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?

SD - perhaps I am biased as I still have one friend who bangs on and on about how useless men are and how women are by far the superior race - and she means it!

It's incredibly boring to listen to and actually as narrow minded and bigoted as racism and homeophobia!

I think with any attempt to change society, there has to be a bit of a revolution. I think the anti-male line was an attempt to create this revolution, and as such some high profile feminists went along with the media portrayal of their cause, on the basis that headlines of any kind were good!

I think there is still a place for a more moderate form of feminism. I think for many of us though, the biggest way in which we can force change is to act like role models for our children. So that the attitudes our children grow up with are much more equal that those we saw as children!

Incidentally Soapbox, I thought your first poast on this thread was very good.

Don't get me started on Fathers4Justice! Bunch of tossers, angry that they don't call all the shots in their ex partner's and children's lives any more! A few good men amongst them who have a real grievance and who want to be proper fathers, but mostly a bunch of anarchistic twerps using the guise of wanting more paternal access to cause trouble for the rest of us.

I honestly believe that if the trainer was on the other foot they wouldn't give a monkey's!

Devil's advocate alert

Ah but what would the outcry be if men were almost always given custody of their children and not women?

Rational assessment now!!!

I think we will soon reach the stage when we are just a little further along the making equality a reality, where the custody arrangements for children will be more equally applied. I would imagine by the time our children have childen that custody, will almost always be shared between parents.

soapbox i'm surprised at your take on this. the reason feminists were dismissed as man hating nutters had far less to do with any man hating they were doing and far more to do with the fact that they were challenging the male dominated status quo and historically mockery has always been used as a way of stifling female dissent. it's in the same ballpark for me as the caricature of the hairy chinned spinster on the shelf who is probably lesbian: a great way of mocking the status of being a woman that chooses not to marry or have children.

i am a feminist. i am utterly dismayed by the numerous women in my acquaintance who feel that men and women are now equal and that feminism is obsolete (not saying you are one of these women sb btw).

To go back to the original question, yes of course I do. And actually I think there's a hell of a long way to go yet.

yes I am

Thanks Soph, you said it much more clearly than I could have!

Sophable- I suppose I am equally surprised that I am the only person to have had the pants bored off my by several men-hating 'feminists' over the years!

And certainly you are right, the move towards real equality has only just started in my view. There is a long long road to travel yet, particularly once you move out of the chattering classes!

just get pg at work and expect humane treatment to see how far men and women are still considered unequal

Rebecca West said "I myself have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is: I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat." I am a feminist, absolutely. We've got a long way to go imo.

The reason for the 'anti male' bias at the start of feminism is that men had made the laws, and had put women at a position of inferioroity under the law. As others had posted until the 70s a woman could not take out a loan without her husbands permission. It was legal (and the norm btw) to pay women less when they were doing an identical job to that of men. There was little justice when it came to divorse settlements until the law was changed. Most of these laws were made prior to women getting the vote, women were being governed by laws which they had not made.

nice quote www

sb haven't you also had the pants bored off you by woman hating misogynist asholes at least* as often????

I realise that my relationship was probably the exception rather than the norm but it was always me who did the feeds during the night, me who changed the nappies, me who made sure that ds had clean clothes, fresh nappies and good food. This year was the first year that ex bought our ds a birthday or christmas present. From my own personal experience, when my ex is ready to take on the responsibility of bringing up a child I will be more than happy for us to share residency. As it is, he still does none of the above, lives with his parents when ds goes to stay with him, and has no idea how to go about the next stage of his development, potty training. It's MY job, my carpet, my laundry bill! He won't even go to the toilet in front of ds to show him what his tail is for!

p.s. Just for the record, we have been separated five months and ex has not paid a single penny towards ds's upkeep.

www, one of the best quotes, I love that one!

Sophable yes! But for some reason I am always able to turn off their rubbish ranting much more quickly and articulately than the female variety!!

Tuppenceworth, I think a casual look around MN will testify that your experience wasn't actually that unusual.

I have to say that my own experience of co-parenting with a man has in many ways demonstrated how far we still have to go.

While we're thinking about battles only recently won, don't forget that even independent taxation is still relatively new - it used to be the case that men had to complete ther wives tax returns. And rape within marriage only became illegal when I was about 20.

WWW - Never heard that quote before but I like it! I refuse to have 'welcome' tattooed on my forehead!

I was at a party yesterday, talking to a friend who's recently become a stepmother, about the sheer strain of being the person who always remembers which day it is to take in PE kit, which PE kit for 'outdoor' and 'indoor' PE, et sodding cetera...and another friend - male, former colleague of mine, also now a parent - said 'ah, but you've always been so good at that sort of thing'. Which (perhaps unreasonably) I took as 'you're a packhorse sort of predictable dependable person - ie a mamma - as opposed to a creative free-thinking bohemian person, ie a papa'. FFS.

I'm not disagreeing at all with your views on equality- see my first post on this thread!

However, what I am trying to say, is that the label of feminism has some connotations which are somewhat negative. I was exploring why this might be, and in my view this is partially due to some women who ahd very radical views about men. I agree that this in many cases was due to media portrayal.

What is important in this debate is where do we go from here!

I am not sure it's media portrayal; sometimes it's as simple as male portrayal. After all, if you've got the power, are you going to be hog-whimpering wild about the person who wants to take it away from you?

Permission to thump any man who says 'ahhh, but you're so good at that kind of thing'!!!