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.

pony - if I came from a society where women are oppressed, I doubt I would be thinking much at all. I would be too busy cooking, cleaning, bearing children and getting shot for going out with make up on.

I simply just do not see I have a problem AT ALL as a woman in this society. I sit in my mortgaged house, a single parent, never married, with an interesting job, enough money to have choices.

In 1973 when I was 3, my mum had to have my dad's signature to get a washing machine on hire purchase. We really have come a very long way.

Of course, the reason we have come so far so fast is that a lot of feminists did the dirty work before I was born. And I am very thankful to them, particularly as my worth as a disabled woman in the sexual marketplace is very low so I couldn't have bagged myself rich desirable husband to keep me.

But honouring the past and being grateful for it, doesn't mean I have to respect some of the insulting tripe that is passed off as feminist argument in some quarters. Not here of course.

I find all academics, male, female or transgender, irritating, jargon ridden and apparently deliberately wishing not to engage with a wider audience.

Hope that is clear.

And running in heels - you find some random comment on the internet 'shocking' ? Really?

What word do you use for FGM or the two girls shot for making a video of their dancing?

This is a serious question.

I suppose I should confront my hateful bigotry towards the academic classes.

Sigh.

For light relief I shall come back and start an inflammatory re homing thread in the dogshouse...

I worked in banking for ten years and could give you many, many examples of both direct and indirect discrimination. To do that in a meaningful way would both out me and be telling other peoples' secrets, which I don't want to do, so unfortunately you will have to take my word for it. In some industries, in the uk, sexism is cultural, endemic and, frankly, vicious.

Yep. I also worked in banking for several years post-Uni. '5 temp-to-perms' taken on - 3 women and 2 men. At the end of our 3 month contract this was the situation:

1 man taken onto to the Accelerated Graduate Training Programme. (we were all graduates)

1 man taken onto to New Business Sales (prestigious job)

2 women (one was me ) taken onto the New Business helpdesk (normal helpdesk job)

1 woman - who had just announced her pregnancy - employment terminated.

Perhaps it's just coincidence that the 2 men got the plum jobs? Or perhaps the 2 men were genuinely better than the women? I can tell you they weren't. I was there. At the time the other employees there called it "jobs for the boys." So it wasn't just me being bitter.

As you write in clear and articulate English I am afraid I just can't accept that Promqueen.

Are you quite sure? Was it a particularly vivid dream?

And running in heels - you find some random comment on the internet 'shocking' ? Really?

Yes. Really. There are lots of things on the internet I find shocking.

If you want me to make a hierarchical list as to what I find most shocking - well I wouldn't ask tbh.

But yes - what you said about female academics I found shocking. And so I asked - did you attribute what you said about them (using words you didn't understand to try and sound more intelligent), to them being female?

I think I read the first 2 pages of that originally, but never went back and finished reading the rest.
Have now read another page.

Am I right in thinking though, that female acedemics that are childless, generally dont have a problem in acedemia?
That it is the ones with at least 2 children that do? Because they no longer have large chunks of spare time to devote to whatever it is that they are researching?

btw, a lot of deletions by MN on that thread, which made it more difficult to follow. Including Xenia deletions! and yours prom!
Goodness knows what it was that you all said.

running - I answered your question. I did not attribute negative characteristics to them because they were FEMALE but because they were ACADEMICS.

Whom I generally despise for reasons I have already set out.

Therefore you may reign in your shock and terror.

OK spero - I genuinely missed your post there.

You are perfectly within your rights to find all academics irritating (a rather strange stance imo - but there you go - I'm not one so I'm not personally insulted).

What you initially wrote said "female academics" and I was responding to that.

Prom

Prom - we've all been deleted on FWR threads that get heated. It's a rite of passage

spero exactly what i mean. If I was oppressed, the choices would be simply ..survival. I am not. Definitions of feminism can only really be contextualised subjectively, academically or culturally.

We are in 2013. What would happen if we let go of feminism? If we just decided to be grateful for the women that emancipated us. Our ancestors.

My great aunt in 1904 lived a freer and more independent self determined life that most people i know today.

promqueen Do you really think femininity is low status? Why? I'm not so sure. I don't know why but i'm going to think about it.

Prom

pleiadian - I don't know what would happen if we let go of feminism in 2013 - possibly that everything would continue to in general default to men? They do now. There are some such interesting studies on this - people have already touched on them.

For example - how people's CV's are treated if you swap a female name for a male one. How much airtime and newspaper inches are given to men over women. How many of the top jobs go to men over women.

Lets get away from the 'job' and media aspect - and look at everyday lives of women. Everydaysexism.com documents some of it - just the sort of casual sexist crap women have to put up with every day of their lives. Male violence against women - 2 women per week are killed by their partner/ex-partner.

Male violence full-stop - young men are statistically more likely to be victims of street violence by other men. Male violence needs to be addressed. And yet someone on this thread yesterday was bemoaning schools for being too 'feminised' whatever that means - but if it means stopping boys rough play - then that's a good thing imo.

Of course, when I say everything defaults to men - I mean powerful jobwise, of course the domestic chores and childcare in general still default to women.

promqueen vulnerability can a very powerful attribute. It affords us lots of protection. The most vulnerable people in (british) society are lower class non disabled working aged men. They are afforded no protection at all.

They are the group who are most likely to come to harm.

Female vulnerability provides men with a role of protector and provider. Which is EXACTLY the ideal condition for a women who is caring for a vulnerable baby. To be protected and provided for. It is unfortunately biology. We have evolved to be able to subvert this and adapt to different conditions but essentially, bare boned, this is the fundamental difference between men and women.

Do men know how to protect and provide? Women can do both. Men are shit at being vulnerable and our society gives them a really hard time for it. We have afforded ourselves a choice in the roles that we play, do men REALLY have that freedom? As much as women do??

(I'm talking about british society here as it's the only one I know)

I have not and do not advocate just sitting back and basking in the warm glow of achieved goals.

What I have asked is why feminism? Why not humanism? Why not be against and angry about discrimination per se, not simply discrimination that is defined by sex?