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?

I think girls should be encouraged in an education that will bring them the social and economic powere that now belongs mostly (though not entirely) to men. I think in the early years this boils down to math and science.

I find it shocking when people today say things like "girls are better at english and boys are better at math" as is it is a forgone conclusion that a given girl will not excel in math.

I've only read the last few posts but re being in control of our fertility, I don't believe that contraception has given women complete control of their fertility. Without the systemic changes in society that needs to accompany technological/ health/ scientific progress, new medicines, discoveries etc., merely back up patriarchy, rather than undermine it.

So in many cases and in many parts of the world, legal, safe abortion and contraception has succeeded in giving men control over women's fertility, rather than nature having it. Without real economic power, the technology that can control our fertility (or anything else) doesn't necessarily belong to us.

Will now read the rest of the thread!

I don't think that it gives us complete control either, but a darned better control that women used to have. I remember reading that on average a woman wuould have 9 pregnancies in her life time if no form of contraception was used (BF was used but nothing else IYSWIM)

9 pgs and I doubt that any of us would have the time, energy of money to be discussing this on the internet!

We have choices that would blow my grandmother's mind....who had 6 children and lost 3 to childhood illnesses.

but doesn't there have to be some differences just in the very nature of our sex

is there anything so wrong with being fertile, nurturing and being applauded for that .. I think that's where we've gone wrong personally .. the very nature of motherhood has no social standing whereas being a father just proves you're fertile

I am talking at a high level of actualisation (american angle anyone? )ie given that equal opportunities in labour force exist there then needs to be a different pathway for women and men purely on a biological premise

not expressing myself well there

I don't think that there anything wrong with being fertile and nurturing either, but I also quite like having sex without getting pg!

And remember that until reacently there was no such thing as rape in marriage, so controling your fertility by usuing non medical methods could be impossible for some women. Couple that with unfair divorse laws, and our grandmothers would look at out lives with incredulity

I think the greatest trap we fall into is looking at our own circumstances and believing that they reflect those of society as a whole.

I think for very many of us posting we have choices that many in today's society would be incredulous of!

i know i've posted this before but look at the cartoon called rubbish issymym

GUFFAW @ that cartoon!

yes Soapbox I agree we have many more choices than previous generations and in most cases than many of our contemporaries.
gender equality is one battle
class and economic equailty is another
but that doesn't really get us much further apart from to say that we (the privileged, relatively) have some sort of responsibility to work towards change?

True that not everyone has every advantage or benefit. However we all have access to free contraception. Which helps us to make more choices than our parents and grandparents ever did.

And even the poorest women have access to more education than in the past, when educating girls was seen as at best a luxury and often a waste of time.

I don't think anyone would attempt to deny that many changes have taken place following the second wave of feminism in the 60s/70s, but despite those changes there is still a great deal of inequality to be addressed and thus there is still a need for action.

Or should we just stop worrying our pretty little heads about such piffling matters and settle for what we've got?

I was in an ambulance accompanying someone to hospital recently with 2 (married) male police officers. I was keeping the guy in question calm single handedly because I am, in my way, quite skilled at working with people. However, the police officers- one of whom was claerly crapping himself at the thought of talking to this bloke because he was officially mad- were more impressed with the fact that I was (they thought, it transpired) single, not too unattractive, and young. One of them started flirting in a leery way. I quickly mentioned my children. The learing faded instantly to be replaced with paternalism, because they thought I was a very young single mum. I mentioned my partner. The paternalism became tinged with admiration because they were amazed that a young girl of 21(FFS- I was cross!) could hold down kids, partner and work. I mentioned my age and that I was a student, only to be asked why the change of career- was I having a midlife crisis?! I just don't think this conversation would have happened if I had been a man in the same situation, frankly. Not in a million squillion years. And yes, I am a feminist!

And wheras there are many aspects of society tat need to be changed if it is to become fairer across race/sex/class boundaries, none of that would ever have changed if the 'underclasses' (as it were) have first of all gor some degree of finacial independence.

So, where should we go now? Is there legislation to made? What do we all think the next step is?

Ages ago I started a none-too-serious thread about "drag king workshops" (the proposed workshop never did materialise). But the rather more serious point behind this was that women who had been on the workshop had experienced for the first time the public invisibility that men are able to take for granted and that women never have. Women, it seems to me, are more objectified in this society than ever before.

I think that feminism will eventually get to the point (2 more generations or so down the line) where there will be equal opportinities for male and females.

I think the issue will remain for many many more generations as to whether some classes of people are in a position to access these opportunities and to exercise all the choices available to them.

In short I think the lack of equality between male and females will in the next 50 years or so, become another class issue rather than a gender issue.

And that prospect makes me weep at the unjustice of it all!

Would love to see an organised religion that accorded equal status and respect to women! I remember my first trip to a synagogue with parents when aged about 5. Men downstairs wearing the fancy outfits, saying the prayers, giving readings about men who did stuff for/with a male deity, calling out the important bits, singing, parading the sacred scrolls about. And the women? Upstairs, bored, playing no part in the service. That's the day I became a feminist! The constant reinforcement that girls are different, therefore UNequal, at home, in the workplace, in popular culture, even in art galleries, is going to take many more than 2 generations to iron out, in my opinion. Won't ever give up trying, though!

Arabica - I said that the opportunities would be equal not that the take up would be!

I think even if the opportunities were technically there, young women's self-esteem probably still wouldn't be high enough to take advantage of them. There are still too many subtleand not so subtlemessages around that girls are meant to be looked at, whilst boys are meant to be running things.

Arabica - agreed! That's what i was getting at in my post at 3.24!

right on sister!! (as we used to say in the 1980s)
Anyone old enough to have been a visitor/resident at Greenham Common? Those were the days...

As I have previously boasted to MI, I had a life membership of the 'women's Press' bookclub!

Social invisibility comes to us all with age, I suspect.

The70s feminists were not actually very interested in equality - ie being the same as men - at all. They were revolutionary feminists, who wanted to see a massive reshaping of society so it could embrace and reward female values. I think we have swallowed the criticisms of feminisms rather too gullibly.