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?

nn, I do wish you would put your head above that parapet. I can understand that you don't want to get a virtual stoning, but I for one am a reasonable person who is willing to consider another point of view with an open mind, honest!

feminism isn't about criticising women for doing "women's work" - quite the reverse I would think

there we go again banding the word choice

as a woman i do not have the choice to stay at home and cook

as a man neither does my husband.

is there a specialist group for the needs of men? i ask with genuine curiosity not sarcasm.

do we assume the needs of men are met becuase middle class white man make the policy ?

of course there are needs specific to women, men, black white, jew, catholic, mixed race, rich, poor, old young, youth, babies.

but i think its a sad inditement of society that we each need our own corner and that the corners themselves cannot connect to make a whole. i think they miss the point each vieing for limited money and resources. if they each worked together for equality their power would be immense and together they may be able to force change. whilst each corner continues to be seperate they end up fighting each other for decreasing resources and spending far more as individual groups fundraising seperatley whilst agreeing with each others principles.

well written as ever Custy.

A good sentiment custy, but how would your vision of men and women together fighting for equality come about in reality? Change just doesn't tend to come about in that way, does it? Look at the black power movement - that couldn't have been initiated by white people, but it's a cause that white people can support in the interests of bringing about "racial" equality for the benefit of all.

The women's movement doesn't just benefit women. It's not about women gaining superiority over men. Women's efforts to fight discrimination and bring about equality between the sexes benefit both women and men.

SD - I'm not too sure I can think of many situations where men have attracted better rights because of feminism.

I think Custy's argument is just an extention of what I was trying to say the other day at teh start of this thread.

Feminism has led to greater choice for some parts of society, but not all society is in a situation to exercise that choice - therefore it all becomes a bit academic and theoretical if you happen to be in those social groups.

It is perhaps interesting to note that other people in other social classes have greater choice if it makes bugger all difference to the way people lead their everyday lives then it is easy to see why they disengage - or never engage in teh first place.

MB's point about access to contraception is probably something that has made a difference to this social group - however the abortion rate suggests that even there people do not always access it in the way that they might.

I think you only have to note that there is a large section of MN that haven't posted on this thread - why not!

And to reiterate - feminism does still have a lot to achieve to ensure equality - but I think it needs to be rebadged as a gender equality group which also addresses some of the inequalities that affect men too - such as custody rights, flexible working, parental leave, etc etc.

I think there is an even bigger fight on the equality front to be had though - and that is about promoting better access to opportunities for the lower economic classes.

This will be interesting though - as I think some cultural and social behaviours - particularly of men in these social classes will have to fundamentally shift, if progress is to be made!

soapbox, I disagree. If pressure from women can bring about greater flexibility in terms of working hours and conditions and generally a greater emphasis on the importance of the family, then that will indeed benefit men too.

I am saddened that on a forum whose membership is predominantly female, there has been so little response to this question. I don't think the reason for that is that equality has been achieved or that feminism is irrelevant.

SD - well it possibly does, but at the moment not necessarily in a positive way. And again I am posting from my experience and the obvious limitations that imposes

Anmyway, I think that flexible working arrangements have enabled women to manage a career and home and children - if you like to exercise their choice to work and raise a family. However, I think it has enables men to still work prohibitively long hours and to still not pull their weight at home. The more or less tradition pattern now is that women takes flexible working (part time, reduced hours, work from home or combination) so that the man can continue to work more or less as they always have done and so the domestic arrangements still primarly vest with the woman!

I think that someone down the thread said it very well - women have had to take flexible working if they wanted to continue working after children - there is no equivalence that I have seen of men having to take this choice at that point.

I think flexible working has acted as an enabler for women to return to work - but it has made not one whit of a difference ime to what men out there do post having a family! And it f**king irritates me - as you might have guessed

Feminism has benefited men. For instance, unmarried women having access to contraception. Having the option to live together outside marriage. Men having their role as parents recognised - would that have happened if we were still stuck in the '50s? Think not. Parents - not just mothers - of young children having the right to have requests for flexible working considered properly.

sorry soapbox, I know I'm only addressing a part of what you said, but I am reeling with at your apparent assertion that increased equality between the sexes is not beneficial to all!

SD - I've re-read my post and I'm struggling to see how you might deduce that from it!

If you mean that women being able to work their asses off and still have to do primarily all the work around the house etc etc etc benefits men - then I whole heartedly agree with you - but that isn't exactly what I'd define as a deal that makes huge strides forward for women!

It was this: "SD - I'm not too sure I can think of many situations where men have attracted better rights because of feminism."

You wrote that in response to my saying "The women's movement doesn't just benefit women. It's not about women gaining superiority over men. Women's efforts to fight discrimination and bring about equality between the sexes benefit both women and men."

A not unreasonable deduction I think!

Although in fact I wasn't claiming that men had gained rights as a result of feminism, just that increased equality benefits all.

Edam - I'll give you the contraceptive one

The flexible working one - see my earlier post - IME men just don't exercise these rights very often. Why, I don't know - but I suspect it's because they still don't value the homemaker role as highly as the working person role and worry they will get sucked into doing lower value work (in their view).

Quick one but I strongly disagree that feminism only benefits white middle class women, it benefits ALL women, as I said earlier - rape in marriage being illegal, access to contraception, the vote, equal pay (I know, theoretically): these all apply potentially to ALL women. Feminism and its gains are not soley those of the middle classes, absolutely not.

Sorry - I took your post and then went off on a more specific thought train looking for examples of rights (i.e. something they could not have directly done before) that men have acquired as a result of feminism.

I posted a short circuited version of my thought process, I'm afraid

I think it is difficult to determine which changes are societal changes, that would have happened with or without feminism and which changes exist only because of feminism.

However, sometimes on a bad day, I worry that feminism, indirectly, has benefited men far more than it has women!

I have been following this thread with interest but haven't posted as I don't feel I can pull together my thoughts coherently enough to cut the intellectual mustard on the thread . I think I am a bit of a dungaree wearer by nature; I'm horrified at continuing injustices towards women: low rape conviction rate, the media depiction of women and their bodies (Geri Halliwell/Diana when suffering from eating disorders being touted to millions of women as examples of the perfect figure), family unfriendly attitude of so many employers. In terms of where feminism is these days, the thing that most springs to mind to me are the pressure groups such as Southall Black Sisters, Women Against Rape etc.

ah I see!

I think that the feminisation of society (i.e. to redress the balance - not to replace patriarchy) is a long, slow process. It's unreasonable to expect that the legal changes that have occurred as a result of the second wave women's movement will lead to equally rapid attitude shifts. Those holding the position of power will of course be less willing to change. But as I said lower down the thread I do sense that there's a grassroots movement amongst men towards a greater involvement in bringing up their children, a movement away from restricting notions of what it is to be a man. But it's only a small beginning.

WWW- you are right in many ways. However, I would guess that reporting of rape in a domestic situation is still very low and lower in lower socio-economic groupings, many women in lower socio-economic classes don't vote and the abortion rate is still high!

They have more opportunity to equality but still struggle to access it.

However, for all that I would still say that great progress for all has been made!

However, there is now a big disparity between what feminism has achieved for middle class well educated people (many of these are not white IME) and what it has achieved for women in lower economic classes. Most of this disparity is related to being in a position to exercise choice in the work place. Also being able to influence the behaviours of men in their relationships such that they are able to exploit the choices available to them is much harder for this group from what I can see!

From reading this thread, it seems that one of the problems here is that we're not all looking at the same definition of feminism.

Many of us view feminism as this amazing wave of change that has enabled us to live lives our grandmothers couldn't even dream of.

Whilst others see feminism as 'something that happened' 30yrs ago. A hstorical event as it's been called earlier in the thread. Something which in theory has given them choice, but in reality has made little difference other than the fact that they now feel pressured to keep house and work.

I think there's also the 'feminism is a dirty word' viewpoint. Those who equate it with butch, man hating lesbians who want to take over the world and frown upon women who dare to wash their husbands shirts.

It's the same as the Union Jack flag thing. It's our national flag yet it holds all sorts of negative connotations. We associate it with racism, the NF and extreme nationalism. It makes us think of football hooligans and badly behaved holiday makers.

I think we need to get back to basics and consider what the feminist movement was about before it was hijacked by the right-wing press. My grandmother was one of the most intelligent people I had ever met. She has been forced to leave school at 14 as she was the eldest. She married young with no access to contraception and had 8 children, 2 of whom she lost. Feminism never touched her own life yet she was one of the biggest advocators of feminism I knew because she saw the opportunities it afforded her daughters and grandaughters.

Feminism has also brought wider benefits to men and women; everyone who has been treated by a woman doctor, for instance. Every male child who has a home to live in because his mother can get a mortgage or sign a tenancy agreement.

execllent post, homemamma.

I do call myself a feminist. But I do suspect that many other women my age (31) wouldn't (or at least, they wouldn't call themselves a feminist aloud). I think it is quite possibly a generation thing, but possibly due for a revival following the revival of teenage political activism?

I hope so SP!

Soapbox, I see what you're saying but I think that's a discussion about class and socio economic disparity, not about feminism. And whilst I take your point that maybe there's a lower take up rate of voting/reporting of marital rape (is there though? Really? I'm taking your word for it, I haven't checked!) among poorer women, the very fact that women are able to vote and that there are some (not enough but it's a small start) women MPs and that therefore the views of women DO have to be considered since they make up a large proportion of the electorate - albeit not one fully considered since they're not the most powerful proportion economically - does make a difference, surely? Sorry for ridiculously convoluted thoughts and sentence, have dried dd and put ds to bed in between starting this post and pressing post: multi tasking, see?!