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?

This hasn't got romance stories, crafts and stuff in it BTW it's a big glossy number. Mainly interviews with successful types.

Australian Women's Weekly models are smiling because the recipes are so good. HTH.

(it's true btw, the Australian Women's Weekly cookery books are terrific.)

but the WI are secret globally campaigning feminists - look at their secret feminist agenda

Didn't the WI do a survey of their members about sexual assault, and release the results, in order to challenge wipespread ideas about what "sort" of women and girls get unwanted sexual attention/harrassed/raped?

nearly but not quite

The WI are looking pretty good TBH.

I imagine they are a pretty hefty lobbying group because of the stereotype of what their members are like.

I'm a WI member and there are some amazing women involved with the WI.

I'm a Skills Co-ordinator for my local WI federation, a role that centres on encouraging and supporting personal development through learning. I'm on hand to offer support and advice for members who are thinking about training in a new career or learning a particular skill, and aren't sure what steps to take next. Sometimes this means supporting a woman who is lacking confidence in her abilities, other times I might be helping a woman who hasn't worked for several years find suitable training courses etc, or I might try and research possible funding for someone who isn't able to afford the course they want to do.

I really enjoy the work I do.

The WI isn't just making jam and marmalade, although my local branch does have a marmalade making day coming up soon and I'll be there, as I don't just 'cherry pick' the bits I like.

To correct some wording...

or I might be trying to research possible funding for someone who isn't able to afford the course they want to do.

I live in a hamlet, surrounded by other hamlets and tiny villages, and my local branch is located in the neighbouring small village.

My work as a Skills Co-ordinator is across the whole county federation, so any WI member living in this county can contact me or one of the other SCs for assistance and support.

At branch level, particularly in smaller villages, you do get the traditionalists (there are several at my local branch). However, the WI is working hard to rebrand and change, but it can only change if women with fresh, modern ideas and outlooks join us and help us change. It is getting there though.

Had a bit of a weird epiphany today which makes me think that, yes, SGB is totally right in saying that male-female pair-bonding in marriage and live-in partners is a fetish, and nothing more.
DH's business colleague and new wife came over for lunch and it was just weird to observe the feminine/masculine thing going on. It was really interesting to see it at play and magnified in a sense.
There was no sexism in the room, absolutely not. It was very civil, polite and pleasant, but- how can I put it- it felt like an act .
I felt like I was outside of my body observing it all. I'm finding it hard to articulate what I mean, but just there today I didn't seem natural at all for one man and one woman to be in their little group, and then another man and another woman in another little group, and for this to be understood as the basis of civilization.
If anyone knows what I'm going on about please do let me know what exactly it is I'm trying to say...

I'd much rather be a member of the WI than the Mother's Union, which has a male member at the helm, and in fact has nothing whatsoever to do with mothers. BUt then they admitted it had nothing to do with mothers when they came on MN to talk about how important fathers were (as if the interests of fathers and mothers were perfectly in synch ) .

LOved that article Prolesworth

ooh, what's the red pill/blue pill syndrome?

I can see I will have a narrow-minded block on that one for quite some time, Sakura. I don't want to think that my very happy marirage is, in fact, just a weird game (or I have I misunderstood completely?)

obviously when I talk about fetish I suppose I mean "male fetish" because many women, especially those with small children, often have very little choice but to cooperate in some way with the father of their children, and end up choosing the path with the least short-term grief, which is to co-habit.

Are there many men who would freely support their children economically, if they didn't live with the mother? Would they hand over a substantial amount of their monthly income to the mother of their children out of the kindness of their hearts? From all the stories about maintenance dodgers, and men who begrudge pay outs to their children, it tells me that unless the father is living with the mother, he often begrudges supporting his children.

No Flamingo, I'm not saying marriages aren't happy, just that it's probably a fluke if they are.
Arbitrary , yes that's the word I'm looking for, thanks Prolesworth

Sakura you're right about men begrudging paying for their children if they don't live with their childrens' mothers. 90% of non-resident parents are men and 3/5 of them don't pay a penny in maintenance. Not one penny. So that's a majority for starters.

Then, of the 2/5 who do pay, the sums are often paltry amounts - a real token gesture, rather than a realistic sum of what it costs to actually raise a child. I can't remember what the average sum of maintenance is, but it is shockingly tiny.

AND THAT IS WHAT THE STATE PERMITS. So the state actually supports the notion that unless you live with your children, you don't really need to financially support them. It's nice if you do of course, but it doesn't actually need to be a realistic amount because your right to have a comfortable life without your children, outweighs their right to be supported properly by you.

The state puts the maximum level of income, at which a non-resident parent needs to support their child, at 15% for one child and 25% of total income no matter how many children he has. Which may or may not be considered a "substantial" amount of income, but doesn't come anywhere near how much income that NRP would expend on his/ her children, if s/he actually lived with them.

HerB and not forgetting that the state is shortly going to make the parent looking after the children (ie women) pay for the state to pursue the non resident parent for maintenence. So the state seems to be agreeing that if women can't keep the man happy and at home then she doesn't deserve anything from him. Or something.

On the pair-bonding fetish thingy. I quite like it personally but I know what you mean. It's odd that no other ways of doing it are "allowed". Personally I think that a communal style living arrangement with everyone mucking in on the work would be a good thing, I wouldn't fancy sharing teh sex around as well though

OTOH Sakura maybe you just need to take the blue pill, join the mothers union, and everything will be fine

I so, so often wish I hadn't taken the red pill about so many issues. For instance, I wish I didn't know there was another argument to the vaccination thing - now whatever decision I make I know is my responsibility and if something goes wrong, I can only blame myself .

And I know I've lost 'friends' by knowing about home education, 'family bed-ing', and other non-conventional choices we've made simply because we've chosen to take the 'red pill' and have realised that we don't actually have to do things the way everyone else does, but can make decisions that are right for us and our family. It doesn't half make other people feel uncomfortable though!

And now it's happening all over again with the feminism thing! I'm destined to end up with one, if that, very good friend at this rate! I hope there are no more red pills out there!

Sakura - do you think that the 'couples' thing would be a 'fetish' (still not really understanding it) if we lived in a feminist utopia? At the moment, I reckon our family arrangement, if it suits either of us mroe than the other, it's me who gets the better deal. But we're both equally happy with our marriage, and change things as necessary when one of us starts to be unhappy. I find it sad that so few people seem to have such good relationships but is it because we live in such a patriarchal society and I got lucky?