What ^should^ feminism be about these days?

[Monkeytrousers]

?

Monkeytrousers, just saw your question earlier, about what area I'm in. Officially I'm a psychologist, but I've spent a long time doing research into gender/work-life balance/flexible working/parental leave. I have an ongoing sideline in gender and language/discourse, and recently have been doing research in cohabitation/marriage/relationships/money.

I'm not sure if we muddy the waters talking about abstract 'values' at this stage of the discussion. And it is difficult to tell whether the ?real world? perception (as I think it is called in psychology) of childless women or couples (don't have to be single to be childless) is without context that they are somehow always ?lacking?.

One of the problems I find with feminism, or certainly the debates within it, is discerning between real and imagined injustices. Much feminist paranoia was justified at one point, but it still seems set on a hair trigger, which can sometimes make it reactionary rather than reasoned.

Unequal pay, lack of decent childcare resources, discrimination of mothers in the workforce are all measurable, but the idea that some nebulous mass 'thinks' single childless women are lacking is rather hard to measure - it may only be a media stereotype, a problem yes, but not one that needs to be tackled with equal resources as teh others. Does that make sense?

Many people on this thread have said that they hate the sexualised representaion of women, as it contributes to inequality - but I'm not sure it does, not inequality - it may create other problems but I think there may be a need for some categorising rather then seeing everything as contributing to the whole - it's impossible to manage in that state.

And this whole thing about female sexualisation - keeping separate issues of porn and prostitution - it is completely mashed to the lowest common denominator, but somewhere amongst it there may be a clue that women; young beautiful women, do enjoy parading their sexuality, exploit men with it, as they are exploited for it - that this might actually be quite an equal transaction?

That is lovely started . I'm more ambivalent about my sahmness. This ambivalence might come from some deep issues I have with myself, however more than often I found closed family life quite claustrophobic (I think it also had to do with the fact of living in a different country than that of origin)

Really Fennel?? I won't get into a full on debate with you about it, but if I could ask - maybe with permission to quote (after you have read the finished essay of course) - what is the perception of the evolutionary paradjm that seems to be encroaching on many areas today?

Please feel free to be bluntly honest! I am still weighing up arguments for and against

signing in so I can read this when I have time.

Fennel...for you and your peers, I meant to add?

It should be about salted peanuts. Hardly anybody takes much notice of salted peanuts these days.

Ignore me: I'm just posting a question I am asking myself to research as I can't find a pen;

With regard to mental health (particulary in the US) is it more stressful for mothers to be isolated with their infants or compelled to leave their infants in childcare to work? Get statistics.

haha, I read something v bad about peanut butter the other day.

Evil rumours are spreading about peanuts, it's time we took to arms and made a stand for the humble peanut!

MT when you are using MN as your notepad things are bad

MT, are negative media stereotypes not a feminist issue then?

Glad to see this debate is still continuing.

Monkey Trousers - I do think there is a problem about how single women are viewed in society - not necessarily one that can be solved with money or public policy - so maybe it is 'nebulous' However I am often startled by the vitriol expressed against women who have transgressed against the family unit in some way (several threads I have read through on MN demonstrated this) - men 'stolen' from their wives by single predatory females.

I am the product of a affair that became a second marriage for my dad (I was born before the divorce came through and my mum was name as the co-respondent(? is that the term??) so I am perhaps overly personal about this aspect of 'sisterhood' but it seems odd to me that the scorn is generally reserved for the other woman not for the man who betrayed his family. A symptom of our obsession with original sin? The Virgin/ Whore dichotomy?? Or is it a greater sin to betray sisterhood by sleeping with another woman's husband.

But perhaps this is leading the debate into ever muddier waters??

Sometimes I think biggest aim of feminism should be to teach women not to be each others greatest enemies. This is why I consider it to be an adjunct to the main debate about how society should be - I have more in comon with anyone(male or female) in my socio-economic 'class' than I do with any random individual woman. iyswim.

I am a bit tired and sun-stroked so please forgive me if this rambly post is a bit meaningless

It's not just the childcare issue though, is it? it's all this stuff about 'community' and 'responsibility' and how much of it translates to 'more unpaid work for women'.

Basically, a stable society (and most 'stable' societies are only so for a limited amount of time) has to depend on the existence of a subordinate, or slave class, whose job it is to do the shitwork without arguing. Stable societies tend to become unstable when that designated slave class starts demanding human rights. The idea of ensuring that members of the dominant class do their share of the shitwork is the one that never gets tried.. wonder why.

I work in (whispers) media/cultural studies. bloke who wants to help me is a quantum physicist

one of my best friends does women's lit stuff and found her female boss -- gtg

PhD - what's gtg??

Yes, Starthouched, I think it is a feminist issue ? but the prominence given to it is somewhat disproportional I think, in relation to other concrete and measurable issues. I think it is part of the problem, but not THE problem, if you see what I mean, a symptom not a cause. I wonder if the bigger (but more difficult) problems were given prominence within gender studies, rather than postmodern debate on language, it might be resolved by proxy. Just a thought, I need to do more study. I have found evolutionary perspectives to be very instructive on this, on separating the wheat from the chaff ? not that the chaff isn?t annoying, but it?s a bit like swatting a fly when wasps are attacking. Crap analogy, soz.

Big mouth ? I think the term ?all?s fair in love and war? has some unfortunate truth to it. Women have much more to lose in affairs though, relative to men, particularly if they have children. It might go some way to explaining why women are less forgiving of the other woman ? though I know men are just as unforgiving if they are the cuckold ? so again, it might be a perspective thing. As women, we do share nontrivial similarities, both biological and psychological, that separate us from males, but as far as being deserted when you have young children to care for, it is all about experience ? if the predatory woman has never had a child she is ignorant of the psychological distress that occurs when a woman is deserted ? this situation is close to what is termed a ?strong? situation in evolutionary science; basically meaning an extremely stressful (ie possibly life threatening) situation; it isn?t an actual strong situation as the female?s life isn?t threatened but is severely handicapped, but the lives of her offspring are threatened. This is less so today with the help of benefits, but if you imagine, this ?luxury? has only been in place for 70 years or so, and we (women) have spent millions of years being vulnerable to such desertion ? it is very plausible and likely that there is still an ?echo? of this within our psychologies.

BUT, it is only very recently also that females would not have been privy to witnessing suchj stress, as familial and female alliances were the staple in our evolutionary history also. So perhaps we also have an ?echo? of thinking that all women should just ?know? but our culture now separates us, and women are given the same messages about sex that are given to men; namely ?game on?.

I think it is unrealistic to expect women not to be competitive ? they are just as competitive as men, they just seem to compete in different areas ? the most obvious one being beauty. But also, sorry to go on, it is also instructive to realise that female competition rarely ends in violence, whereas male competition does ? wars even. The arena for male competition is much more immediately dangerous.

I must add too that co-operation arises from competition. It isn?t all bad.

Phdlife - part of my work is in encorporating evolutionary theory into gender studies. For all the critics (and I have read most of them) I genuinely haven't found one that stands up to scrutiny. It seems to be more of a generational thing; people have spent their lives denouncing evolutionary science (which was initially lacking) and seem to find it too much of a backtrack to change now. It is understandable, but is a bit like Canute.

Do you think it is out of proportion, MT? I have no experience in any studies or whatever but I often see reports in the media (!) about from racial equality campaigners on the number of negative racial stereotypes in the media versus the positive. I think the same applies to sexual equality. Whilst women (and girls /young women in their teens) are still bombarded by the media stereotypes of themselves as bitches/slaves/totty/spinsters they are in danger of believing them about themselves, and about other women, and so will not fight back. It also makes it a hell of a lot harder to be taken seriously when you do try - women who want subsidised childcare 'want to have it all', for example. Right now as a mother of two dds I am far more concerned about the images they see on television and read in their magazines than I am about gender pay equality.

Also agree about women doing down other women. Particularly in women who are in relationships, the way they dress and how thin they are has far more to do with competeing against other women than it has to do with impressing men.

I don?t know for sure ? I?m investigating though! I do know it is important, but think it?s also more complex than say comparing it with negative racial stereotypes. Women have had the opportunity to explore their sexuality more in the last 40 years than in the whole history of our species. What is obvious is that women like sex just as much as men, in a qualitative sense (though the problem with our culture is that this gets mixed up with quantity too - kind of ?sex is good, have more?.)

Well yes, but we know that women, even if the quantity they have has gone through the roof over the last few decades, still choose to have less of it than men. That?s not to say they are prudes, but there are still consequences for women that men don?t have to face in this area ? pregnancy for one ? and this is often left out of a message that is disseminated by the media (and their sponsors, the consumer machine) which seems to favour the male bias as it encourages the male ?indiscriminate? urge in all things.

I?m talking unattached males ? once we fall in love, male and female, a different set of instincts come to the fore; but again consumerism still pushes for us all to be dissatisfied with what we have?there is something in that, I?m sure.

Isn't gtg "Got to go"? But that doesn't really make sense.

I don't find the women I work with particularly undermining at all, in terms of dissing women who dress or look differently or make different family choices. Over half my friends from uni are voluntarily childless at around 40 now, and about half my women friends of my age at work are too, from choice. (And their careers are really going very nicely because of it). I don't think they experience society looking down on them at all. Obviously these are highly educated independent women but still, I think that the choice to actively not have children is becoming very acceptable.

Mt - researching this at the same time as you! I don't think the sexualised beautiful young women IS a sign of equality. I don't think we're there yet. Ariel Levy is great on this in "Female Chauvinist Pigs" - she talks of spates of teenage girls giving head to boys on school buses and then showing it on youtube for kudos.
Started stateside and now happening here.
Paris Hilton flashing her minge seen as the ultimate political act. And this is empowering how exactly?

Fennel, I am always a bit suprised by the fact that a lot of female scientists within the evolutionary sciences (and there are a lot of them) choose also to be childless. Bucking the myth of biological determinism right at the heart of the discourse.

Tomanydaves, I read Levi's book last year- a good companion piece is McNairs Stiptease culture which aruges that the sexuality of culture is basically progressive while Levi's argument is that it is essentially commercial. On looking at the evidence, I do concur with Levi, on that issue if not on others.

As for it happening stateside first, I'm not so sure. I was a full blown ladette in thet 90s and as far as I can tell looking back, it started then. Amelda Whelehen's book Overloaded is good on this.

sorry, sorry, it was "got to go" - and it only made sense if you could hear ds suddenly start crying

FWIW - and I realise this theme has dropped a long way down the thread - I think the relentless representation of women as sexualised beings does contribute to inequality. 3 quick examples:

My female students were adamant they could not be seen as "strong" and went to great lengths to make sure their exercise (if they took any) did not make them look "unfeminine" in any way. Result? Larger proportion of obese/unhealthy girls/women, for a start.

Second example - this thread - women debating whether/how much appearance matters to their workplaces. Only in a very few professions can I imagine this being (as) relevant for men. However for women, your appearance greatly affects how you are seen to perform - witness someone like Susan Greenfield, where part of the reason she cannot get accepted into Royal Society is that she is seen as somehow not as serious as male scientists. Or certain feminists, such as Naomi Wolf, who are/were slated for being "too beautiful".

Finally, while women are repeatedly portrayed as sexualised, rather than thinking, beings, they continue to be massively under-represented in thinking professions such as the academy (barely 25% of professors are female), MPs (20%), surgeons (10%), judges (10%), business leaders, etc. while bright female students pour into degrees for appearance-oriented professions such as PR.

So yes, I think that media representation does contribute to inequality. If nothing else, it cultivates a way of thinking about women that is problematic.

Someone also asked if I was thinking of breaking back into an academic career. This is a toughie - for me there is an implicit "vs." in between the "phd" and the "life". In the places I have worked, I have not been able to see a way of succeeding as an academic without forcing myself into an unhealthy one-dimensionality, and that was before ds! To explore this issue would, I think, constitute a full-blown hijack...

Phdlife, I don't see that constituting a hijack at all. At least it fits with my feelings about academic careers.

So why did you give up a lectureship after one year? Was it that bad?