Anti Feminist Bingo!!

[TheFeministParent]

Elephants had this idea!!

So I'll start

"we're not a homogeneous mass..."
"I don't like to be too narrow..."

Here's my take on the feminization of poverty:
The task of managing childcare while working usually falls on the mother of the children, especially when the woman is single or has no financial support from the father of the children. The less reliable the father(s) of your children is(are), the more you (but not them) take a financial hit. Same goes for cases where a woman is divorced. If she has been a Sahm for a longish time her chances of finding work that can either pay enough for full time childcare or work that fits in around school hours and especially the school holidays are slim to none on both counts. Society has put equality on the statute books but the workplace still functions with the assumption that every employee has a 'wife' at home taking care of family responsibilities (hence those long school holidays and lack of free childcare).

In addition, welfare policies that actively discourage retraining or further education while receiving benefits mean that women who might be able to get better jobs if they had a qualification can't get one. They need some way to bridge the gap between having benefits and having that important qualification. They may need childcare facilities in the college or school if they do manage to enroll but too often this is not available either. The earlier you begin to have children, if you're a woman, and the less education you have when your first child is born, the more likely you are to live in poverty, you and also your children.

Exceptions can "prove" or undermine any argument, but correlation is good enough for me.

Although there are rich and powerful women (The Queen, Imelda Marcos, etc., as pointed out upthread), why not admit there is a strong correlation between being poor and being female?

Some of this is because of the "hidden"/systemic discrimination, with which some people seem very uncomfortable. However, the other reason for the correlation is the very prosaic one that women are generally carers. The train of thought ought not to stop there, because it brings us to why female poverty is so important : it is much more likely to be child poverty, and then continuing adult poverty (and thatis just inhumane, no matter what you think of "special treatment"). Thus measures of positive discrimination (e.g something as basic as having child benefit in the name of the primary carer) are justified. Mohammed Yunus, who won a Nobel Prize, explicitly extended microloans to women, on the basis that they were proven quite effective this way.

cross post!

Yes, denying to mothers in poverty for whatever reason, and who are extremely motivated to better themselves because they want to do better for their children, the opportunity to help themselves out of the rut they're in is ultimately counterproductive for the rest of society, and it smacks of punishment in some ways. Punishment for falling short of the 'can't go to bed til you're legally wed' standard and punishment for having the temerity to assume since society is now equal, you can go it alone, without a man to support you.

Niceshoes, you've misunderstood.
Custardo was implying I was an idiot when she said the reason I was a feminist was because I didn'T understand her POV.

On the contrary, not only do I understand her POV (because it is the status quo) but I have heard it many, many times before.

I do think you're scraping the bottom of the barrel when your argument is reduced to: "feminism doesn't need to exist and anyone who disagrees with me doesn't understand the status quo"

upthread, claig mentioned the Queen.

Have you ever read about the lives of Royal women, or rich women in general? How absolutely miserable they are.
They are used as brood mares, have to turn a blind eye to their husbands' filandering, have to look and behave perfectly in public...I would say working class, single mothers have got it better than them in many, many ways..
Princess Masako in Japan, was treated just as appallingly as Diana, and ended up having a nervous breakdown linked to the fact (I believe) that she couldn't produce a male heir.
To say that because a women is well off means she somehow escapes patriarchy is, well, a little off.
She may be able to escape the worst excesses of the patriarchal system, more than a poor woman, but I would be surprised if there was a real correlation between a woman's wealth and her well-being. After you've been raised above the poverty line, any additional wealth doesn't count for much anyway.

And wealth is one thing, power quite another. Males have got wealth and power.

In my own family, my dad's sisters had a much more 'sheltered' life than my mum and her sisters had, growing up. Dad's sisters went to finishing school instead of college, and then married men who had been to school with my uncles for the most part. I don't think they questioned their lives or the conditions under which they lived; they gave the impression that they were happy and fulfilled women, but they were all intelligent and could have earned a degree if they had been given a chance. Mum's were sent to college/had jobs, because they needed to support themselves.

Sakura,as I said I do not post here much,I do have an interest and I do lurk a lot.I feel I do not perhaps know enough e.g Feminization of Poverty(I am open to knowing more ). Also, I said having observed some of the scraps I do find it bit scary here.

I really do not understand your remark to me:

I do think you're scraping the bottom of the barrel when your argument is reduced to: "feminism doesn't need to exist and anyone who disagrees with me doesn't understand the status quo"

OMGI am so confused.I said no such thing,I have said I find the name calling off putting. Nowhere on this thread have I said that,and you even put quotation marks around it as if I did actually say it.If I misunderstood yout post I apologise,but that certainly does not mean have a go at me.I dont know what barrel I am suposed to be scraping here? This kind of reinforces my anxieties about posting here, put a foot wrong and get pulled up on it.

NiceShoes, I don't think she means you! I think she means Custardo.

NiceShoes, I think Sakura was referring to Custardo, and not to you. Don't worry about putting a foot wrong, jump in with both feet, it's not as scary as it seems.

NiceShoes,
That sentence was about Custardo's deliberate refusal to engage and instead telling me that I was only a feminist because I couldn't understand the way society has been set up.

"You" is used as a generic term, meaning "people" but sorry if you thought I was specifying you personally. I can see why you did because the first part of the post was addressed to you.
As you say, you haven't discussed the feminization of poverty with me, so I had no reason to direct that sentence to you

I don't think anyone should feel anxious about posting on any topic. For example, I've just posted in Breastfeeding thread about something I felt strongly about, but I realise it might be controversial. I don't worry about people telling me I'm wrong. I think that's the ethos of MN.
Other than that, if you're worried about not "knowing" anything about feminism, perhaps you could start a thread about some book recommendations.

i wasn't implying anything of the sort sakura please don't put words into my mouth.

But it is very easy to see why people wouldnt want to post if they feel they are being attacked rather than feel like they are having a debate and exchanging views.

you clearly said "sorry, I don't get you Custardo.." which i took to mean that you don't understand.

that is in no way a reflection of whether i think you are intelligent enough to understand. it could well have been that i hadn't posted in clear enough terms.

the semantics matter not in the big picture, the big picture. I would love nothing better than to have a debate on this topic but its never long before derisory negative language is used. i defy you to read over your posts and say they were meant in a well meaning balanced way becuase they most certainly were not.

"feminism doesn't need to exist and anyone who disagrees with me doesn't understand the status quo"

please do not use quotation marks for a quote that does not exist. When it refers to me anyway. If you want to twist words and infer meanings and invent quotes from other posters, i suppose i can't stop you.

Oh, come on, coming onto a thread where people are clearly inclined to feminist viewpoints with:

"i don't agree with the globalised marginalised contruct that women are oppressed. all women."

Is like me going onto a pro-breastfeeding thread and saying:

"I don't agree that breastmilk is better, despite the evidence to the contrary"

what I mean is that wittling down women's oppression to economics is a faulty argument in itself. The feminization of poverty is but a small strand of the overall oppression of women, and to say that the economic oppression of women as a group doesn't exist because some women are better off is illogical. WOmen don't escape being female. They simply have a relatively better time of it.

And remember it is men who are oppressing men, so while some men do suffer under patriarchy-capitalism it isn't women doing the oppressing. WOmen are not the ruling class, men are.

THis means that gender automatically becomes relevant. It's automatically a woman's problem. If men wanted to change the status quo, they could.

still got no idea why I'm arguing the case for feminism on a thread about Anti-Feminist Bingo

perhaps you should re-read the thread, It might give you an insight as to why you think it is ok to post angrily at me when i have a different POV. make stuff up, and then ignore it and pretend to argue a feminist argument.

why did you come on a light-hearted thread about the of-repeated Anti-feminist phrases women have to put up with in order to explain why poverty is not gendered?

Anti-feminist BIngo # 46

"Feminists don't let other people have a POV"

NO, it's not feminists who run the media: the newspapers, the film industry, TV & advertising; the publishing industry; parliament, government, universities, schools....

goodness I've been staying away but just wanted to say thanks to custardo for clarifying that you aren't anti-feminists

Now I might do a card of some of the best ones today - any objections?

Well, it wasn;t entirely off topic as at the time the conversation was around the definition of antifeminsm

you can re-read the thread if you'd like. perhaps you can go over your posting style and see where you could be less confrontational in the future.

"Feminists don't let other people have a POV" was designed out of my comment about you posting in an angry style as i have another POV from you. please be assured i was refering to you personally and not to feminists in general.

just as i know that feminists in general don't usually put quotation marks around a quote they made up and attributed to someone else.