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?

Is there any chance you can email/ring/turn up and say "oh hello! I think I've got a problem with my emails because I never got the one about the group restarting. Usual time and place on Tuesday?". Thus making them justify why they are being such big babies?

I'm 'allowed' to go, but I will feel really uncomfortable. And I'm feeling angry with my friends who are 'selling out' to them. Apparently, one of my friends told me, the wife wants me to apologise if I want to go to the group . And my friend decided not to rock the boat by saying 'why the hell should Flamingo apologise to you?'. She excuses it by saying it's not her row. I just think she's a wimp. She's a close friend, but I find her almost-disloyalty hard to bear. It's not the first time this has happened.

Sorry for taking the thread off-track! I am just aware that this will continue to be a problem for me as someone who speaks out - and I am wondering how other people manage it without getting very depressed!

Just remembered there was another interesting bit in the Justice prog last night, about dog-fighting, that made me think about lap-dancing/the 'sex industry'. the discussion was about whether something can be justified on the principle of "the greatest pleasure for the greatest number of people"

Interviewer:(playing devil's advocate as supported of dog-fighting)
"Yes it creates some suffering for the dogs, but there aren't that many dogs, and there are thousands upon thousands of us."

Interviewee:

"You're trying to make it very tough, and it is tough. I still think that dog-fighting is something we ought to get rid off because I think it has a brutalising effect not only on the small number of dogs there, but on people's attitudes to animals in general. It would be the same if instead of dogs we were to pick some despised racial minority and make them fight. As the Romans did with the gladiators, well not a racial minority but it was captives. And we have to think about the attitude that that inculcates to think that it's ok to treat people like that for our amusement."

Random frowny-face intervention there! :) Meant : ( of course.

It is annoying when you feel you are the only one with the guts to speak up. But I really do believe it has a ripple effect on other people. I used to work on an all-female team with one man sitting in the same area (but not same team IYSWIM). He was constantly expecting us to make tea, book rooms, arrange hotels etc for him. The other women would complain (to each other) but oblige, but I would say no via making a joke out of the fact that he was even asking - it was in no way our jobs to do these things for him, we all did them for ourselves. Eventually he couldn't find anyone to do this stuff for him, because the other women saw that I said no and the world didn't come to an end.

For this reason I suppose I feel that it would be good if you went back to the group. Otherwise it looks like a bit of a tiff about breastfeeding (or, really, about politeness) is cause for "banishment". The other parents at the group will learn not to speak out. Any chance of ringing them up and saying "that all got a bit out of hand didn't it? We're all a bit too old to be squabbling over facebook aren't we haha, see you Tues."

Just in a pretty shit state of mind at the moment, Elephants. Might go if I snap out of it soon enough, but it's often all cliquey there too - just don't know if I can be arsed with it all!

Clearly I am becoming a wimp myself!

It's only natural though Flamingo :( Cut your losses then and just have a nice day with your DC :) If they're a bunch of bastards fools then you're better off out of it.

Elephants, I too had exactly that thought when they were discussing the dog fighting. Utilitarianism is a load of old shite though

Sorry to hear about your excommunication Flamingo, but bloody good for you for speaking out in the first place. Could you and your other excommunicatee (is that a word?) start up a group of your own? I mean, I'm really not sure I'd want to associate with those people after they'd treated me like that. I can see it's made much more difficult by the involvement of the DCs and their friends though :(

Oh good Coley, typing that out I did feel like I might have been going a bit mad to draw that parallel. Glad you had the same thought. Was watching with my parents and they both looked sideways at me when I chimed in with "lapdancing!" like some kind of feminist Father Jack.

HOOT @ "feminist Father Jack"

It's true though, a purist utilitarian would defend prostitution, porn, lapdancing etc - especially porn, I suppose, because the number of viewers is so much greater than the number involved in the making of it - because the suffering of the women involved is outweighed by the pleasure of the many. It's a completely amoral perspective. I highly doubt that there are many (if any) political philosophers taking such a purist view out there though.

anyone who watching the Panorama stalking prog last night might want to hop along to this thread. WubblyBubbly and Gabby (I always thought Gabby was a man? anyone know) did very well.

Elephants - I think that dogfighting analogy is fascinating; am thinking it through.
I guess there can't be much actual evidence that dogfighting brutalises society, can there? But people are probably willing to accept the assertion.

Feminist Father Jack

Flamingo, that sounds horrible.

Hello. Not been around this board much lately. Missed it.

Flam, I remember that FB-fight, sorry to hear it's had such an impact. Does this man and his wife have a proper hold on your local HE scene? Starting your own group sounds a good idea.

I defriended someone on FB today. I've been ignoring the subtle and less subtle misogynies, but today was the end. Felt very good.

Do you really remember it, TimeWasting! Did I post on here about it?

They don't 'have a hold' at all - it's just that lots of people go to that group. It's only once a month - it's no problem at all to avoid it, except that I do suffer from depression and was having a bad day today, and got all paranoid and silly. My closest friends are still very much my closest friends and, while I'd like it if they spoke out more, it's probably their worst failing and, as none of us are perfect, I shouldn't complain really!

I retreated to my mum's house. She said she'd told my dad (step-dad) who'd got angry on my behalf and said he was proud of me that I stood up for what I believed in - and even just that made it all worth it

I was wastingaway, off the Shineys and on your FB, changed my MN name a bit.
Glad your Dad cheered you. I'd go next time, if you're having a better day.

really pleased that one of Sky Sports resident sexists has been booted out (see what I did there). The Guardian's back page headline tomorrow is something like "Gray's out, now what about Keys?" :)

Have been trying to think of anyone else I can recall being sacked for sexism. Failing. Anyone else?

this link
was just posted on the other thread. If he doesn't get sacked, I think it would show that Gray wasn't fired for sexism, but something else.
I really want him to have been fired for sexism but there is history of sexism only being taken seriously when there's some other agenda hidden behind it.

the more radical I get, the more I feel a tad sorry for the patriarchy.
I've just been going about my business today and thinking about it all when I walked through a hotel which had a "Hall of Fame" , which happened to be pictures of the golfers who had won tournaments there. The frames and pictures were mahooosive, huge God-like pictures in a shrine-type corridor full of with blown up images of these men. All men.

It's golf FFS. It's pointless WHo cares unless you're a golfer, and even then...
ANd yet this was the centrepiece of this five star hotel

Then there was that article mentioned on her yesterday "Gods of Science" . They actually used the word God to describe these men who had been tinkering about (credit where it's due- scientific discoveries are important, but they're not godly and plenty of women have made discoveries but are always conveniently omitted from such articles)

I know it's all down to womb-envy.

Freud projected reckoned little girls were traumatised when they had a dawning realisation (around the age of 7) that they didn't own a penis. Well, I think that the opposite is true. I think that little boys, at some point, realise that they are never going to be able to produce a baby like their mummy. I think this probably has a significant impact on their psyche.

And it got me thinking about how men, the patriarchy, see the world. I think they regard women as allmighty and powerful. THis perception of women-as-creators- is what drives them to push women down and oppress them, or even kill them.

To them, it's only fair. WHy should women be able to create and be the source of life and hold material power.

SO I heartily believe that the fear of women, misogyny, is the perception of men.

WOmen don't regard men with awe-- they don't make babies, they can't. Of course men know this and it drives them up the bend so their life energy goes into compensating for this lack.

WOmen, on the other hand, are content just to live , and all they want is to be left alone. This capacity for contentment has been women's mistake over the years because it allowed men to take over society by stealth

whaddyathink?

of course not all men feel this fear and hatred, but I'm just talking about the root of it
because there are so many men about who feel that the status quo is perfectly justified. That is what got me thinking as to why , when it is obviously so unfair

I think it's more than just wanting to exploit women's labour, I think it's about men's believe that they're evening out the power. that's why oppressing women has always been so systematic, that's why men bandy together against women

belief

Sounds interesting, and plausible, sakura.

I've often felt very admiring of my step-dad. He was brought up in a very typically misogynist family; went to very typically misogynist schools; and then went and worked for the police force which, as we know, is a typically misogynist work environment! Then he married my mum, after being invalided (ie. to him 'emasculated') out of the police force. My mum earned more than him, was more capable than him at a lot of things (having lived as a single mum of two for several years, while studying for a degree etc. etc.), and refused to let go of her freedom and independence.

And he must have found it hard to adjust, having spent his whole life being told that men are better than women, that it's a bad thing to be like a woman, that you are pathetic if you earn less than a woman, are not in control of your woman. But he did it. He embraced it and he is now an amazing man. He works for very little money in a special school, surrounded by women. His job is not 'manly' in the slightest but he loves it.

It's men like that I feel sorry for - men who have to struggle with an internal conflict between feeling shame at not being hte one in charge or earning hte most, and the knowledge that that shame is ridiculous.

But I keep hoping that this will be the last generation to deal with these feelings. Doesn't look like it though :(

Sakura - think there's been some writing about this hasn't there? I do think there's probably a lot in it, and like the idea that many men can't see inequality because they see it as "balancing out".

If anyone wants cheering up, listen to Great Lives featuring Katharine Whitehorn (amazing woman) talking about Mary Stott, "the great campaigning journalist and the first editor of the Guardian women's page".