To get annoyed when other women say "I'm not a feminist"

[Nickabilla]

As if it's a dirty word and a shameful thing to be? I hear it every now and then and always question it. Someone said it today and I'm annoyed again.

Do some women not realise that women didn't used to be allowed to go to university, get divorced, own property or vote?

Rant over.

Feminism is a cult? There are weirdos everywhere. The fact that there are extremist feminists is not an indictment of the movement.

I consider myself to be a feminist. Not a modern feminist.

(Nods head) I too wear makeup and have been a SAHM.

I hate the idea that feminists look a certain way.

That being said, I am saddened when I see young girls dress in a provocative way under the pretense of sexual freedom. I don't think this is what my grandmother fought for. Everyone's got their own offshoot of feminism, I suppose.

The feminist counsellor thing is ridiculous. There are many bizarre/extreme people in the world. Some of them are feminists. That does not mean feminism = ridiculous. Feminisms are individuals.

PromQueen I don't get it when people somehow think that they are untouched by culture and that it is just their completely objective choice. For example, I'm about to go out in a shortish skirt, and I shaved my legs. Why do I shave? Because the idea has developed that women that have hairy [insert legs, armits] are disgusting, dirty, unclean... It isn't a massive coincidence that society has developed this view recently AND that lots of people on this forum now shave. Sadly, though I hate admitting it myself, it's societal pressure making you shave, not just "you".

I dont want to see young girls aspiring to be something they are not and some of the clothes they choose to wear has me gobsmacked but again It is their choice to dress that way ( am i contradicting myself)

A lot of ex-feminists have described feminism as a cult. I guess they know better than me.

I meant the clothes and Tan of people from T V TOWIE KARDASHIANS etc i just dont like it,

A lot of ex-feminists have described feminism as a cult.

Like who?

you know sometimes things sound better in my head than actually typed out

I lay a lot of problems at Kim Kardashian's feet.

I just had a laser beam fired repeatedly at my vagina today for the purposes of hair removal, so I suppose I'm not that much of a feminist, am I?

www.avoiceformen.com/feminism/leaving-the-sisterhood-a-recovering-feminist-speaks/

does that hurt crowler sorry to derail the whole thing with trivia

Crowler I honestly don't know - I wax and shave and it makes me feel very unfeminist as I know it's a cultural thing that women feel they have to do. But I think a lot of modern feminists wear make-up/shave etc. Bit of a minefield!

StarfishEnterprise

Agree. People should also not forget that most men did not have the right to vote (not just those that fought in the war) and only gained rights to vote at about the same time as women. History has a way of making out that men had been voting since the dawn of time but this is not the case. Only the privileged few were able to vote.

I was told I kid you not i was letting down the sisterhood because i dyed my hair the comment appeared on a light hearted thread last year i was bemused

Agree. People should also not forget that most men did not have the right to vote (not just those that fought in the war) and only gained rights to vote at about the same time as women. History has a way of making out that men had been voting since the dawn of time but this is not the case. Only the privileged few were able to vote.

^^ that, poor people including men were not allowed to vote

Starfish and just why do you think Asquith was poise to grant women the vote in 1912? Surely you must know that there had been an extensive women's suffrage campaign underway for quite some time, and distinct from the other campaigns to widen the franchise. He didn't just think of it out of the blue, and to divorce that policy from the extensive campaigning and activism that had been ongoing for years beforehand is simply ahistorical.

And Sigmunde are you being mischievous when you say that there isn't much talk about being grateful to soldiers of WW1 & WW2 for the liberties they preserved for us all? Remembrance Day, for a start (although I'm not sure which liberties the soldiers in WW1 preserved for us all, hence the widespread perception of a pointless war and a wasted generation etc).

Technotropic you're wrong, I'm afraid. Approximately 60% of the adult male population (over 21) had the right to vote prior to the Representation of the People Act in 1918. And 0% of women. After 1918, only women over the age of 30 could vote, and even then they had to meet some property requirements. All property restrictions were abolished for men in 1918.

No, not at all. Of course, there is remembrance day, but day to day, I do not hear it mentioned. I am not constantly told that these men died for me as a way to make me shut up.

Skyler

In early-19th-century Britain very few people had the right to vote. A survey conducted in 1780 revealed that the electorate in England and Wales consisted of just 214,000 people - less than 3% of the total population of approximately 8 million. In Scotland the electorate was even smaller: in 1831 a mere 4,500 men, out of a population of more than 2.6 million people, were entitled to vote in parliamentary elections. Large industrial cities like Leeds, Birmingham and Manchester did not have a single MP between them, whereas 'rotten boroughs' such as Dunwich in Suffolk (which had a population of 32 in 1831) were still sending two MPs to Westminster. The British electoral system was unrepresentative and outdated.

www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/pathways/citizenship/struggle_democracy/getting_vote.htm