to think that women are stupid?

[lovebunny]

elsewhere, there is a complaint about being unsupported when breastfeeding. this is a feminist issue - and the fault lies fairly and squarely at the feet of women.

i am astounded that after the battles fought in the seventies and eighties, women have allowed such regression.

look how stupid women are today. they have their bodies surgically adapted to men's fantasies - breasts enlarged, labia trimmed - they bleach their hair, tattoo their eyeliner and lipstick and have themselves spray-painted. they remove their pubic hair so they look like children for their (multiple) partners. if you read about it in a book on social anthropology you'd be horrified at the 'oppression' of women. but women think they are choosing this!

then they say 'oh, its not fair, no-one supports me when i'm breastfeeding'. too damn right they don't. because you and your compatriots have allowed everyone to see you as barbie dolls to use and abuse. they don't want to see you being women, being grown up, feeding your babies, that spoils the fantasy. you created this; live with it.

when you've finished screaming at me about your 'rights' to have your mons pubis decorated with fake jewels and to have your isabella piercing, organise yourselves.

wash your faces, let the fake tan fade, cut off your dyed hair and let it grow back naturally, so your babies can recognise the human being their genetic memory was expecting to find here. stay free from chemicals that mask your natural odours, so your babies can recognise you by smell. if people are pressurising you to 'go back to work' say, 'certainly. when this baby chooses to stop breastfeeding'. that gives you four to five years at home, maybe longer, when you are doing something no-one else can - being your babies' mothers.

the 'male' has been accepted as the 'norm' in society - so some early feminists wanted to be like men - some of that lingers. but feminists who believe in the strength and value of the female, have retreated into hiding. wake up! speak up! these are your daughters, sisters, aunts, even your mothers tarting themselves up and whoring themselves out to all and sundry trying to be 'wives and girlfriends'! they're too stupid to realise they've been conned!

educate your daughters. make them aware of political and societal manipulation. make women free - free from pressure to look a certain way, behave a certain way. free, in fact, to be women. free to want to eat without guilt, work, reproduce, raise children, form partnerships, find contentment and find peace of mind.

don't leave this to someone else. if strong women don't act to make the world a better place for women, no-one will. and in twenty years' time, i'll be reading 'oh, society doesn't support breast-feeding mothers'. again.

That the 'ideal' women that society aspires too is a whole load of crap is no secret. Airbrushing is the devils work and keeps us submissive.

That the mother's role is undervalued by society because it is a woman's role is also no secret.

However adorning your body is a tradition stretching back through the ages - banning it totally seems a bizarre desire.

Blistory
Maybe we are aware that we haven't achieved equality in all areas but I don't actually think the OP was really advocating social equality because the OP was making value judgments about women based on how they look.

I still encounter situations where I can be the only woman in a business meeting (in one case there were 2 of us in a meeting of 40 people) and as well as making my contribution on a business level I see part of what I am doing as normalising the idea that women can do this work, attend these meetings etc. There are lots of women who encounter the reality of the lack of equality on a daily basis and are quietly challenging it - not very exciting I know but hopefully making a difference.

educate your daughters. make them aware of political and societal manipulation. make women free - free from pressure to look a certain way, behave a certain way. free, in fact, to be women. free to want to eat without guilt, work, reproduce, raise children, form partnerships, find contentment and find peace of mind

I'm having visions of thsoe communits era posters of string jawed women marching together into a glorious future, music by Helen Reddy...

But to the point, as Abe Lincoln would have said:

Some women are stupid all the time, all women are stupid some of the time....just look at OK and Hello circulation figures :o

But its their right, innit....

Strong jawed women...the iPhone doesn't always know...

Stay off work for four or five years? because it IS that simple, clearly.

BTW, "compatriots" means someone from the same country. I am from the same country as Tom Jones, for example. Relevant, much?

Chaz I agree but the difference is that you are aware and are chipping away at it. I would agree with that.

What worries me is not the response to the OP (which I agree was rather crass) but the fact that the majority of posters refuse to recognise that there is an underlying issue. As women, we seem to be happily oblivious to the lack of true equality.

We can all recognise the big stuff, the domestic violence, the rape etc but we don't seem to see the everyday things that continue to reinforce the idea that we are less equal than men.

Wow. Just, wow. I don't even use fake tan, or had surgery, or wear anything but mascara and foundation every now and then, and I have been a SAHM for years, but even I want to go and get all the above done now, get a job and then tell you to swivel go and get a life.

Here,

My very first too...

Women, and men, can choose whatever the hell they want to do. Media and patriarchy can not force them to do anything against their will. They choose to do x, y or z because they are happy to do so.

Blistory - fair point

lovebunny, though I agree with much of what you say, you can't impose your aesthetic sensibilities on everyone else, however much you might like to.
Love that you were writing that at 6am! Had it been keeping you up all night?

This is like the bloody pubes thread all over again.

OP on another thread I mentioned the idea that feminists should be against breastfeeding, you told me this was incorrect.

1). Not true, especially from what I've read recently, there is a wealth of feminist literature about the negativity of bf

2). Using your views on the patriarchy and social conditioning bf should be viewed as highly suspect by feminists, so that makes me think actually you are stupid

I can't understand when feminism went from "we are as equally intelligent than men, we see that we are being oppressed we need to rise up and gain the entitlement to vote, to live freely etc" to "you are too stupid to not only realise you are being oppressed by a male patriarchy but also that you believe you haven't been socially conditioned therefore you need to lose your choice and let us radfems make the decisions"

Blistory - I really do think most (if not all) of the people on this thread are aware that they don't make choices in a vacuum and that society exerts pressures and influences on all of us. I also think you won't find a single poster who thinks feminism is done and we have achieved all of its goals

Pointing theses things out and descrbing women as "happily oblivious" rather suggests you agree with the title of the thread.

catgirl Far from it. And my understanding of the numerous posts above it obviously different from yours.

My understanding is that most women appreciate the choices they make are influenced by a myriad of things but make them anyway.

Are men stupid for shaving the hair off their faces? And wearing deodorant?! If I follow OP's 'logic' I think they qualify too. So basically his/her argument is we are all stupid, they are all stupid, everyone is stupid, just not the hairy OP.

Oh my days...

Exactly catgirl

The media etc can influence our decisions, but many still have the ability to make a choice which makes us happy without being told what exactly what to do.

Next month, most women could shave their hair off and media can call it fashion or what not, but I would rather eat my own arm than shave mine off.

Unless the individual is happy to do so, you won't find many just doing it anyway because "The media said so"

Girl girls - I've realised we've got the wrong end of the stick. This is a cry for help..

Her pupils must be teenagers
She's hairy everywhere
She sometimes has BO
She wears no make up
She doesn't follow fashion
Her clothes, presumably are natural and not made in a sweatshop

And she spends her day with teenagers who must be applauding her life choices kindly

And besides she's hardly likely to be able to sneak up on us

manic but the point, I believe OP to be making is; that if we women were really conscious and realistic about the inequalities between men and women, and they were serious about fixing it; then they would resist [patriarchial] societal pressure on how they look, and they wouldn't choose to tan/dye/pluck/cur etc etc etc

And I do think, she has a point worthy of more than anger and ridicule

I think it's quite clear from the OP's absence that we shouldn't really take this too seriously... Worra and catgirl, like your work here

Tokamak you sound kovely by the way

I work FT in a demanding job despite having young children. I've also shagged quite lot of men in my time. Because just like some men, some women like fighting and fucking. Not because they've been brainwashed by an anti-female culture, but because that's the way they are.This will come as a terrible shock to the OP, but is nevertheless the truth.

Agree with untamedshrew here. Who is responsible for all the stupid men out there? Women? Other men? If my DH and teenage DSs were left to their own devices and did as they pleased without conforming none of them would Shave Shower Wear deodorant Trim nails Wear clothing other than soft tracksuits/dressing gowns I could go on but it'd get disgusting who wants to know about the state their underwear would be in I'm still confused about what it is to be a feminist and what feminist views are positive but I can't imagine calling all women who do not conform to what OP considers to be ideal stupid is a particularly supportive,feminist action.

Oooh, I've never been calle kovely before

I meant to add earlier that my DW is from the Ukraine and when I met her didn't bother shaving her armpits at all as that was the cultural norm there (back in the 90s, at least). She started to shave them when she'd lived in England for a few months, because every woman she met here did.

I wear make-up and shave my legs and arm pits

I fully accept that it is so I fit better into societies idea of what is 'right' and 'beautiful' for a woman. I accept that if I was more serious about fighting for equality and women's rights, it would be better to buck these habits ad a statement. I also accept that at the moment I am too apathetic to get that involved. I don't have the energy and I feel too fragile at the moment

the women who look nice are the ones with natural bodies, natural hair, natural skintone and natural faces. they look nice, wholesome and healthy

That's your opinion though...yet you've posted it like it's a statement of fact.

In my personal opinion, a young woman with grey hair, hairy legs, hairy armpits, chin hair and bushy eyebrows does not look good at all.

Equally young women with orange tans, fake eyelashes and too much make-up don't look good in my opinion.

But the most important thing is that the individual woman gets to choose her own look without being insulted by the OP or by anyone else.

Sorry Tokamak you know what I meant!