Feminism and me

[morningpaper]

After spending the first three decades of my life being a raving feminist, I can't help wonder WTF? when it comes to being a mum.

Basically my skills (in order of usage) are: cleaning for DP and DD, cooking for DP and DD, washing for DP and DD, Microsoft network technician (0% of time).

After an exhausting days cleaning/cooking/ washing, once I've settled into bed to read my (imported) copy of MS. magazine, I wonder what's the point? What useful lesson has feminism really taught me?

I noticed at a recent gathering of mummy-friends that I was the only 'Ms.' and when I commented on this (may have been a tad drunk) all my (intelligent) friends said things like "Well I like people knowing I'm married!" and it made me feel VERY depressed to think I was raising a daughter for ... what kind of future? Probably the same as mine - cooking, cleaning, and washing - all while being (of course) very enlightened and feminist about the whole thing.

Does anyone else worry about this... or am I letting the post-election blues get to me?!?

Yeah - that's when it mainly hit me. I'm planning on doing a PhD in a couple of years and would realy like to be a Dr. with my own name involved.

is feminism really the SAME as the civil rights movement - or are you only refering to its influence aloha.

by the way i do not doubt that society has changed and that rights for women are there. however where i need the guidence is as to how feminism played a specific part and therefore can take the credit for the rights women have today - why feminism and not something else for example you could argue that the suffragette movement contributed to middle class women entering the workplace as they came to the rescue in many fields during world war one - the MEN in govt then decided that to simply send these MIDDLE class women back to reading and needlework would inadvertantly divert them into the subversive activities of the suffragete movement - therefore forcing society into that of unruly decline ( as was being reported happening in the soviet union at the time). with this in mind they justified the vote for women to appease them and to divert women from becoming more overtly politically active and joining movements such as the suffragettes - never the less this opened the door for middle class women to enter the workplace and for them to own property and vote

i can see a link in that example fromthe suffragette movement to the passing of a parliament act - not sure how the feminist movement took ownership of the suffragettes though - would like more clarity on this if anyone has it
never the less that link can be seen - i dont have the information as to how feminism helped the passing ofThe Equal Pay act,Maternity leave,
The legal right to take your employer to court for sex discrimination, Access to the means to control our fertility while continuing to be (hetero)sexually active.
unless you want to argue that just by voting a women is a feminist - which i suppose is an argument but for me is rather tenuos

Have a cleaner. Have a nanny. Have a gardener/handyman. Had a job myself (until recently!). All my employees are on our PAYE scheme, have all their tax and NI (and our employers NI) paid, and have 4 weeks per annum paid holiday. They all live within 2 miles of me. Why should I feel guilty about providing local people with good, well paid, legal jobs, in nice surroundings, with nice co-workers and nice employers who like and respect them? After all that is what I expect from my job! And my cleaner is very pleased with her position, calls herself a housekeeper, sits everyone down for a teabreak at 10.30, clucks around all of us, buys all my children xmas and birthday presents, and wouldn't go back to her job in a hotel in a million years.

I'm afraid I don't see the point of feeling guilty about not doing the cleaning myself. I have a nice life, and give others good employment - everyone is happy.

oh and changed my surname when I got married because I liked my husband a lot more than I liked my father!

I have double life: dh's name at home, mine at work..

Princesspeahead, good for you, Sound like a woman after my own heart. Why should it matter if we employ someone to do the jobs we hate? I have a friend who loves ironing - I hate it. She does my ironing, I do her sewing, etc. Works for us

I don't think that people thinking that family planning clinics should be a nicer is on a par with unmarried women simply being refused ANY form of contraception! I think when we complain about such things we reveal even more vividly how things have changed! Single women were not given mortgages or loans - married women had to ask their husband's permission. This aint so any more. There was simply no such thing as domestic violence - feminists 'invented' it as something to be concerned about. The first refuges etc were the result of feminist activity. Equal pay was a demand of feminism. Women fought for it like suffragettes in late sixties pay disputes that led directly to the Equal Pay act. And yes, things aren't perfect but they have improved radically. The main discrepancy on hourly pay now is between full-time and part time workers. The gap between men and women who work full time has shrunk dramatically and is continuing to shrink.

Custardo, I think there's a direct link between a political/ social / cultural movement and legislation. If feminism hadn't happened, and women hadn't been talking about their position in society, the legislation which addressed their position would simply never have been passed. No parliament of men were going to suddenly look at the status quo and say "ooh, we must change it" No legislation to change society at a very serious level has ever been the idea of the house of commons, it has always come from outside agitation and discussion which caught the attention of MPs.

As for suffragettes, they were not demanding the vote for women, they were demanding the vote for middle class women. Working class men still couldn't vote at that time, and the suffragettes were perfectly happy with that. (Except for the more radical Sylvia Pankhurst section which split off from the main bit, if my memory of it -always hazy! - is correct.)

So I think the bourgeois suffragettes and the middle class feminist movement of the seventies, both of which ignored the aspirations of working class women (and men), are on more than nodding terms.

OK, without having the time to read through all of this thread because I'm supposed to be doing some coursework for my MSc, (see, student!) This is what feminism means to me:

It means I earn the same as males in my line of work. It means I work in an environment where women are in most of the positions of responsibility and therefore have sympathy for the idea that sometimes parenting responsibilities just overide any crisis at work.

It means my husband and I have the choice who takes on the major child care role. This choice was made on the basis of which of us was best suited to the job, NOT on the basis of income or predefined roles.

It means I am no longer defined as my husband's or father's property. I have my own name, my own income and have to ask no one for permission to open a bank account, how to vote or take out a loan.

Yes I do most of the cooking, that is because I enjoy it and find it a wind down after work. Yes I do most of the cleaning but that is because I firmly believe that most men are incapable of any realistic multitasking. I would much rather he spent his time with the sluglet having fun than distractedly picking up after her. Why should I expect him to be exactly like me? Why is acceptable for me to be unable to drive and navigate at the same time, yet unacceptable for him to look after his child and clean simultaneously?

It has meant that my oldest friend has been able to raise her two lovely, well adjusted children with the help of her female partner, and noone has ever suggested they have been disadvantaged by this upbringing.

It means women I have known (myself included) have been able to say "enough" and leave violent or abusive partnerships without being forced to go back to a life of constant humiliation and hurt.

It means rape is now seen as an offence against a person rather than an offence against a man's property.

It means we as women have control over our own reproductive lives. No longer are we FORCED into having children, wanted or not.

Incidentally aloha, am I reading you right? Surely you are not suggesting that domestic violence was all a feminist conspiracy? That men didn't beat, rape and kill their wives and partners before the 70's?

no one has given me a specific feminist incident but rather attribute pARliament acts which provide women with equal ights to a feminist movement

as i am telling you i dont know what this means specifically - am gonna give up.

however i was thinking in the kitchen ( really i was) that maybe feminism is the politicising of ones belief in equal rights as a woman - so unless you are a complete nut bucket - as a woman if you think you should be afforded the same rights to property, vote, pay, work, education etc then you are automatically a feminist for believeing that women should have the same rights as men. this way feminism can legitimatley lay claim to emiline pankhurst and the sufragettes.

howver i still fail to see how the actions of a woman or a group of women helped women with regards to equality after the suffragettes

to imply that we have ownership of property - can be doctors - can go to college and university - can chose to marry or have children as a right is all down to "feminism" just by saying " we have ownership of property - can be doctors - can go to college and university - can chose to marry or have children as a right....becuase of the feminist movement" doesnt explain it to me. and i really dont understand.

if indeed feminism is a larger term for the politicising of my belief in equality of rights between men and women - in those defined terms i would therefore be a feminist ........but i just thought this up in the kitchen and am sure there is a better explaination of "a feminist" movement and how it contributed specifically to the acts of parliament which allow us the same rights to be shit on as men have

Interesting points custardo, and don't know the answers off the top of my head, must do some research some day on it.

I sort of came to feminism (or what I think of as feminism) by a different route - analysing violence and specifically sexual violence against women - sadly this is an area where it seems to me that feminism has won few battles. Sexual violence against women is just as widespread and rape just as much a weapon of war as ever .

Like this thread. But, how did it go from 'feminism and me' to a rant against people who don't think that we have equality?
As a feminist, I have come to understand that any changes are in fact only superficial. We are constantly fighting the same battles. In general women are still held responsible for childcare, and/or housework regardless of if they have a career or not. If we weren't conditioned into this belief, why would anyone feel guilty about employing a cleaner?
I agree with much of what has been said. But take note...I am sure that everyone can quote their own or another persons situation, where I think this thread is failing...is in not acknowledging that regardless of any legislation, as far women's lives in general goes - women are still expected to fulfill the same roles as they were decades ago.

I think the problem is in trying to define feminism, isn't it? I think I once heard Yoko Ono describe it as being exactly what you said Custardo - just believing that as a woman you should automatically be considered equal to a man and should have the same rights. Which is quite a wide definition. I've heard narrower! Like a Marxist Leninist definition, the details of which escape me, but it boiled down to it being a bourgeois deviation! And my uncle would describe it as a group of unreasonable women wanting to be like men. (Bless him.) Like any big idea, it can mean anything to anyone, I guess.

I'm not totally sure what Custardo is asking, but it seems to be examples of how feminism or groups of feminists have produced change such as the passing of The Equal Pay act,Maternity leave. Well, this is one way it works. I am a feminist who works in a research team which is explicity feminist (in it's stated aims, the members are explicitly feminist, etc). we get paid by people like the EU and the DTI to do researh on things like gender pay gap. then we report the findings back to the EU, the DTI or whoever. And, hopefully, the people listen and changes in the law are made, such as a rule that companies have to publish their salary scales, or the increased level of pay for maternity leave. So it's explicitly feminist research by teams of feminists, pushed through as legislation by other people who are explicitly feminist.

is that an answer?

Of course not Slug! What I meant was that domestic violence was invisible yet totally accepted until the feminist movement (of the 60s and 70s) politicized the issue and set up refuges etc. Remember, there was no such thing as rape in marriage and it was explicitly feminist agitating that made it a crime. Before this it was, like domestic violence, just part of married life.
The feminist movement, Custardo, was very fractured, unorganized, without leaders. Yet I still believe that the central tenet of feminism, that the personal is political, was something that was unique and changed - very dramatically - the way that we view the world. And yes, the fact that women in the 60s stood up and said, we do not belong to men, we demand equal rights in the workplace, we demand the right to our sexuality, radically changed the way other women felt about their lives. The fact that women went on strike about equal pay came out of this (of course there were other economic factors and the political ideals of feminism also came from the civil rights movement of the 50s and 60s, plus the hippy movement etc). No new ideas come from nowhere. They all evolve. Yet IMO to say that the Equal Pay Act is not connected to feminism is like saying the civil rights movement had no effect because you cannot say that the movement passed legislation. It did however create a demand for change and a realisation that change was possible, realistic and,most importantly, fair.
I do not believe change has been superficial. I think it is profound. The aspirations of young women are so different from in my mother's day. My own mother's life has been transformed by feminism. And much of the legislation that enshrines women's rights has come from countries more overtly feminist than our own.

Custardo - not sure I really understand all that you are driving at, but nevertheless your posts are very very thought provoking!

My view of feminism is that it is not a 'movement' but rather a state of mind. So when I say I am a feminist, it is not that I belong to a feminist movement or club or whatever, but that in my mind I think that eqaulity of opportunity and choice is important.

I think that feminism's greatest acheivement is that it has raised women's expectations. As such the bar has been raised and many of us now expect to be treated on a basis broadly similar to men. These expectations themselves are a powerful means to changing the social environment in which we live. The expectation of equality, frankly, gives us the balls to complain if we don't think we;re getting it

I do believe that it is important to think of equality in terms of choices though, i.e. I have the same choices as a man but I may choose to exercise these in a different way. This is where Custardo has been at her most thought provoking though... Are my choices real choices or are they psuedo choices brought about by the social agenda/pressures as a whole. Its really so hard to tell - hard to separate one set of pressures from another.

I totally accept the argument though that the choices I have, as an upper middle class professional, are not those available to many of the working classes. I wonder thougth whether the fact that some people have these choices will influence society in the longer term. What I can say, however, is that my family going back only a generation or two was deeply founded in the working classes. So crossing the class divide is possible - but do accept that not all people see this as a move forward!

My view of feminism is definately not a fight for equality (what's the old joke, I don't need to be equal to a man, I know I'm far superior). I think feminism is about my right to be a woman, to be different from a man, and yet not to be treated any worse (or better) than a man simply because of that difference.

So as an example, I see the right to decent maternity provision (which admittedly could be better) as a feminist acheivement, because it recognises that as a woman I get pregnant, but attempts to ensure that that biological fact does not hinder my ability to work.

Incidentially blackduck, I think that until I had dd and ds (in fact until I had ds, with dd I was still 120% career orientated) I was never discriminated against at work because I was a woman - asyou say discriminaion has now become more subtle - it's against parents, or people with a life outside of their jobs, which is sexist in that women still tend to take more responsibility for childcare, eldercare and other aspects of family life.

YEAH!!!!!!!!
At last someone who talks sense (or should that be - someone who feels the same way that I do).

Yes yes yes yes yes yes yes YES!!!
Sorry Feel much better now.

i tend to side with the bourgois seperation ideology as the root to societies ills. i think this thread has explained a little more to me about feminism - it means diferent things to everyone. to some stating that you are a feminist means you believe personally that you are as equal to unfair treatment in the workplace as men ( but i believe that everyone should be equal being a loony lefty - rather than fighting for women, or fighting for the rights of ethnic minorities or thse with disabilities, it is my beliefe that by fracturing the fight for equality we errode it, that if we came together to fight injustice for all the greater social pressure would force change - alas the divisions between society and the justices it is fighting for hold us back)) to some feminism is a movement which with many others of its time int he 60's helped bring about change which cannot be definatley linked to a change in law but which influenced soiciety to such a degree as to put pressure indirectly on parliament through culture and media to bring about change

fennel - your post intrigued me. a direct effect on policy decisions through employing feminists to explore the differences between the rights of men and women. whilst this sounds great i cant help thinking what ever happened to a more independant methodology. the govt could get their statistics about anything using think tanks and research institutes with distinct political leanings...oh my it does

my conclusion therefore is that feminism contributed( along with many other movements in that time for change) in the 60's through social pressures. however i cant see how it continues helps me as a women today whilst i do recognise that without that social pressure in te 60's i may not have been afforded some of the rights i have as a women today i do not think this can be attributed soley to feminism, but rather feminism played a part in a bigger picture of the time

Should not be joining in here. Should be marking.

BUT Margaret Gibbon describes four basic types of feminism in her book 'Feminist Perspectives on Language' (1999). They are:
Liberal feminism, came in the 60s and 70s, was mainly middle class and focused on equal rights in work and language reform such as renaming jobs.
They were keen on things like assertiveness training but have been criticised more recently for attempting to change themselves rather than the world.
They were attacked by materialist feminists, who examined the economic underpinnings of discrimination and tended to marxist and socialist interpretations.
Cultural feminism appeared in the 1980s and celebrates women's difference - women's ways are valuable and different to men's and should be celebrated as such.
Then lastly we have postmodern feminism, which sees gender as a continuum. People may use language, dress, body posturing and sexual practice to enact a transgendered identity.
Apologies to Gibbon if I have got this wrong.
OK, as I say to my students, which one are you?

Materialist.

With a bit of culturalist thrown in.

Don't really understand the post-modern one - run that by me again?!

Choice. Postmodernism is, I think, all about us having more choices. So postmodern feminism is about the ability to choose the gender (as opposed to the sex) that we are; to undertake the gendered roles that we want to. So my husband may choose to undertake more of the traditional female-gendered role of childcare than I do. Of course, I haven't mentioned postfeminism, which was first mentioned in 1982 in the New York Times magazine in an article entitled 'Voices from the post-feminist generation'. The argument there is that women have made plenty of progress and no longer need an organised campaign for feminism. This is a crucial concept for the Right and corporate media (you can be a feminist and still buy our products)

I think I'm a bit of all of them. Less cultural and more postmodern than I used to be. Can't be doing with postmodernism. It makes me feel fat.

Custardo: there's no such thing as a totally independent methodology. everyone starts with preconceptions which colour their research. it's a big part of feminist research to be aware of our own preconceptions and prejudices.

of course the government doesn't only listen to feminists! (if only...) but that was an example of how feminists sometimes effect change, as you asked for this.