What ^should^ feminism be about these days?

[Monkeytrousers]

?

Completely disagree that we should not talk about women and women's interests as distinct from those of men. They are different, and if we refuse to group them together we lose critical mass.

This is one of women's big problems IMO when negotiating a fairer deal. Women are more splintered than men - a lot of women lead very isolated lives - and so their collective voice is not nearly as loud as it ought to be.

Hooray!
First and formeost, we need to accept that society is still unequal and that there is something we can do about it. Secondly, we need to encourage men and women to be vocal about opposition to this inequality (be it based on gender, ethnicity, class, etc...). I am so saddened when I see people shy away from conmfronting stereotypes and offensive statements/attitudes because they don't want to be accused of being 'PC gone mad'.

I agree that viewing women as a unitary category is unhelpful. I also think it is unhelpful to think of men as a/the 'problem' -- man and women are participants in the same system, which can be oppressive to both. I think feminism means that neither men nor women are constrained by rigid roles about masculinity and feminity, so that doing something which is non-conformist no longer calls into question one's sexuality or worth.

For me feminism should be focussing on collective action. MorningPaper's post below about wanting her "daughters to understand that actually Making Money is important because being 40 and living in rented accommodation and having no pension is shit" rings a chord with me, except really, I'd be very sad if that was the message my daughters got about what's important in life.

And if we had affordable housing, affordable childcare, a different pension system which valued caring and domestic work, we wouldn't need to be teaching our daughters that Making Money is so essential. So for me that's the sort of thing feminism should be working for.

good point about pensions, fennel.

thinking about this more and reading more of the posts, i think we almost need to seperate the discussion into 2 areas to tackle:

1. ideological issues: roles, representation, respect, empowerment, feminist theory

2. practical issues: pay gap, pensions, domestic violence, child care

but oregonian, how can those be separate?

part of the reason we don't get respect - which partially leads to domestic violence - is because we are seen to be low-earning, child-carers... which in turn leads to us not being paid appropriately, etc. It's a gorgons knot if ever there was one!

Personally I think the pay/child-care issue is central - not least because it involves men intimately and as far as I can see feminism necessarily involves changes to men's lives too.

true, phd. perhaps i should have said themes (which are intrinsically linked).

Fennel, if you have moment, what's your take on women and appearance in the workplace (you're an academic iirc??)?

Norkmaiden, I am a feminist academic, I do tend to avoid the issue of appearances in the workplace though. It's a bit of a can of worms.
[coward emoticon]

I definitely agree about the involving men in childcare and domestic issues being key, then at least we could move on to campaiging about carers' rights and the need to recognise carers and those with responsibilities, rather than always linking care and children to women.

Why do you ask Norkmaiden?

MT I'm a grad student, probably about to be on the job market in 6 months or so (ideally looking for a research fellowship or similar) and was a bit shocked - but not surprised - by Kathy's representation of how these things work. Academics and dress always seems to be a tricky one to call to me...generally ranges from power dressing to downright scruffy...

Thinking a bit more Globally

"Women's Inequality worldwide is increasing"
The plight of women worldwide has been highlighted during the last year by a series of reports from British GOvernment development agencies and human rights groups. Amongst the disturbing findings are;
70% of the worlds 1 billion poorest inhabitants are women;
Woman produce half the worlds food but own less than 2% of the worlds land;
Over 2/3 of the worlds 800million illiterate adults are women, since girls, in many parts of the world are not seen as worth the investment;
Domestic vilence, where women are predominantly the victims, kills and injures more people in the developing world than war, traffic accidents or cancer;
Each year, 2million girls aged from 5 to 16 join the commercial sex market;
A third of the worlds women are homeless or live in inadequate housing;
Women work 2/3 ofthe worlds working hours, but earn only 1/10 of the worlds income.

Info from SOCIETY MATTERS (OU Student & Staff newspaper)

Norkmaiden, if you're asking about what it's like for women, appearance-wise, in academic circles, I'm a bit happier to comment. In my area of academia - social sciences, psychology and sociology - women don't feel that pressured to look thin or beautiful or perfectly made up. Quite the opposite really. There's a lot of acceptance of quite bizarre dress habits. And women are more likely to be criticised for looking too conventional than otherwise. But that's in the circles I mix in. It can be different say in Management Schools or Law Schools.

And I've already been told not to mention my maternity leave as an explanation of why my PhD will take longer than it should have. I guess I should feel feminist outrage at that - but instead I feel rather cowed and anxious about it ..

Really, Norkmaiden? What area are you in? (sorry if you've already posted that and I missed it). Maternity leave counts as a reasonable explanation for PhD delay in my experience. Not that most people seem to need a reason other than couldn't get it together earlier.

X-post Fennel.

I'm interested in this on a practical and conceptual level, so thanks for enlarging on it. My area is literature, can relate to your sense of women not being too groomed - or being looked down on for being groomed - but there seems to be such a fine line. Looking good while also looking like you don't care. And that takes effort, ironically!

You'd think it was a reasonable explanation - told not to mention it by two young (female, childless) lecturers. Fear having a child counts against me for those types, for some reason, so maybe it's best not to mention it (though that fairly outrages me, I guess it's best to shut up, smile, nod....)

lap dancing is not EMPOWERING
nor is flashing your norks to get on tv

We are still WAY off equal pay.

If you want to be famous, do something fucking interesting and WORK for it.

Need much better parental leave and cheaper good quality childcare

I'm not convinced about that.

The fine line is quite wide in my area, you can be well-respected and look as though you've just been dragged out of a Greenham common time warp. Or just strode in off a mountain hike.

at Greenham common and hiking

Maybe lit is a little more uptight than your field - or less overtly concerned with feminist theory, even when many women in the job are feminists. There's not much sense of sisterhood variety of feminist awareness that's one thing I'm fairly sure of.

There's quite a strong sense of sisterhood in my areas, but I have worked in departments and research teams which are swarming with women who are explicitly feminists. Lots of support for having children (as long as you continue working hard and being committed to the job, and preferably if you don't have too many children).

THat sounds ideal F. I was taken aback when told not to mention that I'm a mum, but it's definately made me rethink a few things. And maybe realise that academia (or some areas of it) are best approached more, um, strategically than I would have thought. It's far from the ultimate family-unfriendly job (or so I thought), so I got a surprise from the inference that kids = a Bad Thing.

I find it very family friendly in that my hours are extremely flexible and I work when and how I want to a large extent, plus it's always acceptable to change plans for a childcare emergency.

Ways i don't find it family friendly are that in my field all the "successful" people are working very hard, long hours, travelling a lot. Many of them don't have children, though some do, but in the end it's hard to actually be successful in my area without putting in a lot of work which isn't always compatible with having children. Some people manage it.

I think that's partly why quite a few academic feminists are a bit anti children, they know very well just how much it affects everything else.

Thanks so much F.

The flexibility is key as far as I can see. Though dp slready thinks I'm a workaholic. On the upside, I'm young so will only be 40-odd when my child goes to uni (or equiv) so I'll have working time still ahead of me

ikwym about the people at the top of their game having no children - but am filled with respect and admiration when they occasionally do have kids! Nice just to know it IS possible, though.

have been eavesdropping on you fennel and norkmaiden - as a feminist academic myself found it both enlightening and depressing. After finishing my phd and having a 1-year lectureship I basically had to choose between career and dc's - dc's won - but had the most horrific things said to me in the time coming up to that decision. Including (from a female colleague who knew I was then 36), "if the time isn't right, there's always IVF" - this seems to me a shocking indictment of women academics' solution to the career/kids dilemma. Rather than address issues in the workplace they seem fairly consistently to advise us to bury/hide/evade them... The person who's been most supportive of me returning to work has been a bloke - tragically not in my area, but the only one to send me info about research fellowships for women who've had a career break...