Mumsnet Logo
My feed
Premium

Please
or
to access all these features

Feminism: chat

What are the top three issues facing women today (uk)

110 replies

Sittinginthesand · 21/06/2021 16:10

I think it’s the fact that the word ‘woman’ is being framed as shameful. Closely followed by our over sexualised society and the continued existence of the glass ceiling. Unfortunately 1 makes the other two harder to measure and fight - especially if we can’t discuss it.

OP posts:
Report

MoonlightApple · 21/06/2021 16:17

  1. Women as a biological sex is apparently an opinion now

2. The imbalance created by maternity/paternity work policies and the cost of childcare
3. Social conditioning of girls to be nice, pretty and to not make a fuss.
Report

HeadNorth · 21/06/2021 16:20

  1. Male violence against women

2. Pension poverty for older women
3. The need to care for an increasingly frail and aging population and the societal burden and expectation falling on women's shoulders (this is linked to 2.)
Report

OneEpisode · 21/06/2021 16:22

I don’t think we’ve quite worked out where new people come from? There is lots of people asserting “the right to have a child”, which isn’t always a right that’s consistent with the good of the environment, the exploited pregnant women in surrogacy/egg donation nor the children.
Then there isn’t a clear right to good child care- income for the sahp, or a long term career path for childcare workers.

Report

ArabellaScott · 21/06/2021 16:24

If you can't describe sex, you can't fight sexism.

If you can't describe 'woman', you can't fight for women's rights.

If women can't openly discuss the issues that they want to discuss, they are being silenced.

Report

MarshaBradyo · 21/06/2021 16:24

  1. We should be able to use woman freely and retain its biological meaning

2. Girls and visual social media pressures
3. Female sports etc including males
Report

MarshaBradyo · 21/06/2021 16:26

Ah I have to add male aggression and violence against women irl and online

Report

lazylinguist · 21/06/2021 16:28

  1. The attacks on the definition of the word 'woman' and on female spaces

2. Violence and abuse by men towards women in relationships
3. The effects of porn and social media on the way that men and boys view women and girls
Report

LumpySpacedPrincess · 21/06/2021 16:29

The retention to describe ourselves as a sex, without this we have nothing for ourselves.

Male violence towards women, online, on the streets, in our homes.

Women's workload and unpaid labour.

Report

purpleboy · 21/06/2021 16:29

I struggled to choose a top three there are too many.

Currents trans movement (this covers many areas)
Male violence against women
Porn soaked society

Report

OldTurtleNewShell · 21/06/2021 16:31

It's a good question. Number one is clearly male violence but without being acknowledge who is or who isn't male, it makes it that much harder to even start the conversation.

Report

IheartJKR · 21/06/2021 16:31

  1. Male violence against women

2. The roll back of women’s rights throughout the world.
3. Transgender ideology.
Report

Pumperthepumper · 21/06/2021 16:32

Male violence

Sexualisation and pornography

Lack of bodily autonomy.

Report

PaleBlueMoonlight · 21/06/2021 16:32

  1. Attempted removal of the words and concepts women need to describe their existence, experiences and rights and the promotion of this as a good (and kind) thing

2. Drive to normalise exploitation of the female body as a good thing (the rise of pornography and surrogacy, the attempt to rebrand prostitution)
3. Women having to fight to retain women’s spaces and services due to onslaught of ideological demands from some transgender activists and how this is negatively impacting on women’s and feminist time available and ability to focus on the real issues that they want to be working on (DV, economic insecurity, isolation, FGM, forced marriage etc etc’)
Report

Helleofabore · 21/06/2021 16:32

-Violence against women and girls (including the abuse of women who are fighting for single sex spaces)
-Who is covered by Women's rights and protections and ensuring that the sexist discrimination against women in sports, health, employment and education is protected against. This is a really big and broad issue.
-Making sure that women receive the support they need to feed and educate their children by being supported in flexible work environments and adequate support nets.

Report

Datun · 21/06/2021 16:36

There appears to be a very pervasive, insidious backlash against women.

For instance, under every article about the current horror concerning rape statistics and the lack of convictions, you get a disproportionate number of people claiming women lie.

One woman lying appears to give many the impression that it's commonplace. We seem to be in an era where people are very quick to blame women for all sorts of things.

And the contrast between what happens to women when they speak up, and what happens to men is stark.

I've said this before, but I genuinely believe that feminism should be taught in schools. I can't see any downside to it whatsoever.

It's a pipe dream, because patriarchal society doesn't want feminism to succeed. The backlash is so strong, that the very concept of what constitutes a woman can not only be decided by a man, but women are threatened if they disagree.

Report

PicsInRed · 21/06/2021 16:37

  1. Dehumansation of women (if it isn't human, it's easier to kill, imprison, exploit, torture)

2. Decriminalisation of rape
3. Removal of bodily rights (pregnancy medical care, childbirth, abortion, drinking in pregnancy)

All of the above wears a path back towards the re-coverture of women and the removal of our equitable legal and financial rights. Only 150 years of progress need to be erased for our position to become dire.
Report

lazylinguist · 21/06/2021 16:37

I've said this before, but I genuinely believe that feminism should be taught in schools. I can't see any downside to it whatsoever.

Hear hear. I'm ashamed to say that has actually never occurred to me, and I'm a teacher.

Report

Ostryga · 21/06/2021 16:38

The top 3 issues facing women are men.

Report

WoolOfBat · 21/06/2021 16:38

  1. Sex-based direct and indirect discrimination at work. This is based on women taking maternity leave and having the main child care responsibility. It leads to a pay gap and pension poverty.


2. Male aggression, harassment and violence. This is sexbased as well and cannot be identified out if. It occurs real life and online where women are objectified, told to be quiet, sexually harassed, hit, abused and in some cases murdered.

3. Erosion of the sex based word “woman” and attempt to replace it with a gender based word. Should this succeed it will be impossible to measure any occurrence under 1 and 2. In addition, biological males (regardless of how they identify) in biological women’s spaces increases the risk of violence and harassment. Males in women’s sports makes the whole sex based category useless.
Report

CthulhuChristmas · 21/06/2021 16:39

In no particular order: male violence against women, online pornography, genderist ideology.

Report

InspiralCoalescenceRingdown · 21/06/2021 16:39

I'd put male violence at the top (including prostitution), followed by the attack on women by TRAs. There are way too many things for third place.
Porn, women doing unpaid labour, maternity issues, harassment of women online...

Report

MildredPuppy · 21/06/2021 16:42

Violent pronography.
Access to healthcare
Housing

Report

AssassinatedBeauty · 21/06/2021 16:45

Pretty much what @WoolOfBat said.

Report

parietal · 21/06/2021 16:47

Violence against women & the culture around it
Porn
Failure of prosecution of violence against women

Report

Datun · 21/06/2021 16:48

@PicsInRed

1. Dehumansation of women (if it isn't human, it's easier to kill, imprison, exploit, torture)
2. Decriminalisation of rape
3. Removal of bodily rights (pregnancy medical care, childbirth, abortion, drinking in pregnancy)

All of the above wears a path back towards the re-coverture of women and the removal of our equitable legal and financial rights. Only 150 years of progress need to be erased for our position to become dire.

Yes pics! I'd completely forgotten about the drinking pregnancy shite.

I know there is a backlash, and a real desire to corral women into easy to manage cohorts, but that takes the absolute biscuit.

There was a woman, I believe on Twitter, who did a bit of analysis, and lo and behold, the detriment to society perpetrated by drunken men, is massively higher than that of pregnant women to their babies.
Report
Please create an account

To comment on this thread you need to create a Mumsnet account.

Sign up to continue reading

Mumsnet's better when you're logged in. You can customise your experience and access way more features like messaging, watch and hide threads, voting and much more.

Already signed up?