to think that mn has gone mad with many posters assuming most woman are choosing to be subservient to men.

[tomhardyismydh]

It seems lately that on MN many posters are taking things to far with this attitude.

This is about many threads to many to mention but it riles me, just because a woman cant drive, might like a bit of kinky spanking, laugh at a joke made by a man or want to call an ambulance in an emergency that it is a slur and disservice to all of woman kind.

I feel this kind of attitude I have come across on does more damage to woman kind in assuming we are second class citizens to men and that we will never have an equal footing in society. I have lived with men, grown up with men, worked with men and socialized with men and have not felt any more put down degraded or second class to men any more than some woman I have lived with worked with or socialized with.

why do we need the constant reminder men are bad, sex is degrading and woman are so woe betided.

just a rant mostly and will accept the flaming

IslandMoose - that analysis rests on an assumption that the individual is an indomitable fortress, their self-hood moated against "society".

If "society" isn't just a collection of others but also a collection of beliefs held in common, and shared practices, and the self isn;t something bestowed at birth, from whence would come this adamantine self?

basingstoke -

animula - the "self" in my analysis comes precisely from being conscious of and analysing the social pressures and expectations and knowingly taking them into account when making the choice.

Certainly, you can never be free of societal influences - all you can do is be as aware of them as possible. On that basis you make your choice. Just because we are inevitably acting within societal pressures we don't have to attribute our decisions wholly to them. Wouldn't doing so ultimately lead to an an argument that an individual has no responsibility for his/her choices?

I get pissed off if people call me Miss or Ms. It is MRS, thank you very much!

And I don't think any less of any woman who doesn't drive - you don't have to drive if you don't want to, especially if you are lucky enough to have good public transport links. I bet a high proportion of the non drivers live in London, where there is excellent public transport and it is a nightmare to drive around!

I totally agree with the OP. And am now going to roll out my favourite quotation from Eleanor Roosevelt.
"No-one can make you feel inferior without your permission".

DH is the main breadwinner in our house, I am a WAHM mum but he earns about 4-5 x what I earn. He and I would at the thought of him dominating me, he would even suggest it might be the other way around

I understand the theory of oppression.

But in every relationship I know the woman is in charge.
None of them are subservient.

Is this the Patriarchy being very subtle?

Doesn't mean it can't be true for everyone, if you believe in yourself

Oh man this thread makes me feel really depressed. So many women talking about those nasty controlling feminists. With the most depressing at least men are honest.

So if someone asserts their dominance over you, makes it clear that they have expectations over how you should behave, and seeks to control you... it's alright because they're being honest? And if it wasn't for those pesky feminists demanding those equal rights, that equal pay, the right not to be objectified by people we don't even know, then our society would be in a pretty bad place right now.

It's all well and good disliking feminists when you live in an age where you benefit from what they've done in the past. So many of you take this on a personal level. It's a case of 'well I'm sexually submissive, can't drive, SAHM, but I'm still not subservient' without realising you're working off anecdote. Just because it's true for you doesn't mean it's true on a wider scale.

The reason some people find sexism everywhere is because it is everywhere to some extent. Read Ariel Levy's excellent book and it might give you an insight into just how 'fun' and 'unimportant' things like lapdancing are to male perception of women. And yes your choices affect things around you. Yes you're part of society. It's your right to take on the trappings of the status quo (change your name, lose the job, stay at home, be spanked, be fine with FHM on a bottom shelf) but for God's sake don't try and convince yourself that you're being a feminist about it. You've exchanged certain things for acceptance by to use a terrible word 'the patriarchy' and while that's your choice, please don't try to make the feminists who don't want any part of it into the bad guys, because they don't buy into your bullshit.

I like that quote too, Kara, but you have to admit it's kind of an argument of the privileged to insist that the individual can always control his/her own perception of being inferior or not. That demands a level of self-confidence and belief in one's own rights that in many cases has been deliberately stripped away from large numbers of people, and in many cases they are primarily women, and that is no accident.

I am finding this thread kind of depressing. I'm a feminist. I'm not trying to control anyone, and nor are the other MN feminists I know on these boards. I don't get why people seem to want to make such weird and patently untrue generalizations on here about feminism. You know, don't you, that lots of very pleasant MNers who you deal with all the time are feminists? Why would you say that stuff about us? Even qualifying it with "some feminists" doesn't take away the fact that it sounds ignorant and rude, and also frankly like you're a bit threatened by feminism and need to sneer at it.

It gets me down. I wish people would save their sneering for the groups who really threaten us all. Sneer at the BNP or at sexists, fgs, they deserve it. Feminists are trying to push for you to have equal rights, not effing control you.

And yes, I have read the threads about porn culture, shaving pubes etc that were referred to earlier.

cheering xpost

Dittany - I am not calling some feminists controlling for analysing whether women are called Ms/Miss/Mrs or asking why they shave their pubes - I am calling them controlling for telling me that I must accept being called Ms, because that is their preference, or that I should stop shaving my pubes because it does not fit in with their perception of what a woman should look like.

Tbh - I see no difference between a woman telling me this, and a man telling me I must be called Mrs - both are equally unacceptable.

I have seen, from some feminists, the clear stance that a woman is only intelligent and mature if she agrees with them. If her opinion differs, it must be because she is stupid/subservient/doesn't realise the societal influences she's under (which of course they fully understand). It seems utterly outwith some people's comprehension that I can consider the same information and issues that they do, and come up with a different opinion.

"It's all well and good disliking feminists when you live in an age where you benefit from what they've done in the past"

well said

I don't read the imperative very often on here really.

is it only women who can be dominated, exploited and bullied then??

What?

I think there is a distinction between saying "you mustn't do that", and "I think it is wrong to do that".

"I have seen, from some feminists, the clear stance that a woman is only intelligent and mature if she agrees with them. If her opinion differs, it must be because she is stupid/subservient/doesn't realise the societal influences she's under (which of course they fully understand)."

But, I'm really sorry but this is such a stinky old red herring of a critique of feminism, SDTG, surely you know that, right? I mean, really? It's really disingenuous.

Time and time again I see people say this kind of thing on here in response to posts from feminists who, in fact, demonstrated no such "stance" at all, but simply had the temerity to point out that none of us makes decisions in a vacuum, that we are ALL influenced by the culture we live in and the norms we have been raised with, that (to take a well-worn example) it is obviously impossible to claim you've not been influenced by porn's huge role in this culture etc if you are a living breathing human in the UK in 2011. (Whether you then go ahead and decide to shave your pubes or not is a further, but importantly distinct, stage of the argument.)

What you are suggesting that feminists keep saying to you sounds a lot like what I frequently see feminists on here falsely accused of saying, based on exchanges of posts I am reading with my own eyes. Time and time and time again. It's like a broken record :(

"I am calling them controlling for telling me that I must accept being called Ms, because that is their preference, or that I should stop shaving my pubes because it does not fit in with their perception of what a woman should look like."

I look forward to following a link to this/these discussions because I missed them too. Or was it in a private message?

And just to be clear, I'm not saying you are (a) a liar or (b) stupid, SDTG. Nor is this meant to be sarcastic.

I am saying I genuinely despair at the repeated evidence of the huge communication gulf that appears to exist between what feminists say and what people who are opposed to them, for whatever reason, interpret as their meaning. It is so, so exhausting to be forced to constantly battle against this in order to have a discussion at all.

I think some feminists do other women a dis-service sometimes. Because they may CHOOSE to do lapdancing to finance themselves through Medical School or whatever, they jump on the exploited bandwagon

In reality some women do choose to do that. Some dont. Doesnt mean either are oppressed and dominated. Both can be intelligent and confident and happy with their choices

You'd have to be a little bit thick to imagine that all your choices were 'free' though, anyone, not just women. Surely? Or that women just choose to be paid less than men, or choose not to be in positions of power (what is it, 20? 22% female mps?) or that we choose to have eating disorders, be on receiving end of sexual/domestic violence far more often than men?

Before having children and getting beaten up, I was a bit anti-feminist tbh. I considered myself any man's equal and certainly would not have stood for being told I could not do anything because of my gender, but I had fallen foul of the idea that feminists were man-hating, dungaree-wearing types who despised women who stayed at home for letting down the sisterhood.

The reality couldn't be more different.

If you want to find someone ready to championship the cause of the stay at home mum and why what she does is vitally important and massively undervalued, ask a feminist.

If you want to find someone who can explode the myths that a silly woman who got plastered in a very short dress and then got raped was asking for it, ask a feminist.

If you want to find someone who can explain why a woman who stays with a violent or otherwise abusive man is not actually a doormat but a strong woman with oodles of compassion, the ability to juggle commitments but is fighting against a society that positively encourages her to suck it up, ask a feminist.

I have never come across a feminist who has told me or anyone else what to think. When life threw me a hard one, it was the compassion of feminists, who opened my eyes and made me realise actually it wasn't all my own fault, who helped me get through it in part.