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?

Not it’s not a white/middle class/euro centric view to claim significant progress for the equality of women. Only someone who isn’t clued up on world history would say that. And yes, some of the rights are precarious and yes progress isn’t linear, there are periods of regression. But that doesn’t mean the overall trend isn’t one of progress or that significant progress hasn’t been made.

Yes, black women are more likely to die in childbirth than white women in the U.K. but that doesn’t mean significant progress hasn’t been made in terms of women’s rights and equality. Differences between different ethnicities of women is more of a racial equality issue than a women’s equality issue anyway.

I’ve never claimed that women currently have equality, I have only objected to the comment saying that equality for women “will never happen”.

That’s not what Alison said though. She said that equality “will never happen” and your initial posts also did not say that. You said that today is “not far off” from the historical rights of women when that is clearly not only an extremely pessimistic reading of the progress to date, but does minimise what our female ancestors lived through.

I think it's fair enough for people to be pessimistic about whether true equality will ever be possible. It certainly wont happen in my lifetime. Nothing about that minimises what my female ancestors went through, though I appreciate that's your feelings about it.

I don’t think it is a linear line upwards for everyone… and it might differ throughout different places in the world. In the seventies women in some Arabic countries had more freedom then they have now.

I live in the Netherlands and i do think we are slightly ahead of the Uk in some things as i look at threads here. (Better health care for women, affordable childcare, care for single mothers). Loads of interesting cultural differences too.. like dignity… we just don’t “do “ dignity i guess. Sometimes it is used as a synonym for virginity. In some religious families it is very important to keep your dignity when you’re not married!… so to me its more associated with the oppression of womens’ sexuality then that it is with the their liberation.

Yes, progress is not linear. In a few places there have been or are periods of regression. But significant progress is absolutely there on a global scale. It’s not just for Europe/White/middle class women as another poster disingenuously suggested.

Ok. And similarly it is fair enough for me to be optimistic about our prospects?

Sometimes it is used as a synonym for virginity.

What’s wrong with being/remaining a virgin?
No reason to stigmatize virginity.

agree! That’s something i really miss here, some positivity to cling on to. There’s just this vast amount of negativity every day. Positive things do happen and we need to be aware of them too… because they are inspiring and give us energy to continue!

A little bit of me does believe real and absolute equality will never happen because men have too much to lose to allow it.

Nothing wrong if you want to be a virgin by your own choice. But is wrong if you are being forced to do so. And it is wrong if you are lead to believe that you are “less” worthy because you are not a virgin any more outside of marriage.

how easy is it to be positive when you read that in a US state (IOWA? can't remember which one) the OB/GYNs are leaving in droves because they are worried that any healthcare they give to a pregnant woman that may or may not be the cause of a subsequent miscarriage will lead to jail time?

Or that in the States pharmacists are completely legally allowed to deny the MAP because of their religion? Or that Afghan women are forbidden from receiving care by a male doctor but they are also not allowed to school university so that pretty soon there won't be any female ones? Or that rape victims can't guarantee women-only support groups? Or to hear that the gender pay gap (stripping out part-time work and "female" professions) is still 9%?

I read alot of history and I’ve talked to my elders to gain the perspective I have.
Sometimes we can get so caught up by how far we still have to go, that it helps to turn around and look behind us at how far we have come.

My mother got fired when she was pregnant of me. Because mothers shouldn’t have jobs, they just had to make dinner and clean the house. That was only 40 years ago! Gender pay gap of 100% !

My grandmother was send to work in a factory at 11. She never learned to read or write properly, wasn’t necessary.
I am not saying we’re there yet… but I do see progression thank god.

I got fired (illegally) around 25 years ago when i got pregnant. Luckily with the law on my side i managed to at least get paid until maternity pay (not in UK) kicked in.

I read alot of history and I’ve talked to my elders to gain the perspective I have.

well i do too. I'm not young though. I have 40 years in the working world (mostly in male dominated industries) to look back on. And i can see the progress has been slow. But right now? it feels like 2 steps forward and 1.5 steps back.

That doesn't stop me doing my part though.

Of course there's progress. However pessimistic one can be, it's clear there has been progress. But it is incredibly recent in terms of human history. It's fragile, it's patchy, it's non-linear, it's not inevitably heading towards a better future. You can see eg in the US how quickly things can change if those in power decide it's not in their interests.

I’m not young either…I’m in my 50s. I agree we all need to keep doing our bit even though we won’t be around to see the finish line because many gains are fragile for the first half century or so.

“Slow” or “fast” progress is always inherently subjective. To me, like you it feels slow measured by my lifetime but the more I zoom out, the faster it looks when I view progress over multiple generations, centuries or millennia.

And yes, the backward steps can really be disheartening. Always wanted to leave a better world for my daughter and grand-daughters and some days, at my lowest, I do wonder if that’s going to be the case. I can empathise with the women in Afghanistan on this because that is definitely what is happening to them…twenty years progress erased overnight by the Taliban.

I do get angry when people suggest feminism is done, the battle won, because it’s obviously not the case that we have full equality yet.

have been in The Other Place and there was this comment:

What do you do if your kid is distressed because they don't think they fit the stereotypes well enough. Seems to me the kindest best and most honest answer is screw the stereotypes you're perfect just as you are and don't need to live up anyone's ideas of what men/women have to be like.

and i just want to cry. Because this is pretty much the fight i had as a kid (not with my parents who treated us both the same and let us have any interests/clothes we liked). But blow me. 50 years later and it is the same flippin' "argument".

Ok, good.

I guess non-virgins don’t have to worry aboit that anymore, though.
These days it’s the other way around.
If some is a virgin it’s a open fire of insults and bullying.

If you ask a male with a trans identity why he “feels like a woman” it’ll usually be “I liked dolls and girls clothes so I must be a girl”. Why can a boy not like dolls and wear more feminine clothing and still be a boy? Why must a girl who likes toy cars and dirt bikes be a boy?

my dad was a career soldier in a forward regiment, roughty-toughty type. My mum, unlike most of the other wives on our married patch, always worked (drawing office). He was often home earlier and always got on the dinner, helped with homework and did all the things. Not exactly revolutionary, but in the early-mid-70s and in that environment? unusual. At weekends i did woodwork with him, helped him on his car. My brother learned to bake. My mum built me a pushbike with parts they picked up from a dump, my bro and dad did gardening.

Due to all the balls they went to my mum, as so many women did then, made her own ball dresses and sewed pretty much all her and my clothes. I had a hand machine and sewed things for my teddies. I never played with dolls. My brother, fed up with waiting for me to make things (for his teddies, for his action man), learned to sew too.

Lots of words to say: nobody in my family adhered completely to gender stereotypes. And it never occurred to us that we were odd or not girls/boys and we were no different from millions of other families. With no need to push me into being a boy or my brother into being a girl. We grew up with David Bowie FFS!

Yeah, they're real problems....for a tiny minority of the population.

I mean, what percentage of women end up in prison even without being housed with a transwoman (who in reality will be in a totally separate wing)?

It's certainly not even a fraction of the number of women who face discrimination at work, healthcare issues, etc. Or those stuck under oppressive regimes like the Taliban.

Of course it shouldn't be ignored and people can care about several issues at once, but really the whole transactivist thing is all online. 99% of women wouldn't even know about it were it not for the Internet. I've only seen about five transwomen in the last few years and certainly none in toilets/changing rooms.

I'm increasingly starting to feel like it's a drum to beat for predominantly white middle class feminists without any real hardship in real life. I mean how many women really worry about transwomen in toilets while going about their daily life? Certainly not as many as worry about domestic abuse etc. I'd almost guarantee it's not top of the list for most WOC, for instance.

So well said 👏
I agree with most of the issues raised re trans (ie in sports etc) but the using th toilets or changing rooms is so OTT. Especially given you're in your own cubicle, and the fact so many toilets are becoming unisex anyway.

Of course it shouldn't be ignored and people can care about several issues at once, but really the whole transactivist thing is all online. 99% of women wouldn't even know about it were it not for the Internet. I've only seen about five transwomen in the last few years and certainly none in toilets/changing rooms.

Just because it's not reality for you doesn't mean it's not reality for many women.

In the last few years I've dealt with a trans woman in a shelter for women. Male pattern behaviour and a lot of very unhappy women. I've dealt with a very very mentally unwell trans woman who was creating havoc for the people around and insisted on only female staff attending. It was very unsafe for female staff. I refused to send only female staff and interestingly, although everyone was using the right pronouns and being kind, no one disagreed and they all looked relieved. Very emperor's new clothes.

I am at the sharp end. I am in right-on central dealing with really difficult situations. I also have people who think we're bugging them and the walls are talking. The difference is I don't have to pretend that the walls are talking too. Well, only therapeutically. I'm expected to pretend delusional people aren't delusional (and I don't mean that rudely) if they say they are the opposite sex.

So you’re saying vulnerable women in prisons, DV shelters and rape crisis support should just suck it up? Wow! So because most women don’t end up in those places, it’s not a problem? Do you want to tell them that?
you mentioned domestic abuse. So a woman fleeing from her abuser, traumatised by males, gets sent to a “female only” centre but there are males there claiming to be women. This happened to the women in Leeds where a violent male was housed with then because he claimed he was a woman. If she complains, she is kicked out. So her choice is leave or live in trauma.
So go on, explain how the trans issues don’t affect her.

a rape survivor, again traumatised by males goes to a “female only” support group, but it turns out males claiming to be women are there. She asks for a female only group and is excluded from the service. This happened in Brighton. So explain how trans issues don’t affect rape survivors.

@Mamaneedsadrink @StepAwayFromTheBiscuitJar

Maybe very few women are affected by men in women's prisons, and rape shelters.
Sports it's rather more as for each podium place all the women following have been shoved down a place not just the one. It only takes one man in sport for all Women in that sport to be affected- and all the women in the changing room.

Perhaps you are prepared to accept that.

What about schools? What about the children on unnecessary medication being sterilised in the name of this so called ability to change sex?

And how do you think we can tackle all the things you think are more important, if we can no longer define and analyse 'woman' correctly?

If data is no longer accurate, how do we address the pay gap? If men are mothers, how do we know the impact of pregnancy on a woman's career?