to think Delia is a bit of a tosser for saying' I am not a feminist - I like men'

[bigmouthstrikesagain]

Stick to the cooking theres a dear

You must keep us updated as you go along GLaDOS.

I would think it is a definite that women can have the same views as men jurors on rape victims - it is part of our ideology too, so why wouldn't they ?

I guess what would be interesting is finding out why some women and men do not hold the majority view on rape........what has happened to them to make them think differently?

I actually think there is some interesting discourse on rape out there, it's just not well publicised. For example, the work on consent by Kitzinger completely changed the way I view rape and the complexity involved in the lawful definition of consent.

Milly, with respect that isn´t what SolisGoldBrass aid at all.. She´s not saying there are different types of SAHM interested in different activities to share with their dc. She´s saying women:

?do not all want to stay indoors DOING NOTHING but cupcake-baking, fingerpainting and floormopping??

I read here that cooking, cleaning and entertaining children are not valuable activities in her opinion. (and presumably that doing something else IS more valuable)

This is insulting!

I don't view feminism as a matter of weighing up pros and cons. It does not benefit men, women, children or society if on divorce, men are financially better off but women get to keep the children. Ideally both the man and the woman should have equal amounts of time with the child, and should both be capable of having in actual money or in future earning potential, the same amount of money. Obviously there are exceptions, for example a young exclusively breastfed baby.

I do not see how a woman not being bothered that a man has got more money, because she has outdone him by taking his kids away from can be considered to be feminism.

Why "Other benefits aside"? Life is all about trade offs. Men typically lose their children! Lets have a thought experiment.

Its women who are routinely better off financially after divorce - the men routeinely get the children. You think this is what women want? What would feminism say if this were the reality? Would it be happy about it or would it want what men had, regardless of what that was?

Feminism needs to value women anf the work they do, regardless if they get paid for it - it would be nice if society valued this more too. Is this not the area feminism needs to address, or is that just too complex so they've gone for the path of least resistance - aspire to the male ideal?

peas "I would think it is a definite that women can have the same views as men jurors on rape victims - it is part of our ideology too, so why wouldn't they ?"

We need to be surer than that though, don't we? And what if they don't? What then?

What ideology do you mean?

As far as a majority view on rape - what if the current stats were actually a true reflection of that? That most people actually did think women lie about rape? Or at least think that to be convicted of rape is 'worse' than being raped? Assuming the answer has gotten us nowhere in improveing justice for women.

I've not come across Kitzinger yet, I'll have a look as by necessity for PhD I have to read everything on rape.

Glados, I agree entirely! People have lost perspective of what they really want and what makes them happy. WOMEN denigrate SAHMs for SACRIFICING their career for their children. WOMEN denigrate other women, like Delia, for ONLY being a good cook, WOMEN take the piss out of other women who happen to be interested in any kind of traditionally female activitiy. WOMEN do seem to discriminate against victims of rape and agree ?she was asking for? or behaved badly, so what can you expect?. Where I live (abroad) almost ALL women work fulltime and have very little entitlement to maternity leave. As a SAHM I have the lowest possible social status with both sexes. The priority here is working for material comforts. Most people of working age are paying for a house and cars. And don´t imagine you see the men at the baby clinic or taking responsibility for their children on a 50 50 basis. This is no success for feminism. Women are just doubly screwed though don´t have to do the cleaning or childcare ? another woman is paid for that, normally a screwed over foreigner.

In fact, the more I think about it and the way women often interact in my SAHM environment or on Mumsnet isn´t up to much really. Or those women I worked with for 20 years before giving it all up. Other women may well be more of "the enemy" than men. Women who really seem to work towards improving women´s life experience are few and far between. Glados, I´m really pleased you´re doing the work you do. I hope something great comes out of it in the end. I wish there were more like you.

But families don't have children purely for the good of society. There is nothing selfless about staying at home with your child or going out to work to pay for your child.

The whole purpose of competition in all animals including humans is to ensure the reproduction of their own genes and survival into adulthood. That is all the average family who between them cover childrearing and income are doing. Fortunately, most people are interested in wider society and do a lot more than this, regardless of whether they consider themselves SAHM or WOHM.

One way I support feminism by making sure that wherever possible I offer free childcare to other women when I am at home with my kids, regardless of whether they are SAHM or WOHM, have hands on male partners or are single mothers. Mothers I know in RL, rather then in the negative debates on this forum, are not interested in living solely to benefit their own offspring OR to ignore their ownspring in favour of material wealth. They are instead the SAHM who fosters children with disabilities, or the WOHM who is a cancer nurse.

Most people in live do not run around shouting me, me, me and demanding more money for some high powered job or obsessing over their own genetic and reproductive success. In my experience, ,ost women do help each other all the time and I don't understand why that is not reflected on this forum.

"aspire to the male ideal? "

Why is not being a SAHM aspiring to a male ideal? FGS that is what feminism is about fundamentally - being able to do whatever we choose without being classed as male or female. I don't give a flying monkeys arse whether any mother works or doesn't. It isn't important to me. But I do care about being labelled as having 'male' ideals because I don't.

Its no secret who I am Dittany. I'm not going to endulge you in your petty games. "anti-feminist, anti-woman ideology." Yes, that is here for all to see. Thanks for misrepresenting it so explictly for all to see too. I trust people are intellegent enough to see your tactics.

But if it helps you cling onto your arguiment by calling my position of legitimate dissent of feminism an " anti-feminist, anti-woman ideology." please carry on.

Most of us are nobodies fools, thank you.

I have been following this thread on and off for a few days and just went back and read the whole thing again and find myself agreeing with a lot of what has been said.

Here are few random thoughts sparked by what I have read from other posters.

I did not hear the R4 broadcast but I do still think Delia is a positive example of a woman who, while being feminine, clearly has her own mind, has built her own career and commands and deserves respect and equal treatment as a human being.

To me feminism is no more and no less than the first sentence on the wiki page:

"Feminism is the belief that women should have equal political, social, sexual, intellectual and economic rights to men"

If that is the definition then I am happy and glad to shout from the roof tops I AM A FEMINIST MAN!

My own wife would probably run a mile if I ever said she was a feminist but I am in no doubt she would agree with the above definition and I love her because of her femininity, her beauty, her intelligence, her strength, her no compromise attitude that she should have what men have in life and in work, AND because she gave birth to our children which I could not.

On the issue between SAHM and WOHM it has no connection or bearing on feminism in my view. Surely it just describes what you do as a job of work? The only comment I have on that issue is that I dislike professional women who try to behave like an archetype 'alpha males' - they are not good for other women and are not feminsists in my view.

I was shocked by the solidgoldbrass post @ Tue 24-Mar-09 18:46:58. Even if a woman said she was not a feminist I would not in a million years expect her to accept the list of issues posted there. No normal person would expect her to.

I do not think 'feminist = 'man hater' but if any woman calls herself a feminist and hates me because I am a man then sorry but I will dislike you and disagree with you because you just hate me because I am a man BUT not because you are a feminist. If you are lesbian - then so what? I just do not see a connection between feminism and lesbianism?

I liked and agreed with a lot of what Grendle said and I thought the converstion she described with her husband defining the word 'feminist' was interesting. The image that the word 'feminist' often conjures up is the image that he describes "someone who fights for women's rights in a less than fair or sensible way". I would not disagree with that feeling about the word and I think it is a negative and damaging aspect of feminism that I hope we can leave behind. I happen to like Germane Greer who I have only really ever known as an older woman and agree with a lot of what she says.

Finally I want to say that there are quite a lot of sexist attitudes expressed about men by women on MN. So perhaps you will not mind me being a manist for a few sentences.

Some things I read from some MN posters are sexist and are are just casual off the cuff comments that are the mirror image of the kind of banter that I occassinaly hear from men about women in the gym locker room. However, some MN posts do come pretty close to man hating in come cases and yes I agree with ScottishMummy the Relationship threads do quickly and sadly decend into the 'leave him' and 'all men are gits territory'. OK my manist mode is off now.

Overall though MN posters are generally lovely to me as a man and I wish there were many more Dads on MN taking part in the threads and talking about all the issues. I would not say Mumsnet is a feminist website at all but I wonder if the name Mumsnet perhaps is a little bit sexist - maybe a name change to MumsnDadsNet?

Thanks ABetaDad for your considered comments.

LOL. Oh, it's Grendel who has an anti-feminist, anti- woman' ideology?! I do apologise. But also totally disagree. I think many people would. But this is your bone today. Contiune to worry it to death. And like Grendel says, you have a brain. I would recognise your arguments here if you were posting under a different name, even without a search facility or the MSN livewire going bonkers.

As ususal you confuse critisism of feminism for anti-feminism. It's too much of a leap to think that some women can look at feminism, see where its failing (as in rape) and then attempt to understand and consolidate those failures in to a meaninful strategy for feminist progression. Its all too easy to cry 'backlash' at the first hint of serious engagement with feminist ideology's limitations. The cry of 'backlash' is just another excuse to sidestep the issue - to bang an old threadbare drum - to refuse to progress. But it doesn't change the fact that feminism is failing women today in some key areas like rape - what is to be done about it? Why are women decrying the term feminism? Isn't it reasonable to look inward for an explanation as well as without? Is that a betrayal of the sisterhood? As feminists are we supposed to leave our critical faciulties at the door and accept the endless negative stattistics, and never say - hang on, things are better today. Feminism has succeeded in many things - just not everything it set out to do. This is bad? Is debating the middle ground such a threat?

Thanks sachertorte - I do it in spite of the cynicism which always assumes the answer to the questions. Someone has to and I'm big enough to take it. I want to know what is happening and improve rape stats. If I have to put a few ideologues noses out of joint doing it, then that's the way it has to be.

Funding for womens studies has ended at UL unis. This isn't the result of any backlash, its the result of feminism going up its own post-structuralist pipe. Funding is also being cut for rape crisis centres - this also isn't backlash, it's becasue women who are unluicky enough to be sexually assaulted who and who go to UK rape crisis centres, have to endure lectures on post-feminist ideology, are told the Brownmiller slogan is truth rather than an untested opinion (actually it is tested and even Brownmiller has come out and said that, actually, she didn't mean that rape was a crime of power and not sex literally - not that this has filtered down to rape crisis centres. If you don'd adhere to the ideology, rape crisis centres are not the place for you. Have a look. It lists apparent myths that are actually statistical facts and then ansers them with 'facts' that are actually myths. And this is supposed to help and empower women?

Slug, I said young women today do not identify with the rhetoric of victimhood whoich feminism all too easliy falls back on when the going gets tough. It alientates its target audients, and when they say why, they tell us we are deluded. What if it is feminism that is deluded today? Is that too much of a dangerous question?

Grendel's argument was that we have to accept biological differences. I could not agree more - it is not depressing in the slightest. Until we accept the biological differences, we cannot move forward.

And it is not just accepting the differences, it is DEALING with the differences. Which is why I have a slight problem with the "Give dads 6 months paternity leave too". Well that for me is denying and degrading the female reproductive function and totally misses the point.

This biology argument can be applied to the rape narrative too - women are not as strong as men, and therefore rape is made possible (I know this is the "all men are potential rapists" argument, but actually the word potential comes from the Greek word for power.....so in a sense, it is true".) I confess I know nothing about female to male rape and if it happens/can happen but in my mind at the moment, the fundamental reason rape can happen is because they are physically stronger. (Please help me change my mind on that scary thought?!) So, what to do about this? How do we deal with this problem of biology? It sounds like what I have written is that rape is inevitable, and I hate that ( I suppose we could compare it to child abuse, where there is also a physical advantage for the parent). But how do we go about limiting the potential for this? I think what I am getting at is that we do not acknowledge this underlying problem enough, and I mean that for men too.

My thing is not to deny our differences, but learn to deal with the differences.

So when we complain about the lack of respect for WOHM - this is a serious and valid point. But how do we actually go about raising the respect there because we live in a capitalist society and therefore value money, and can we reasonably pay someone to stay at home? Well, no, so that's not the solution..........god only knows what is.

Sachertorte: my point is that too many women are expected to back cupcakes and mop floors, that this way of living is pushed on women as what you are supposed to do, what will make you fulfilled and happy. And this is bullshit for a great number of women who do not have any great interest in homemaking. Fair enough for those who want (and can afford) to choose that way of spending their days, but it isn't anything to do with having a clitoris.
Also, this stuff about men being bigger and stronger and therefore biologically entitled to rape and beat and own women: actually a lot of the worst sort of men (in terms of woman-hating) might be big but they are frequently unfit, so more women learning some basic self-defence and (Far more importantly) learning the mindset that men are not actually all-powerful, that i's perfectly possible to defend yourself physically and utterly justifiable to try, might reduce some of the rape and domestic violence. If you are constantly told that Men are all big and strong and unbeatable and you are only a fragile ickle girly, then it becomes a lot harder to see yourself as whole and physically capable even if you are actually quite tall and healthy and used to running, dancing and carrying stuff about.

i struggle with the golbal we applied to women and the them of men.yes gender is an identifiable biological difference,but it does not confer a homogenous status.not all men and women are the same.individual differences do exist.that is why the human condition is so damn fascinating and hard

this mass generalisation does lead to stereotypes on both sides eg

women are nurturing,caring,empathic
men are driven,career minded,individualistic

only women give birth and carry a child.irrefutably yes. of course there are hormanal and biological differnces between men and women but they neednt be divisive.and women neednt necessarily champion child birth and rearing as our thing. it is biology not destiny

in fact making children and caring a wimmins issue sidelines and potentially undermines it

if femminism is belief in pursuit of equality.then yes i am femminist

the alientaing side is the pseudo-intellectaula alientaing discourse about what kind of femminist are you
Are you femminist enough
the labels and assumptions applied

Yes, that's one of the more obvious basic reasons (tho not a cause, as such) that rape occurs. Because men are more physically powerful, pound for pound, than women - and just as some men are apt to use violence to get what they want from other men, they will also use violence to get what they want from women.

Female to male rape is at best - a statistical anomaly. Anything can happen in nature, and most things do, but that's not to say its the 'norm'. Someone will be able to find so media story on it. But whether it actually constitutes rape...who knows. That would take a lot of analysis. Male on male rape is endemic in prisons of course - the stats on male rape in prison put stats on male to female rape in a loty of perspective actually.

But the pressing fact is, the costs to men (physical - not discussing emotional here as men do of course suffer emotionally) are neglibible in comparison to women. Men cannot get pregnant for one. Women are often left by partners who somehow doubt that the intercourse was non consentual. This puts their, and their childrens (lives at risk and makes them all vulnerable to further attack from rouge males). In some cultures women are put in prison for comminting 'adultery', some killed in hnour killings.

Re the 'all men as potential rapists' debate, this is from my current paper;

"Psychologists and feminists have long considered the possibility that something inherent in masculinity may want to override female sexual choice in certain circumstances. The extrapolation of this is that it casts all men as potential rapists. Not a nice cud for anyone to chew on. That all men are not rapists is quite obvious, but that many men are potential rapists is never more demonstrated than when instances of rape peak to obscene levels within troubled societies, when infrastructure breaks down, such as in war zones or areas suffering catastrophic natural disaster. For women unfortunate enough to abide in these areas, the assumption that all men are potential rapists becomes an essential survival skill. Unpalatable as it is, if we wish to understand rape and improve justice for victims, we must not avert our eyes to this."

Most men are not rapists. But in desperate sutuations, more men become rapists. Thats a statistical fact. I am always thankful that I live in a stable democracy. But rape in unstable neighbourhoods is also common.

I'm incorporating something called the 'lfe history' perspective on rape too as it seems to offer a lot of insights in to psychological motives.

Feminism is very anti giving women any advice to lessen the risk of rape. It seems to think it just shouldn't happen - well that's never going to happen. We can only lessen it but better punishing rapists - but we can also lessen it by empowering women about the risks.

This agaon from my paper;

...this pespective informs us that feminism is a vital movement in a world where we can objectively predict that women?s reproductive autonomy will always be under some form of tacit or explicit manipulation from the men around her, for better or worse. It also tells us that when under certain social, cultural and genetic pressures, some men will attempt to override that autonomy by rape, in order to bolster their own reproductive fitness. Recognising this is far from legitimising any male propensity to rape, just as placing locks on our windows does not sanction the theft of our goods. It is identifying real risk so that real counter measures can be taken."

which psychologists are you citing GlaDOS?are these peer reviewed papers

I am writing the paper as I speak SM. LOL. You really think no psychologist who also studies rape has considered that there is something endemic in masculinity connected with rape? This is not contentious. Pick up every book by a psychologist about rape and you will find it in there. Every one. Really. I found too many to look through in the uni library.

you know what you are a bit snippy.so what i queried a refernce.pipe down!

i am familiar with academia, harvard referencing etc i just suposed sicne you made the statement perhaps you could elucidate. so actually rather than pick up any book i had hoped you would shre the references you allude to

clearly you feel a bit attacked and got at

snippy?! I am laughing - again.

No i'm not feeling attacked at all. Can we please stop all this posturing. Its a bit lame. I'll send you the whole piece when it's published - with references - after I have complled them and double checked them.