Feminism chat thread

[ElephantsAndMiasmas]

Hello

Been saying for ages that it'd be nice to have an area for just saying hi, letting off some steam and sharing the little things that don't warrant a whole thread.

So, I'll start...

My brother made me :o:o:o last night when we were talking about some crap sexist song. And he said (in all honesty) - well this is just one of the millions of ways the patriarchy keeps itself going.

Also got the updated email from the Feminism in London conference this morning - can't wait.

Anyone else?

what a pair of maddos they are

Had a look at the assange thread, couple of maddos, quite. Thankfully they don't represent the views of all men, although it seems too many men, need educating.

Prolesworth and others, I have been following a thread about a single mother who has decided to give webcamming and escort work a go. She's in debt, she has kids to feed and presumably the kids father hopped off and doesn't make much of a contribution.

I tried to point out to her that her line of business is splitting up other families.

Some posters are supporting her choice and saying that it is progressive and liberal.

I want to scream!

QueenBathsheba that thread makes me want to scream too!! Surely there are better ways to make money and since low income families get a lot of childcare help through tax credits thats no reason. It's disgraceful that in this day a woman feels forced in to prostitution. I haven't followed the thread fully but i wonder if she has sacrifices she could make like mobile phone. Can't understand why people think that her decision is ok?

LilBB, what has irritated me about the "yes, go do it if you like vote" is the fact that people fail to see the damage to society as a whole.

I did however tell spoc it was good to get a male perspective, I sort of feel we need more spocs around here. Its helpful because it fuels the discussion and maybe some of these men might actually take on board what is being said.

I think what's skews peoples views is all this 'empowerment' bollocks. They think women should do what they want if they want. They think she is choosing this option. What they fail to realise is the psychological (and quite probably physical) damage this woman is doing to herself. What about the children too? I would be so utterly mortified if my mother had to sell herself to buy things for me. I also think society puts too much on materiality. I would rather live with nothing than have to sell myself to have everything.

I don't understand how we can live in a world where someone would rather sell her body than work in mcdonalds.

sakura wrote - "It makes me sick that the Left supports porn under the guise of freedom of speech. What about the freedom of women to be regarded as human beings and not be degraded in porn? OR children?"

When anti-porn people have mentioned the harm to children, I've seen porn-defenders on threads mock them with accusations that raising the topic of children is a cheap trick to make the anti-porn people feel guilty. In other words, those particular porn-defenders are too self-centred to see beyond their own entitlement.

What is so good about free speech if the only kind of free speech is "porn rules OK"?

I don?t understand how we can live in a world where people would rather pay for single parents? and their children?s upkeep with the sleazification of our whole society, rather than a few tax-payers? quid in benefits.

when I say "the only kind of free speech" I'm referring to porn drowning out other views.

good to see some of the more offensive posts on the thread have now been deleted...

LilBB - "I would be so utterly mortified if my mother had to sell herself to buy things for me."

For every child who is proud of their mother for renting her body to pay for the child's lifestyle, I am sure there are many other children who are devastated by that situation.

May I join your feminism chat thread? Have been reading your threads for weeks, has changed the way I view most things. I study a foreign language at university, two of my lecturers are these incredible feminists and lots of our modules include women's studies etc. It all really interests me, does anyone have the names of any books that could start me off?

It's the failure to see the difference between:

Freedom of and
Freedom from

I would argue that women's right to freedom from sexual harassment outweighs men's freedom of expression to shove porn in their face.

Hello Levekusen. There have been some book threads recently. Depends what kind of thing. The popular ones at the moment are The Equality Illusion by Kat Banyard and The F Word by Cathryn Redfern, both only recently released.

Here's the missing r

There is also a monthly book club that you could join in with.

Hello

Prolesworth wrote - "There seems to be a total denial that porn causes harm"

I think that denial is rooted in the self-centred hedonistic "me, me, me" attitudes of so many porn users.

Thanks! I am going to browse now.

Has anyone seen Black Swan, the film? I really didn't like it, but having looked about the internet a bit there seems to be some people who think it is a feminist film and some people who think it is misogynistic.

NOt seen it, but on the last few pages of the High Heels WTF are they about thread we started discussing ballet at the end, inspired by Beauty and Misogyny's critique of ballet shoes... Somebody on there described ballet as a "feminist nightmare" and I think they're right.
DD does ballet. I find it to be an incredible art, one where females are valued (paid much more than males) and given their "place" so to speak. It's also a female-driven art, the teachers are almost always female. But there are a hell of a lot of problems with it too from a feminist perspective...

I'm so curious about the film now. I've done a quick google. This reviewer sounds really angry

" Untold sympathy goes out to poor Portman, who obviously went through extreme mental and physical exertion?even humiliation?for such a worthlessly exploitative end; her character never develops beyond incessant suffering and Aronofsky, with three screenwriters, hasn't even convincingly laid the requisite framework for this mousy girl's devastating Eve Harrington ambition. What he is tellingly more interested in are her scenes of masturbation and lesbian oral sex.

The characters are, uniformly, lurid cartoons, from Cassel's maestro (a performance which could be deemed high camp in more fun circumstances) to Hershey's one-note, controlling gorgon of a mother out of Stephen King and Kunis as the most clichéd predatory lesbian in screen history (and that's really saying something). Winona Ryder pops up in that classically essential role of the faded, replaced star, and momentarily gives the film a jolt of true passion, with an all-out vulgar Liz Taylor intensity. As for the ballet scenes themselves, here Aronofsky really shows his clueless ham hand with the form, as you come away with no sense of any real choreography: His staged Swan Lake looks as cheap as any suburban community theatre production. "