To feel despondent about feminism

[2TheLighthouse]

I’m almost envious of those women who confidently state that they’re not feminists, because presumably they don’t see much wrong with the state of male/female equality. I, on the other hand, am furious about so many things affecting girls and women that it can get a bit overwhelming.

For example, I watched that Jimmy Savile documentary the other day. It’s absolutely clear as day to me that what happened is what always happens: powerful rich man gets what he wants. Other men shield him. All the wide-eyed disbelief after the event is just total bullshit. Why were people surprised? This is what powerful men and powerful institutions have done forever . Sometimes men are the victims, but more often than not, it’s girls and women who a) suffer and b) know with a deep certainty that they won’t be believed.

Don’t get me wrong- I know there are lots of good men. But girls and women are still at such a colossal disadvantage after centuries of oppression that I find it hard to believe that some women are ok with the way things are. The only way to combat this is to continue the feminist cause - but society has played an absolute blinder on the word ‘feminist’ so that many women believe it to be some sort of weird extremism.

It would be odd, surely, if hardly more than 100 years after getting the vote, following millennia of being officially second-class citizens, women had successfully climbed up to the same status as men in society. Of course they couldn’t undo all that bullshit in one century. Especially with all the pushback.

Off the top of my head, the things that make me furious on a regular basis, in no particular order:

• the leaking of sickening violent, misogynistic porn into mainstream society, so that classes of 15 year olds snigger at the word ‘choke’ (Yes, I’m a teacher)
• the constant unofficial policing of what women and girls can and can’t wear while men can walk around topless as soon as the sun shines because the baseline assumption is that women’s bodies are ‘sexual’ and men’s aren’t
• the way female characters always have to be attractive (real and cartoon) when their male counterparts can be as ugly as you like
• the horror show that is female healthcare, with particular reference to the ‘just get on with it’ school of thought in maternity care, when women have had major surgery etc
• the casual contempt shown by boys towards girls they find unattractive; the assumption that shared space is boys’ space to dominate, either vocally or physically, with the kicking of footballs.
• incels
• the persistence of the sex trade and the loud defence of it by otherwise sensible people
• the bending over backwards to accommodate male sexual kinks

As I said, it’s bonkers to expect millennia of sexism to be undone in a century or so. But what’s disheartening is not that there’s still a way to go, but that so many people literally cannot see that.

PurgatoryOfPotholes

Yes, I too have been in similar situations purgatory. There really seems to be this expectation that MN FWR posters fit neatly into whatever derogatory hole some posters like so they can attempt to discredit us. The constant attempt to push us all into one demographic is getting ridiculous.

I would also have been reviled when I lived in those conditions, by women being told that they should only spend their money on causes deemed worthy in an effort to demonise others.

But, I say, crack on those who wish to continue in that ad hominem posting style. It shows readers more about you than those you attempt to discredit.

Not me. Nor any of the increasingly more open GC women I know - many of whom are in a refuge having had their safety, dignity and choices negatively impacted by at least one transwoman (and I am using that word here because the phrase I want to use will get me banned).

Don't make such sweeping assumptions.

Adding to this, the Financial conduct Authority has some parameters that most definitely ARE skewed by statistics that TeaKlaxon tried to tell us will not be impacted.

The FCA’s policy requires listed companies to publish data on the number of men and women on their boards, and to say whether this is based on sex or gender identity. They are required to report against targets of:
at least 40% of board members being women
at least one of the senior board positions being held by a woman.

Imagine if that ‘one’ senior board position was a male … voila… that organisation has achieved that goal.

Nothing to see here.

(and anyone wanting an example of the ‘gender balanced’ board that ended up 75% male can use Google for themselves. It is discussed often enough.)

The need for females to be fully considered when organisational policies are developed created the need for ‘female’ roles. These were called ‘women’s officer’ roles.

The recruitment of males into these roles IS another issue that needs to be addressed. Particularly at universities where this directly impacts a large number of young women.

This is another impact that gets ignored if people are framing people’s complaints about this as ‘anti’ something rather than being what it is: fighting to maintain the rights of females against negative sexist discrimination.

Don't make such sweeping assumptions.

make ‘em all you like in my case

i fail to see how I’m not allowed to care about any of this stuff because I’m a white middle class woman. Im neither of those things on purpose!

its very tiresome being shoved into a box by certain posters who crap on about people not being pushed into boxes…show some consistency for goodness sake

and im very disappointed with the class of insult and attempted closing down of discussion

‘shut up because you can afford a t shirt and a train ticket’

seriously…is that the best you have?

its really sad 😀

There is nothing you can say to be honest that makes me think you have any women or kid's interests at heart, you think the groomers 'The Family Sex Show' are absolutely fine.

So yes I can afford to travel to London/any capital city if I wish, I can afford to buy t-shirts and I even own two houses due to working hard, living on the breadline for absolutely years and putting myself through university whilst also working full time hours. What the fuck has that got to do with supporting or not supporting women's rights?

Eh? What on earth is your point? Are you INSINUATING I can afford a train ticket to London, how very dare you.

I think I see what is going on here. @lameasahorse is trying to shame white, middle class women and is attempting to get them to stop protecting women and girls.

that same poster is on another thread, defending a sex show aimed at children, where adults show children 5 + their genitalia and encourage children to search online for masturbating animals and draw them. The show also put out an audio clip where a female voice asks “how do I make it hurt less?”.

I think you will find that women will come together to protect their children from something which appears to be sexual abuse and grooming both under government guidelines and NSCPC. Thank god for all women who sign petitions against this, reports pedophiles to the police, call their MPs and overall try to protect children. Race, class and sexual orientation, nothing of that matters when you come for our children.

Trying to discredit those who whistleblow or raise safeguarding concerns is a recognised (and tediously obvious) tactic. Trying to shift focus from the issue - feminism, or in this case a show aimed at children that is so unsuitable as to be potentially illegal - by throwing ad hom attacks at the women raising concerns.

We know this tune.

You said on another thread that grooming kids is fine.

The reason you don't post is your arguments are damaging and when they are pointed out you start accusing women of 'having enough money to go to London'. You know some women EVEN LIVE in London? Some buy t-shirts yes, what of it? Do you think you get a say in what t-shirts women buy with their own money. Most women do actually buy clothes, to infer that only rich women do [what do poor women do, steal them?] is utterly ridiculous.

I don't feel despondent about feminism, I feel the points you make mean it is more important than ever.

No lies. You are on the Family Sex Show thread saying it is all a fuss about nothing. The Family Sex Show are grooming kids. If you cannot see it maybe do a safeguarding course or something?

Please do keep posting.

You can minimise your posts about attempting to shame others discussing the massive safeguarding issues that were being highlighted on that other thread all you want.

And it is pretty infantilising and downright offensive to suggest that posters on that board are not actively engaged in other aspects of feminism.

And again with the 'right-wing', 'cultural war' while accusing posters of ignoring issues that many are, in fact, engaged with.

All stated to demonise women you don't agree with.

Distractive tactics .... look ... over there..... there is a squirrel!!!

But you didn't.

You set out to demonise others and tell women what they should be doing.

This all actually makes me upset. How did we come to a situation where some people try to suggest that we shouldn’t care about things like “Family Sex Show” which is absolute awful (grooming etc, not going into it here) or girls being subject to sexual assault or harassment (Highgate school) just because some “have it worse”?

as women, we need to protect all women and girls.

Most only have the time and energy to protect their own children and intervene in their own school against anything awful that happens there.

Some women have time to also look at general issues (internet grooming, structural sexual harassment of girls, availability of abortion) and write to their MPs, NSPCC, the police, etc.

I am grateful to all women who look out for vulnerable women and girls. That is feminism to me, regardless of what you call it.

For the record

'Race, class and sexual orientation totally matters when protecting women and children. Why do you think Rotherham happened to the girls it did? Why do you think at this moment young teenagers are put in hostels that are dangerous and full of exploitative people and there is not a national outcry? Why do you think Child Q was made to strip in a school where she should have been safe? If you don't think race, class and sexual orientation have an impact on which women and girls are most at risk of sexual abuse and sexual exploitation, then you will do zero effective action to stop it happening.'

Have all been widely discussed on the FWR board (because that is where most of the feminist discussions tend to happen due to traffic being so low on the the other board).

And they will continue to be discussed and actions will continue to be taken where it is directly possible.

Some posters continue to try to tell others that they are not engaging with these topics, when it is actually very easy to check and see that MN is very definitely engaging with these topics.

If I remember correctly, Child Q was being discussed on threads here before it hit mainstream. And posters were trawling through the original report that was found and linked up and the policies to work out what can be done and actions were taken by those who could do something.

I'm bored so i just (mostly skim) read the thread. Blimey.
This one stood out
I don't call myself a feminist. I do care about women and children's rights. But feminism fucked me over big time. The idea that women can 'have it all' - no we can't. The idea that having casual sex is empowering - no it isn't. The idea that men hate us - no they don't (most of them don't). I was brought up with feminism and it twisted me away from my own wants and needs and created a very unrealistic, damaging and paranoid world view.

The idea that women can have everything wasn't supposed to mean that they can have everything all at once, and people who took it to mean that - how can i put this kindly - need(ed) to work on their critical thinking skills.

The point of feminism is equality between the sexes. We have made great strides in some respects (the vote, allowed to open a bank account all by ourselves etc) and nominally even equal pay for equal work. (there are billions of caveats to that, some structural some personal choice - but even if only nominally, it is actually enshrined in law in many countries)

So Feminism on its own didn't fuck anyone over. People had misunderstood, people made different choices and so on, but the idea that people should not have less or fewer rights because of their sex is feminism.

I am, like Bruce Banner, angry all the time. I can be angry about lots of things all at the same time, or a particular issue at a particular moment or something might make me more or less angry depending on my mood, where i am, etc etc.

Let's take "lots of casual sex". Well, yes, it's not for everyone. But the idea that boys/men get to sow their oats while woman remain pristine virgins until marriage is such clear sexist bollocks it is no wonder that a lot of people jumped into lots of casual sex without really understanding what it might mean to them. I daresay better and more good quality sex education would have helped an awful lot. I used to have loads of casual sex, some in hindsight a bit dodgy (now i understand how consent, coercion and drunk people might intersect, but hey, hindsight is a wonderful thing and I'm fine so no harm done. Other people have different experiences).

The idea that FemaleBref would be criticised so much more than MaleBref for exactly the same actions is anti-feminist. (notwithstanding the consequences of sex can be very different for men and women). Relaxing abortion laws is a natural consequence of all the extra sex women were/are having. That is a feminist issue. Safe, legal, rare, as early as possible and as late as necessary. No judgement from anyone at all is required, and nobody should be compelled to have an abortion/baby against their informed will.

The pay gap. Oh god the pay gap. There are different ways of measuring it. If we go for lifetime earnings, we see that maternity leave in particular, but also part time working and having less well-paid lower-status jobs often falls to mothers / women with caring responsibilities. Women who don't take career breaks for caring responsibilities also face the discrimination as if they might disappear at any time to do this. That is also anti-feminist. What we should be doing is making the decisions easier to make. For eg: encouraging companies to have good maternity/parental policies that make it easier for men to take time out too. Society (in the form of laws and other encouragements) needs to reform itself so that it doesn't regard children as a woman's responsibility (dads "babysitting" etc).

When women say "i was a feminist but when i became a SAHM the feminists turned on me" - firstly, the choice to be a SAHM is up to the individual and their family and it is un-feminist to criticise that. But often what happens is (as we see on these boards time and time again) it descends into an us and them. Whereas what we need to do is uplift other women and respect their choices (even while we might point out that being a SAHM brings uncertainties and they might want to think about an allowance, pension funding, division of housework etc) We might point out that working outside the home might cause us anguish about missing our children, not being a good mother etc. We should be helping by sharing strategies and tips and not just "yeah, why did you have them then?". Not to mention women who choose not to have children, choose to have many children, have children with different fathers - they may be making "choices" (not always voluntary) that we wouldn't, but it is un-feminist to criticise them out of hand. etc etc etc

Black women, Asian women, women who aren't white (middle-class) experience their lives differently. (I'm not an expert, I'm trying to learn so apols in advance if this is either patronising or insulting. It's not my intention). So when black women say "fuck off White Feminist" we should be listening and learning and not talking over them. Same for disabled women, all women whose lives and experiences are different to and from ours.

Holding men to account for gender violence is not hating men. Holding people to account for unsafe sex practices is not kink shaming. Also, the sexual revolution isn't about only having lots of casual sex. It can be about exploring your own kinks etc. Kink shaming has no place in this.

Since every post must mention transwomen (and maybe also transmen) it isn't transwomen that worry me. It is men who see an opportunity to commit acts against women (upskirting, filming, and more) who might simply be allowed to say "you can't ask me if I'm a man" who worry me. They are not trans. They are abusers who may take advantage of a system of identification that has what appears to be no checks or balances. And i am worried that women who may not be around natal men who are not relatives may have their lives curtailed bothers me a lot. But i don't know the answer here outside of 3rd spaces (which i think transwomen don't want and while i understand why it is very difficult to accept for this reason)

Sorry, too long. TL;dr - people need to think more about what feminism actually is.

If I remember correctly, Child Q was being discussed on threads here before it hit mainstream. And posters were trawling through the original report that was found and linked up and the policies to work out what can be done and actions were taken by those who could do something.

What posters who hide the FWR boards don't know is that MN 'usual suspects' are the ones that often do the trawling, evidence gathering, information checking, cross referencing etc that the journalists use to write their 'mainstream' pieces. They rarely get credit for the work they do. So the people that hide the FWR boards see the end product and then wonder why we aren't talking about it on the board that they hid.

Race, class and sexual orientation totally matters when protecting women and children. Why do you think Rotherham happened to the girls it did? Why do you think at this moment young teenagers are put in hostels that are dangerous and full of exploitative people and there is not a national outcry?

Sometimes it's like people just ignore my posts. Is it the aura of working-classness?

I was a teenager in a hostel. At the time, I had a choice of a mixed-sex hostel and female-only. I chose female-only. That was greatly to my benefit, for the reasons you've outlined and more. I am on here today, arguing for female-only spaces and the importance of keeping them legal because I used to live in a homeless hostel.

And you are trying to imply that I am too privileged to express any views on the matter because I can budget for public transport to London occasionally. It's actually funny.

This is the new you-can't-be-poor-if-you-have-a-flatscreen-TV, is it?

The gender pay gap is misleading, I feel. I've worked in various industries (Banking, Policing, Teaching) and the pay is exactly the same, regardless of gender. What happens, is that many women go back to work Part time after they have children and that drags the figures down drastically, because the pay is reduced for reduced hours (obviously), and/or some roles just aren't available Part time, so a previously high earning woman takes a job that is less skilled than her pre-children role. I have known many a woman who has quit a substantial job, to become a part time, term time helper in a school office, for example. You could argue that more Dads should go back Part time, but couples rarely choose this - and that isn't anyone's fault.

Op, you have missed the issues that anger me the most :

ONE) Trans women competing as women in women's sport. It's cheating in plain sight. Most of them still have their penis, and no amount of hormones can reverse the benefits that born males have, such as height, bones mass, lung capacity, reach etc, etc. I am RAGING about this one, and I don't even like sport.

TWO) Trans women being housed in female prisons. Karen White is a great example of why this should never be allowed. He was imprisoned for rape (still has a penis), and they sent him to a female prison, whereupon he raped some of his fellow inmates. RAGE doesn't even begin to express how angry I am about that case and others similar.

Women and our safety have been compromised so that men with dysphoria can be cow-towed to. HOW did we let this happen?

Fucking hell, what a lot of fuss about nothing.

The thread was discussing the grooming of the children and indeed their parents by the Family Sex Show production and materials on their website and those above were your exact words lameasahorse on a thread full of screenshots and evidence of The Family Sex Show's attempted grooming of children and breaking down of their boundaries.

You now say you are not okay with the grooming of children, the FSS is grooming children and that's a fuss about nothing? Okay then.