To ask if you feel feminism doesn't include you?

[FlyingElbows]

I was brought up by a mother who, like so many others, found feminism in the late 70s / early 80s. She spent most of my life telling me that I could do anything but I was essentially too stupid to form my own thoughts and opinions and needed "feminists" to think for me. Throughout my adult life I have met women who proclaim to be "feminist" but hold what I have found to be questionable views about who "feminism" should be open to. So, do you feel feminism wants you or are you too stupid, too lacking in academic prowess, too working class, too blonde, too keen on glittery things, too married, too a sahm, too anything at all to be good enough? Just wondering because I have had enough of other women telling me what to think and I'm wondering if it's just me?

The very first kind even.

Or worst kind...

katenka

But why would you take your father in laws name over your fathers? You can't describe the name as your husbands name if you're describing yours as your dads?

Because my name changed several times as a child 4 times I fact. The last time mum changed it back to my dads, I was 13 and hadn't had it for 10 years. It didn't feel like my name.

By the time I got married i had spent longer with other names rather than my dads name.

Besides which why would you care the reasons I don't feel attached to my dads name?

Either our names are our own (that's what I believe) or they belong to our fathers in which case DH doesn't own his name, his father does.

I disagree.

I believe in equality but I don't call myself a feminist. Feminists who are determined to make everything in to a feminist issue do nothing but annoy me and give feminism a bad name, hence me not wanting to call myself a feminist.

I don't feel attached to my dad's name either, for reasons detailed in my previous post.

"I believe in equality but I don't call myself a feminist. Feminists who are determined to make everything in to a feminist issue do nothing but annoy me and give feminism a bad name, hence me not wanting to call myself a feminist."

What sort of things are you thinking about?

"Because my name changed several times as a child 4 times I fact. The last time mum changed it back to my dads, I was 13 and hadn't had it for 10 years. It didn't feel like my name."

Do you think it would have felt like your name if you'd been a boy?

The 'intersectional' thing is wooly? Try telling that to the next black, poor, lower class than you, underprivileged, overlooked woman, and hope all you get is a withering look and not a lecture starting with the truth from Sojourner Truth, through Ida B. Wells, Harriet Anne Jacobs, Anna Julia Cooper, Mary Church Terrell, Amy Jacques Garvey (point made, I'll stop there) through to bell hooks et. al.

shakes head

Yeah actually, there is some feminism that excludes me, that which ignores any structure of power not related to white women, denying intersectionality, deny my lived experience, thereby obliterating me, my history, my family past, present and future.

Gaaaah

Do you think it would have felt like your name if you'd been a boy?

I don't know. I am not a boy? Dbro took his wife's name. That's the closest I can answer.

Why all the interest in why I am not attached to a surname I had for 6 years?

I identify as a feminist as I believe women are still an oppressed group and I want equality for the semester. However I don't always practice what I preach as I have allowed myself to be oppressed regularly in small ways such as doing the majority of wifework.

No surprise the OP hasn't commented further.

I've never seen it as an exclusive club.

Much like in any group of people, there are always a few who shout louder and more obnoxiously than the rest (religion being a perfect example) but to say that you are not a feminist because of it makes me very sad, because we NEED feminism and will need it for quite some time to come, if we are ever to have equal rights. To say that "equalism" would do the same thing is nonsense, because men have been talking about equality for centuries, and somehow it has never yet managed to include us.

Even in America, where they are still shooting, imprisoning and enslaving black people as fast as they can, they gave black men the right to vote (in theory) 50 years before women - many didn't even entirely believe that black people were HUMAN (my husband is doing his PhD on this and it's horrific how long scientists tried to hang on to that idea), but black men still got the vote before women. Why did nobody say "Oh! While we're extending the franchise, this would be a great time to extend it to ALL American citizens, wouldn't it?" Equality has never included women, and we need feminism to help us raise our voices and get equal rights.

It so happens that our rights have benefited and will benefit men along the way by giving them more freedom to choose as well (to be parents, for example), but that's just a side effect.

I definitely don't think feminism excludes SAHMs, blondes, people with french manicures at all - it is not trying to turn all women into CEO's, but to give us the CHOICE to be a CEO, with or without bedazzled nails.

I believe in equality but I don't call myself a feminist. Feminists who are determined to make everything in to a feminist issue do nothing but annoy me and give feminism a bad name, hence me not wanting to call myself a feminist.

Have to agree with this. It also get very irritating having women say "but you must be a feminist, you obviously just don't understand what it means to be one!". I understand. I see great women trying to fight for equal rights for all women across the world. I see brave women, everyday standing up for themselves, without feeling the need to declare how brilliant they are for doing it.

I also see women in feminism speading hate and ignorance because they feel their own view/cause is more important than anyone else's rights. The trans 'debates' on here are a very good example of this, and the scary thing is, most of the women who see transgenderism as a bad thing will not even acknowledge they are doing the exact same oppression that they are fighting against.

Feminisim is just like a religion to me. I can see it's trying to be fundamentally good, trying to mould the world into a certain way of thinking, with respect being at the core foundation. However, as with religion, there are too many who go over the top, lose sight and basically ruin it. You don't have to be a feminist to believe in equal rights for women (and others), just like you don't have to be a Christian to know to 'treat others like you yourself would want to be treated'. I just don't question everything that happens in my life as a possible 'feminist issue'.

I am a 'feminist'. I believe in equality of opportunity and legal protection for men and women. I am conscious of the subtle sexism the pervades our society and fills heads with nonsense about what men and women should be/do/believe/feel etc. and I believe women get the shittier end of the deal on this sort of stereotyping because the things women are meant to be/do/believe/feel etc. are ascribed less cultural value than men's equivalent.

HOWEVER, I feel that most of the mainstream contemporary feminist discourse excludes me. When we wear feminist voices on TV and radio, these women do not represent me. They are white, middle class, educated, privileged women. I am not.
These women (as representatives of modern feminism) tend to talk about feminist issues with an implicit belief that women have some kind of choice in their lives. Or that they have some kind of access to support/networks/empowering discourses. I don't.
These women assume that because we are all women we are all having some kind of similar experience, that our gender is uniting us in some kind of universal struggle. It's not; I feel I have more in common, and would fight more for, men of my race and class than middle class women.
These women talk about experiences of gendered disadvantage or discrimination which do not at all reflect experiences in my life. For example, they speak about inequality in the workplace, making an issue of how many female CEOs there are. They are making a good point but how many female CEOs, I feel, is about a million miles removed from mine and my mother's life of working as cleaners, shelf-stackers and care workers for minimum wage. They are talking about a different world, a world which I am not a part of.

So, whilst I would say that I am 'feminist', I don't think modern feminism represents or includes me.

I've never thought whether feminism wants me. I want it and that's the end of the matter.

I felt feminism excluded me when I once read about a bunch of feminists protesting outside a lap dancing club. I felt that they were just bullies, they wanted it closed because they didn't agree with it. They didn't care that women made their money there, that they could have children to support.

I don't like feminists who think they can push other women around.

"Why all the interest in why I am not attached to a surname I had for 6 years?"

Sorry! I didn't mean to quiz you. I am just interested in why women aren't expected to have ownership of their name because it's their father's name, but the same doesn't apply to men- who acquire their names in exactly the same way.

Did you ask any questions about the lap dancing club? What sort of women did it employ and how did it treat them?

Bertrand , what is the difference between equalism and feminism?

bert but you are missing the point. i personally do not feel attached to that surname.

I spent more of my life without it. That doesn't mean no women should feel attached to their surname. I am sure it may different if you had had one surname.

That was my point the women who say I can't be feminist because I took dhs surname and gave 'my' surname up have no idea of the reasons why I don't feel dads name was my surname. They just assume I must have always had the same surname my whole childhood. It's not for them to decide that one decision stops me being a feminist, especially when it's an opinion based on assumption.

The surname I now have, I have had almost 15 years. Which is the longest I have had a name.

I don't feel it's my fils, I feel it's mine now. Had I have always had my dads, I may feel different.

GubbinsSocks

Excellent post and totally my experience.

As a cm I work full time and still do all the housework and child care.

All the mums I work with do too.

As ever middle class and richer women employ other women to do the chores and child care so they have time to spout on feminist issues and equality.

The rest of us are too bloody knackered from doing 2 jobs instead of one.

Oh dear.

Let's create a post to slag off feminists and feminism.

Let's keep super quiet about the gender pay gap, abortion laws, reproductive health, FGM, rape and anything else feminists have fought for or are still fighting.

It was just the lap dancing club in our town, and a group of 'feminists' who went to my college where protesting outside.

Nothing wrong with it, all above board, its still there now and women go there as well as men. They host burlesque nights too, ive performed there myself.

They were just trying to be clever and draw attention to themselves in the name of feminism...

I've never been really interested in feminism - I guess if I felt I was being disadvantaged by being a woman it might be different, but I never have. When I read the feminism board here it always seems a bit scary and angry - I wouldn't want to post because I think if I said something 'wrong' posters would come down on me like a ton of bricks.