To think not everything is ‘misogyny’

[Cuppasoupmonster]

… and that the word is massively overused on here?

I’m getting quite tired of it if I’m honest, it feels like every other conversation the ‘misogyny’ card is whipped out and anyone who disagrees has ‘internalised misogyny’ (um no I just have a different opinion).

It’s becoming the ‘BeKind’ of feminism. Overused to the point it’s getting meaningless and irritating, and just used to ‘win’ any kind of nuanced topic without any proper discussion.

AIBU? 🤷🏼‍♀️

Like what, specifically?

here I am talking about something I have first hand experience of and you don’t

Nobody owes you a response to the question, have you had an abortion?

Could both sexes not do laundry before washing machines we’re invented? Can you not read why someone might find this wrong on a sexist/misogynistic/oppressive just plain wrong level? 🤔

Humans are sexually dimorphic and in the absence of technology, many types of productive labour are reliant on the physical characteristics of the people performing them.

Physical strength for defending the group - no such thing as remote-controlled drones

Breast milk for feeding children - no such thing as formula

Household tasks take a long time. It makes sense for the people home with the children anyway to do them.

For those unable to comprehend - I am not saying that women in 2022 should therefore be the people who press the Start button on the washing machine!

This lack of nuance and desperation to put men on the hook for everything

I think the mistake some posters (and OP) make is to think that misogyny = blaming men. It doesn't.
If you create a system where one class is put in second place; the class that is put in first place will come to think of themselves a superior by default. Many members of the 'inferior' class will police the actions of other members of their class. Misogyny is the natural end result of patriarchy; the system whereby men are at the top of an imaginary hierarchy. Women and men can both be misogynistic.
Its the system that's the problem. Its impossible to challenge or change it when you can't recognise it.

Agree with you OP, overused, often meaningless and exacerbating the victimhood of women which disempowers us all

Cant bear it.

Well said Thelnebriati.
It's a fairly bad sign of the times when women are keen to minimise female oppression with some even suggestinh women identifying their oppression is childish, man hating, and women disempowering themselves.

@yubgummy
my family come a ‘third world’ country that had no washing machines (still don’t the area where we come from).

all the men and women washed and cooked all the men and women worked in the fields.

the babies were still breastfed. Culturally your talking point is narrow.

Admittedly, that 3rd world country now works more along the lines of what you describe simply because countries like ours one have put their stamp on it. But that is not how it always worked even without washing machines. So no I don’t buy it.

If we recognise the wrong root causes for patriarchy, we also don't fix it.

Hypothesis 1 - gender roles arise because men hate women and want to put us in our place (this is the meaning of misogyny). Solution - ??? - diversity trainings to tell men to like us?!

Hypothesis 2 - gender roles arise because it was appropriate for our level of tech at the time. Solution - invest in improving tech that removes material barriers to women in public life.

Maybe both are true but listening to more women will generate more insights into possible hypotheses and therefore solutions.

Like what, specifically?
Women on low or no income who decide to have 3 or more children even though there are issues in the relationship.

Women who opt to work 16h a week only even when their kids are old enough to be home alone and complain they can't support themselves when they lose tax credits and maintenance.

Yawn

There’s a thread going like this at the moment. Woman never returns to FT employment, child now a teen, now panicking as she’s dumped the partner (not married) and wants to know if she can get any more from him than half the house.

Why do you think she shouldn't?

Because she has chosen not to work FT? If a man worked very PT with teenage kids and the female partner was working FT, then he came on here asking if he could have spousal support from her, he would be called a lazy cock lodger.

And they get pregnant alone?

You mean women who have spent what, twelve years(?) working part time can’t just slip seamlessly into full time?

YABU. I do think that it's only very, very recently that women have just started to not be viewed as second class citizens.

Did she choose to work part time? Or do you think they made that decision for their family as s couple?

She chose to do it she says on the thread.

This is such a lazy argument and it’s trotted out on here all the time. How come it suits the other parent to have a partner looking after the kids, then suddenly it doesn’t and that’s solely the problem of the person doing the childcare up until that point? Weird that you think contraception is equality but not childcare.

There’s a thread going like this at the moment. Woman never returns to FT employment, child now a teen, now panicking as she’s dumped the partner (not married) and wants to know if she can get any more from him than half the house.
That's exactly why we need to make sure women are informed to make informed decisions about their futures.

Because in that sort of situation you've got a man who is more than happy to have children, more than happy for his partner to give up her pension potential, long term earning potential, long term security, whilst he is able to build his career and assets because he's passed a lot of childcare and housework to his partner. He makes none of the sacrifices, is happy for his partner to do that, safe in the knowledge that if the relationship ends he gets to walk into the sunset with a lot and she has nothing to reflect her household contributions that have facilitated his earnings.

It's very risky for an unmarried woman to give up her financial independence in those situations. But sadly there's not enough education on this, men know the score an promise to be the good guy, and there's lots of women who are also poorly informed that will argue the fact their relationship outlasted their friend's marriage means marriage doesn't mean anything.

Against his will? He was an equal parent? Equal drop offs? Equal pick ups? Equal sick days?

@LolaSmiles on the other hand she’s had the luxury of not working FT for years, you can’t say that isn’t a perk…

But doing the bulk of the childcare. Which would have saved them (as a couple) a phenomenal amount of money.

Is she actually working part time though? Or is she doing the majority of the child raising? The majority of the chores? The majority of the mental load?

where is your evidence that average women who work part time do an equal amount of housework and mental load than their partners who work full time, so it is actually a perk?

There’s not that much to be done with one child who is a teenager.

As for your second point; let me just whip out my peer reviewed study on exactly that topic 🙄