Feminism

[slightreturn]

Please feel free to express your views honestly re; Feninism.
What to men really think about it?

Snorbs - I do appreciate your example, and do make immediate connections with illustrative examples in most circumstances. I love sitting round talking turkey as much as the next person, but am always keen to ask myself 'so how does this translate into actual experience?'

And I whole-heartedly agree with you on the political correctness thing. We can have a whole new debate on this topic - I too am glad it happens, but the seeds of it's own undermining were provided in the name itself, (and was supposed to be so), IMO.

Sakura - am indeed a bloke. Gasp!.

Toad - some of what you ask can be satisfied with a bit of judicious use of google?? Mixed with a bit of your own reflections. Yes this 'feminism malarky' AND patriarchy can be a bit tricky, ill-defined, manifests in different ways - some more apparent than others - and feminism DOES cause controversy as it reveals, and seeks to reverse, the processes around the use of 'power' in society. But debate is best when those engaging in it put forward their own propositions or ideas, and back them up with supportive evidence, such as stats/general observation/experience etc, and are willing to open their position up to criticism.

Pan, absolutely. I think that's why I have a slight problem about feminism as a political movement. I don't know what, if anything, I can do about it.

Feminism as an anti-sexism and equality thing I can do something about, at least in how I'm raising my DCs and how I conduct myself.

Toadinthehole wrote - "I would be grateful if Dittany or others would define what is meant by patriarchy, how one recognises it, whether it is something that its adherents consciously or unconcsiously engage in, and whether it is a unified worldwide phenomenon, or whether it is something that in some areas might not exist at all."

To add to sprogger's earlier explanation of "the patriarchy". It is a system by which society has been deliberately organised by men in power on the basis that males as a group have a privileged status and women as a group have an inferior status, due to their sex. As far as I know, all societies are patriarchal and the opposite, "a matriarchy", is unknown. Some societies are more patriarchal than others. It is quite common to mistakenly think that the patriarchy does not exist in e.g. Europe or North America because inequality between men and women in these regions is less obvious than in the Third World.

The system of patriarchy makes it normal to see females as inferior to males and supports restrictions placed on females. The restrictions continue and reinforce the inequality.

Snorbs wrote - "Feminism as an anti-sexism and equality thing I can do something about".

Yes, that is definitely the best kind of feminism. Good luck.

Evening all, I'm back, head bowed bow.

First I want to apologise for my rantings the other night. I don't entirely believe half of what I wrote, and was at least partly being being deliberately belligerent because of another feminist thread which had annoyed me earlier in the day. Childish, yes, and I apologise.

I can't say that most of what I read inspired me much to change my views on feminism, until Sakura posted this.
"Western women cannot help women in other countries because they do not have enough power to do so. They have almost zero power in international politics and economics. It's a white man's game up there in the IMF, OECD and UN, let alone the leaders of hte western world, who are all men.
So can someone please explain to me how disenfranchised women, women with no economic or political parity with men, can run about the place righting the world?
Surely, if women focus on the women's movement, gain at least 50% of the seats in parliament, then they will be able to finally influence international politics and policies and we'll begin to see some real changes happening."

This did get me thinking that perhaps we do have further to go than I thought in the Western world, and that I should find out more, and start thinking more, about the advancement of women's right on a more local level.

I also found myself almost shaking with rage at the end of the Grand Prix this afternoon when those red-frocked eye-candy Ferarri girls were lining the corridor to cheer the triumphant men-folk home. Uuuuurgh!! I probably wouldn't have found it quite so distasteful if I hadn't been thinking along more feminist lines since Friday.

So, feminist folk, I came over to argue, I have left more thoughtful, and I apologise again for baiting you.

Huh?

Thanks Annie..very brave of you

hi Annie.

now get over to the geek section and sort my ipod out!!

Annie :)

Re patriarchy: thanks to Dittany, Sprogger and others for saving me the trouble of wading through Google, and the frequently misleading sites it provides. Much better to ask someone who has read up on the subject.

However, I also asked how one recognises the existence of patriarchy. ISTM this is a very important question. Sprogger said earlier (yes I was reading) that "we're breathing it all the time", by which I assume is meant that we internalise it and even perpetuate it unconsciously. There are plenty of things that affect women negatively. How do we distinguish those negative things that are an inevitable part of being human from those that are inflicted by patriachical values?

I note also that patriarchy (if it exists) does so at a societal level: examples of sexism in, for example, discrimination against women in the professions, in politics and so on being incidents of patriarchy. Given that patriarchical values can exist without the society in question being aware of them being patriarchical, how can that society know when it is truly non-sexist?

For example, there aren't many male primary school teachers in Britain. Some might say this is an isolated example of sexism against men*, but I don't suppose anyone would argue that was evidence for a a matriarchy in Britain: a matriarchy and a patriarchy presumably cannot exist in the same society at the same time.

*I'm not saying that there is sexism: this is simply to illustrate my point.

It's all in the prevalence I think. toad. Sorry got to run, but in general I would say when you look at a meeting of the people who actually run things (boards of biggest employers, govt, the church, newspaper editors & controllers, richest people for example) they are nearly all men. Then you have so much language that casually degrades women, and "girl" and "woman" being an insult in a way that "boy" and "man" are not...

Someone's on top and it's not us.

When I studied Greek religion and mythology in uni last year I came to the conclusion that the patriarchy is inherited.
In ancient 'greece', there were a lot of defined taboos and a lot of very clearly defined gender roles, especially based on the profanity of menstruation and childbearing, sex and death.

These taboos had huge social implications on how sacrifice was to be made, where, and by whom, and when, and how the profane (mostly women, except Virgins) were to be excluded in order that the sacred rituals would work and the Dread Gods were to be appeased.

Now, this gender differentiation is augmented by 3000 plus year old systems of religions based on dualistic faith systems and of course the triple whammy of literate (and thus inheritable) Abrahamic based systems now widespread.

Just a musing, in reply, if you will, to the post above which opened the idea that western civilisation, whilst may seem not to be as misogynist as economically and environmentally deprived areas, is still under the yoke of this inherited relict three horse Trokia of Abrahamic faith systems.

But in order to start the Revolution against what indeed started as Dreadful Deity appeasement, we need to rethink our major faith based systems, and question their relevance in the light of recent informations and interpretations (Enlightenment, post-modernist theory, feminism, modern psychology and medicine, quantum mechanics and chaos theory (with associated Atheism) and indeed Marxism).

In the meantime I think campaigning for equal pay is a realistic and attainable goal, and workable within the systems we have inherited.

Of course the rest follows (in true Marxist stylee).

Poor women (by that I mean those with little or no money) are disempowered and disenfranchised from effecting change if they and their girls spend the whole day bringing water from the well through rapist infected swards, and similar.

I think money comes first - with that comes more choices and power. An army walks on its stomach after all.

Of course, for my goal, I have to admit, I'm looking for the Global toppling of the inherited taboo based dualistic faith systems, but to start, with the single step, I think we need to put money in our purse. (Is that Freudian? )

But I don't know anything about iPods! I don't own one. Have you mixed me up with another Annie?

Excellent post, Annie. I always come away from feminism and politics threads thinking "I don't know anything". Which is, in many ways, the way it should be, I suppose...

Annie,I was being frivolous and a bit tired and frustrated. But it is v. nice to see you coming back. I am not entirely sure naughty ipods are a feminist issue.....

Pan - ah, um, ok, good! I thought you might be kidding, but then if not, well, sorry!

Wd like to point out that in spite of the fact that men are heavily under-represented in primary and secondary schools as teachers, they are still more likely to become heads of dept and headteachers.

When I did some training at a school a girl kept calling me "Miss" despite me being a 6 foot chap. When I asked her why she said it was because "Headmasters are Sirs and teachers are Miss".

TiggyD. What did you say to that?

She couldn't be persuaded.

I now have the problem of trying to convince pre-schoolers that men do sometimes have long hair like I do. When I tell them, they (usually girls) then tell me that only girls have long hair, despite me standing right in front of them. They tend to have rather fixed views about identity.