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?

Night, SQ (or morning, if you've already switched off) :)

I think being feminist comes from being 'equalist'. Anyone who believes women don't get a bum deal is blind, deaf & dumb, imo. Also imo, you can seperate women's issues from issues of so-called inclusivity. Being female is not a disability or a life choice. It's slightly over one-half of all human beings, whatever their race and cultural or physical descriptors.

In that much alone, feminism is anti-rich-white-male. Because rich white men enjoy greater privilege than their female counterparts, and they could cede some without great harm. There is inequality at the most privileged levels. Move down a few socio-economic levels and it gets worse. Add in the challenges of a poor community, concomitant health problems, et al, and you'll find women taking 80% of the flak and getting 20% of services.

Which is why I can't separate "socialism" from feminism, personally. Always bearing in mind that I've never been a real socialist (Claig!) and ours has never been a socialist country - we've been sort of inclusively caring, and that's what the word means to me. Thus, obviously, it includes caring about women.

Don't know whether I am one of the people labeled an academic feminist or not. But I am an academic and a feminist. (Not a feminist academic, as in my research is not feminist, yet).

From my perspective it's a pretty hard place to be a lot of the time, as the way I think just is what can be defined as academic. I thought that way before I was one, I'm just wired that way. And most of the time people don't like that so much so you have to tone it down. (I digress but discovering other people thought like me was actually a huge relief). One of the things I like here is that we can have those discussions. And most of the time my perception is that I try and explain things through an academic lens, without academic speak. No idea if I succeed or not, or whether I don't even come across as academic or not, or what. But that's my perception. I'd hate to lose that option.

Just want to also clarify that I don't equate 'academic' with 'clever'.

Marking place, as I've just read the thread, and want to keep it in vision. But I'm also trying to start thinking before posting and so will continue to lurk until I have something to say. But thank you for the thread, for now.

There you are TBE! I need a spreadsheet - I'm too old to remember all these namechanges :o

Lots of food for thought here - will come back in the morning when I'm less tired

Heh. I'm clever but not academic (accident of education & circumstances, I like to think).

Thanks for your posts, SAF. Am feeling about 1% less excluded!

Oooh, top diversion there, ma'am.

Abrahamic = historical/philosophical divider about which I know too little. I do know, though, that the original text had nothing about spare ribs. Also that the snake/apple story was only one possible translation. The literal translation is (as, bizarrely, we were taught in school) "When humans tasted from the tree of knowledge, they lost their innocence." There's nowt in there about sex, women being bad, or anything - that was all down to the cultural imperatives of the translator.

Original sin is a strange one. Even more so, when you consider the entire human race is supposed to have evolved from a man raping his daughter and killing his brother. (caveat - Or something very similar, am too busy cooking to check bible)

A lot of the 'justification' for sexism is down to the simple translation of "Man" as "men" when it really meant humans/people.

Supper's overboiling.

me: DH, DH.. Guess what, my feminist parenting has been working- DD thought Jerry was a girl ...! Even tHe MNers (exaggerating as it was only SaF) were impressed [art and life intertwine in this house]

DH:

me: YOu know Tom and Jerry don'T you...

DH: YOu mean... Jerry's not a girl

me: what? Does everyone here think Jerry's a girl?

DH: Hmm... it's because she, I mean he sometimes wears red doesn't he.

me: Harrumph. Well don't tell DD he's a he; I want her to come accross assertive females on screen.

Hahahahaha, Sakura!

So you stereotyped everyone else as stereotyping the Boss Cat as male, but then you found the anti-stereotype wasn't an anti-stereotype because not everyone stereotyped the Boss Cat the way you thought they stereotyped the Boss Cat, so maybe you'd stereotyped everyone else's stereotypes but their stereotypes weren't what you'd stereotyped them as, so who's the stereotype here?

Answer: The Boss Cat IS DA BOSS! End of.

well...no not quite.. it's the mouse I'm on about... not the cat

Socialist leaning societies are friendlier to women: the closer a society gets to pure capitalism, the harsher it is on women.

Patriarchy aside for a moment, women fare better under socialist systems, and one reason for this is that males are less likely to feel disenfranchised and have less of a desire to kick the underdog i.e women. THe streets are safe in Japan at night, women walk their dogs alone at midnight without giving it a second thought. Here fluff jobs are created where there are no jobs which gives people who would otherwise be unemployed a sense of purpose, a place in society, a reason to get up in the morning and some self respect . A man who is not being kicked in the teeth by society is more likely to step back and give women space. He doesn't need to hurt women in order to define himself as a man in a hypermasculine culture

There are also the other more obvious practial issues for women such as childcare, elderly care, special needs care. Taxing people who earn good money and distributing it amongst people who do carework is the sign of an evolved society. It shows that people have a stake in society.

Capitalist, individualist societies benefit men in all manner of ways.

I'm always blown away when I read the work of political scientists on capitalism. It's a well-known fact that under capitalist systems women are the cheap and reserve resource of labour. They're ushered into the workforce when the system requires it (in times of war, industrial revolution etc) even into skilled work when necessary, then automatically put back into female "pools" of labour, or even back into the home when that's what the system requires.
You can't "beat" the system by working for a corporation or a law firm; it just makes you part of the system.