Do women oppress women just as much as men?

[Monkeytrousers]

Discuss.

More so IMO

i agree with more so.

Am making soup so will come back later to join in/lurk!!

But initial thought is Yes Women do not support one another as much as they could.

For example, I was reading the thread about families that sadly have no support network close by. I lived for all of my children's childhood at least 50 miles from any family members. My neighbours, however, were amazing, we all babysat, looked after kids while other parents worked and were there for one another.

Local teenagers babysat too and their parents kept an eye on what was happening. We were a little commuinity!

People on that thread seemed scared to ask neighbours/teenagers to help out. Of course I blame Maggie and the Tories for the 'Me Me' shift in society.

Sorry celery soup to make!!

I realise that may not sound like opression, but I think it is in that it stems from a mindset that disapproves of those who make different choices in life, and assumes that other women are a threat.

Sorry if that's going off the point.

Yes, we all feel threatened and paranoid of each other.

More so ....

I'm just reading something at the mo which is trying to grapple with this. For instance, many facters of feminism seem to disaprove of female sexuality and seem to want to reign it in - on the more extreme side it is women who perform FGM.

I know that men do and have oppressed women, but the involvement of women in this seems to be glossed over and it appears to be much more complex than we think.

Men do also oppress other men, btw. It's isn't that its only women oppressing women.

It's complicated isn't it. We are all operating within a system in which the balance of power is with men. In order to operate successfully we probably all find ourselves complicit to some degree in the perpetuation of the patriarchal status quo. Being social creatures, we need the approval of society (to varying degrees) both for our emotional well-being and professional success, but that same approval is often heavily loaded against us as women.

Take all those vile TV shows like '10 years younger' for example. A woman encourages other women to have painful surgical procedures, to wear uncomfortable and impractical shoes etc, in order that they might look sexually appealing/available - attributes that society values highly in women. Certainly looks like oppression to me, but at the end of the show the women invariably report a huge sense of liberation. Having become on the surface what society expects them to be, they seem to be freer to operate as they will within society.

So I suppose while I would agree that women do oppress other women (although I certainly wouldn't say more than men), I'm not sure that what constitutes oppression is always as straightforward as we might like to think.

SOme people, regardless of gender, like to wield power over others. WRT to oppressive women, some women see other women's choices as threatening and therefore work to restrict them, or are obsessed with keeping other women away from their own men - or, having managed to achieve high status in a male environment, don't want to have to share it with other women.

Interesting post IorekByrnison

I think women don't oppress other women, but they do undermine them.

I agree with IB's points about trying to work in the social system too, but I think that women largely being more effective social creatures, they use that knowledge as much against other women as for them. So they'll belittle or begrudge or undermine other women, because they can and because it's all part of the social grease. Men tend not to do this so much to each other - partly because they are less socially capable and therefore less socially subtle.

I'd go for undermine rather than oppress though.

Look we are ALL of us, men and women, conditioned in this society to think like this. It is true we are in a dog eat dog,me me me society. Maggie being a prime example of the Queen Bee syndrome. And the so called little bit of 'power' that women can exert over anyone is just that.
In an environment where the kind of (economic) power in the workplace is king yes king, we will never make it better. A major seismic shift in our consiousness needs to happen to help us all feel less economically driven for moneys sake and more constructive in our approach to living and working together, i.e.a more feminine approach. How acheivable does that sound?

What does conditioned mean? Are we all pussycats otherwise?

Conditioning. The expectations put upon us by society to succeed, but the criteria of that success is the way it is now. Instead of succeeding in creating a society that rewards and recognises non monetary contributions.
Don't understand what you mean by are we all pussycats? sorry.

As if there is no competition, is what I mean.

Love the name mitochondrialeve are you monkeytrousers?
I'm really sorry I still don't understand your question.

no, we're not all pussycats but you can't ignore years of patriarchy.

it's far too simple to say "women oppress other women as much as men" - I don't think they can really: they don't operate from the same power base. Women are always coming from a position of less power, not only individually but historically and you can't change that.

so no, women don't oppress women as much as men do, they can't do imo. so if women behave in anti feminist ways it's because mostly they have been so conditioned to accept the status quo: they don't know better.

Thank you pollyfilla you are more articulate than what i am (!) that is what I meant

I think the idea of a male/female difference here is utter nonsense. I've had fabulous male and female managers, and utterly incompetent male and female managers. It boils down to personality at the end of the day. If you're insecure you're more likely to shat on your staff. If you're secure you probably won't.

But what about at home mrssmh It's not all about bosses.

Yes, it is I, MT!! Not sure I do myself Mamas and I've terrible tummy ache today so can't be arsed to think about it.

Yes, I think they possibly do.

When I was promoted at work, I remember my male colleagues being very genuinely congratulatory and my female colleagues being tremendously bitchy and really very hurtful. I wondered for a while if I was imagining it, but no.

In the domestic sphere as well. "How can you let him leave the house with those clothes unironed" of a grown man who is quite capable of doing his own ironing...

I don't think women oppress women so much as I think women are crueler to other women than men are. Generally. I mean, you don't get men routinely being bitchy to women, do you? You don't get men slagging off women because of what they wear, how they look, what they did ... in the way you often find other women bitching, sneering or laughing, do you? I know not every woman is like this, but it is certainly done enough to be REALLY noticeable. Well, I notice it anyway.

It's an interesting one. As a person who is naturally quite conventionally pretty thanks to Nordic genes, (when not pg and huge as at present admittedly), I do think I have had it easier than some of my acquaintances who are patently not. So that suggests some sort of sexualisation in society. I am not sure this has a particular gender bias, however, as I imagine conventionally attractive men have a similar experience (eg my brother certainly has).

In terms of patriarchal society, I am less sure of its influence. Clearly there are some structures that can be seen as unhelpful to women, for example the practice of spuriously refusing to treat pg women or provide them with tested drugs for most common ailments, the concept of paying for childcare out of your wages, the concept of deductions being made from salary because a woman is absent due to childbirth (admittedly an unusual way of perceiving maternity pay, but it could be seen like this), or even the concept of working outside the home at all.

But in terms of day to day behaviour, I think oppression is carried out by both genders, for example the older woman that criticises working mothers or breastfeeding in public, the men who insist on competitive office facetime, the bitchiness at the school gate, the teenage girls who snipe about each others' appearance.

Nevertheless I suppose there is an argument to be made about being a member of the oppressed group and not being able to appreciate the extent of my oppression, because of this. There is probably a point there.

Blimey, this is well deep for so early in the morning!