Introducing my partner to feminism...

[blinder]

On the back of a spate of good feminism threads here lately I am looking for book recommendations to give to my DP as an introduction to a feminist critique of society.

He's not a particularly neanderthal man - he loves Naomi Klein for example - but he's a bit uneducated about the reality facing women today.

We have a six month old daughter and it worries us both that she is being launched into a culture that systematically de-humanises (objectifies) girls. I'm sure he would be willing to explore ways that we can parent her consciously so that she can preserve her identity in the face of damaging cultural norms.

At the same time, I don't want him to feel lectured, blamed or patronised by the book. But I would like him to be able to examine his own investment in male superiority and recognise that he does have many assumptions about women and many blind spots about male privilege.

It's a fine line.

So, books for men, fathers or people new to feminism?

witch that's really interesting work! . Am wondering whether it would be sex discrimination to have a female comparator without children for the purposes of equal pay? Probably not, but an interesting question nevertheless.

What is your opinion about the 2% pay disparity in the US?

TheShriekingHarpy why do you keep quoting characters from works of fiction and presenting them as representative of the authors non-fictional ideas and work?

That quote from Dworkin comes from a work of fiction. It is said by a made up person in a novel, not by Dworkin herself.

Remember Dworkin first became involved in activism as part of the movement against the Vietnam war and also campaigned against apartheid in South Africa.

Your previous reference to all men being potential rapists comes from French's 'The Women's Room' which is also a work of fiction. It is said in the fictional context of a prosecution for a young women having been raped at knife point.

Both of these authors are commonly attacked in this rather dishonest way by their critics. (And no, I'm not claiming they are beyond criticism.)

dittany

it terms of pay it goes
men with children
men without children
single men
single women
women without children
women with children

I'm baffled by your anti-feminism, TSH. Really baffled.

These quotes you keep spouting (I remember you doing the same on the Natasha Walter webchat thread) don't represent mainstream feminist thought. They're certainly not views I've come across, and I am a feminist and have read quite a bit about it. Maybe there are women out there who do hold these views, but they don't represent the majority. It is exactly like saying extremist Islamic fundamentalism represents the views of all muslims.

Weird.

Agree, molesworth. I think in any movement/group there will be people who espouse extreme views, or who don't truly represent the mass of that group, but to constantly use them to distance yourself from the whole is a little pointless, I think. Surely the more logical and practical thing to do is to join and be the kind of feminist you think best represents women, and be vocal yourself.

Well, yes, I agree: I was attempting to give her (him?) the benefit of the doubt

Oh for goodness sake, the Dworkin quote is from the novel 'Ice and Fire'. Look it up, it will take you all of 5 seconds.

From that well known extreme fringe of radical feminism, The Guardian newspaper;

"French went on to write more novels, including The Bleeding Heart (1980), and substantial non-fiction works on patriarchy and women's history. But none of her later books enjoyed the success of The Women's Room.

The novel's best-known line - "All men are rapists, and that's all they are" - has not been an easy legacy for the next three decades of feminism. Spoken in anger by one of the book's most radical characters, a woman whose daughter has been gang-raped, it entered the popular lexicon and is often cited, wrongly, as one of the tenets of modern feminism.

www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/may/05/obituary-marilyn-french

Quoting without giving references is rarely done with the intention to inform I tend to find.

dittany, I suspect that there are probably some women who hate men for various reasons - I mean, on a whole range of people there are always people with extreme views/nutters, but the point is that it's utterly nonsense to use extreme views to characterise the whole of any group.

Should say that I'm not talking about Dworkin or anyone else, as I really haven't read anything in that area. Just that any absolute statement such as "there are no women who do x" always gets picked up and chewed in arguments, and those dead ends are a PITA.

Mal, yes, of course you can be a feminist without reading feminist literature, but why should that stop anyone else choosing to read feminist literature to broaden their own understanding? I'm happy to accept that otehr people's thoughts and experiences may illuminate things and help me to better understand them and perhaps change my perceptions - that's education, surely - aand it's why I post and read on MN!

Can I just say that I wasn't branding Dworkin or French as extremists. I had no idea where the quotes were from. My point was only that there may be women out there with extremist views, but I've never come across any, so I'm not sure who these women are that TSH is railing against. It's an utterly bizarre misrepresentation of feminism, even more bizarre if TSH is a woman (are you?)

Me too dittany with regards to porn and Andrea Dworkin.

I never supported porn but, when younger, didn't really know why. Andrea Dworkin expressed it for me.

Huge respect for this amazing women, her difficult life and her work.

Mightily pissed off to see her being misrepresented, as you say, as someone to distance oneself from due to the 'extremeness' of her tireless work against sexual violence. (Especially by someone who doesn't appear to actually know anything about her.)

Roffle at the idea of Shakespere as murderer.

Wow this thread keeps going with some fascinating posts - informative, inspiring, disturbing and downright weird by turns.

Wish I had been on earlier but I was enjoying a nice lunch with my DP, a man, who I love and respect. No difficulty at all fitting that with being a feminist.

Saddened by all this hatred towards women.
TSH - where does it all come from? Can't you just accept our equality with men, and that men and women both benefit when they interact on a mutually respectful footing?

DP - it is possible to be concerned about the challenges facing our young men and the challenges facing women. We don't have to just pick one. I work with emotionally disturbed, deprived young males and they benefit immensely from having calm and confident women in their lives, helping them to see the good in themselves.

See, your post shows that you really don't understand what feminism is about, TSH. You seem to think it's about oppressing men (or hating men or claiming that the construction of gender only affects women), which is a bizarre and misinformed notion. Try reading some of the books that have been recommended on this (and other) threads to gain a better understanding. HTH.