What is feminism?

[Happylittlechicken]

After spending a few days on the feminist boards I’m now more confused than ever about what feminism is. I always thought feminism was the fight for women to achieve parity with men, to break free of the shackles of gender stereotypes and become the very best they could be. Supporting all females in their choices of how they wish to live their lives and smashing the patriarchy.

Apparently not. When feminism includes and centres males, how can it be feminism? I don’t mean feminists should denigrate or abuse men, or put men down, but it is not women’s job to centre men in their lives. Why should women be expected to support and nurture men. How many times on international womens day have we seen “but what about the men”? I’ve seen women turn on other women for “not doing feminism properly because they don’t include males”. I’ve seen “feminists” argue that sex is irrelevant in womens fight for rights, and we should focus on gender. Instead of smashing gender norms, these feminists want women to embrace them, and declare anyone who subscribes to those stereotypes Is a woman, and if you don’t…. Are you really a woman?

Should read - will come over in the tone of posts

As per my original post that's generally how the mumsnet threads go

Thank you 😊

So be the change you want to see. Maybe we can discuss how men can change to uplift and support women? How men can support women who need things and spaces separate from men. Maybe we can start with 10 things men can do to help women achieve their goal of parity with men.

What interests me is how people see hate which is entirely absent, I assume because they have been primed to look for it.

I see accusations of various things where there is at most an absence of respect.

What's that phrase about people feeling the removal of their privilege as an attack? Whereas it's actually a levelling of the field.

I don't respect the genderist arguments. I was told in all seriousness by a young woman subjecting herself to radical experimental treatment that it was ok, because trans people's life expectancy is only 30 due to suicide, so it's better she take testosterone and save for a hysterectomy and mastectomy, even with long term complications, as there wouldn't be a long term without them.

I will not respect anyone pushing that agenda on a child. I will only respect those who ensure she has a full understanding of what she is doing.

Feminism is the act of working towards a society wherein women are fully valued for their own sake and there are no obstacles - economic, political, educational, religious, cultural - to women realising their fullest potential. Where the differences between the sexes are acknowledged but where women’s reproductive capacity is no longer the basis of their oppression, and where cultural stereotypes of gender are no longer used as the mechanism to enact that oppression. Feminism strives to achieve this in a number of ways, both practical and ideological. Single-sex spaces are one example of making practical accommodations which allow more women to participate more fully in society, by providing women safety, dignity and privacy especially in situations where they are more likely to be vulnerable.

(There is an argument that society as it is now is too inherently patriarchal and misogynistic to ever be able to achieve parity for women by working within its structures, and the only way to reach feminism’s goals is to demolish it and start again.)

Feminism is under no obligation to centre any other defined group of people beyond women. No other social justice movement is expected to accommodate people outwith the characteristic(s) of that movement, or to put its own concerns behind that of other groups.

Feminism ceases to be feminism the moment it includes or centres men, however they identify, in the group it is working to raise up. Men as a sex class are the oppressors of women as a sex class. Again, no other group of oppressed people fighting for social justice is expected to welcome, fete and centre the voices of representatives from
among their oppressors into their movement.

Someone may call themselves a feminist but if they allow, encourage or support men, however they identify, to talk over women, to redefine womanhood, to police women’s language, to take spaces allocated to women, they are no feminist and no friend to women and they may as well call themselves a glockenspiel.

For me the “outcome” of feminism, when it is “completed”… woman and men live equally together and cooperate together in a society we build together. My goal is not to destroy manhood or something.

The reality is that this will never happen.

The problem is, that men are systematically centred and asking them to only have half of stuff seems to them to be 'less than' they think they deserve and this in turn generates more anger and violence towards those they see as 'taking' away resources meant for them.

Not all men, but studies that look at even things like 'time spent talking' show that when men allow women to talk for even half the time, they feel like they have been talking the whole time. And they get mad about it.

Feminism is about trying to encourage the whole of society to understand that females are also humans and deserve the ability to have half the things. Whether it is food, time talking, purchases, safety, money, resources, education, etc.

“The reality is that this will never happen.”

Ah, I think it will. Not in our or our daughters lifetimes but I believe it will come about one day so long as we keep passing the torch and making progress. When you look at how far we women have come, there is no reason why we cannot eventually get to full equality with men.

Great post

How far we have come?

Which planet are you talking about?

This planet. Surely you realise that our mothers and nans were in a less equal world than the one we are in?

So many amazing posts @BenCoopersSupportWren @AlisonDonut Thankyou. I am so so glad I found these boards. I’m learning so much.

Women and girls across this actual planet are murdered for not wearing the right fabric over their heads.

And? That was more widespread in our mothers and nan’s days than it is now. In fact it in many places it was also considered correct and right to do. Do you seriously think that there was some golden age in living memory or history where women had it better than we do?

Interesting how you chose not only to ignore male violence, but turn it into women do it too.

Also, I said nothing about destroying manhood, whatever that means, that came from your imagination.

Men can choose to become better, be better, start treating women and girls with respect, I’m all for it. Sadly, for the mist part, they choose not to.

So, that’s why I’m pro-women (I don’t like the word feminist, too many pick-me’s and male identifying women, they’ve ruined the meaning) to support women and girls to become more independent and not to center men anymore in their lives. Freedom from men, from catering to them etc.

What hate?

Let’s do a quick compare Alison on a few elements.

My Nan at age 21- had no right to vote, no universities were allowing women to get degrees- only certificates, no right to an abortion, no reliable contraception. Once married she could not even open a bank account or take out an loan unless it was joint with her husband. Her husband could rape her their entire lives and it wasn’t rape. She was paid half what men were paid for the same job (that was the pay gap then). Once married, she was sacked and it was legal to sack pregnant/married women as well as refuse to hire them.

My mum at 21- had the right to vote, could get a Uni degree, did not have the right to an abortion, access to reliable contraception in her 30s. Once married she could open a bank account but not take out a loan without her husbands permission. Her husband could rape her and it wasn’t rape until she was in her 60s. She was paid 75% of what men were paid for the same job. She could keep her job while married, but wouldnt be promoted and once she had children most employers would simply pick another applicant.

Me at 21- right to vote, could get a Uni degree, had right to an abortion, had access to reliable contraception. Can do banking and loans in my own name even if married. My husband could rape me, and it wasn’t rape for the first few years of our marriage as the law didn’t change until the mid1990s. I was paid 80%- 85% of what a man was paid for the same job. I kept my job once married and also once a mother, although I was passed over for promotions due to continuing stigma.

Worldwide it’s obviously different but the overall trend is one of progress for women’s rights. For example, my SIL’s grandmother was one of the last women who had her feet bound (China), and was literally sold for cash to be a concubine (sex and house slave).

I can guarantee you that AlisonDonut does not think there was a golden age in the past when women had it better than now! She's quite simply pointing out that, bar a few areas, the treatment of women across the world is not so far away from what it historically has been. The illusion of significant progress.

Today is miles away really from the historical facts of how women were treated in the past. Yes a few countries have had progress and then regressed (ie Afghanistan, Iran), but they are the exception to the overall trend. To pretend that it’s just as bad or not far off as bad as even two generations ago is minimising what our female ancestors lived through.

Ok, well I don't agree that pointing out that progress is slow, fragile and far from complete is to diss my female ancestors. Far from it. We should always be aware of how quickly things can change, the pandemic being a recent example.

And with this trend comes, as I mentioned it before, a backlash for example in the USA where they object to women having rights so they bring in legislation barring women from abortions.

In some countries, women are jailed for life if they miscarry.

I'm an old biddy. In the UK, white middle class women who can afford to go to uni do get a better life. But rape is practically legal in the UK now.

Don't for one minute think we can rest assured and pat ourselves on the back that 'we did it ladies'. We are far from it.

I think some people here are way to “destracted” by a hand full of transactivists. I know several trans people and none of them has such extreme ideas which are often posted here.

it is not a distraction. There are a handful of literal trans people with honest to goodness gender dysphoria and they need all the mental health support they can have.

Everyone else? I am sure there are a thousand motivations for men to say they are a woman and have access to everything that women have fought for for generations. That isn't a tiny hand full. And these TRAs are punching women in the head and fracturing their skulls. Or doxing them or hoping they die in a deep-fat fire.

And this "tiny hand full" are dictating how the NHS works, how the police work, how education works, and how companies can have a chap on their board who says "I'm a woman" and BAM! they're diverse and no women need apply thanks. Not to mention sport.

This is actually anti-feminism. It is taking away equality of opportunity as well as equality of outcome (I'm all about opportunity)

Where women and men had their own spaces, now men have spaces and women have spaces with men in them too. That is anti-feminism.

I have fought long and hard at work to be recognised for what i do, what i want to achieve and where I will end up. (male dominated industry) Only for a man in a management position to declare himself a woman and say "i don't know what you're whining about, I'm a woman in management". (yes. it happens) and the industry leaders to pat themselves on the back because, diversity.

Women are discriminated against because of their sex. Sex selective abortions of female foetuses. Infantacide of girl babies. A life of drudgery for so many women and girls. Barred from education. And if we look closer to home (so so so many threads here) of the precariousness of unmarried women whose partner ups and leaves them high and dry with no job, no pension, no savings and a couple of kids. Married women that the same happens to. Women in poverty at pensionable age scrabbling around to save money to afford heating or eating and still having to work in advanced age because of structural discrimination against women. And so on and so on

but a "tiny hand full" of TRAs are distracting from all that by either punching elderly women or identifying as women without all the downsides. I notice they don't generally identify into caring responsibilities, cleaning jobs, etc etc.

The US and abortion legislation shows how precarious some of those rights are.

It’s a very white / middle-class / Eurocentric view to claim significant process. In the UK today, black women are still many times more likely than white women to die in childbirth, to use just one (pretty horrendous) example.

Absolutely

When Margaret Attwood wrote The Handmaids Tale she said that every way and mechanism used to keep women (and any other person who challenged the way of Gilead) wa something already happening in the world

for me it all comes down to a sex and class discussion.
You can't have feminism without talking about class as well as sex, and you also must - as the previous post shows - also examine factors of race too.

Feminism isn't easy, and it has nuance. But it should centre women and girls. It should be looking for good outcomes, at least as good as everyone else gets, for women and girls.

Why do we have so many young women with ADHD? because (finally) the medical professions have realised that it presents differently in girls. Same for autism and heart attacks.

It comes down to things like how public transport works and when. How companies arrange their meetings (always during the school run? in the evening? that impacts parents, and we all know that this disproportionately affects women). It comes down to how we care for our elders and other family members. And who does that care?

When Birmingham city council did their study and rebanded lots of jobs, so that things like care home workers (disproportionally women) and refuse workers (disproportionally men) could be paid "equally" according to their band, the women were found to be earning less and so their wages were raised. woo hoo. Except that then the women were blamed for the council having to make cuts, to cover the wages shortfall, and they were criticised for being greedy. The council could, of course, have lowered the men's wages but that was a step too far! they have families to feed, women earn pin money. ETC ETC

And in all the furious discussions about that no men i saw were saying "well working in a care home can be hard physical work" and queuing up to do adult personal care. But being a refuse collector was hard dirty work that women don't want to do.

Tl;dr. Feminism should always centre women and girls.