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To wonder why so many women are in denial about misogyny?

806 replies

seeker · 22/01/2013 21:31

What do they get out of insisting that men are subject to exactly the same level of discrimination and abuse as women? That Mary Beard, for example, would have been treated in the same way if she had been a man?

I just don't get it.

OP posts:
LRDtheFeministDragon · 23/01/2013 13:36

ruby, that is very funny and very well done. Grin

JustAHolyFool · 23/01/2013 13:40

Ruby that's really funny, love it.

perfectstorm · 23/01/2013 13:40

Most men didn't have the vote either until a few years before women got it.

Not so. There was a property qualification, which was gradually whittled away at as the movement towards democracy progressed, but men were represented in the Commons for hundreds of years. You also don't appear to know that women could not hold any property at all in their own names until the late Victorian period, and that while men could divorce for adultery, women needed to be able to add desertion or cruelty to adultery in order to do so. And they would still lose their children and their property. And the other thing - poor women always worked. In factories, in houses, in the fields. It wa sjust that "their" money belonged to their husbands. They had all of the hardships and none of the control. And of course there will have been loving, tender and passionate relationships, with husbands who treated their wives like gold. That isn't relevant because what is being discussed is a societal framework that meant the way women were treated was at the whim of the man they married. Not a right to fair, decent or equal treatment.

You also don't seem to know that a woman lost all legal status when she married. It was known as "Coverture" and applied until the 20th century. In essence. when you married, legally you stopped being a person at all. You became a part of your husband. You couldn't enter into a contract or own anything at all. Your husband could do anything to you - rape you, beat you, abandon you, take your children - as long as he didn't kill you. Murder wasn't allowed. Pretty much anything else was okay, though. Including selling you, as it happens. The legal textbook setting out the framework said: By marriage, the husband and wife are one person in law: that is, the very being or legal existence of the woman is suspended during the marriage, or at least is incorporated and consolidated into that of the husband.

I don't mean to be rude, honestly I don't, but you fairly obviously don't know the history behind the feminist movement, or women's role in society. Maybe you could read up a bit on it, and see if it altered how you see things? Did you know, for example, that until the early 1990s it was legal for a man to rape his wife in this country? That's just 20 years ago. And one of my law lecturers at university disgreed with the ruling, because it was judge-led and not legislated by Parliament. He said, "A man who forces sex upon his wife is a cad and a brute, but he is not a rapist."

It's great your husband is lovely. My husband is lovely to. My son is lovely, and so are my little brothers and many male friends. But that's neither here nor there when discussing feminism.

Anonymumous · 23/01/2013 13:41

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ShamyFarrahCooper · 23/01/2013 13:43

I can understand why you would campaign for women?s rights in other parts of the world where they really do have a terrible time. But all this clutching at our foreheads and muttering about the evils of porn? If ever there was a First World problem?

The ignorance of that statement is oustanding. Genuinely I cannot believe you think that.

Anonymumous · 23/01/2013 13:43

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perfectstorm · 23/01/2013 13:44

LRD I agree, but you do also need to factor in, when considering conventional measures of achievement (which are the ones most people regard as valid) the constraints and restraints women operated within, and still do. Because most of your audience aren't going to listen to the more complex and unconventional approaches.

I remember when we were being taught about the various approaches to equality law, and we were told, "symmetrical equality is one of the worst, really, in terms of honesty and validity, but it does have the huge advantage that you don't need to think far to understand it, nor have access to a great deal of data. It "feels fair" on its face. And as such, most people will support it."

Given the venom you face from some quarters when trying to support mere symmetrical equality, perhaps that's a factor worth considering.

AbigailAdams · 23/01/2013 13:44

Women have been denied access to education for centuries. In many parts of the world they still are. Gender constructs steer women away from areas where status might be achieved e.g. those areas where you might invent things, the sciences, engineering, architecture etc etc. Is it any wonder they haven't invented as much as men? As if that were a valid measure of success. It is a patriarchal measure of success, for sure.

AbigailAdams · 23/01/2013 13:45

Please feel free to leave if you are bored, Anonymumous. Really we won't mind. Close the door on the way out, there's a love.

TheOriginalSteamingNit · 23/01/2013 13:46

Yeah anonymous. What a bunch of hypocrites we are - we think it's fine to talk about sex, and yet somehow reserve the right not to think it's fine to talk about rapes you'd do or not do to someone. Go figure....

And I think you'll find few feminists would think a builder wolf-whistling and shouting would be 'perfectly acceptable'.

Anonymumous · 23/01/2013 13:46

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perfectstorm · 23/01/2013 13:47

Really Anon? What degree was this, and where did you do it? It does seem to have left some very big gaps in your understanding - perhaps that's why you found it dull?

I do appreciate, of course, that some people find having to think at all inherently boring. Shame, as personally I think it's one of the most fun things in the world. It's one of the reasons I love being a mum - challenges my ideas all the time, and the theories on child development are fascinating, too.

Oh well. Horse for courses.

LRDtheFeministDragon · 23/01/2013 13:47

perfect - oh, yes, I agree. I'm not dismissing it at all. It's just something I get really interested in. I do think it matters both to remember why women are sometimes less visible than men in terms of achievements, and that women's achievements are minimized.

It's a double layer of oppression. Women were less enabled to achieve, and also, we are still taught a male-centric version of history that ignores what they did achieve.

ArielThePiraticalMermaid · 23/01/2013 13:47

Why would you choose to do a dissertation in something which bored you? How strange!

moisturiser · 23/01/2013 13:47

'P.S. Did anyone notice this comment in that link? ?Oh my goodness, he looks absolutely HYSTERICAL!? That proves a few of you wrong then'

Are you not embarrassed by how ignorant you're coming across?

'Hysterical' has 2 meanings.

Very funny.

Highly strung/extremely emotional.

Both are underpinned by an idea of losing control. Either through laughing, or in being overemotional.

ShamyFarrahCooper · 23/01/2013 13:48

It's where it leads anonymous. Don't suppose you saw the Dianne Abbott article earlier on in the week?

namchan · 23/01/2013 13:48

What's the point?

Anonymumous · 23/01/2013 13:49

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ArielThePiraticalMermaid · 23/01/2013 13:49

You know if ever there was an advert for feminism still being being necessary....

It's funny. It's not something I usually give a huge amount of thought to. But I damn well am, now.

JustAHolyFool · 23/01/2013 13:50

Well, Anonymumous by that token, if someone is willing to buy someone's kidney, and the person is willing to sell it, what's the issue?

ShamyFarrahCooper · 23/01/2013 13:50

P.S. Did anyone notice this comment in that link? ?Oh my goodness, he looks absolutely HYSTERICAL!? That proves a few of you wrong then!

How does that compare? Saying some looks hysterical (funny) and saying someone is being hysterical (over-reaction due to hormones) are massively different.

Anonymumous · 23/01/2013 13:51

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Anonymumous · 23/01/2013 13:52

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LRDtheFeministDragon · 23/01/2013 13:53

Good point about 'hysterical'.

It is so telling that the terminology is based in negative descriptions of women's bodies, yet it's so normalized, lots of people don't even recognize where it comes from and what it implies that we still use it.

You wouldn't find people saying it was ok to still use racist terminology simply because it's become associated with something not explicitly racist (eg., the story about 'little black sambo' tends, funnily enough, not to be read under the original title any more!).

ArielThePiraticalMermaid · 23/01/2013 13:53

That. Is. How. The. Word. Originated