to think the 'F' word is one we should be proud of......

[PosieComeHereMyPreciousParker]

Thanks to MN, especially dittany, Lenin, BoF and Anyfucker, I have been made aware of my casual attitude to misogyny. This short journey in my reclaiming my old values recently lead me to the London Feminist Network Conference on Saturday. And Oh my God it is one of the most inspirational things I've ever done.

Having money and being relatively attractive in my younger days I was mislead into thinking that being a feminist was irrelevant, after all we had a female PM and then 'girl power' where we were fooled into thinking with the right body shape and a little wit the world was our oyster (farm).

My husband's and friends' response to my recent activities have ranged from being mystified to mockery, from resentment to full on stereotypical prejudice. I am alarmed that barely any of my friends think feminism is relevant.

Am I being unreasonable to reclaim the word feminist to mean a person that wants to rid the world of gender prejudiced?

TheShriekingHarpy - tell us more about humanism/egalitarianism. What are these ideologies working towards, and do many men make up their membership?

I just don't understand people have a problem with people that want to ensure everything is fair for women, what's wrong with that?

sorry.

TheShriekingHarpy wrote - ""Why can't women recognise themselves as a group?"
Why would you want to pigeon-hole yourself so restrictively? Variety is the spice of life Posie! Aligning yourself to a group (based on gender) is nonsensical ."

Are you seriously suggesting that a woman who aligns herself to the group "woman" of which she is already a member anyway, whether she likes it or not, is "restrictive"?

There is plenty of diversity in more than three billion women, unless it is seen as a "problem".

People align themselves in groups all the time, almost always smaller than the group "women". Are they a problem too?

Even if you do not categorise yourself as a woman, presumably because it cramps your style, can you claim to not categorise yourself in any other way (which almost certainly will be as a member of a smaller and even more restrictive group)?

You know what, if this was a forum dominated by black people (I don't mean any offence by using such an umbrella term), and someone came on to say, 'I really think we need to stop making this all about us, and focus just as much on the racism white people face', everyone would think they were daft.

Isn't TSH a man?

Oh I wish I wish i wish I had known this thread was about feminism a couple of days ago. :(

have we got to the bit where people who clearly can't read research or books and who apparently live in a different reality say that men have a rough time and feminism has gone too far yet?

Off to check thread.

I believe my experience is coloured by my heritage, of course.

TSH, why dilute causes by throwing in everything? Noone achieves anything without focus.

TSH - how about you concentrate on fighting capitalism that keeps people down because they are poor, homophobia that keeps people down because they are gay, racism that keeps people down because of the colour of their skin? And we will focus on freeing women from being kept down because of their gender? We can all work together. It will be lovely.

I wasn't trying to insult you I assumed you were a man....are you or not?

...'Are you the People's Front of Judea?'

'Fuck off! We're the Judean People's Front'

I don't really care what TSH has got down his/her/its/their pants. Call me weird :o