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.

[Kayano]

Not being able to bf for mental health reasons does
Not make me any less my babies mother.

So many narrow minded idiots in the world (of either gender)

[Kayano]

Some women also have no choice but to go back to work before we would like. Every woman should have 4-5 years of staying at home bf?

No way.

You seem to have left women out of the equation here, their choices, their desires. You want women to be sheep still, but just your breed of sheep.

No thanks

[DuelingFanjo]

"I wonder if the op cleans her teeth? Or would that just be bowing to social pressure to have undecayed teeth?"


again, the op talks about things which cannot be compared to cleaning teeth. WE (men and women and children) clean teeth because if we didn't they would rot, become painful and eventually fall out. Plucking out/shaving body hair and filling your face with botox should not be compared to cleaning teeth.

I do think it's rather stupid to claim that women do all the things in the OP because they 'do it for themselves' - quite clearly there has been years of social conditioning which has made women believe they are supposed to be doing these things, that's why we get so amny 'omg how am I going to cope if I can't get a wax before I give birth' posts on mumsnet. People are actually frightened that the midwife assisting them in their birth will tak e a look and then gossip to all the other midwives about the woman who didn't bother to sort out her minge. I mean, really, these kinds of posts are made on a weekly basis here and they are just a part of a much bigger problem for women who have been conditioned to undergo all kinds of stupid 'beauty' treatments from fake nails to botox.

[Hownoobrooncoo]

Secretplace - course I respond to the conditioning around us, any posters supporting the OP's would probably say the same. I wax my bikini line when it will be on show and my legs. Going out in the evening I'll wear a little make-up. I really think you are missing the point of what some posters are saying about conditioning but if you really think you do it all for yourself and not to conform and gain approval - then lovely for you in your bubble.

Would I rather live in a world where folk were not judged and were accepted for being more in their natural state - yes I would. I did spend some time years ago in an environment where the importance on clothes, hair, make-up etc were set aside and it was very liberating. Then one day I got back to the real world and the pressure to look acceptable and what was deemed as attractive started to creep back in.

[BaggyAndWrinkled]

Surely, we are all singing from the same song-sheet here though?

Should I make the choice to have my labia trimmed, should I be doing so because it's too uncomfortable and sometimes painful, then it's my perfect right to do so. Should I be doing so because I want my labia to look young and pre-pubescent (be it for me or for my partner), then I think this is questionable.

Should I want my breasts enlarged, shaped etc, because they are so non-existent/post mastectomy/mishapen, because I want to feel womanly, then it's my perfect right to do so. If I want them enlarged because I want to fit today's FHM (et al) perception of 'sexiness' (aka porn-star look), then it's not something I'd ever want to do. Or ever want my daughters to do.

Surely it all boils down to the same thing? Our perception of attractiveness. The opposite sex are obviously part of the equation - our need to find a mate etc, so becoming attractive to potential mates is a motivating factor, and this is the most natural thing in the world. It's seen in tribal decorative pain in the oldest of African tribes, from teeth sharpening to lip plates and giraffe necks - all extremely painful but done so to enhance beauty. And don't we all do it, to varying degrees? Ear rings?

My perception of OP's feeling is that many women in the West are highly influenced by what I (rightly or wrongly) call the porn-look. It used to be a sub-culture of fashion but in the last decade, it's very much the fashion.

Do I have the right, as a woman, to wear what I want, do what I want to my body, act as I wish? Yes, of course I do, providing my motivations are not swayed by the seediness of porn. To me, this is the problem, I see too many girls and women buying into this porn-star ideology. It's happening, and it's mainstream now and it has nothing to do with their Right to choose and has everything to do with a males view of women as sex objects.

[BaggyAndWrinkled]

tribal decorative paint

[DuelingFanjo]

It's awful isn't it, to read posts from mothers who are asking how they deal with their 12 year old daughter asking if she can shave her vaginal hair? When people repond with 'let her do it' don't they realise that this kind of desire from someone so young can only come from peer/media pressure and is down to social conditioning.

I have a son and I really don't want him to grow up thinking that all the things mentioned in the OP are ok.

[imnotmymum]

Yet another person telling me what I do and do not realise ...

[ariadne1]

i truly think this is one of the most depressing threads I have ever read in 10+ years. Feminism is about choice.The OPs brand of oppression is as least as bad as that she is seeking to combat.

This thread is to feminism what 'Animal Farm' is to communism!

[Hownoobrooncoo]

Baggyandwrinkled - agree with everything you say. I find it hard to believe this 'porn' or stripper look is everywhere. My beautiful, well educated, hardworking niece and all her friends dress like this when they go out. I must be old but i find the fake tan, false eyelashes, OTT make-up, 7 inch heels they hobble about in, all wearing tiny dresses etc really unattractive. They are all attractive girls but they lose it when they dress like this and all look the same. As i said I must be getting old.

[assumpta]

Regarding shaving vagina hair, I have been told by a friend, that young girls think this is how it should be as a lot of young boys have such easy and immediate access to porn these days, and see shaved vaginas on all these sites, that they (boys) find hair down there disgusting on girls. They see it like having hairy arm pits. Girls shave them, so why not everything else too? Their theory, not mine. Perhaps some girls see it as simple as the arm pit hair comparison too.

By the way this was told to her by her daughter, then 13 years, from hearing what boys were freely talking about. They also think that anal sex is no big deal whatsoever and fairly 'normal'. As with everything, it is not 'all' boys, but it does seem to be quite a lot of boys.

I think OP, that maybe you need to be 'freed' yourself. Calm down and chillax, after all, if the time is correct on the original post, it's a little early (05.57) to be worked up; you'll give yourself a stroke.

[NowThenWreck]

But the boys shave their knackers and wax their chests too. Hairy balls are seen, by the type of teenager who cares,(and they don't all), as "gross" and ugly. They are also beginning to wear concealer, have manicures and get their eyelashes tinted.
They also must go to the gym, and work their upper bodies into over exaggerated biceps and pecs.
The whole Barbie aesthetic of smooth, perma-tanned,perfect body, over done hair and make up is one that applies to the boys in that demographic, to a lesser extent, but it's there.

I think it may be less of an expression of oppression of women, and more of an expression of being generally "grossed out" by Nature. The kids who find unwaxed genitals disgusting will probably grow up into people who tarmac their front gardens and have plastic flowers in pots, instead of real ones.

It is sinister, but maybe not for the reasons OP thinks.

Just a thought.

Oh, also, I remember being about 12 and some boys telling me about a porno they had seen where a woman had a cock up the front and one, ahem, up the back. And this was in the days of VHS.

[ArielThePiraticalMermaid]

Incidentally, I can't think of anything more painful than having ones labia or bollocks waxed. My DH is proudly hairy pretty much all over as am I.

I am so pleased I am not young any more sometimes :(

[DuelingFanjo]

really? are huge amounts of boys going to their parents at the age of 12/13 and asking about how they can remove hair? really?
Maybe I am naive about the way boys are also conditioned :(

[Hownoobrooncoo]

It's strange but I've recently become obsessed interested in the state of womens minges. Only just occurred to me that I'm perhaps outdated and considerd disgusting because I don't wax to within an inch of my life down there. Never really gave it any thought when I was young and out showing off my minge to many a fine young man whom seemed perfectly at home with my hairy Mary minge.

If I was single again, would I feel pressurised to whip it all off in case I was considered a freak?

[NowThenWreck]

Well, no Duelling, of course there is more pressure on girls, and from a younger age. But boys do get pressure too, maybe when they get a bit older.
All I am saying is that this move towards the uber unnatural look does cut across the sexes.
It might not be as cut and dried as Boys watch porn=girls have to look like porn stars.
Interestingly, that programme Snog/marry/avoid (which I have watched purely for anthropological reasons ) always features over done-up people, who get make unders ; the general consensus being that having massive fake eyelashes and hair extensions is actually not considered that attractive by most people.
The only thing I do agree with about what the OP said is that surgery and injecting poising into your face etc has become more socially acceptable, and is seen as desirable, which I think is pretty sick. The idea that anyone would go under the knife if they don't have to freaks me out.

[NowThenWreck]

Hownow-nah. I am single and I couldn't give a toss about my muff. I just go with the assumption that the boys feel lucky to be anywhere near my ladygarden. Seems OK so far!

[DuelingFanjo]

If my son brough home a girl who had the whole hair extension, false eyelash, breast implant look then I would be really worried about why he would be choosing someone with such lowself esteem as a mate. but maybe in 15 years time that will be normal for every girl? I do really believe that young women (teenagers) who take this route must have some self esteem issues.

[Hownoobrooncoo]

But that's what I worry about. It is becoming normal.

[NowThenWreck]

I am fighting the encroaching normalisation of waxed ladybits by introducing 25 year old men to my bush.
No need to thank me ladies. All in a days work

[Shelly32]

Hahahhahhahha! Judgemental... Some women want to breastfeed, some don't . Some CAN'T!! I couldn't. I had twins and was separated from them for 1 month. Milk dries up. Some women can breastfeed and don't. Who cares? The babies are fine and if loved by Mama are far better off ..

[Hownoobrooncoo]

And how are these delicate flowers coping with the bush Nowthen?

[Shelly32]

btw ..you are a bit mental..

[NowThenWreck]

Well, I haven't reached as many as I would like, but no complaints so far Hownow.
Research continues, subject to funding.