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.

@kinshasa

Gumdrops. Alison seems very cross that black women won't do what she thinks we should. If only Alison and pals could try to listen, instead of using words like " moaning" to shout our contributions down.

Ive not mentioned black women nor would i know you are black from the medium of the internet. I do not frequent the BMN board as requested by the BMN board.

What is it exactly I'm supposed to be listening to when all i can see on here are people moaning that we are having incorrect conversations?

[quote lameasahorse]@2TheLighthouse good. Not what I see from many others though. Such as those who urge voting for Boris Johnson because he knows what a woman is, while being extremely racist about black and brown women and introducing policies that directly harm them.[/quote]
Understood. I can see where you’re coming from.

Perhaps you could tell FWR posters such as Morris Z. and co to follow your lead then Alison re plopping on the BMN board and derailing the discussions. Total switch off from me when they can't respect my safe space.

But as this has turned into yet another trans thread, I' ll jog on.

@kinshasa

Perhaps you could tell FWR posters such as Morris Z. and co to follow your lead then Alison re plopping on the BMN board and derailing the discussions. Total switch off from me when they can't respect my safe space. But as this has turned into yet another trans thread, I' ll jog on.

What?

How would i know who does what on the BMN board if i don't read it?

Well now you know here. And why I don't bother with FWR which you are so sure is the font of all things feminist.

This has taken an odd turn. Surely each poster is only responsible for her own posting behaviour?!

@kinshasa

Well now you know here. And why I don't bother with FWR which you are so sure is the font of all things feminist.

Now i know here what?

Genuinely baffled. Are you saying that by posting in FWR you assume we are all racist and the way we show we aren't is by what? Keeping out of BMN or not keeping out of BMN?

And you want me to do what? Plop onto BMN threads to tell people who are white to stay out? Wouldn't that be doing exactly what you don't want?

I think it has taken a strange turn indeed. We may all have different focus and different causes close to our hearts but we are all women and should support each other.

I feel immensely closer to women and to men. I try to support women when I can.

Why are women so hard on other women? Why can’t we stick together on the causes we have in common? No man will ever know what it is like to lose your job because of pregnancy or to feel that you are going crazy due to menopause.

I also think that women were the most affected during Covid due to homeschooling. I had a lot of support on the boards here.

Hi OP - just a wave from me, I hear you.

You're right that the patriarchy is millennia old and women can't be expected to dismantle it in decades. There's a lot going wrong for women these days and claims about how women have nothing to complain of any more (at least 'in the west') are very grating.

But we'll just have to keep at it. Probably our granddaughters will still be at it in a century, if humankind survives that long. But there will be gains as well as losses.

I feel frustrated with the idea that feminism didn’t even get the chance to get going on all its aims before men started hijacking it, but then my practical side says fuck it, they want us to dissolve into infighting so they can divide and conquer.

So let’s be less held back about whether it’s exactly perfect and just be more active get get what women want because we are all women- as others have said, we can fight again on the basic issues we can all agree on - maternity rights, child rearing rights, women rights at work and to be safe in the streets, to have access to the outdoors, to be able to socialise with each other in women- only spaces if we want to. To able to be in mixed spaces as women and equal to men in public life.

I agree. And I’d argue that in many ways things are worse than 40 years ago because - whilst we have more rights and can expect more in the way of pay - we’re expected to do more, complain less, and look even more unattainably perfect against an even thinner line of ‘acceptable’ while doing it.

Why can’t we stick together on the causes we have in common?

I agree Doubletoil.

I do just want to reiterate also that the board Feminism Chat is right there waiting for all other issues. It was demanded that there were two boards established. Anyone who is complaining that the 'sex and gender discussion' board is only about supporting women's and girl's rights against the conflict from another group is missing the entire point - that it was hived off just for that purpose.

Thanks for the patronising response, OP. I guess that's yet another thing that turned me off feminism - being told by feminists that I don't know what I'm talking about.

I'm on the side of women and children. I think violence against women and children is a huge issue, with sexualised violence, pornography etc playing into that and causing a lot of problems. I'm worried about our rights being eroded by "inclusion". I also think that medicine and healthcare can be a very bad deal for women. So I'm not saying I don't care about women's rights.

But I don't buy into all the bullshit talking points. We don't live in a patriarchy. How you look actually is important. Most women do want to be mothers and are more nurturing than men. It probably is a good idea for infants to be cared for by their mums. Children brought up without mothers are disadvantaged in life. Men and women are different biologically and psychologically. Most women don't actually want to fight in wars or put out fires. There isn't a gender pay gap in the UK. Most men like and care about women.

@PearPickingPorky

Nope. Because trans people are a tiny tiny number, their inclusion in stats in accordance with gender identity will not be enough to significantly shape stats on pay and progression etc.

While women are half the population, the number of women in positions of power and influence or top-earnings (etc) are so few in number that, actually, having a group of males (apparently 1-3% of males) included in that large "women" group skews the data quite significantly.

That’s not how stats work, I’m afraid.

Let’s take a concrete example. Among the FTSE 100, there are 8 women who are CEOs. I’m not aware that there are any trans people as CEO.

Let’s say one of the 92 men was replaced by a trans woman. It’s unlikely that it would ever be more than one, given that trans people make up less than about 1% of the population and there’s no suggestion that trans people are more likely to be in positions of power than the population at large.

So now, there are 9 women CEOs instead of 8. Transphobes will deny that the 9th woman is a woman. Fine. But the stats are not significantly altered. Women used to make up 8% of CEOs and now they make up 9%.

There is not a single person who thinks we should take womens representation in business seriously if women only make up 8% of CEOs but stop taking it seriously if they make up 9%. By including the trans woman in the stats for women, the change is so small and inconsequential that it will have no practical real world impact.

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

The tolerance of sexual assault and rape in our schools makes me incandescent. It's been an open wound for decades and it still continues.

In the first incident, a staff member saw the children in the corner of the playground – but then proceeded to tell the girl off.

“She was told off for having her knickers and her tights down around by her knees with one of these boys behind her,” Anna said.

On a second occasion, another member of staff saw one of the boys with his head up her skirt. The assistant told off the girl for letting the boy stick his head up her skirt, and the boys were just told to “run away”. The girl was not talked to separately, asked what had happened or whether she was OK.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3364173-Our-kids-were-raped-by-classmates-DfE-wont-listen

@JoyLurking9to5

Me too, and as well as the trans issue confusions, some (not all?) black women seem to reject feminism as being offensive to them because it is not specifically aimed at black women. As if the issues aren't common to all women. As if financial dependency, lack of affordable childcare, a benefit structure that supports mothers/single mothers/furthering education to increase earning potential are things that are bad for women if they arent white. Really shocking. The thread about "karens karening" was so depressing.

“Because it’s not specifically aimed at black women”

I read that thread. That’s not what was said at all.

@HRTQueen

YANBU

When did kink shaming become a thing. It’s not normal and it’s very dangerous to have oxygen cut off from your brain intentionally when having sex but apparently it’s something we should understand and be respectful towards as some like it. Fuck that when women are dying from so called kink games

I’m concerned over women and girls not having safe spaces but it’s not central to my concerns

Why do you think women don’t have kinks?

Your post is essentially a very traditional view of womens sexuality that anything unusual or outside the box must be for the pleasure of men. As if the pleasure of women simply isn’t a thing.

That’s a massively retrograde attitude towards womens sexuality.

The tolerance of sexual assault and rape in our schools makes me incandescent. It's been an open wound for decades and it still continues.

Yesterday on another 'feminism' thread i was called 'invective' and a 'zealot' for being fucking furious about things.

I don't understand why so many people are not raging but that's their decision to make. Calling me names helps them cope i suppose.

Your post is essentially a very traditional view of womens sexuality that anything unusual or outside the box must be for the pleasure of men.

How on earth did you get that from HRTQueen's post?

That’s not how stats work, I’m afraid.

It can indeed skew the statistics in an analysis on an organisation by organisation basis. A smaller organisation when analysed to report the progress. Or an analysis on new recruitment, or on a pay bracket by pay bracket basis.

I agree with every word.

I was sitting in a pub garden a couple of years ago with some friends of friends. Two couples, both of whom had recently had their first child, one girl and one boy. The subject of feminism came up and it was kind of uneasily laughed off. These were young couples in their late 20s/early 30s. The mum of the girl confidently proclaimed that she wasn't a feminist. The younger me would have let that go - the mid forties me didn't. I asked her "So you think your baby should have fewer rights than that baby over there as they grown up?" She looked utterly startled than anyone had challenged her on it. I kept it quite light because I didn't want to cause an argument - to my shame. I should have said more.

I'm glad in today's society that I don't have children 😥

It’s very dangerous. And if someone feel insulted by me pointing that out and that I don’t think it’s normal behaviour (as I wouldn’t think it’s normal behaviour to drive into a brick wall at 60mph even if they had flowed down from 80mph) then so be it

That it is a very dangerous act it’s the most important issue not that I do not think it’s normal behaviour

How you look actually is important. Most women do want to be mothers and are more nurturing than men. It probably is a good idea for infants to be cared for by their mums. Children brought up without mothers are disadvantaged in life. Men and women are different biologically and psychologically

Fair dos @beastlyslumber everything you say is valid (and to me mostly reads as a version of feminism) . But historically (and within my living memory) the things such as women being more caring than men etc etc that you cite were used as reasons why a lot of the other things that you say shouldn't happen DO happen, and continue to happen:
men should be paid more than women
men should have more education than women
men should have men-only occupations, golf clubs etc
men have "needs" and women & girls must be sexually available (pornography, rape in marriage)

And so on.

I think nowadays that it's easy to forget that only 40 years ago, it was "accepted" that because women wanted babies and were "naturally" more caring, this was used to argue that they should be paid less than men, and should have to resign on marriage, shouldn't get maternity leave, and should stay with [abusive] husbands "for the sake of the children."

And so on.