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.

la la la

i'm skipping through this thread

feminism has allowed me to do so

MI, sadly I think the 'judged by how you look ' think is really evening up....but boys are judged every bit as much as girls.

And we women seem to judge each other all the time by how we look (just see the bikini thread - more comment on how the woman in the bikini thong looks than any about the man who wanted his woman to wear it)
We can be our own worst enemies.

Al, always have been. We hav a glorious colour coffee table book the twins used to like to read in bed which shows modern fashion images from all over the world with ancient pictures/recent jungle dwellers etc. It seems no different on Oxford st than in the Amazon in terms of male and female decoration.

but on the news you still get an older man with a dolly girl. Not the other way round. And older men marry young women all the time. It still raises eyebrows if say a 50 year old woman marries a 30 year old man. Sexism is alive and kicking and entrenched. Look at the way working mothers get a rawer deal than working fathers and mothers who SAHs have to risk losing their careers etc [sorry to bring that up again!]
Very bemused by your statement that feminism 'has gone too far and we are losing the plot' kks. and did anyone see that clip from the Apprentice where one of the women was accused of being a feminist. The look of outrage and the swift denial said it all.

It's a word best avoided because of what people wrongly think it means but the principle is right and most people agree.

Yes, people like Joan Collins,

i used to experience sexism on a daily basis at work. my old boss actually thought that women were INCAPABLE of programming computers (except me of course). needless to say i moved teams. most of it was said in a jokey way, but EVERY DAY! i got a thick skin and never took any notice. i did my job better than the next guy, i had to work harder for the same credit, but there you go. i don't see attitudes changing for quite a while.

so feminism still needs to kick some ass.

interesting article in last week's sunday times about the sexual harassment women serving in Iraq have to put up with as a matter of course. As well as the frequent incidences of unreported rape. they get the equality of having to risk their lives fighting in the army but not of being able to trust their fellow soldiers with their lives or anything else.

warthog, I assume no merit in explaining to your old boss who the ADA programming language was named after?! What a bizarre attitude. On what grounds were women not capable of programming computers, are we too emotional and prone to burst into tears when a program throws an unexpected error?!

god knows tribpot. apparently we lack the logic needed. really ironic since this guy's powers of logic were that of a schizophrenic ouija board. i'm sure he's never heard of ada lovelace. he's been promoted.

Illogical, captain.

On a related note, my mum has always claimed that, had I been alive in the second World War (hard going as she wasn't) I would have been hired by Bletchley Park to do code breaking. (I actually doubt this as I am rubbish at crosswords, which is one the things they looked for). But those women who were recruited for having advanced logic skills ... were apparently used as typists. WTF.

i thought that alan turing designed the computer for code breaking, but before the computers were running, women were doing the calculations. they weren't told the logic behind it for security reasons, just given rows and rows of sums to do.

The issue of women in the forces is a tricky one ? not because women can?t contribute, but that if put women in the company of testosterone saturated men you can?t be too surprised at the results. The forces aren?t society and basic training is actually designed to get male hormones pumping a lot more than in civvy street ? they fight better that way. You can?t feminise men in the army ? not that you would want to anywhere. The army specifically captures and hones latent male aggression. There will be some women who excel in that environment, but with all those hormones raging I don?t think it?s realistic to expect sexism to happen. Men are brutalised in the army and therefore so will women be.

I?m not saying rape should not be punished, but that women should know that they are substantially increasing the risks of rape if they join the forces.

I wish we could stop rape ? but the fact is we can?t and women need to be forearmed with sound information about when and where rape is liable to happen so they can make informed choices.

Re computer programmes ? men and women do, on average, have subtle differences in brain structure that predispose men to being ?better? at some tasks and women ?better? at others. This is on average ? there will always be men and women who excel at these things, but the stats tell us that, on the whole, men are ?better? (note that?s not to say women ?don?t have logic? tell your boss he?s talking rubbish) but are more predisposed to constructing 3-d models in their brains. The science on this is very accurate nowadays and the distinctions very precise. On average women excel in some areas of science and men in others; science as a whole isn?t a male only preserve ? and anyway the subtleties are no excuse for discrimination of any kind; people always need to be assessed as individuals to find their personal strengths and weaknesses.

it just seems if you point out that women are different to men, for men that immediately means inferiority. They cannot adjust to the 'different but equal' hypothesis.

'Women should know they are substantially increasing the risk of rape if they join the forces'? WTF?

My mate who is a navy surgeon has no problem telling men what to do, and no problem relating to her colleagues, superiors or juniors, thanks very much. And I'm sure her husband, an army officer, would be highly offended at the suggestion that many soldiers or sailors or air crew are potential rapists. As would my BIL, ex-signals.

Can be better though ruty which is why most of the jobs and skills we need at the moment which in the UK nowadays is more likely to be services than production of heavy goods actually require skills women tend to be better at than men of communication, use of words, empathy, seeking consensus.

Anyway I think it's great women can serve in the forces. We just need some all female "manned" submarines to keep me happy next.

Sorry if you are offended Edam ? but all men are potential rapists ? all of us are potential murderers ? non of us know what we are capable of in certain desperate situations. It might be a bitter pill to swallow, and it certainly gets people arguing with their emotions and not their intellect, which never helps, but the evidence suggests that rape is one of many reproductive strategies employed by males in certain situations, war a very well documented case. Whether it is a direct adaptation or a by-product of another adaptation isn?t certain yet.

This is in no way condoning rape ? it is a crime whatever the circumstances. But knowing what situations are likely to be more risky can only help. Your friend?s personal experience is immaterial when statistics show us that women face the risk of rape in the armed forces, just as someone mentioned below.

I?m really not trying to be controversial here, just talking about facts. Facts aren?t morals, that?s a different area ? actually the next step. But it?s no use putting the cart before the horse. We need a clear picture of what happen, and why it might happen in order to potentially stop it happening.

Ruty, I don?t know why that is ? certainly all men don?t infer that. Maybe it?s the primacy the media puts on the ?battle of the sexes? rather than the co-operation of the sexes. The success of the human race shows that men and women are actually locked in a symbiotic relationship that relies on more cooperation than conflict. In fact, it?s mostly only in issues of parental investment that they substantially differ. I?m writing something at the mo to try and redress this balance.

well Xenia, all female platoons would sort of the problem.

What do you mean Kerrymum?

There are groups of women in Iran and Iraw and Pakinstan at the moment working very hard to achieve change and they are feminists.

On soldiers I certainly recognised with mt said. It's a very different enviornment from that most of us live in. Women in the city often laugh off sexism which other women say in the NHS or something might find unacceptable - you earn a fortune and coping with a few sexist men is neither here nor there and give as good as it gets, water off a duck's back etc because you know you're better than half of them anyway and have your own testosterone and adrenalin to fire back etc at them.

I certainly agree. One of the worst things about US intervention in the middle east has been it's allowed conservative local leaders to take over and women's rights be set back by decades which I suppose would suit male US women in the home, submissive to men like Christian view point anyway. Not a good time for women's rights on the planet at the moment.

don't know if anyone managed to see a wonderful Iranian film last night, called 'the Beautiful City] made in 2004. It really is a wonderful film about some of the difficult issues facing both women and men in Iran today.
another Iranian film I would recommend is 'Ten' which examines the emotional lives of a series of women in their day to day lives in Tehran. It is really interesting and really helped me to understand the common ground we all share, though it is also about the particular situations Iranian women face.