AIBU to wonder why any woman would identify herself as....

[seeker]

.....not a feminist?

I honestly do not know any statistics but I have a son. He is 3 years old and the attitude towards what he will be one day worries and saddens me.

Feminism started out in favour of equality but it has taken such an ugly turn recently I believe it is actually hindering women not helping them.

Equality. That should be it. Nothing else.

Also I really admire you garlic. You speak so articulately what many of us fine hard to do.

Say* Doh.

lets face it a neglectful father was pretty much a cultural norm in the days most of us grew up in.

Speak for yourself. This is the attitude that I hate-men just dismissed en masse through someone's personal experience and related to everyone as a norm.

When we grew up the roles were more traditional. My mother was at home and my father was out at work but he was home to bath me and read me a bed time story (or he used to make up wonderful stories). He used to work 'traditional' hours and so we were all able to eat together in the evening. He helped with homework, we went out places as a family. I have no idea where you grew up swallowedafly but I grew up on an estate of 24hours where my experience was the norm.

My grandfather was retired and he loved babies and small DCs and I was his shadow. He had the time. He hadn't had the time when my mother was growing up, but he wasn't neglectful and it wasn't the norm then either.

How can anyone make such sweeping statements? This is why I don't like this branch of feminism and why such blinkered thinking needs challenging.

I really wouldn't worry, Howlingbitch, I have 3 much older DSs and I think that some of these ideas are really outdated. They just have girls as friends (a fairly alien idea apparently). They share mixed houses and they are all safe. The sleep over, just platonically-they can sleep on the floor of a freind's girlfriend and no one think anything of it. DS went on holiday with 3 friends, one was female and not attached to any-just a friend. I don't think that ,girls or boys, they would find talk of the patriarchy anything other than boring and irrelevant-things move on.,

'I have 3 much older DSs and I think that some of these ideas are really outdated. They just have girls as friends (a fairly alien idea apparently). They share mixed houses and they are all safe. The sleep over, just platonically-they can sleep on the floor of a freind's girlfriend and no one think anything of it. DS went on holiday with 3 friends, one was female and not attached to any-just a friend. '

I'd say exactly the same about my DD of 20 and her friendship groups, and the safety and respect that she's been shown by the boys and men she counts as friends. There have been offers of sex between different members of the group over the years , but they (males and females) understand what having a choice and saying no means and it hasn't changed the essence of the group which is friendship.
I dislike the idea that all teen boys and young men are unable to manage this and are predatory sexual animals by nature.
That was another heated discussion on the boards I remember well.

IWNCNWAG - I would agree with the point about some feminists believing there is no gender difference in biology.

I don't venture onto the feminism topic very much because I find it all very humourless and patronising but one time I did recently I had to leave because of that nonsense. I'd provide bits of evidence to the contrary and got shot down with 'ah but the author is a man, what do you expect'

I can't stand the extremist view that we are either a result of all biology or all socialisation. It makes no sense whatsoever and if people are going to shoot down an author based solely on the fact he is a man then there is no reasoning with some of these people.

It is obvious that we are a mixture of both socialisation and biological difference. The question is the proportions in which they are influential and whether we can overcome either of them.

MarySueFTW wrote - "the right for women to lie about a child's paternity for example".

Is that enshrined in any law? If so, which law?

garlicnutter wrote - "raping a man only became a crime in England in 1994!"

Sex between males were illegal for centuries, long before any changes to legislation made in the 1990s.

My father thinks my OH is neglectful because he doesn't fit what my dad thinks of as a man's role. My partner confuses him, I've never been 'provided for' or a SAHM.
He doesn't talk about it much now, but I often come home to find the pixies have cut the grass, put up a shelf, painted something that needed doing.

OH doesn't notice the pixie work.

He can be a PITA and runs on tea, but we love him.

SAF, I'm just reminiscing about some of the more lively discussions I've been in on the feminist boards. I've had some fascinating chats with SGM, Elephants, LRD and others. It's just that the ones where my stance and opinions don't quite fit that tend to stick in the mind more vividly.
We are all products of our backgrounds, upbringing and experiences, and that shapes how we see the world.
My housewife-mother studied a very male subject back in the 50s at university. There were around 120 in her year, and 4 of them were female.She made her choices and has been mostly very happy with the results.
I hope I can say the same when I am her age.
All my dad's HE came after job, family and the rest.He left school at 15. I went to his MA degree ceremony.

That's the other thing SAF, people change as the years roll by. My mother was heavy-handed in her discipline strategies, but that was the norm in the 60s. She has never smacked my children or suggested that I should.
She has also learned a huge amount about Asperger's syndrome to enable her to relate well to my son, rather that ranting about it being in my head and poor parenting.
If we expect our parents to understand that we have grown and changed over the years, we should extend the same understanding to them, I feel.

(I meant 24houses earlier-not hours).

We do get down to stereotyping-my father didn't go to the pub-he was home with us in the evenings. He went out on his own but that was to evening meeting to do with his job, evening classes in coastal navigation or similar. Otherwise they got a babysitter and went out together. My mother had her own evenings out to activities, meetings. I have never been hit by either parent. Why would he control finances? I think my main problem is that I grew up with this as the norm so I have great trouble with the idea that a woman would let herself be ruled.My mother would not have put up with it. My grandmother was an equal, she was the one who controlled the finances as my grandfather had no interest in them.

I don''t see why women get themselves in these positions-they have choice. If a man hits you, you leave there and then-there are no excuses. If he appears controlling at the start of a relationship you leave. Women ignore the very early signs and by the time it gets worse and they realise he won't change or he can't take drink without being abuse they are worn down, have few altenatives and can't do any of the above easily.

I know that people will immediately say 'bully for you exotic' and that I have no understanding, but there wouldn't be a patriarchy if women refused on an individual basis. My grandmother was born att he time when it was the norm for the man to be 'in control'-it didn't mean that she had to let it happen in her marriage-and she didn't.

Apparently I am 'the wrong type of feminist' and have actaully been told that I am not welcome on a feminist thread today(by 'the right sort of feminist' and self appointed controller).
This has never happened elsewhere-must be quite an achievement.

But we've had posters telling us the personal isn't political. So in their world-view what women do on an individual basis doesn't matter.

I agree with you to some extent, exotic, except the impression you give that it's the woman's fault if she doesn't leave a violent man at the first sign of trouble. I think human behaviour is more complicated than that and if you look in detail at the pattern of violent relationships, it's often more subtle at the start. Abusers pick on vulnerable victims, who are socialised to expect the man to be controlling and not to complain. And they don't start by lashing out - they wear the woman down until the point where she doesn't feel able to leave, often by isolating her from family and friends so she feels she has nowhere to go. Then they go for the serious violence, once they are sure they are in charge.

'Apparently I am 'the wrong type of feminist' and have actaully been told that I am not welcome on a feminist thread today(by 'the right sort of feminist' and self appointed controller).
This has never happened elsewhere-must be quite an achievement.'

How about a sticker award system, one for every time it happens. Then we can give ourselves a little treat for every ten.