To be a bit dismayed if 4 million women visit this site,why are there so few posts on the feminism threads?

[Scarletohello]

Ok so I know there are lots of lurkers but if there are really millions of women who go on MN, why are so many threads on the feminism section consisting of so few women? It doesn't make sense to me as so many issues that
women post about on many different topics are actually feminist issues when it comes down to it...

Frankly reading these posts no wonder feminism is such a hard sell to many young women.

As I dressed this morning I felt my usual anger with a society that means my male work colleagues will be getting up and off to work at a time they need to, whereas I'm battling to marry up a need to be with child and a need to put some extra hours in this week.

Society allows men to evade child maintenance (the figures are shocking) and somehow leaves majority of childcare and housework to women. No wonder there is pay equality. I physically cannot apply myself to a career the same as a male colleague.

Dressing in my cord skirt and boots this morning, I ponder the big discussion and obsession over underarm hair and right to wear skimpy revealing clothing without harassment. I'm sick of women growing up surrounded with role models of footballer wives etc and want them to look elsewhere, direct their attention to other things. So why do feminists focus on body hair. Yes it's part of a bigger picture but FGS it's alienating to young women who are just considering alternatives to Kim Kashardian as a 'look'
I'm neither Kim nor hairy arm pitted. I'm happy, yet it appears I don't fit into either group's idea of acceptable. I do look like 99.9% of my colleagues however.

"Three in four senior judges, 59 per cent of the Cabinet, 57 per cent of permanent secretaries, 50 per cent of diplomats, 47 per cent of newspaper columnists, 33 per cent of the Shadow Cabinet and 24 per cent of MPs went to Oxford or Cambridge University.

In 2012, only 25 of the 600-plus recruits to the civil service “fast stream” were from working class backgrounds."

First, there something wrong with the idea of an elite closed shop. John Major and Margaret Thatcher are/were presumably part of "the elite", being ex-prime-ministers. I wonder what secret connections to ancient royalty got them the job.

That jobs go to Oxbridge graduates is not a valid measure of elitism unless that club is a closed shop. The fact that intake has so many private school pupils is not proof of that either, for the same reason.

Also, there is an argument that in an increasingly meritocratic society, say the UK since the second world war, the people on the bottom rung will increasingly be there for a reason. The potential achievers who were there merely due to an accident of birth rise out of that class, marry other achievers, and pass on their superior genes/work ethic/whatever to their children. So even if it was once true that people from all backgrounds had the same potential, that may no longer be the case. (I thought it prudent to adopt a new name before posting this paragraph.)

why don't you want to own your opinions in your regular username?

I enjoy discussing feminist issues, with a range of people, with different viewpoints on the same issue.

I like AIBU feminism-related threads.

I don't enjoy discussing feminist issues with a forum full of feminists. Because any reasoned debate that could be remotely construed as going against the 'sister-hood' (vom emoticon) is shot down instantly in flames. It's boring, frustrating and I have no wish to engage in it.

So I avoid the feminism board like the plague.

As I dressed this morning I felt my usual anger with a society that means my male work colleagues will be getting up and off to work at a time they need to, whereas I'm battling to marry up a need to be with child and a need to put some extra hours in this week.

Society allows men to evade child maintenance (the figures are shocking) and somehow leaves majority of childcare and housework to women. No wonder there is pay equality. I physically cannot apply myself to a career the same as a male colleague.

Having fathers do their fair share is one solution: another would be not having the children in the first place. Difficult without a time machine, but if you had one, would mothers and the fathers being complained about make the same choices? How many men only had children on the understanding (in their own if not the mother's head) that someone other than them would be doing most of the work? How many would simply have refused if they'd know in advance the burden of care would fall on them? On the other hand, I suspect the number of women who would have chosen not to have children is far smaller. I suspect a major component of the explanation for inequality is that it's the women who most want the children.

it's a genuine question firesuit - why don't you want to own your own opinions in your regular username?

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/2226781-Why-can-practical-feminism-not-be-a-sub-board-Or-thread?

In case anyone has an opinion

'it's a genuine question firesuit - why don't you want to own your own opinions in your regular username?'

Because some people can't let go, they latch on to something then don't let it drop. Strong opinions can follow you round the boards.

How many men only had children on the understanding (in their own if not the mother's head) that someone other than them would be doing most of the work? How many would simply have refused if they'd know in advance the burden of care would fall on them? On the other hand, I suspect the number of women who would have chosen not to have children is far smaller. I suspect a major component of the explanation for inequality is that it's the women who most want the children.

Good lord. What an assumption! Women want children and men comply on the basis that they don't have to do any work.... Can I ask what you base your evidence on? Is it something scientific or personal. I can assure you I did not trick the father of my three children into having children. We didn't discuss the fact that I might expect him to actually participate in their upbringing (surely that's a given between husband and wife when deciding to have children?) Nor did he discuss the fact that he expected me to do it.

Perhaps you think men have a god given right to not take responsibility?? And women should just suck it up???

"Women want children and men comply on the basis that they don't have to do any work.... Can I ask what you base your evidence on?"

I know of a couple of people where this was the case. The first marriage broke up and the second one wasn't exactly healthy.

Some of us would jnot tolerate for one day a man who was not as much responsible for childcare as a woman.

It's all very simple as Miriam G said the other week - we only want what men have. And we're getting there.

As for why feminism threads might get fewer posts than weight loss threads well the average IQ in the UK is only 100 and plenty of women don't seem very interested in interesting topics. Hopefully by the way we and their fathers bring up our children we can get the next generation more interested.

i tolerated it for a while, due to low self-esteem. my low self-esteem was borne out of being judged and rejected and struggling at work. All issues tie in together. I wasn't getting confidence externally. through my looks, through my PAY, through my relationships. I guess I felt worthless and ended up in a relationship that didn't contradict that self-assessment. Hit rock bottom before I had the lightbulb moment.

But all of it ties in. Everything is connected. The way women are viewed, objectified, judged, underpaid.........

the average IQ in the UK is only 100 and plenty of women don't seem very interested in interesting topics.

Eh? That's something of a non-sequitir Greengrow. And the average IQ is more or less 100 everywhere. And linking IQ to....

In fact there are so many things wrong with that sentence, I barely have the energy.

Plenty of women don't seem interested in interesting topics? That is the explanation you offer to a mainly female forum? Yet you're here. I don't notice you confining yourself to FWR either.

"plenty of women don't seem very interested in interesting topics. Hopefully by the way we and their fathers bring up our children we can get the next generation more interested."

What interest people is very subjective though. I don't find most of the FWR topics interesting, nor do I find weight loss topics interesting, or baby weaning/online dating/getting pregnant/knitting/horse riding/watching I'm a Z Lister etc.

The average IQ in the UK is only 100 and plenty of women don't seem very interested in interesting topics

Oh my. I thought IQ was a discredited measure anyway given that results are skewed by cultural and societal influences. That aside, if one attaches any credence to IQ tests mine is much higher than that. I don't find most of FWR interesting except in a bemused fashion at some of the more esoteric statements.

There is far more down to earth practical feminism in AIBU.

Don't say that Buffy. Someone will start nitpicking about intercontinental variations of half a percentage point and from there we will be onto the inherent cultural bias of cognitive testing....

Oh God I hope this fucking thread dies soon...

< hands up for starting it originally but never thought it would go on and on and on...>

"Can I ask what you base your evidence on?"

I know of a couple of people where this was the case. The first marriage broke up and the second one wasn't exactly healthy.

I know heaps of men who want children, assume responsibility, expect financial responsibility and would be devastated at the assumption they don't have that commitment just because they are male.

It was actually research rather than anecdotal I was asking for re evidence though

Don't worry Scarlet. It's been pretty interesting.

"How many men only had children on the understanding (in their own if not the mother's head) that someone other than them would be doing most of the work? How many would simply have refused if they'd know in advance the burden of care would fall on them? On the other hand, I suspect the number of women who would have chosen not to have children is far smaller. I suspect a major component of the explanation for inequality is that it's the women who most want the children."

I think there might be a lot in that, the way society stands at the moment and the expectation generally that women will pick up any slack regarding children. Would be interesting to jump ahead to a future where all responsibilities and chores etc were equally shared (despite gender) and see if men were just as keen to have children as women. Where's me tardis when I need it.

You could ask MNHQ to pull the plug if it's really doing your head in Scarlet but you did ask the question in the first place!

Be careful what you wish for, and all that ...

Men do tend to want children less than women do and plenty of women even in marriage in effect trick their husband or have an accidence which results in the baby. That does not mean it is not sometimes the other way round but probably not as the norm in the UK. That may just be due to how people are brought up rather than their gender just as on the whole more men want more sex than they get from their wives than vice versa thus men tend to have to pay for sex the world over and women don't - the sex deficit. Again of course there are exceptions and it may well be due to sexism in upbringing and societal norms but the difference definitely does exist.