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Feminism: chat

What's your take on why many women and girls lost interest in feminism over the decades?

188 replies

nestoftables · 20/06/2021 11:54

Just that...I've read a few things talking about why feminism became an unfashionable word etc.

Having just finished reading 'Material Girls' which has a brief summary of second wave and third wave feminism towards the end, I am interested in different perspectives on what happened, based on different experiences and different reading on this. Thanks!

OP posts:
GoingGently · 21/06/2021 11:38

@IvyTwines2 absolutely agree. Treating anything female as a dirty word - e.g. Head Girl - is missing the point entirely. It's erasing women, not empowering them.

GoingGently · 21/06/2021 11:38

@IvyTwines2 absolutely agree. Treating anything female as a dirty word - e.g. Head Girl - is missing the point entirely. It's erasing women, not empowering them.

Shedbuilder · 21/06/2021 11:41

@nestoftables

Some really interesting responses here. It seems that one challenge is many of us don't really know a lot of specific detail about the history of the feminist movement/s. Of course there are many different histories of it. But wouldn't it be nice to have studied social movements like feminism (and others) in school?
I did A-level Sociology, which really cemented my feminism. Not sure it's taught any more.
GoingGently · 21/06/2021 11:44

Oops sorry, phone hiccough

Wearywithteens · 21/06/2021 11:46

This reply has been withdrawn

This has been withdrawn at the poster's request.

WarriorN · 21/06/2021 12:02

@ItsAllGoingToBeFine

I'm another one who absorbed the belief that feminists had hairy legs and burned their bras.

I also thought that feminism wasn't needed anymore it was all done - that men and women had equal rights.

Same.

At school there was equality in how we were treated (different PE sports though) and then at uni, we had enough single sex stuff to feel protected. I was lucky in that the boys in my schools were actually respectful to women, and vilified if not. We all wore dms, ripped jeans and check shirts, male and female. We knew we could wear what we wanted, male or female.

So feminism seemed outdated.

It's only as I've aged that I've seen more examples of male violence simply through the fact we are women and then experienced inequality through having children. And things like the pink tax and how fashion fools women into spending far more than they need to.

WarriorN · 21/06/2021 12:10

But, it wasn't spelt out anywhere.

We thought and were told we had equality now, which we did compared to the past.

I did Art at uni and always felt something was missing somewhere in art history. Looking back j now know it was that lecturer who would highlight the sexism and misogyny in art and especially 20th c art. I came so close so often to hitting the nail on the head in essays and my dissertation; I just needed encouragement and the odd lecture to spell it out. It was all curated by white upper class men.

I think the guardian made me think this too. It was the paper we all read.

Floisme · 21/06/2021 12:18

and how fashion fools women into spending far more than they need to.
See this is exactly why even now, I don't get involved in any real life women's groups and why I still walk away from here occasionally. The disapproval I encountered in the 70s is still there.

For what it's worth, I know perfectly well that I spend more on clothes than I need to. I also spend far more on books than I need to, but no-one ever tells me I'm being fooled into doing that.

WarriorN · 21/06/2021 12:24

Flo, I spend far too much on clothes and make up!

But I also see how the marketing works now in a way I didn't when younger.

Local small Sainsbury's sells only women's and children's clothes.

I still buy them!

Shedbuilder · 21/06/2021 12:29

You sound as if you feel guilty and you're projecting that guilt outwards. 'Don't make me feel bad, don't make me look.' Which is understandable, we've all got our sore spots. But clothes seem such a trivial issue over which to avoid feminist engagement. There are lives at stake.

IvyTwines2 · 21/06/2021 12:41

[quote Siblingquandary]@IvyTwines2
I'd agree with that

I've no problem with actress because actor hasn't historically been the default.[/quote]
@smithsinarazz @Siblingquandary @GoingGently
Yes, I was so disappointed by Cate Blanchett on this: '“I have always referred to myself as an actor,” Blanchett said after being asked about the move towards gender-neutral prizes hours before the 10-day Covid-restricted Venice jamboree began. “I am of the generation where the word actress was used almost always in a pejorative sense. So I claim the other space,” she said.

So rather than ask herself the question 'why have I been brought up to think the female version is somehow 'lesser', an insult?', the female word is now being dispensed with altogether, and made to seem even more 'pejorative' in the process, and the historically male term becomes the 'default'. And this is considered 'progressive'!

WarriorN · 21/06/2021 12:49

The women and girls clothing thing for me is that, although it's getting better, it was so incredibly pink and fluffy and sexist for girls and women. Using certain tag lines, cute kittens etc. Which communicates certain messages among girls and boys actually. The boys was so dull and dark when I shopped for my young son 7-8 yrs ago. Let toys be toys and clothes be clothes obviously highlight that.

The other issue is: I taught a child who had asd in an sen school, a boy, who loved all that stuff, and understandably got very frustrated and confused when "told" he couldn't wear all this stuff when his friend who was a girl, could.

He was really well supported by the Tavi, through teen years, decided was gay, but I believe is now in early 20s medically transitioning.

I noticed his Facebook page which was very public was completely inundated by Pervy blokes, till thankfully someone has helped them to manage privacy settings etc. Thai young person is vulnerable and has learning difficulties. Lovely support from family but I don't know how much this young person understands longer term implications if I'm honest.

There's also the messages being sent to gender nonconforming young women, of course.

I find it hard to untangle all the different issues tbh.

DaisiesandButtercups · 21/06/2021 13:03

@Floisme

and how fashion fools women into spending far more than they need to. See this is exactly why even now, I don't get involved in any real life women's groups and why I still walk away from here occasionally. The disapproval I encountered in the 70s is still there.

For what it's worth, I know perfectly well that I spend more on clothes than I need to. I also spend far more on books than I need to, but no-one ever tells me I'm being fooled into doing that.

But you are aware and know that you are actually choosing this because you genuinely like it.

Many do it unthinkingly even though they aren’t into it. Many feel pressured to do it to be socially acceptable even though they aren’t into it.

My youngest loved clothes and had and interest in hair and make up from a young age and I feared that she had been brainwashed into sexual stereotypes but eventually I had to rethink, she really liked it, it would have been wrong to suppress that in her. There is nothing wrong with liking stereotypically “girly” or “womanly” or “feminine” things. The problem is only being told that you are less of a woman or girl if you don’t like them (or a lesser human being if you do). I have come to view these things and the way she engages with them as a form of art.

There is no doubt in my mind however that it is in the interests of companies to sell us the line that all women must spend their money on fashion, shoes, hair and makeup in order to truly be a woman. It is an easy line to take. Advertising is all about fooling consumers into this way of thinking.

Floisme · 21/06/2021 13:48

Yes I am aware.
No I don't feel guilty - I am very aware of sustainability. I just get tired of it sometimes.

GoingGently · 21/06/2021 13:49

@DaisiesandButtercups it's true. After all, if we're not decorative what's the point of us?

It makes me so sad to see how young girls dress now and plaster their faces in makeup and fillers etc and pose provocatively for insta. I see all these pics of young girls posing porn-style in their bedroom mirrors. It's an aesthetic that comes directly from the exploitative porn industry (via the kardashians) surely? Really wish they'd wake up to that and engage with more feminist thought. Girls just seem to be marketed at and exploited more and more but seem unconscious of it.

Floisme · 21/06/2021 13:54

And by 'tired of it' I mean tired of not being taken seriously because I happen to believe the way we dress can be a fabulous way to express ourselves.
Tired of the assumption that I'm being a sucker.
And a little bit Hmm that this probably wouldn't keep happening to me if only I'd got into quilting instead.

And now I'm walking away from this thread for the time being. Not flouncing - I'll be back - but I've put up with this attitude for 40-odd years and, like I say, I get tired of it sometimes.

MustardRose · 21/06/2021 14:12

My young adult dd didn't see the point in feminism or understand it until she noticed that all the female staff at the hotel/restaurant where she worked were allocated housekeeping roles and waitressing, and all the male staff worked behind the bar. She thought it was odd and didn't much like cleaning hotel bedrooms so asked if she could be bar trained. No, she was told, you haven't got any experience and haven't worked here long enough. She reluctantly accepted that, until her male friend the same age (with no experience) was given a job there, and trained in bar work straight away.

AryaStarkWolf · 21/06/2021 14:21

It's definitely been made in to a dirty word over the last 10/15 years. Man haters, bitter, unattractive. It scares younger women especially off the notion ............great plan eh?

Merchymor · 21/06/2021 14:29

I remember seeing a double page spread in the daily mail emblazoned with 'Feminazi' complete with jackboot and maybe swastikas.

It was on the table in a waiting room.

I couldn't believe my eyes.

midgemagneto · 21/06/2021 14:39

I watched a program about possibly the rise of feminism in America and I would say it's always been a divisive subject with many many women never being feminist

So the question first is

Is feminism less popular than it was at some particular time

334bu · 21/06/2021 14:44

I think we have all been lulled into a false sense of security and have forgotten just how much many men and their handmaidens actually hate women.
The whole debate about " what is a woman" has allowed many men like Owen Jones to legitimise his misogyny and parade it under the banner of progressiveness and inclusion.
Unfortunately, the generations which have grown up believing they can have it all , will soon find themselves included only if they are good girls. The real power dynamic has not changed.

stumbledin · 21/06/2021 14:54

Its interesting reading this thread as it really brings home however much we might see ourselves as individuals, and think our family is its own unit, we are all products of the era we are born into.

So I was influenced without knowing what it was by the impact of women being "sent back into the kitchen" after WWII which is what Betty Friedan's book the Feminine Mystique covered as I saw it in the mother.

And as someone has said, 70s Women's Liberation couldn't have happened without what had gone before. Post war Brittain had so many what are now written off as socialist ideals, influenced by the sacrifices during the war of both those fighting and those at home. NHS, social housing. And a sense that a more equal society was possible. So many of the legal equalities that became law came out of trade unions. Much of what was then mainstream is now seen as radical socialism. Following the Thatcher / Reagan years we are now a far more right wing country politically, though socially conservative.

And on the life choices nobody every really talks the influence of the Beatnik generation who if anybody challenged accepted norms it was them. And following on from them was the whole rebellious 60s hippy left generation. And in fact it was the entrenched misogyny in both of these supposedly anti establishment movements that led to the creation of women's liberation.

And jumping forward, after the male backlash and the idea that women should somehow emulate men, we got the poliferation of pornography as main stream and (another product of queer politics in universities along with "gender") the idea that prostitution was just "sex work". And this of course intensified with the growth in social media, much of it set up by young men, we would now call incels, so that without even thinking the environment we are surrounded by is male dominated but in a way that is taken as the norm, because it is just seen as being part of technological advances.

I cant imagine how younger women, particilarly anyone born after 2000 can not have had it impact on how they see the world and their place in it.

So whichever wave of feminism you were part of or experience around you, the problem was that those taking decisions, implementing new ideas, etc., are 99.9% of the time taken by men. Who are consciously anti woman, but still assume that their view of the world is THE view. Even down to the fact that they dont make, or didn't make, PPE that was suitable for women.

OvaHere · 21/06/2021 15:03

@midgemagneto

I watched a program about possibly the rise of feminism in America and I would say it's always been a divisive subject with many many women never being feminist

So the question first is

Is feminism less popular than it was at some particular time

I'm not it's ever been popular other than with the women that get involved at a grassroots level.

It gets forgotten that everything had to be fought for and that the women doing it were often smeared and derided. Then years later what they did gets taken for granted.

That's why it's a big shock for many that things can go backwards as they are now.

334bu · 21/06/2021 15:08

I also wonder if the constant trend, especially in children's toys and clothes, to force everyone to fulfill a particularly stereotypical role depending on their sex is exacerbating this pushback against feminism .
Get little girls to wear nice frilly dresses and then shame them into wearing shorts underneath if they wish to behave in a more " boyish way" by turning cartwheels.Result girls will stand to.one side and let the boys take over.

dameofdilemma · 21/06/2021 15:13

"Having DC has opened my eyes. Mumsnet has opened my eyes. I don't know how to explain all this to younger women who will see the surface as I did.

If I had remained childless, I don't know that I would've grasped the issues. It's certainly unlikely I would've joined MN."

What stargirl said. With bells on.

Women and girls are often out performing men and boys - at school, on entering the workplace etc. And that's seen as equality.

The reality is very very different.