Why aren't women feminists? Surely no-one thinks all the battles have been won?

[WideWebWitch]

OK, so I don't have any proper evidence to back this up (so don't post I hear you say, oh well, I bet there is some, so I will!) but I gather that increasingly young women aren't feminists and don't believe there's any need for a feminist movement of any kind. They think all the battles have been won. I know for sure they haven't but WHY do they think this? And why would anyone NOT be a feminist? If you're not, why not? I know this conversation has been had before on mn but I'm still interested.

I agree with Janice Turner about New Woman mag rebranding itself because young women don't like the word 'woman' fgs, this is an example of the sort of thing I mean.

Charlieq, where are you registered for your Phd? Are you self funding it?

I'm asking as I am trying to raise finding for my Phd in Darwinian gender studies. From this perspective you can certainly put childcare on your feminist CV.

I agree Cali too. But wasn't the moment when collective, direct action really seen as useless when the 'stop the war' marches failed to change a thing.

I month or so ago, at the height of the Ipswich murders, I mooted that take back the night marches should be happening there; it wasn't a popular idea.

yes, I do that too moondog (which is silly really).

I agree with you charlie about the SAHMs being looked down upon because they aren't regarded as 'wealth creators' or 'ideas people' but would also go as far as to suggest that people believe you are doing yourself a disservice by staying at home - it's the idea that because you're at home, you have no ambition, you have no goal in life. It's (again) the Me Me culture that says you have to be doing something in your life that society judges will better yourself (be it through money or work).

What on earth can a 'Take back the night' march do to solve anything?
The kind of bloke who garottes loan women sure as hell isn't going to give two hoots about some demonstration.

Buying a Fair Trade banana is a small but important way of saying 'I can do something that is not merely symbolic but a concrete manifesrtation of my beliefs.

It isn't a solution Mooney. Caligula was talking about lack of collective issues - that's the point, to show solidarity.

It depends how you define Strong Mothers. I'm an academic feminist and can see myself "fading away" in career terms. I hate it. But you get the choice, in academia (and probably in many jobs), of having one or no children, working full time (typically 50-60 hour weeks and lots of conferences and travel away) and keeping a high academic profile, or of working less, seeing a reasonable amount of your children, and fading away.

and re fair trade, yeah fair enough, but it's also funnelling your supposed choices down a consumerist route.

And why the fuck should a TBTN march be about the murderer and not the victims? People marched in Madrid after the train bombs, people march about things they care about passionately; not to solve things but to make a stand. Obviously feminism isn't a passion to many, even though the issues surrounding the Ipswich murders were decidedly feminist. Feminism is still a vital discourse not just here as the Ipswich murders showed, but around the world.

MT,am deeply suspicious of vague terms like 'solidarity' and 'support'.Unless they can be qualified and quantified they are no damned good.

(Says she who has just posted on your other thread about a 'supportive' dh.Eeek!)

MP, whoever decides to stay at home (and statistically there will always be more women who choose to) ideally shouldn?t be discriminated against; but in fact they are because the capitalist system is fundamentally exploitative in essence.

LOL Mooney. Think you just answered that one yourself

Were the Ipswich murders necessarily a feminist issue?
For me it was more about the creation of an underclass due to continuing illegality of drugs.

exactly mp - I am in your shoes too (except I'm not at home because I feel I should be, I'm here because I had to be at first when dd was very ill and now am in a situation where it's v difficult for me to go back to what I did before). I meant the me me culture love judging the SAHMs for not doing anything 'fulfilling' with their lives.

And because there isn't an easy solution or a quick fix, politicians don't want to touch it with a bargepole either.

Erm the rights of sex workers, legal/illegal prostitution? There have always been prostitutes ; even before crack ? intuitively I?d imagine prostitution and crack (and other drugs) to together as it allows the taker to escape themselves and their lives for a few moments.

Yes,but it would be interesting to see what comes first.
It's the drugs generally.

Well I'd challenge that. Like I said prostitution is more prevelent pan culturally than drug abuse.

Fair enough.
I'm nowt if not reasonable.
I reckon (highly unscientific I know..) that most of it in UK is drug related,especially at lower levels (or rather,this is why these women remain at the lower end of the scale in terms of money earned)

or to put it another way, sex is a limited resource and women always have something (it)men are prepared to pay for. This has always been the case. Drugs aren't a part of this process, but a subsidiary of it.

But this is it again - the very nature of capitalism, free market capitalism especially, means there has to be an underclass to capitalise on.

Ok.
Yes,sex is a limited resource which in many ways,makes women more powerful.Men know that and don't like it at all.

I don't understand the variables at play though.
A 70 year old expatriate in our city in Eastern Turkey has just been raped by an 18 yearo old Kurdish boy (and his uncle) that she has been helping with his English.
I can't even begin to comprehend what that is all about.

I do think a lot of it in this country (prostitution) is to do with funding a pre-existing drug habit. I also think that often those without a pre-existing drug habit who turn to prostitution, end up with one.

Variabkes are at play because human's aren't numbers; you can't predict exactly what one rogue human will do, all you have are what is what happens most of the time, and that is that women (and girls) of child bearing age are the most highly represented in rape statistics.

That 's the scientific method; there are only abslutes in numbers

There seems to be a certain type of rapist who likes to rape eldery women. There's that bloke the Met went off to the Caribbean to chase who rapes/sexually abuses eldery women around the South East.