is there a new cognitive dissonance thread?

[kickassangel]

if so, please link, i can't find it.

if not, i'd like to add some things

using personal experience to prove a point is not a great argument. we have to start with the bigger picture, then see personal experiences as a case study which exemplifies, but does not prove a point.

i'm not even sure that i view myself as a feminist. i view myself as someone who believes in equality (not just on male/female issues). the generalisations about feminism being a religion i find offensive, as they both ignore the patriarchal society we live in (and this assertion can be backed up by endless statistics & experiences), and assume that one particular viewpoint is religious.

is marxism a religion? what about other schools of thought?

feminism is a broad range of thought, and there will be changes and shifts within the arguments, just as there are in other sociological concepts. and there will be women who abuse, just as there are men who do so.

however, look at the structure of society, and it is impossible to say that it isn't patriarchal. just look at the possession of wealth, the media representation of people, the male/female ration in positions of power.

if it was as simple as some women 'not bothering' to push themselves forward, there would still be enough women to fill 50% of all key positions in society, and to hold 50% of the wealth, but that isn't what happens. so, it sin't due to a lack of women exerting themselves, it is due to the inherent sexism within society.

I don't thinks saying that a male-dominated power structure has womb-envy is any more valid than Freud saying that women have penis-envy (I sure don't - not very tidy or aerodynamic is it?). Envy gives the other group a certain amount of power, and I think it's really all about power.

I think you may have it backwards - not that children are lobotomised (or stuffed with ritalin) to get to mothers, but because they are a nuisance that interferes with the business of being Very Important Powerful People.

So when children and mothers are grouped together (with the mentally ill, natch ) as lobotomised patients, it's not that the children are there due to the mothers, but that the mothers/'failed' housewives (full adults in their own right) are being treated just like children, a nuisance and a bother to be hidden or medicated until they are no longer an inconvenience. All three groups are being infantilised because there were no real societal repurcussions to doing so.

Claiming that the children are there to cause their mothers distress, IMO, implies that the mothers have enough power to be worth distressing, and I just don't think that was the case.

Mmmm, I do think that it pisses of patriarchy no end that women have a)all the pussy and b)all the wombs.

I think a) makes us vulnerable (porn, rape, sexual violence and assault) whereas b) does gives us some power.

Look though how both birthing and feeding has been taken out of women's hands to a degree with gynaecologists and formula (The Politics of Breastfeeding is good on this).

NO, I wasn't claiming the children are there to cause their mothers distress. I meant that patriarchal establishments have historically exerted maximum destruction over mothers: look at the pube-shaving, stirrups and epiosotomies- all unecessary and all about control. Then, re lobotomizing children, they did it just because they could. MOthers don't care whether their child is a genius or not, they love their children just the way they are. Patriarchy can't accept that, and has always dabbled in eugenics.

I don't think womb-envy and penis-envy are synonymous. If we lived under an oppressive matriarchy then you might have a point about penis envy, but patriarchy's very existence, the way it actively tries to destroy women: think of violent porn, for example, tells me it's not an accident that violence is systematically acted out upon women. I think it's based on womb-envy.

Sakura,

Children are, maybe surprisingly to you, people in their own right. I think it is a real stretch to believe that children are lobotomised to get at women.

Beachcomber,

Your gynaecologists point is something you would have been dead right about maybe 20-40 years ago.

Below is from the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists.

"Any Obstetrics & Gynaecology Department will do their best to provide a woman doctor for you if you state a preference, and it helps if you ask in advance and to ensure your request is included with the referral letter from your general practitioner".

So if you want, you do not have to see a male at all.

And, as to formula, the official advice is "Breast is Best" and, with my wife currently pregnant and us having a 15 month old, I can assure you that breast feeding is now pushed very hard indeed on the NHS, and rightly so.

I agree with sprogger though, that the more children you have, the more appealing FT work looks. My friend went back FT at 6 weeks after her 6th child. She went to the nursery to breastfeed her in her lunch hour. SHe stayed at home for a year with her first

I am currently reading Delusions of Gender (Fab book, if a somewhat depressing read), and the evidence that mothers are discriminated against in the workplace is clearly there and perhaps explains why some mothers just give up the fight and go part-time or become SAHMs....

Yes Larry, I bow to your superior manly wisdom on the subjects of birth and breastfeeding.

Both of which I have done twice and you have done exactly never.

I didn't say all gynaecologists were men or that one could not make a special request (that may or may not be possible) for a female doctor .

You were on the childbirth thread (crashing around like a bull). I see you have failed to listen to women sharing their real life experiences again. Why am I not surprised?

Talk to the massive numbers of women who wanted to BF but didn't due to lack of support, the breakdown of the generational network in which women pass down knowledge to each other, societal attitudes to breasts/public feeding, lack of pertinent BF advice from doctors/HCP in general, lack of general understrength about how BF works, lack of knowledge about which medications are safe for BF, the influence of formula advertising/marketing on both the public and the HCP and on and on and on.

Huge damage has been done to the natural act of breastfeeding - it will take several generations to haul us back (if indeed it is possible).

Beachcomber, he's enjoying your responses. DOn'T bite

You're right. I do it for the lurkers really. Don't care what Larry thinks.

Oh and I see he hasn't had the decency to clear up the mess he made yesterday on this thread.

Beachcomber,

As it happens, I am a HUGE supporter of breastfeeding. I saw how our son escaped a lot of illness as he got antibodies from my wife and also how, when he was sick and tiny, he would sometimes only take breastmilk. I am sure it allowed him to escape a drip a couple of times. In fact, my wife is considering becoming a BF counsellor as she wants to help others.

Do not assume that because I am a man, I know nothing about feeding. When any parent has a baby on the 0.4th centile (due to reflux and food aversion) they learn all they can about what they can do to help. I have spent enough occasions trying to feed a screaming baby a bottle (of high energy formula, which he DID need to supplement breast milk) to understand that feeding is not always trivial and instinctive.

My point which, again, as ever, you fail to take is that society's attitude has shifted 180 degrees from where it was when I was a baby. The fact that there are still problems
does not mean that society in totality has not changed.

A lot of feminists on these threads have argued that BF is an example of men's subjugation of women as it leads women to have to be the main carer over the first few months of a child's life. I always find that a depressing idea. Your thoughts?

I agree penis envy and womb envy are not the same thing.

Actually I think womb envy is a misnomer. I think it is more about wanting to control rather than actually envying (à la Handmaid's Tale for example).

Isn't penis envy a whole load of hooey (when applied to women anyway)?

yes Penis envy, according to Freud, comes from a little girl sighting a penis at the tender age of seven, feeling inadequate at her lack, and becoming psychologically affected forever.

It doesn'T cross his mind that the girl might take her body to be the norm and that the turkey's wattle she she's might be an unecessary extra to the perfect human form [all foetus's begin in the female form, for example]

IN addition, he doesn't explain what happens to all those little girls who don'T end up seeing a penis at that early age, those who don't have brothers for example. Nope, according to Freud, you've got to see one

Sakura,

Are you seriously discussing penis envy? On that subject, Freud was discredited years and years ago. Only the delusional believe in it. On the other hand, a penis is part of the PERFECT male form. We would have, for many years, as a species, failed to procreate without one. I know women will soon be able to manage without men!

Handmaids tale is a brilliant book, it is all about the abuse of male power. And very well written.

PMSL!

It was, however, not written by Doris Lessing.

That last post of his was a tad repellent. Does he think he's wandered into a reader's wives section?

Beachcomber,

How did I know you would mention that?

I read it about 20 years ago. And I now remember it was written by Atwood, who, en passant, has denied it was a feminist book but merely about the abuse of power.

"You could tell The Handmaid's Tale from a male point of view. People have mistakenly felt that the women are oppressed, but power tends to organise itself in a pyramid. I could pick a male narrator from somewhere in that pyramid. It would interesting."

Well i'm a lurker beachcomber and i think your attitude and responses have been appalling.

I didn't know much about feminism before this topic appeared and tbh it's put me off for good.

lemonmuffin, out of interest, what did you think of larry's rape/late term abortion analogy? Did you not find it a tad distasteful?

Distasteful?!

Well, have a look at it and the subsequent posts and see what you think. It was an analogy made to illustrate a point. Maybe it was distasteful and, if I genuinely offended anyone, I apologise. On the other hand, I think a lot of people love to take umbrage about people they do not like. The same people who took huge offense at my (carefully explained post) then found the quote "the best cure for unhappiness is lobotomy" to be absolutely hysterical with large smiley faces and PMSL.

And then we had Sakura saying that children are lobotomised to get at women.

And then we have what I am actually trying to fight against, that the fact that men are responsible for rapes says something about society and men in general.

Yeah, there have been some distasteful posts but have a look and make your own judgement.

And then we have what I am actually trying to fight against, that the fact that men are responsible for rapes says something about society and men in general.

Larry,are you saying that the fact that men are responsible for rapes doesn't say something about society and men in general?
Or am I misunderstanding?

Happysmiley,

I am happy to try and answer, though I am not an expert in the area.

Rape is a crime. 100,000/30mio is 0.3% approx. I do not know how those stats compare with other crime statistics or with other violent crime statistics.

There is always going to be a problem with convicting people of 1 on 1 crimes which take place away from other people. Either you get a low conviction rate or you reduce the standard of evidence. Too many rapists definitely go free but do you think it would be acceptable to send a significant number or innocent people to jail to address the problem? There is no easy solution to this.

I believe there is a review going on of how rape is dealt with although I am sure you know a lot more about it than me.

In short, it is a problem. But to go from the fact that there is a particular problem with one type of man who commits a crime to the fact that society condones it is just plain wrong. All right thinking men abhor rapists just the same as women do.