Are you a feminist?

[spacedonkey]

I was born in 1968, so I'm one generation on from the 1960s/1970s women's rights movement generation. Growing up I was more focused on hating Thatch than women's issues - it seemed the battle for equality had been won. But it hasn't. And increasingly I find myself reaching for the dungarees, so annoyed do I get about the continuing inequalities women experience (still paid less than men, getting sacked for being pregnant, still doing most of the unpaid work in the home, not to mention the tyranny of "beauty" etc).

Where is feminism these days?

Feminism is in the bottom of a wine glass!

I'm a femamist, my definition being that men and women deserve equal treatment. And as you say it is far from being 'won'.

I was born in 1962 and remember what it was like in the days pre the euql ops act....it isn't good now, but then it was even worse!

There was a thread on this a while ago which was interesting and quite heated. I think a lot of it centred on what you consider feminism to be

aha I missed that one mb

The word "feminist" has become loaded with negative connotations. My definition is simply anyone who wishes to combat inequality on the basis of sex.

Don't know if I would be appropriately labeled as feminist, but I certainly believe in equal rights.

SD, that would be my defiition also. IN the old thread lots of the negative connotations came up

I am old enough to remember girls not being allowed to do wood work etc in school.

I was humiliated by my chemistry teacher almost every lesson for two years because girls didn't 'do' science. You betcher I'm a feminist! I remember what it was like before

I must say that I find it somewhat irritating when women say they are not feminist or don't believe in feminism. I mean it's not even a question of remembering - read some history fgs. and go and look at Loaded or watch the Pussycat dolls and listen to their lyrics and tell me there is no need for feminism anymore.
grrr
so yea I would describe myself as a feminist

It's amazing to think that it was only in the early 1970s that women were "allowed" to take out personal loans in their own names!

Perhaps it's time for a new label, now that the forces of patriarchy have managed to discredit the word "feminist". Equalitarian maybe.

agree with Uwila

just wondering what you think we should do about women doing the work in the house and being unpaid i dont really see who is going to pay us to stay with our children? it would be nice to be paid but how would it work?

mb - can't believe you were born in 62 and science was seen as a no-no for girls? Not when I was at school and that was waaaaaaaaaay before you .

Women are their own worst enemies. I was lucky in that I had a forward thinking mother - housework was always shared in hour house - this from a woman born in 1924!

You only have to listen to some women though - 'oh, I must get back now and get the boys tea' (these boys being well into their 20's!)and doing their kids washing and ironing when they're well capable of doing it for themselves.

I once asked my sil why she was making her ds's sandwiches for work the next day - very stroppy she got 'because I'm his MOTHER!'

oh ok then!

and that's where it starts - at home.

I don't think anyone should be paid to look after their own children. It's hard work, not denying that, but that's life isn't it!

The problem with staying at home to bring up children (do housework etc etc) is not that it's unpaid, but undervalued. I don't want money for it, I just want recognition that it's as positive a contribution to society as going out to do paid work is. Lets face it, lots of people go out to do jobs that aren't exactly necessary to society anyway (i'm just thinking of a friend who worked for a company that made and sold pot figures - y'know, those horrible naff figurines), so I certainly don't consider that everyone that goes out to work is contributing to more to the world than a SAHP.

'hour'? our

My issue with the connotations of the word feminist (not the meanings ascribed to it thus far on this thread) is that some evangelical feminists actually pushed further than equality. They wanted supremacy and to denigrate 'maleness' in the process.

The reason given was that men have ruled womenkind for so long that it's now turn for women to rule men.

I think the whole backlash that followed, was terrifying for men. Perhaps it needed to be to even start to redress the balance. But it certainly harmed the cause of those 'feminists' who saw equality as a goal, not supremacy.

I prefer therefore to think of myself as being a post-feminist

In terms of the substance of the argument, then I think society has come a long way, in some social classes further than others.

In my social class, I now have complete freedom to choose whether to have children, whether to work, to have paid help around the house, whether to go to university etc etc etc. In my personal experience I have been able to have a family and be successful in my chosen career. The burden for making that happen has fallen more or less equally on my DH and I, so choosing the right partner was pretty key to making it all work out!

In other social classes, I don't think it is at all clear cut. I'm not sure that in the D and E social classes feminism has advanced the rights of women much at all. They still seem to have the majority burden of childcare, working for crap wages, domestic chores, keeping the whole family out of debt etc etc, this hasn;t changed much at all over the generations.

One advancement however, is that education is available for women of all classes to take up, and can be life changing potentially. However, some children are not in a social situation where being expected to work at all, is the norm so perhaps it is harder for people in this situation to see the benefits of a good education - male or female!

I suppose in summary what I am trying to say, is that equality of opportunity for women is about far more than feminism, it is as much to do with social class and the expectations that are set by society and our role in that society. Until we address some of the social issues that lead to a povery of opportunity for both sexes then feminism on it's own can not address the issues of female opportunity fully.

lovemygirls, I think there are signs that society is changing in terms of men and women starting to take more equal responsibilities in terms of the work of looking after children and the home - legal changes re paternity leave seem to reflect this, but I get the impression that there's the beginnings of a grassroots movement by men who want to be a greater part of their children's lives, and that's a great thing. But there's a hell of a long way to go yet.

Spacedonkey - I like that term! Feminism is a term that has negative connotations akin to hating all men (even your sons!) and burning bras, and that's not a philosophy I subscribe to.

I just want to be treated as an equal. I have my views of the world, educated and otherwise, and reserve the right to air them without fear of being patronised or assumed its the time of the month. I want to be paid an equal wage for an honest day's work. That means that I, as an experienced administrator with a fast typing speed and brain for business, would like to be paid the same as any man doing a similar job with similar skills. I also want the same job opportunities as men and I reserve the right not to be patronised at interview by questions regarding my son's day care! Yes Royal Mail and Sita, you should be ashamed of yourselves! I wonder if my now ex partner would have been asked the same questions had he been interviewed for the same job?! Definately not, so don't bloody well ask me! And partnerships. I also reserved the right to tell my now ex partner to shove it where the sun doesn't shine (and that's polite) when he said that I clean the bathroom so much better than he does, and I do the ironing so much better and faster than he. Do these dinosaurs honestly think we were taken aside at high school and taught how to best iron a shirt and a box pleated skirt whilst they were learning the finer points of macro and micro economics?! That as well as being taught how to give the perfect blow job and spit without it being obvious?!

Sorry for the last one but as you can probably gather it's a subject that I feel very strongly about, and just for the record it's not my time of the month either!

LOL tuppence!!

You're right about the ironing, washing etc - do they think we are stupid?!

Couldn't agree with you more tuppenceworth! Sadly your experiences are nothing unusual

It really makes me want to cry though. I once got kicked out of an English lesson (in 1994) for sticking up for women's rights. All I was saying was that it was wrong that contraception always came down to the woman even though the man played a part in it too. And if men didn't want to have a baby with the woman he was having sex with then it was his responsibility to do something about it, to control his fertility by using a condom.

in 1994?

the one line some men come out with that i hate is "i've done the washing up for you" (my dp knows not to say that to me ever)
i am now a sahm and he goes out to work, when he comes home he helps with whatever else needs doing i dont see why he should sit down before i do, my day doesnt have a cut off time........

well said TPW!! i agree entirely which is why we used the withdrawel method for 2 years because i wouldnt go on the pill because i wanted to have a baby and he didnt so i said he could sort it out and being a man he didnt sort anything out was just lucky (for him) i didnt get pregnant before the time that we agreed.

The sad fact is that being a SAHM carries no social status and the only thing that will change that is when enough men become SAHDs and it is thus no longer seen as women's work.

Spacedonkey - I kid you not! In 1994!

And martianbishop - let your chemistry teacher stick this one up his pipe and smoke it - I'm training to be a science teacher!! Shock horror!!

Ooooh, when I was at school in the early 80s, girls were not allowed to do technical drawing, woodwork or metalwork. My A level economics teacher used to dismiss the girls (about half the class) half way through the lesson "because this bit's far too difficult for you to understand, and there's no point in you even trying." Unsurprisingly, none of us passed (and he got the sack for molesting a 12 year old, I believe).

I work for an organisation in which the support staff (secretaries, clerks) is 98% female. The other side of the office (the directors, the people who do the thinking stuff) is 95% male and 75% of them are over 50. "Essential qualifications" are often waived for the men, but for the women? Don't get me started...!