Feminism

[slightreturn]

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

On the "wankiness", because that deserves to be answered, I suppose it is as much the word "feminism" that puts a lot of men off, rather than the concept so much (whatever concept one is using).

"Gender equality" doesn't seem to cause the same reaction. I bet if you take any random under-50 non-dinosaur bloke - preferably a parent, and one who works in some industry where there's a gender mix, so not City banking or anything like that - and said "Do you believe in gender equality?", he'd say yes. But if you ask the same person "Are you a feminist?" he'd say No. Is that fair?

"Belief that women are fully human" is surely something that reasonable people can't argue with... But then a lot of very general statements can't be argued with. So where do the problems come from?

Actually, I think feminism does have a lot of parallels with various civil rights movements around the world. It starts with the dominant people being defensive and making excuses, "but I look after my niggers so well" or whatever and slowly slowly over time that changes until now, a few hundred years later white people are embarrassed.

I'm south african and white. And there were always some blacks who thought that whites couldn't identify with their issues. But what turned my country around was a white man who realised he had to change (I don't subscribe to the view that FW was a good guy who genuinely thought black south africans deserved more rights) and a black man who realised that it was essential to engage with all south africans, black and white and all the colours in between.

I just hope feminism doesn't take that long!

Wow, this is brilliant on so many levels! Bookmark to come back to.

StayFrosty - very good question and I'll go away and think about it.

But I do think the "men and women saying things in different ways" problem is very real.

Not Mars/Venus bollocks, but there really is a lot of mileage in the fact that we TEND to say, "Grass is green. Okay? Green. Deal with it." Whereas women TEND to say "I don't think any reasonable person could disagree that grass is, mainly, green, could they? I don't know. What do you think?"

And this difference in styles and perceptions of them is what causes a lot of arguments.

I think a lot of men just get very offended when women talk straight tbh.

I agree with you UD - men are used to women talking very deferentially - so when we don't, because we are discussing political ideas, some of them perceive it as women being aggressive and horrid. Whereas if we were men, they'd simply take it for what it is - talking straight.

But again, do you see how irritating it is for us to be told we've got to use a different word than feminist so we won't scare away men?

Who are these scaredy-cats?

Herbeautitude - although we are agreeing (!) I think that is a slight twist on what I said. I don't expect women to "talk deferentially"! My DW would piss herself laughing at the very idea that I expect her to speak "deferentially" to me or any man, as would my sister.

You see, you've turned that round into a very subtle critique of men! Add to The List, whoever is taking notes.

What's wrong with the word 'feminism' and why can't it be understood to mean gender equality? Is there some added element to 'feminism' that is perceived as a threat?

And why are there still industries where there isn't a gender mix? What would a reasonable man do to change this imbalance, assuming it bothered him, and it might, as exclusion from the sort of income potential and influence potential these industries promise means women are denied the chance to gain the kind of power that comes from control of a lot of money.

"If we are capable of wrapping our rational minds around the concept of a win-win situation, what holds us all back, I wonder?" This was an earlier question -- does it deserve an answer?

I didn't turn it into a critique of men. I made a fairly commonplace observation about how men expect women to talk, which isn't controversial I don't think it's pretty well documented how when a man says something in a certain way, it's perceived as assertive and strong, and if a woman uses exactly the same tone, it's seen as shrill and aggressive. So if you don't like deferential, how about placatory?

Hmm, there is probably some truth in that, but one can express oneself in non-hostile terms without being deferential or placatory... Or not? I think there is a slight twist between what I said and your re-expressing of it.

You see, even on a fairly amicable thread like this there is scope for misinterpretation. My "a lot of men are put off not by the idea but by the word feminism" is taken up and re-tooled as "women should change the word or use a different one because men don't like it", which is immediately something to bristle and bridle about.

Which would be fair enough, except that isn't what I said!

Hmm, I think UQD is spot on that the 'men and women saying things differently' is at play here. The way I read that, though, is that it is relevant to the times when a man comes onto a thread and says something like 'It is not sexism. Let me explain why....' and we all feel like he is lecturing us and someone brings up the term 'mansplaining'. And then it all gets very personal and the man doesn't understand it because surely he has a right to an opinion about whether the thing in question is sexism or not and a number of women have also said it is not without being attacked.

However, my take on that kind of situation is, why on earth doesn't the man learn to temper his way of expressing things, when he is in a mainly-female group, just the way women have to learn to talk differently all the time in order to get on in mainly-male groups? Surely that's just common sense/good manners?

It wasn't subtle, UQD, it was a very good point that makes women bash their heads against the wall a lot. Why are the inflammatory words of the few used as a ruse to ignore the claims of the many?

Nobody is saying you personally are demanding deference from any individual woman. You are, however, expecting that the extreme wing under the feminist umbrella zip it because what they have to say is off-putting to men, and you seem to think some of it is meant as a personal attack on you and how you conduct your own personal life and relationships with women. It's not; it's a comment on how society has been ordered through history, with men and women together ensuring the survival of the status quo just as men and women in more primitive areas still accept practices such as FGM or keeping girls out of school in case they learned something there.

This is the way most backers of the powers-that-be uphold their way of doing things -- another analogy with the Civil Rights movement might be illuminating, this time the Northern Ireland one: initially inspired by the US Civil Rights movement, the Northern Irish movement sought to guarantee such rights as one man(woman) one vote, no taxation without representation (an end to gerrymandering and primarily to ensure fair allocation of public housing to communities excluded from decent public provision under the system that ruled NI until then).

The response of the unionist/protestant opinion leaders was to denounce the NI Civil Rights movement as a creature of the Fenian Bolsheviks and a resounding NO from the likes of Ian Paisley, plus a castigation of anyone on the unionist side who dared to suggest the Civil Rights movement might have a point (Terrence O'Neil for instance, and later the Alliance party and SDLP came in for the same criticism).

Almost 50 years and thousands of broken lives later, power sharing in Stormont now guarantees to one and all the rights the Civil Rights movement marched for back in the late 60s, protestants and Catholics alike. And the losers (apart from the dead and the maimed) are?

The common ground is usually the place where the best solutions can be found to genuine problems, and the choruses on the extreme fringes are best ignored.

LOL at bristle and bridle.

Do men bristle and bridle? Or just fillies?

I don't think I did twist your example btw.

It was a very good example of the differing expectations of how women and men are supposed to talk.

It's not just men who get annoyed when women don't follow the linguistic conventions btw - other women do too. I have a colleague who is very blunt and straightforward and she is v. unpopular among most of her female colleagues (and the male ones for that matter) not because of what she says, but because of the way of saying it: straight out with no adornment. She's not abrasive or argumentative; just doesn't have the caveats and self-deprecating vocabulary that most women are trained to adopt from an early age.

I tell you waht I find interesting: the appalling new linguistic tic of sentences going up at the end in an Antipodean style, as if everything is a question. That's a very non-confrontational, placatory / deferential style of talking isn't it? Is it more common in women I wonder, or just in young people in general?

'"a lot of men are put off not by the idea but by the word feminism" '

What's off-putting?

If even the word itself can't be used without putting off a lot of men, isn't this a little precious?

The term Civil Rights was denounced because to many it seemed to really be "Black Rights" in disguise, a concept that many found unacceptable, repugnant, a standing on its head of all that they considered right and proper.

My guess is that 'Equal Rights' as a synonym for 'Feminism' would be similarly condemned as some sort of Trojan Horse.

Hmm, I work for a company in a "male dominated" industry. However, I live in a country where women get less maternity leave, and men and women get equal parental leave. And everyone goes home at a reasonable hour.

Noone looks askance at the men who take parental leave, any more than they do at the older workers who are entitled to work 4/5ths after the age of 55. In fact, when I look round the office, there don't seem to be many of us working FT one way or another.

I work with lots of other female managers. They are not defined by their sex, or whether they have children or not. They do their job, they do it well. Strict laws protect how pay is calculated. There is STILL a pay gap.

Men and women need EQUAL rights and responsibilities. The law already gives this, in fact it positively discriminates in the case of mothers in the UK. We don't need more laws that favour females. We need more rights (and expectation that men are parents too) for men in this arena. We need nore education to get away from this idea that girls are "victims" of a male Patriarchy.

Well, in the hour I just spent pacing backwards and forwards trying to get ds to sleep I thought of another thing - kind of mentioned above - but anyway:

I'm an atheist, as are SGB and UQD. I like both posters - they're smart, witty, thoughtful, etc. But I do not really like to be on religion threads with either, because the "brand" of atheism they espouse is very - um "strident", and I find their choice of terminology patronising to posters who do not share their lack of belief. To me this approach is not what will help people in a society where there are both religious people and atheists work well as a peaceful one; it does nothing for the "cause" of atheism and potentially gives atheists a bad name.

Now - collective worship/faith schools aside, atheists are not an oppressed minority, so it doesn't really matter if I choose to opt out, or decide not to identify with atheism because there are a minority of strident voices who tend to dominate the debate on the part of atheists. But feminism? That matters.

That really wasn't meant to be a personal attack, btw, and I promise there is no venom at all.

Really interesting analysis of various 'freedom movements' - civil rights and human rights intertwined. And of course it isn't viable to make detailed comparisons - different time and space contexts. Add in the lessons learned from the 'gay rights moveemnt and it getseven more difficult to draw comparisons, though as we know the basis is the forced shifts in the sharing of power in society.

Do I consider myself a 'feminist'? Def. used to a long time ago, and actually did things about it in terms of political action. Having a beautiful little dd has indeed led to a reassessment of my years of releative absence of thought over it.

Really convinced by the limited use of 'gender equality' as an alternative selling line as it WILL be viewed as a trojan horse.

yes habbibu - I too find the 'strident' positions of many posters on here very off putting - esp. as one is reconsidering one's spirituality - sometimes it reeks of a certain smugness.