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.

Most feminists are blind to men being normal people? Most of us have male friends, relatives we care about. Many of us have male partners, fathers, and sons who we love dearly.

But a lot still believe in collective responsibility. I don't see how they don't get cognitive dissonance from this. Surely they can see then that their son isn't in any way responsible for knife crime in Hackney.

Or is it that a lot of feminist theory just falls to bits when applied to everyday life/reality where you can't just lump people into men/women?

I stand by my statement. Men are the only group who it's acceptable to openly hate.

It’s really not that hard. Men are the group responsible for all the shit we’ve been talking about- violence, rape, asserting dominance over women in myriad ways, creating or sustaining oppressive, toxic atmospheres in public life and work places, perpetuating domestic abuse, rubbishing women’s justified fears… the list is endless.

For all your race-orientated rhetoric, the problem remains men. We all like and love individual men. But men as a class are the oppressors. Sometimes it gets a bit much and women declare that they’ve had enough of this colossal tide of bullshit by saying “I hate men.” They don’t hate each individual man. They hate the way the group operates. A bit like the way BAME get sick of whites women, according to that book title.

Don’t take it all so personally. I’m sure you’re lovely.

No.

I don't hate men; males are responsible for most violence and nearly all sexual assault. The two statements are not mutually exclusive.

First of all, I will take a gamble and say most of these threads are not from the feminist boards.

Secondly, the reason that women get frustrated with men and express that frustration? Women are disadvantaged in our society, by both biological sex and gender roles. The oppression favours men.

Society is not equal. The oppressed class resents being oppressed.

Then you'll be able to answer the question. At the moment, you're avoiding it.

Men are the dominant class. Sometimes the oppressed class vent.

You will see the same dynamic at work with people of other races complaining about white people. Wherever there is a power imbalance, the marginalised people have emotions and express them. I've even seen "I hate allistic people" (word for non-autistic people).

I don't hate men; males are responsible for most violence and nearly all sexual assault. The two statements are not mutually exclusive.

Fair enough. I guess I just find a lot of feminists to be overwhelmingly negative individuals. Obv not all of them. Some have lived through horrific experiences and are determined to help others facing similar circumstances.

However, so many (probs the majority) seem to be white and well educated, usually graduates, and in the whole scheme of things pretty privileged. I just can't take it seriously hearing them harp on about how we live in a dystopian nightmare when other societies live in abject poverty and can barely eat - in contrast to the majority of us being overweight. Much of it is just a bit too melodramatic and self indulgent for my liking.

However, so many (probs the majority) seem to be white and well educated, usually graduates, and in the whole scheme of things pretty privileged

if you can’t answer the question its ok to say so

Fair enough. I guess I just find a lot of feminists to be overwhelmingly negative individuals. Obv not all of them. Some have lived through horrific experiences and are determined to help others facing similar circumstances.

However, so many (probs the majority) seem to be white and well educated, usually graduates, and in the whole scheme of things pretty privileged. I just can't take it seriously hearing them harp on about how we live in a dystopian nightmare when other societies live in abject poverty and can barely eat - in contrast to the majority of us being overweight. Much of it is just a bit too melodramatic and self indulgent for my liking.

Well, I guess we got there in the end; @TruthHertz doesn’t like feminists because they don’t have a legitimate complaint.

You may have been worn down by years of sexist comments in the work place, none of which our friend Bob from accounts has suffered, but because you’re not dying of starvation, you should just smile sweetly and put up with the injustice of it.

You may be horrified at low rates of rape conviction, when you (along with all women) personally know more than one women who’s been raped, and you may look on in horror as high-profile rapist sportsmen are cushioned, feted and swiftly rehabilitated (look up Ched Evans for example), but what’s a little rape culture when there’s food on the table?

You may see boys, encouraged by popular culture, lauding it over the girls at school, pestering them if they fancy them, using vile terms of abuse in the playground, taking up all the oxygen in the classroom because it’s expected and normalised - but why should these girls be unhappy with that? They have clean water, after all.

If we’re going to talk about privilege, what about the tosser watching porn in the House of Commons? That’s how comfortable men feel about showing their contempt for women.

Look at the list in my OP. If you think it’s fine that those things happen right here in our ‘civilised’ society, and it’s ok because “it’s not that bad”, then there’s really no hope for you. How dare you decide it’s not that bad when you’re part of the oppressor group, and have no direct experience of being on the receiving end?

Well done on keeping your true colours hidden as long as you did though; for a while there I was engaging with you as if you were interested in the topic, when the truth is you just don’t like women very much.

I am just catching up on this thread. I notice that we have the usual deflection and negative generalisations happening.

Reading ‘I just can't take it seriously hearing them harp on about how we live in a dystopian nightmare when other societies live in abject poverty and can barely eat’ is like reading that man who used that rhetoric to demonise a group of women having lunch the other day. Including some of the women who work and activate directly for the improvement for women and girls being trafficked, raped, abused, in prison as well as women at all levels of ‘privilege’ as pp puts it.

This is a distraction technique in an attempt to discredit anyone who doesn’t fit into the ‘worthy’ box. The implication is that the person attempting to discredit others IS more worthy of being listened to than others.

The amazing thing about MN is that is has posters from all walks of life. And fuck off with the generalisations. It is entirely possible that posters on this thread can have experienced poverty and homelessness, while still being ‘highly educated’. Maybe even at the same time. Not that when either happened matters.

The attempt at polarization here is yet another tactic to discredit. But that particular point, shows just how lacking in awareness some posters can be in their attempt to put people they disagree with on some issues under a particular ‘label’.

I'm a feller. I've been discriminated against at various points in my life: for being an immigrant, for having the 'wrong' accent etc. etc. I can honestly say that at no point in my life do I feel I've been discriminated against for being male.

Lots of men are nasty violent pricks. They frighten me. You learn to pick up the signs, which aren't always obvious: but that's not discrimination, it's self-preservation.

melodramatic and self indulgent

'an estimated 1.6 million women aged 16 to 74 years experienced domestic abuse in the last year (ONS, 2020)'

'1 in 5 women have been raped or sexually assaulted as an adult'

So negative. Much melodrama.

Shut up and smile more, you look much prettier when you smile, ladies!

Yes zombie

It is like on the sports threads we have posters, not those on this thread unless they name change, who have told us they are females themselves, telling us that a) allow females to compete with males and they will ‘show us’ that females can beat men (because obviously those female athletes are just not trying hard enough!) and b) the only people in the world who know who any of the top female sports people are, are in a Mumsnet bubble or are feminists!

And so, we are fighting for sports for women and girls because we have a victim mentality (I believe that was mentioned in posts on the snooker thread).

It sounds like it all comes from
the same kind of beliefs.

Either way, posters fighting to uphold the rights for females are to be denigrated and demonised because they are the wrong type of people to be listened to.

I’d also like to mention that if women who have come from backgrounds of poverty, abuse, homelessness, etc and then fought to gain their education and qualifications are to be accused of being white and well educated who ‘harp’ on with ‘dystophian nightmares’ and ‘melodrama’ and ‘self indulgence’, who exactly is to be heard?

I am simply astounded by the prejudices that a few posters hold about people posting on Mumsnet.

And finally, yeah, some posters are white and well educated. This is a UK site, discussing UK issues and the majority of people living here are white. And with the push to keep people in school, they are well educated, including the push to then get students to university level.

Using these things on Mumsnet as a reason to denigrate people’s opinions says more about the intentions of the poster than the people the denigration is aimed at.

How did we ever get to the stage where women arguing whether men should be women or not became the focus of women's rights?

And where someone saying 'i support women. All women' makes us think that they definitely include men in that.

It is so fucking ludicrous.

And yes there were 5 of us in one bedroom as a child and i worked a full time job in engineering, and put myself through a levels and university at night classes to get my first degree. Do we have to declare our poverty roots to justify having opinions in middle age?

It seems that way Alison, that we have to declare our backgrounds. I have done it before on here when a male poster declared to us how we mumsnetters are all the same things pp has stated. And frankly, I cannot be arsed to do it again.

Suffice to say, only a fool declares Mumsnet FWR regulars to be a particular narrowly defined segment. Anyone who spends time reading posts, knows many of us have very diverse backgrounds and have a multitude of special interests within our activism. But yet, we always have posters seeking to shame regulars for something or other that we are supposedly not doing properly.

The common theme really is ‘seeking to shame’.

Well, end of the day more women reject than embrace feminism, so you can say what you like about me but I'm in the majority.

I'm not against women's issues in any way, I just don't think life is that bad in general for most women in the western world. If a bloke whistles at me I'm not going to write a 20 page article on it, I'm going to tell the prick to shut up and get on with my day because some individuals are arseholes and I've met just as many nasty females as males. In fact, I've had way more bad experiences working with women than men and this is a common experience if you actually care to look into it.

I've read all the posts saying I must be a feminist if I believe xyz, but I think one of the key points is that I don't really believe in the patriarchy. I feel like the sexes evolved into different roles much like they do in the animal kingdom, and they are gradually changing to reflect modern society.

Despite holding most of the top positions in society I think men are also seen as disposable and will be fucked over by those in power when necessary as is happening in Ukraine with all the men being forced to stay and fight. I think it's naive to think it couldn't happen elsewhere. Even in the US, men still have to sign up to the military draft to get the state benefits that women get for free. If things go south I have little doubt they'll also end up being shipped off into the meat grinder if/when the shit really hits the fan. I think most people don't see that our society is held together by a thin veneer of humanity and its only the relative peace of the last few decades that has kept it this way.

Sorry, that gave me the giggles.

Not patriarchy but years of evolving, aka socialisation.

Maybe citing the animal kingdom isn't such a good move. I give you any of the big cats, many arachnids, meerkats, as an example. The females are the most aggressive and lead their species. Males being good for fighting and mating, but not hunting or nurturing.

Some analogies just don't work!

Why look at spiders and meerkats (😂) when you can look at chimps, which we share 95% DNA similarity with (and where males do 70% of the hunting).

I think the relative dominance of men is at least partly to do with testosterone. It makes both sexes more aggressive and studies have shown CEOs to have higher levels than average men. Another issue could be almost 40% of women working part time. Yes, there are other factors involved like the highest earner logically being the one to keep working in many cases.

However, despite all the theory, what I see in the real world doesn't always ring true. Quite a few of my mates started out all career focused and then married a high earner and had kids. They largely seem to have been happy to go part time and don't really seem to be missing FT work. I'd say most of them have much cushier daily lives than the rest of us who work full time and it's defo a stretch for me to see them as repressed.

Huh?

What the blazes are you on about now @TruthHertz ?

I don't really believe in the patriarchy. I feel like the sexes evolved into different roles much like they do in the animal kingdom, and they are gradually changing to reflect modern society.

You think it was just ‘natural’ evolution? Not, say, the physically stronger sex dominating, controlling and subjugating the weaker? You think it was ‘evolution’ that women could be bought and sold, essentially, had no independence from men, couldn’t vote in their own country? Are you sure?

And that’s just this country. Do you think it’s ‘evolution’ that women, still, can’t travel alone or drive in some societies? You’ll obviously try to draw some sort of artificial boundary here, suggesting that some societies are patriarchal, but that ours isn’t - when it patently obvious that the whole shit show is part of the same bigger picture, and that western patriarchy is in many cases a watered down version of more severe patriarchies of the past or of elsewhere.

But no, you just keep telling yourself sexism isn’t real.

What I think the problem is here is thinking that feminism is an attempt to fix all of society's problems, when actually it has quite specific aims.

The UN posted that crap recently about women being amorphous blobs who are supposed to fight for everyone’s equality.