what has feminism ever done for us?

[SenoraPostrophe]

right girls, it's timne for a proper debate which isn';t about blardy weaning.

the motion is this:

feminism has not really acheived anything. women got the vote and were accepted in the workplace because of the world wars and not because of reason. Later, we accepted careers, but ended up neither having our cake nor eating it what with all the housework and childcare we were doing. and male hegemony still reigns supreme.

discuss.

monkeytrousers - I very much like your expression "the Western fantasy" to describe the impossible situation that some so-called feminists fight so hard for, namely the total economic independence of women from men.

Men have also bought into the Western fantasy in huge numbers because it frees them from responsibility for women and children and enables them to despise women who do not earn as much as they do. The Western fantasy therefore does precisely the opposite of what it aims to achieve - it reduces the ability of women to be treated as equal to men.

Women will only be equal to men when their (biologically different) contribution to humanity is value as much as men's contribution.

But I think all humans are equal Anna and always have been. They may not be treated equally but intrinstically they are.

It certainly isn't a fantasy that we could live without men. It would be a much better place. Many women now, increasing numbers choose to support themselves and have no men in their lives and in some cultures it's fairly normal for men not to be needed at all - thinking here about groups where fathers don't stick around.

Xenia - what a silly contradiction.

In sentence 1 you say you think all humans are equal.

In sentences 3 and 4 you say you think the world would be a much better place without men.

Elasticwoman, it is a generalisation, but it isn?t a gross one. It?s based on sound scientific evidence. I should have added that men and women aren?t limited to these roles, of course but it is a major part of our psychology ? that?s why women buy into these magazines, the cosmetics industry and plastic surgery in a way that men never will. Note I?m not saying some men don?t either, just that on a statistical level their engagement is not as significant as with women.

Xenia, yes women brought back food from gathering, but men weren?t only there to hunt, they were there to protect. You might not think we need it now, but why are the majority of our armed forces made up of men? We are still protected by a corp. of men, even if you think you aren?t.

Anna, I?m puzzled as to why some women want total independence from men. Men don?t have independence from women. In the course of evolution, it is women, their sexual choice that has actually driven it. That is real power, yet feminists are still trying to assert that women aren?t as choosy or discriminating as men, and hence in effect trying to wipe out the most powerful tool women have brandished in the history of our species. They are blind to women?s power because they want what men have, which is, very crudely put, the brute strength and temperament to fight other men for the attentions of choosy women.

I absolutely agree on your last point.

But we probably wouldn't need soldiers and armies and wars if it were not for men making war. It was only when men started being territorial and people settled rather than moving around and men wanted wealth and status and several women that people would fight each other for land.

I think all people are equal but I understand men are slowly dying out anyway as they have various deficiencies although it's going to take a few million years. So just as I might not choose to preserve genes which cause terrible suffering in children if there were a choice so perhaps one might not choose to preserve men who destroy the planet and hurt women so much and make up virtually all the prison population. What good have men ever done me?

(By the way Anna, nice to see you back. I hope you had a good Easter).

monkeytrousers - I think that the feminist drive to achieve economic independence from men derives from a misguided view in society at large that men's strengths are somehow more valuable for humanity than women's.

Men have two major assets that they also use at times to assert themselves over women: physical strength and financial resources.

Women are able exert psychological pressure to civilise men such that they canalise their physical strength and use it appropriately, if women are sufficiently educated to know how to do so. This is one very good argument for the advanced education of women. So physical strength is less of a male weapon against women the more advanced a society becomes.

Many post-industrial societies consider that money earned belongs to the individual and does not accrue to his or her family unit (though there are many variants in legislation), therefore forcing women to work for money. On the other hand, the same societies consider children to belong equally to both parents, even though the effort of bringing them into the world is 99.99% female. Women are not valued for the major effort involved in pregnancy, childbirth, breastfeeding and nurturing of children, and not compensated financially for loss of earnings for that effort.

Personally I would like to see a feminist movement that treats women properly for being mothers.

Xenia - men (human beings) didn't "start being territorial". We are inherently tribal beings that want land and resources for our own kind.

(Thank you, went to Val d'Isère where weather was fantastic though mountains bore me silly. Nice company though.)

I think we had about 100,000 years of not being stuck to any bits of land and only about 5000 years ago did we (men really) decide they might settle down and farm and take more land etc.

I agree women get pregnant but that doesn't stop them working those 9 months and it's not exactly "effort". So yes you might have good few hours of hard work to give birth which men don't have and breastfeeding but men can do as much as if they change nappies to the same extent as the time spent feeding. It can be prettyu much 50/50 with children as most couples in the UK often manage as so many women choose to work.

I am not sure women do civilise men however clever they are. They are just witn men clever enough not to let on how many other women they have.

Xenia - I don't know about the timing, but I believe we went from being nomad tribes to settled tribes which presumably had something to do with increased population and developments that meant that humans could make their lives more comfortable. And therefore desiring to defend our comforts ie territorial.

May be the weather got better so it became possible to stay put, we had more babies and there wasn't enough land/space to keep moving around as in some areas. Anyway I think that's when men started wanting all the women there were rather than one each and all the land there was even if others had hardly any. That vicious y chromosome again.

Xenia - I learnt, a long time ago admittedly, that the reason humans settled was because they learned how to develop agriculture, which was a more stable and comfortable existence and which required staying put, as opposed to the precariousness and discomfort of grazing off nature like nomads...

May be but perhaps now we're getting back to the stage where men are really only needed for their sperm. Swathes of lower paid British women tend to have babies on their own as there is no use of a man without a job who is just another person to look after. We get nothing out of men often and more often than not they just damage us.

Well, I need a man to give me cuddles and affection and sex and to share my innermost thoughts with and to curl up in our cosy nest together... being alone (or with another woman) just doesn't do it for me.

All animals are territorial Xenia - humans are no different.

Good points.... and I don't think I could be into women in that way either. Still not sure if the downsides are worth it and plenty of people now and always chose to be single. The maiden aunt and confirmed batchelor may have had better lives.

i am assuming you don't have any sons Xenia? Surely it is to do with the way men are brought up and what values they are taught to believe. I am confident that my son will respect women as equals in every way. At university i discovered more sexism than i'd ever experienced before, my college having a large number of young men from public schools. And my dh, who was brought up under communism and whose mother was the main breadwinner, sees women very much as equals.

Well, surely, you have to first ensure that in any relationship you actually have the good cuddly, sharing part (lots of people seem to stay together without that, which seems fairly sado-masochistic to me). And then you have to work at making a fair division of work and pleasure. Doesn't happen naturally, and it isn't the same for all couples.

I do have sons. I don't think they're sexist so far and obviously I wouldn't want to eradicate them.

Xenia, I don?t know what you mean by men dying out. The Y chromosome is, in the word of Steve Jones, the most ?decayed, redundant and parasitic part of the human genome? (I?m just quoting that from the cover blurb from his book ?Y ? the Descent of Men? (you should read it, it?s 5 years old not but still relevant) as I can?t remember much of the thesis now I read it so long ago; but anyway, it?s only function is to give an otherwise female embryo a testes which hence develops male. That is a gross generalisation however as hormones are just as vital at this point in the process of masculisation, as well as many other processes. In nature we have female embryo?s exposed to too many androgens (male hormones) in the womb who can become simply tomboyish, more hormones may predispose to lesbian tendencies and on to transexuality and further pseudohemaphredites with the sexual organs of both sexes. I?m not an expert at this (as will be obvious to anyone who knows their stuff) but it?s interesting non the less ? some women, you for example, may get your drive from being more masculine ? yet you talk of the extinction of the male.

Erm, if males didn?t exist, females wouldn?t either ? or we?d be clones like ants and individuality a thing of the past.

And huntergatheres did have territories, nomadic tribes, the few that are left have territories and they move with the seasons. They are delicate balanced and conflicts to occur. Chimps indulge in raiding parties, mostly for females of other troupes I think, but again it?s not my field.

And being pregnant doesn?t stop women from working. And I?ve said this to you countless time and you always ignore it. You constantly judge others by your own experience and that seems to be that your mothering instinct was not so strong to make you want to stay at home while your children were babies. That?s not a value judgement, just an observation; but I say again, you are an anomaly. Most women want to be primary carer and a fair society would not punish them for following such instincts.

You have obviously also been hurt by a man and are still smarting from it. But that?s no excuse to wish them extinct!

Anna those two resources you mention, physical strength and fiscal resources are also what they use to assert themselves over men ? that is their main function actually. Women are the prize. I?ve use this metaphor before but I think it works ? think of Elephant seal rookery ? a beach with females, infants and huge fighting bull seals. Some females and infants are hurt, even killed in the male fighting, but those males are fighting each other to access to those very females. There is collateral damage, but the real fight is between the males, not males against females. This is nature red in tooth and claw of course. Elephant seals are not moral animals ? humans are and that is why women (and men, lets not forget many men are feminists) have this agenda, and it is a worthy one, but we need to understand it better if the aim is to build a better fairer world for everyone, not just middle class, western women.

Society also does its bit to channel latent male aggression ? that?s what football is for as well as many other contact, mass spectatorship sports.
Sorry, better stop now.

monkeytrousers - not sure I adhere to the theory that women are "the prize", or at least not the only one.

Men assert their place in society versus other men with all kinds of attributes that have no interest for women. Just as women assert themselves versus other women without any consideration for men. I don't think that human lives can be reduced to a mating game.

Well that's where culture comes in. Of course today our lives are not simply about gaining access to mates - well to some extent anyway.

But this was the case in our evolutionary history and it's this past that has shaped our bodies and brains, our psychologies. The propensities of modern humans can be explained by the challenges we faced in out evolutionary past. Even though culture seems to have taken the edge of this, should civilisation crumble tomorrow, we'd all very soon revert to these basic strategies as surviving, reproducing and helping that offspring survive to reproduce itself would become our primary concern ? male and female. If it wasn?t then that genetic line would be extinguished.

Hmm, not sure I agree entirely there either. Surely if civilisation crumbled, although our lives would be very much driven back to basics in the way you describe, we'd just start all over again and rebuild civilisation?

I don't think human life was ever just about mating/survival of the species.

so what do we think about the idea that decisions should not be made at face t face conferences, but online, like this? a forum could be set up, which includes proper representation of male/female experts etc, then laws discussed & decided. that way people's prjudices should be limited by not knowing if they are talking to men or women. just thinking back to comments about whether women need men. - if men tend to be more physial & prone to violence, then this could erradicate that influence, and allow women their equal bargaining right.
it would also remove the emotional side of debate - perhaps we should move away from using voice, body etc as part of our communication, and rely on words?

so what do we think about the idea that decisions should not be made at face t face conferences, but online, like this? a forum could be set up, which includes proper representation of male/female experts etc, then laws discussed & decided. that way people's prjudices should be limited by not knowing if they are talking to men or women. just thinking back to comments about whether women need men. - if men tend to be more physial & prone to violence, then this could erradicate that influence, and allow women their equal bargaining right.
it would also remove the emotional side of debate - perhaps we should move away from using voice, body etc as part of our communication, and rely on words?

oops