, and now I've got ageism and ableism to deal with too. Ageism is fucking immense.

I find I'm spending quite a bit of time raising awareness about one specific intersection: the WASPI campaign for women born in the 1950s, who've been shafted by the cack-handed transition to equalised pension ages. It turns out many such women have been told they're not entitled to complain about equalisation, so they haven't. The problem isn't the equalisation itself (although there are issues around that, since doing both paid work and unpaid has adverse effects on ageing women.) It's the specific transition, which has left us hundreds of thousands out of pocket in some cases and forced about a million 60-ish women into absolute poverty.

So I need to leave younger women to figure out the pornification, genderisation, safety and financial inequality issues for themselves instead of trying continually to wake 'em up, as it were.

OP posts:
crazycatdad · 18/04/2016 23:16

I could make a list if you want, but i'd rather deal with the underlying problems with that argument.

No, I'd rather you just made the list, thanks. The rest of your post was not particularly insightful.

My point is that it is trivial to illustrate the rationale behind, for example, the argument that vastly higher suicide rates in men are a result of living in a modern day patriarchal society.

BuffytheReasonableFeminist · 18/04/2016 23:12

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

BuffytheReasonableFeminist · 18/04/2016 22:59

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

almondpudding · 18/04/2016 22:59

I agree Buffy.

I think I'm trying to find the common theme of all these groups - Everyday Feminism, MRAs, behaviour on Twitter etc.

There's something about the nature of interaction on the Internet that creates an echo chamber and creating links between totally unconnected pieces of information.

Apologies to Garlic and others.

BuffytheReasonableFeminist · 18/04/2016 22:58

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

IrenetheQuaint · 18/04/2016 22:57

Great knitting links.

Roman marriage is an interesting subject too, though looking at it through the lens of modern society is not very instructive. (And where were those female lawyers, senators and tribunes in Roman society, eh?)

AnyFucker · 18/04/2016 22:55

The pejorative level of your discourse.

Ooh, someone swallowed a dictionary have they ? Reddit's users getting a bit more edumacated. Jolly good show Smile

slugseatlettuce · 18/04/2016 22:51

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Annoyingkid · 18/04/2016 22:48

I think abuse comes under "fault".

Add to no fault divorce, a bachelor tax in that era, clearly targeted toward female interests (there was no spinster tax) and you have a situation where marriage is risky and easily broken up, and it also sucks to be a bachelor for a man.

So the motivation to succeed and earn is reduced.

The rise of single parent households which have statistically been implicated with increased levels of crime and underachievement. This rise is correlated with the mainstreaming of feminism. I hear conservatives bleating on about it, and the feminist left almost seem to think it's a good thing. They won't say that children need fathers cos that's homophobic, and even saying that a dual parent household is better is seen as somehow putting a shade on women's free choices. These are very much components of matriarchy.

BuffytheReasonableFeminist · 18/04/2016 22:48

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

slugseatlettuce · 18/04/2016 22:43

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

AuntDotsie · 18/04/2016 22:42

Are these your knitters, slugs?

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taquile_Island

slugseatlettuce · 18/04/2016 22:42

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

NotDavidTennant · 18/04/2016 22:42

Why argue with an obvious MRA? You're allowing him to derail the thread into oblivion.

slugseatlettuce · 18/04/2016 22:41

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

AuntDotsie · 18/04/2016 22:40

"This patriarchal system evolved over the centuries, and in later periods women could marry without entering their husband's legal control. In fact, some women married and only later chose to put themselves under the power of their husbands, probably for reasons of property and inheritance, Treggiari said. "

Yup, sounds like a matriarchy to me.

howtorebuild · 18/04/2016 22:39

Garlic, I hope that you reconsider and stay. I have been enlightened by many like you on mn, please stay and debate.

BuffytheReasonableFeminist · 18/04/2016 22:38

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Annoyingkid · 18/04/2016 22:32

No fault divorce news.stanford.edu/pr/91/911203Arc1041.html

Is the primary reason why ancient rome can be considered a matriarchy for the purposes of this debate.

The ease at which marriage could be dissolved lead to the breakdown of the family unit, which caused decline in civillization.

"Oh Ffs
When have men ever legally been the property of their spouse? Legal property is the definition of chattel."

Women were not property, as men had legal obligations towards women's legally protected humanity.

And as for your foul mouthed rant, add that to the list of reasons why women are shunning feminists. The pejorative level of your discourse.

slugseatlettuce · 18/04/2016 22:32

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

JessicasElephant · 18/04/2016 22:30

This is making me think of the Star Trek TNG episode about a matriarchal planet. They were doing pretty well.