class/social standing and Feminism

[sparky159]

is there a place for working class people in Feminism?
ill answer my own post to as why im asking this.

Lenin, your focus shifted from class to women's issues. Does that enhance your awareness of women's issues as experienced by 'lower' class women, or are you saying you moved your sights in line with your life?

You just answered, Lenin :)

saf the middle class professionals with the wonderful careers and cleaner and nannies and what-have-you vs the working class women without those things - but most middle class women don't have those things either. I mean the things that you talk about being expounded are expounded by xenia, and that's about it, and I haven't seen her around for ages. And she must represent the views of, what, the top 100 people in the whole country? Most middle class people don't have those things either.

I think teh problem with referring to class is that in the UK it is a convoluted and tricky classification and varies according to your own starting point. Plus each "class" has stereotypical images associated and I don't tihnk it's a useful thing really. Better to talk about effects of poverty, of lack of affordable childcare, of gender pay gap, of glass ceilings and so on. Surely very few people are that short-sighted and lacking in empathy that they will not think about the problems of people in other circs when these things are raised. And they are raised, i think.

Re the straight married thing, I will put my hand up to that, I am straight and married and I accept that when it comes to families I look to my own immediate point of reference and (in total honesty) do often forget to consider different set-ups (I'm including long-term/stable cohabitaion in married there). I admit that I don't often think "how does this work for single parents" and I will work on that. I'm not sure what difference being gay makes from the POV of looking at family set ups? A two parent household will presumably enjoy all the benefits whetever the sex of the parents? Don't know happy to be enlightened on that one.

saf I was interested in what your vision was ie what sort of society you were looking for/what your POV was after you had posted "probably not of interest to anyone but i'm not sure i even agree on people being equal."

Well, yes. A mixed-race, mixed-gender, disabled individual from a poor & dysfunctional background has more cards stacked against them than anybody else. Since I believe in (and fight for) equal rights & equal opportunities, I'm not that interested in singling out one dis-equalising factor for greater attention. Since I am a woman with few other disadvantages, I've got more personal experience of sexual oppression. That doesn't make me care more about it than the other things, iyswim.

im looking at it from the perspective of equality and people lower down on the social structure.

things like-single parents-
we re not all feeding our kids chips and knocking back lager.
but this is how the media portray us.

parents with children with SN-
going to appointments can be horrible as we can be looked down on.

things like tempory housing-
a woman might more likely to stay in a bad marriage if she s got sn children-
possibly a fear of lonliness/lack of support?

So you're against feminism as a concept entirely, then?

And against other "single issue" or "single disadvantaged group" movements and organisations?

I can see your point but for me it's easier to focus on the things that are most important to me, and improving things for women across the world is what does it for me. It is what interests me and motivates me and gets me ticking. Also of course from a personal perspective it is the main cause of me being discriminated against personally - I belong to the opressed group and so I feel the inequaity in my gut. Other inequalities I see and understand and feel for but not at such a visceral level.

sparky I appreciate your posts because they always give a wider view of problems. I think they are very important.

Your point that women who are also a member of another disadvantaged group are doubly discriminated against is a good one.

Ditto elderly women - someone once described them as the most vulnerable group in our society - they have no money - they have no power - they are not represented in the media - they have no voice at all.

When the 10p tax rate was dropped and there was a hoo-ha, the govt said they'd compensate and ther compensation rules meant that many were compensated apart from one group - guess who - elderly women on low incomes. Who is fighting for them? That's another viewpoint you don't get on MN.

My 19:19 post was to grace not sparky.

Not against single-issue action, ISNT, no. I was coming into that from the perspective of "Feminism appears to assume all women are white, comfortably off and probably married w/children." I'm a feminist who doesn't assume that, though I largely agree with that statement. In trying to explain myself, I no doubt got a bit woolly.

TBH if I try and think about too many things all at once my brain hurts and I get confused.

DH and I (look there I go with the DH thing) anyway we want to do regular charity donations and we keep looking into it but there's so many excellent causes and then you get into what sort of charities - local, national, but then look at what's happening in africa and elsewhere, then there's personal issues (DH always wants cancer charities) and we end up tied up in knots and never end up being able to choose.

It's like that - I can talk about feminism and that's fine. But if I have to remember to think about every single otehr situation there might be all the time then I shut down and can't think about it at all IYSWIM.

I think it's fine for people to unwittingly concentrate on the things that affect them surely, it's natural? As long as they don't dismiss other things when they are brought to your their attention IYSWIM. I mean there is stuff going on in the world which is really awful and I don't even know about it. Hardly anyone knows about it. We can only do our best, right?

Also I have really discovered feminsim in a big way on MN and so only know how MN feminists are IYSWIM. And the website demographic = middle class (whatever that means) and mostly coupled up (as most people find it when they are pregnant/their children are small and haven't had a chance to split up yet) and have children.

If this is about feminists outside of MN, which it probably is, then maybe I should bow out as I don't know anything about that

six% - i wasn't dismissing feminism as navel-gazing. i've spent a good few years of my life navel-gazing in this manner

merely pointing out that often lack of time and money allows for a sense of dissatisfaction to develop with the staus quo, but no chance of doing anything about it (ie the luxury of being able to afford to read a bit, and think deeply about what you actually do believe in terms of gender roles/ social construction. navel-gazing really just used as a shorthand way of explaining that. presumably inadequately ) it was an attempt to describe what i used to do, from the perspective of my current lifestyle. i still aspite to getting back to it though.

my mum was a cleaner. i was the first in the family to even consider uni. i spent a long time reading white middle class feminists (amongst other things) where often there was a huge amount of thinking done on behalf of different cultures/ classes/ genders. having slipped from my academic pedestal of late into (that housewife by stealth thread), i can kind of see where sparky is coming from. (i also have a child with a disability. this is solely my responsibility as a woman in the eyes of society.)

anyway, that was all extremely badly put. i'm not attempting to speak for anyone else, but the feminist message needs to be accessible to everyone. everyone needs to take part. and i'm not just talking about women. men need to be discussing equality too. middle class women not engaging those who feel disenfranchised by the feminist movement are going to get nowhere.

typos everywhere

I don't think feminism assumes everyone is middle class and comfortably off. I think feminist threads on mumsnet do this quite alot though.

I suppose you have to ask what feminism in it's current form has to offer working class women.

I remember seeing exhibits at The Peoples Palace in Glasgow about the rent strikes when w/c women were held to ransom by landlords while their husbands were at war. These women took to the streets and refused to pay.

Mind you there's nothing wrong with being middle class- weren't the suffragettes middle class?

skintbint - I see what you mean, I wasn't pulling you up on anything. I think my point was that some of the more abstract feminist theory gets dismissed as navel-gazing when it wouldn't if it wasn't about women, IYSWIM.

Sorry its - bloody predictive text.