to worry that the feminism of the 1970's is erradicating feminitity...

[MrsTwinks]

Im fully prepaired to be flamed... but the other thread reminded me of a conversation I had with my stepsister and cousin a while ago.

Both were career women of a sort before they had their kids and became SAHP, and were talking about how guilty it made them feel, yet SS said she loved being a mum and it was all she ever wanted. It seems to me that the attitude of our mothers (all mad feminists in my fam i'm afraid) got so engrossed in trying to have a fantastic career and being the perfect mum they lost sight of the truth that you cant have both.

I remember my mum feeling that she had to go out and have that wonderful career she was told she was entitled to (not that she wasnt dont get me wrong) contantly trying to find something that made her has fulfilled as being a homemaker because she was made to feel she was "letting the side down" by not going for a career and being a mum. Ironically shes doing the same to me now, as is being done to alot of my generation (in my fam and friends at least), we are being made to feel guilt because we DONT WANT to be career women. Homemaker has become an ugly word and makes you lazy/stupid/scrounger or whatever.

Add to that the likes of Newsnight last night where we are told putting girls in sparkly and pink clothing (nevermind cut or item or whatever) and telling them to kiss daddy goodnight is tantamount to sexualising children?!!!?? what next.. Im all against revealing clothes and all that, but seriously.. how is a little girl wearing pink sparkly clothes and kissing daddy goodnight bad?? and yet our mothers generation of feminists is telling us that its wrong. It appears to me they are telling us that being FEMININE is bad. What is wrong with the way we are made??

ok rant over, but it REALLY gets my goat that (to me) all these women are telling me its bad to want to be a STHP who has a home made dinner ready when people get home and a clean house, and whos life is more about her kids than her high powered career because I have a brain. All I wanted to be when I grew up was a mum and now Im supposed to have a new dream because someone tells me mine isnt enough and I am pandering to masocism or some such.

Please tell me i'm not the only one? or was i really born decades too late

animula of course not (thou if they have a tardis i demand they turn over the cute man inside) I mean the outspoken women of a certain age that think/refer to themselves as feminists.

It is very much damned if you do.. damned if you dont, but in the case of these women it comes across as damned if you dont agree with what I see that I fought for. If we decide to stay at home as a "kept woman" or whatever and take on that role then we are portrayed by these women in the popular media almost as if "letting the team down" or incapable.

I believe that we should be able to be whoever the hell we want, do what we want, regardless of gender. However there are women of that age I have encountered that regard adhearing to the traditional role of wife and mother as a cop out. I don't use feminnity to signify a way women should be, but in my way to say the part we are losing when we try to be what we naturally arent (which changes woman to woman i know) and lose our sense of self in trying to live up to this "have it all because we now can" attitude.

Maybe its the wrong phrasing, I was never good at being succinct or defining things so Im sorry if it came across otherwise. I just feel is these women proclaim, in public and in our personal social circle for some of us, that they fought long and hard for us to have the choices they didnt, to then berate those of us who choose other than they would/have/want is damaging because while some of us really couldnt give a crap what they say (im one they can sod off as far as i am concerned) there are those who will be influenced by it and choose a path they dont want and lose out.

Is being badgered into a role by a bunch of self proclaimed matriachs (as many women are by these women who are heavily vocal in the media of their views) any better than fulfilling traditional patriachal roles.

Who's badgering you?

if a young woman decides not to get a higher education, and instead gets married/in a serious relationship young and has children what is she told? you should have got a career first, should have had a life first.

at 20/21 you are meant to be able to decide on the career path you want to start on (even earlier if we are talking degree choice), why are you considered capable of making that choice and yet society is going to tell her that shes too young to take the "responsibity" of settling down and starting a family. Maturity levels vary and of course some arent but think honestly on your reaction to seeing a 20yr old with a baby, and think about what people you know might think of her. thats what i mean by being badgered.

I do see your point entirely
I do think it not feminists to blame- I think its a multi-faceted thing. There is a definite shift in society, almost a sneer to 'old-fashioned' values. Im not sure what the cause is but it must be many factors.

Also if a man gets married and settles down quickly he is likely to face a barrage of "dont you want to play the field first " type comments, I think it applies to both genders

I think you're fighting windmills.

But I am drunk, bored and going to bed in a minute. Never mind, I lurve you even if you are a trifle confused.

Aargh! Trifle!

... that's tilting at windmills, isn't it? Not fighting. Hic!

Christ on a bike, OP, do you have any idea of what 1970s feminists achieved? Do you even know that female teachers for example where I lived had to give up their jobs when they got married? Thet women in Switzerland didn't even have the vote in the early 70s?

I believe that we should be able to be whoever the hell we want

I don't want to be you.

Yeah....bugger 1970s feminism......

1970
Working women were refused mortgages in their own right as few
women worked continuously. They were only granted mortgages if they
could secure the signature of a male guarantor.
Britain?s first national Women?s Liberation Conference is held at Ruskin
College. This is the first time women?s groups from across Britain have
met in a single place. The Women?s Liberation Movement (WLM),
influential throughout the 1970s, develops from the conference.

The Equal Pay Act makes it illegal to pay women lower rates than men
for the same work. The act covers indirect as well as direct sex discrimination. It is a direct result of women?s strike action of Ford machinists and pressure from the women?s movement.

1972
Erin Pizzey sets up the first women?s refuge in Chiswick, London.

1974
The National Women?s Aid Federation is set up to bring together nearly
40 refuge services across the country.
Contraception becomes available through the NHS.

1975 The Sex Discrimination Act makes it illegal to discriminate against
women in work, education and training. This is another act pushed
through by the women?s movement.

The Employment Protection Act introduces statutory maternity
provision and makes it illegal to sack a woman because she is
pregnant.

The National Abortion Campaign is formed in response to James
White's Abortion (Amendment) Bill. It organises 20,000 people to
create the largest women?s rights demonstration since the suffragettes.

1976
The Equal Opportunities Commission comes into effect to oversee the
Equal Pay Act and Sex Discrimination Act.

The Race Relations Act makes it illegal to discriminate on grounds of
race in employment and education.

Lobbying by women?s organisations ushers in the Domestic Violence
and Matrimonial Proceedings Act is introduced to protect women and
children from domestic violence. The Act gives new rights to those at
risk of violence through civil protection orders.

1977
Women?s Aid lobbies government to acknowledge women and children
at risk of violence as homeless and introduce their right to state help
with temporary accommodation.

Mainly Asian women workers mount a year long strike at Grunwicks in
London for equal pay and conditions.

The first Rape Crisis Centre opens in London.

1978
Margaret Thatcher becomes Britain?s first female prime minister.

Which feminists tell you this, MrsTwinks?

You mentioned "society" in your last post. Do you think that society is feminist?

I don't disagree that the messages you are getting are not out there. I just think you are pointing the finger in the wrong place.

Why do you feel unconfident in your own choices?

MrsTwinks - I'd love to know who's berating you.

And you should swap with me. I have a whole bundle of people who seem to be living some weird pre-Betty Friedan dream. And it is a dream because the whole point of Friedan's book was that she pulled back the curtains and revealed a whole load of unhappy and sedated women behind the cupcake dream.

In animula-world I have quite a bundle who tell me that I am fundamentally evil for dying my hair while pregnant; not cutting my hair after children (long hair is a bit raunchy and sinful, and not compatible with virtuous motherhood, apparently); will force my husband into the arms of another woman or to drink if I so much as question his decisions, let alone argue with him; and should on absolutely no account strive for any kind of autonomy - mothers who attempt to have any kind of self-hood outside mothering damage their children beyond repair.

i would gladly swap.

As garlicbutter says, though, the whole point of feminism was to provide analyses and choices for women in a society that closed that down.

Nice work Gordon .

I'm not saying it's bad ffs. Just that if they fought so hard for us to have choices let us have them and don't judge us because they aren't the ones you wanted us to take. Yes I know it was bad before, i remember when men could legally rape their wives, and I know what was achieved was awesome and I appreciate it with all I am. But what is the point in a fighting for a freedom and then judging those who don't use it the way you want as some are want to do.

Yes I am quite possibly weird, musta been the hippy parents

It hadn't even occurred to me that people on this thread didn't know what "1970s feminists" achieved. Thank you for your summary :)

"They", "you", who are the real subjects of your somewhat confused ire?

Last post directed to OP.

yes - nice work, Gordon.

MrsTwinks - "if a young woman decides not to get a higher education, and instead gets married/in a serious relationship young and has children what is she told? you should have got a career first, should have had a life first."

You see, this is just indicative of how way out there you are.

There is no, one unitary feminist discourse. There are, for example, a lot of feminist-identified women who have written (and expressed) a welter of differing things about this situation.

There is a strong feminist-influenced critique, for example, that argues that women, at the moment, are disempowered by a capitalist system structured on the male body, and which refuses to allow for reproduction. A number of discourses, again, feminist-influenced, have argued that, to be women-friendly, it should be possible for people to enter and leave the job market more easily, at different points in their lives. And that, at the moment, women are discriminated against because either our fertility is limited (capitalism forces us to delay child-bearing or lose our "foundation years" as workers) or careers-wise if/when we do have those children.

There are lots of other feminist-influenced takes on this one. Including one that argues all about capitalism and its implicit attacks on the fertility of poor (er) women. but I think the above is example enough.

I'm sorry, I haven't read your second paragraph, because I felt I should say something about that sentence.

FWIW, MrsTwinks, I think that every era of feminism has its own share of "default feminists", who wear the mantle without any kind of thinking behind it. Perhaps you have run up against some of those?

I don't feel uncomfortable in my choice, but I'm a bulldog in many ways, and get peeved for people who aren't like myself who feel they have failed as women because they want to stay and raise their kids, like my stepsister and some friends.

They feel like it's not a valid choice because the older generation of women are telling us to go back to work, don't let yourself be reliant on your husband etc. like it's a bad choice or indeed a stupid one. The men I know are more ambivient toward the whole thing, do what you want, where as the women can be very militant.

The 'pink for girls' theme is nothing to do with sexualisation. It's a result of canny advertising and marketing. Someone somewhere in adland about 20 years ago had a brainwave (We could sell 30% more XXXXX if we targeted the female demographic and painted them pink) ... and the rest is history.

I was a 60's feminist, long before I knew the word or the movement. I always believed that boys and girls, men and women should have equal rights and responsibilities but I don't know where the notion originated for me. My DM was mostly a SAHM with a "little" part-time job as we were very poor, but she did everything in the house (including stirring my DF's tea!) and never fought it.

My DF didn't believe in education for girls because "they just get married and have children and it is wasted", so I had to leave school and get a (crappy) office job. I fulfilled his expectations but married an abusive man and to save us all had to leave and get a job. No qualifications, another crappy job!

As it happened I re-married, this time a sweetheart who was a good father to my DCs but we never had any money so I had to go on working.

My DB who didn't have my scholastic potential was praised for everything he did and never had to do a hand's turn at home so I think, possibly, my feminism began with resentment at being seen as the second class citizen right from childhood.

I had 9 (count them-nine) teenagers in my home during the late seventies and early eighties and they all (5 boys and 4 girls) had to do equal chores including cooking for the household, laundry and even cleaning the loo because I worked full-time by then in a stressful job. They have all grown into responsible caring adults, most of them parents, and there is no unequal partnerships among them.

Sorry, what an essay, and I could go on.

Choice and equality is what makes feminism work.

"if a young woman decides not to get a higher education, and instead gets married/in a serious relationship young and has children what is she told? you should have got a career first, should have had a life first."

I'm not sure who is saying these things but you seem to think it's society at large, so the obvious question is, would such a thing be said to a young man? If yes, then it's not a feminist issue. If no, then why is it that a young woman is risking so much by having children early but not a young man? Why is it likely that she will end up earning much much less than another woman who delayed childbearing but men don't pay the same price (on average of course)?

Do they have good reason to see that being reliant on a man was a less than sensible thing? Did they and/or their friends feel short-changed by their circumstances? i.e. did they put a lot into the home life and then get left high and dry when their husbands left? That kind of thing can focus the mind.

I'm a bulldog in many ways, and get peeved for people who aren't like myself who feel they have failed as women

I think you need to get over yourself, OP.

I use you as a general pronoun toward the people i'm conversing with. The "they" I believe I have explained who I mean .

Not sure my post was clear. to be v. clear - there are a lot of feminist-identified women who state clearly that the pressure to not have children young, to get working, become fodder for the economy, etc. is pressure from capitalism. ie. not from feminists.

You know, I don't know who you are talking to but you would do well not to take them as representatives of "feminism" in its entirety. They may well be feminists of some shade, but as AyeRobot and others have said, the whole point about feminism is to provoke reflection and questions about power. And action, hopefully. Politcial discourses change because the world changes. Political discourses are fragmentary because the world is made up of many positions and viewpoints. There is no "one", eternal "feminism". There are some really interesting, thought-provoking books out there.