Why do I get so irrationally angry at all these "poor men" threads?

Are you alright there Frank?

Dittany, the modular system means that very few students who are on humanities degree programmes, other than women's studies ones, read any feminist theory, or indeed any other kind of theory, in any form other than handout snippet before they start on a dissertation. 'Tis a huge loss from the year-long course system.

It doesn't mean you can get people to think really powerful stuff from that snippety jumping off point. In her new book, Butler asks in her convoluted, rhetorician's way 'Who do we grieve for and who isn't grievable?' and I'm not going to get my students to read her new book, but just thinking about what I've gleaned from web book reviews, I could go into my class on Wednesday and say: 'Why do the papers grieve for the victims of paedophiles and not for the victims of rape? Have you spent as much time being upset for rape victims as you have for the victims of paedophilia?'

I could post that question here on mumsnet and have a debate flying with anyone here and people would reassess their own views and draw all kinds of feminist conclusions after thinking on that conundrum.

Abstract feminism can produce 'real' results. The people in my class might well not be asked another big feminist question after they leave college, but as teachers, social workers or whatever, they might well carry those views or ideas forward in the form of action.

I do see why you think the focus on masculinities plays into the hands of patriarchy, but here in Ireland I see huge potential in helping people to disaggregate patriarchy so that it is exposed as a set of competing interests. Patriarchy's difficulty is feminism's opportunity to misquote an old nationalist proverb. Ireland got it's first woman president, the radical feminist lawyer Mary Robinson, because men fought with other men and stalemated each other.

We need women attacking patriarchy's formidable power, and unpicking its inadvertent misfires and mistakes.

I hate to think that anyone has been put off by the discussion of feminist theory on this thread: maybe theory talk should be labelled as such on its own thread(s).

I want to let this go but if you search, you can find at least one more than me and that one is still there, so please get your facts right. That is where I am leaving it

But please, people who are lucky enough to be well educated, please continue to remember those of us that aren't. We would like to contribute but it can be scary to join in sometimes

Blinder, I think that is a great way to raise a boy! I think feminism has given us to tools/vocab/awareness of the gender stereotypes you mention, and allows us to move on from them to something more constructive.

Dittany, I take exeption to your last comment

We clashed on one main thread, I outed you and had it retracted and apologised. I have seen other people also out your previous posting name but I am the one you remember. Also, after that thread, I had quite a few CATs from people telling me I hadn't warranted the intellectual beating I got

I haven't followed you anywhere, I have an interest in a number of threads you have been on.

I wanted to get involved on these new topics, especially as a parent of a young man but I was worried I would be shouted down again, especially after seeing some of your posts here

I would like to know more and I'm getting lots from many of the posts, I just don't want to be someones beating post and that's why I steered clear

Redlentil - I have a young adult son. I have been a single parent for over half of his life. I hope I have installed in him a feminist stance. He is a lovely young man and is going into a traditionally female occupation. We haven't bought into gender roles in this house and he has been bought up with household chores/cooking/diy having no gender definition - we all cook and they all do their own washing and ironing for eg

I am hoping he will enter the adult world as a feminist man - by that I don't mean well read in academics, I mean by truly believing men & women are equal

"A life lived as a woman is a body of research in itself."

WOW!

Dittany - I agree that you have a point about gender studies departments loosing the feminist edge/ the focus on women etc, it can seem like it has been a backwards step, but I think that it has been a strength to the feminist cause. If masculinity remained unquestioned, it remains the "norm" to which women become the abnormal/inferior. Gender studies allows the masculine norm to be brought down from that untouchable position and analyzed as a construct.

As for Gender Studies departments, I particularly had the University of Oslo in mind. Norway is at the forefront of feminist analysis within the academy as well as politically/socially. They operate a Centre for Gender Research. Over here Birkbeck has a leading department Birkbeck Institute for Gender and Sexuality.

Like I said, I think there is a place for academic debate about feminism and gender studies, but I would really like to see feminist debate much more mainstream again in women's lives.

Dittany, I can see you are clearly passionate about all this. And I suspect if we sat down for a coffee together we'd find a lot we agreed on. I also think second wave feminism has been too quickly dismissed. Catherine MacKinnon is a heroine of mine and hearing her lecture is a highlight of my academic career.

By the way I don't believe in those stereotypes! Hope that's clear!

I haven't studied feminism or sociology or politics at uni (I do have different areas of knowledge) so I apologise if my point is dim / offensive. I have only barely understood the thread's finer points and just want to clarify something.

Regarding masculinity. When I think of masculinity I think of competetiveness, sport, bravado etc. When I think of femininity I think of softness, passivity, gentleness etc. I know these are reductive stereotypes. But doesn't feminism require that we focus on our humanity rather than our gender differences?

I understand that I can teach my son to behave with empathy and kindness. But I see these as human traits, not masculine or feminine as such. So my son hopefully doesn't see me as an actualised woman, or himself as a deconstructed male. He sees us as human beings. Isn't that the most helpful way to raise a boy?

Dittany, that distinction between 'apolitical academic feminism, and the political movement that happens out there in the real world' doesn't tell the whole story.

I have ten years of different kinds of community activism under my belt as it happens. It has been much discussed elsewhere on mn before that the hiring structure of academia, and the demands of the research culture make life very difficult for women, especially those with children and of course that takes its toll on what women in that system can do outside. There's another spin-off thread there I think ...

I write all that about my son in the context of a thread here this weekend in which women of boys from 9-12 were talking about their sons being physically aggressive in the home, using verbally abusive language, setting the mood of the whole home and already at those young ages flexing patriarchal privileges.

Scaredoflove, don't be put off at all. A life lived as a woman is a body of research in itself.

When he tries to act on these chats though, he has to face up to his own concrete notions of what being a boy means here and now. He's swayed by the media versions of boyness that popular culture bombards him with. His much remarked on sense of justice means feck all when he is being beaten round the head by boys who rule by fear in the schoolyard. When he argued with his cousins who were belittling his sisters, his refusal to see the gender distinctions that they see as 'real' meant they just thought he was a bit mad.

My sister happily tells me stories about these cousins, all under eight, talking about 'hips bums and boobs' and while she acts vaguely schocked by this language, she doesn't root out the values behind it. And she is a schoolteacher, the kind of schoolteacher who DS goes in and treats as an authority, whose views on gender will weigh with him at least as much as the ones his parents espouse.

He isn't a pure individual who gets to choose a gender role, masculine, feminine or neutral. Instead he lives in a patriarchal society where the power roles seem to him to be proved by the existence of a binary system of bodies and he is being asked to swim against the tide.

Butler means a lot to me because she talks about the limits of our ability to exercise power in this complex social field, where people repeatedly constitute us as traditional men and women despite our attempts to reconstitute the whole discussion.

I haven't explained myself very clearly anywhere on this thread I'm afraid. (I was Sibh on the 'feminist reading thread I mentioned earlier btw)

God please don't be put off, scaredoflove or anyone else. I love all this feminism debate and read a lot about it online, but I have read exactly none of the texts being mentioned here, and am struggling to keep up with the terminology.

I think one problem is that academic dicussion generally can be very alienating if you assume that it's "higher level" stuff than personal matters are. Some academics perpetuate this, because they like to be "experts", in the same way that e.g. surgeons can be arrogant about their own knowledge. I'm pretty sure Dittany doesn't usually post from that perspective, but she certainly has the knowledge at her fingertips to retort to those kind of debates when the need arises. Maybe her "academic argument trigger" was stepped on accidentally by mrsbean.

If you're not up on the philosophical/academic side of feminism/gender studies (as I am definitely not), you could try doing what i do and assume that academics are having their fun, but someone whose experience comes from chatting down the pub, or personal musings, is just as entitled and welcome to intervene as someone who knows Dworkin or Foucault inside out. I call it "wandering blithely in" . I'd hate anyone to think that opinions/experiences/thoughts without a founding in learned writings are invalid, feminism is for everyone.

No more Orm. Short and sweet so I can say what I mean and mean what I say...

I have to say this topic does seem to generate long posts .