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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

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Original poster

The demonisation of single mothers.

336 replies

SantaIsAnAnagramOfSatan · 02/12/2010 06:52

Hi,

I've ended up talking about this in various threads but have never dedicated a thread to it.

So, i'm looking for your thoughts. How do we see this in action? What are the views of single mothers? How are they propagated? Why are they propagated and why do they attract such demonisation?

I'd also like to hear about where you think the feminist vision saw single mothers, did it predict their would be more given the increased freedom women would have in their lives and their ability to leave male partners or choose to not have one without being financially or socially (though that hasn't held true entirely compared to 1960's it's at least possible to live this way) ruined?

Is women being able to have children alone a part of the feminist outcome - if women have more control over their bodies and reproduction surely it was an inevitable outcome? And is it in your mind a positive or negative thing in terms of feminism?

I'm actually going away for a few days now but hope this will attract lots of thoughts for me to read when i get back.

As for me, to put this in context, i am a single mother of a pre school boy. When i found out i was pregnant (unplanned) at 30 i decided that i was happy to be and wanted to keep the baby but that i didn't want to stay in the problematic relationship with the father. Therefore i've been a single parent from the outset.

I have framed this as about single mothers rather than single parents as it is my experience that single fathers are seen very differently, imo as heroes and glorified whereas single mothers get the demonisation treatment in popular culture.

Look forward to reading your thoughts.

OP posts:
TheCrackFox · 05/12/2010 19:48

"You know back in the day people used to have like 6 or 7 kids, what's the bet alot of men added several years to their working lives raising them? Their lives are so meaningless to you that you have no pity, no compassion for those men at all? Women are historically the gender who sent their men off to die while they fucked every service man in sight for a pack of cigarettes."

That would be all those wars stated by, er, men. do you really think mothers where happy at sending their boys off to fight? no they fucking weren't.

Oh, and women have always worked to pay for their children. We just didn't get paid the same because we didn't have a penis.

HerBeatitude · 05/12/2010 19:52

LOL, he's funny, isn't he Truckulent? Grin

Eaten up with hatred. We should feel pity I suppose.

BillHicks · 05/12/2010 19:53

TheCrackFox Sun 05-Dec-10 19:41:27

Oh, so I take it that Britains's brave squaddies absolutely did not shag any French/German/Italian/Greek Polish girls whilst they were out there? hmm

--

There were plenty of French women who fucked Nazi soldiers for perks, you know what OTHER French women did to them, right? Shaved 'em bald and carved swastikas into their foreheads. As for the wives who ditched their own husbands off at war for visiting/occupying soldiers for smokes and candy... I don't have a very high opinion of them either.

As for the men, well, they were getting shot in record numbers so I can understand why alot of them might've wanted to feel the touch of a woman one last time. Still, the guys who fucked around on their wives were pretty bad too, no better way to reward the few loyal wives who remained true than to bring back french herpes... jerks.

HerBeatitude · 05/12/2010 19:54

What a wonderful re-writing of history that is, women starting wars and getting men to fight them just so that we could fight conchies.

Great conspiracy theory Bill. Were the women in cahoots with the giant lizards?

HerBeatitude · 05/12/2010 19:54

Sorry that should say fuck conchies.

HerBeatitude · 05/12/2010 19:55

Ah yes, the virgin/ whore version of womanhood.

The rest of us are in 2010 Bill.

TheCrackFox · 05/12/2010 19:57

Oh, so getting shot is an excuse but getting bombs dropped on you isn't an excuse? I guess, though, you being a Yank, you managed to miss half of the war.

HerBeatitude · 05/12/2010 20:03

Not just getting bombs dropped on them - being raped by conquering troops, if they were German women.

BertieBottlesOfMulledWine · 05/12/2010 20:03

I know the thread has derailed slightly Grin but was doing some reading for an essay the other day and was interested to see that, statistically, single parent families were as common in 1880 as they were in 1980. (1980 a bit outdated now of course, but the book was a few years old). Thought some might find it interesting :)

BillHicks · 05/12/2010 20:08

TheCrackFox Sun 05-Dec-10 19:48:00

That would be all those wars stated by, er, men. do you really think mothers where happy at sending their boys off to fight? no they fucking weren't.

Oh, and women have always worked to pay for their children. We just didn't get paid the same because we didn't have a penis.

--

As far as I'm aware TheCrackFox, wasn't Queen Victoria the ruler of the largest Empire to ever exist in all of history? She presided over numerous colonial invasions, a war on the Boers in South Africa where the Brits invented concentration camps... which killed mostly women and children. She signed off on that war, as all British monarchs due except she actually had alot more power than the current monarch! Back them she could have vetoed it, she didn't.

You know Queen Victoria also passed the laws that barred women from many workplaces? Why? Women and girls were barred from doing jobs like removing rags out of unprotected and jammed industrial machinery... 9 year old boys though? Yeah, old enough and ugly enough to have their arms torn off, to die years earlier than they should from injuries sustained supporting and protecting the female members of their family.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breaker_boy

Breaker boys sometimes also had their fingers amputated by the rapidly moving conveyor belts. Others lost feet, hands, arms, and legs as they moved among the machinery and became caught under conveyor belts or in gears.

Do you think these boys wanted their mothers or sisters working in places like these? If I had to choose between being a woman and a man in 19th century Britain or America... I'd much rather be a woman.

mysoginistwanker · 05/12/2010 20:08

Historically, women have always lain around on chaise longues eating chocolate while the men did all the work and put their lives at risk in wars. Fact.

mysoginistwanker · 05/12/2010 20:09

Bill is right about everything. You girls know nothing.

TheCrackFox · 05/12/2010 20:12

How far back do you want to go in history?

julius Ceasar

Napoleon

Hitler

99% of wars were started by men.

HerBeatitude · 05/12/2010 20:14

Have you ever been kidnapped by aliens and subjected to an anal probe, Bill?

TheCrackFox · 05/12/2010 20:16

He would like that because he would convince himself it was female aliens. They aren't that desperate.

scallopsrgreat · 05/12/2010 20:17

Grin Grin Grin I think I have stepped back a century!

Bertie I suspect that most of the single parents in 1880 were as a result of death? Not because the women had the positive affrontery to... wait for it... divorce their husbands or...even worse...not marry them in the first place (or even have a relationship with them).

Gosh I feel faint now just suggesting that - must go and have a chocolate bar on my chaise longue!

TheCrackFox · 05/12/2010 20:19

A lot of men where abandoned by their DHs too.

FWIW, during the Victorian era a man was entitled to leave his children to whoever he liked. It wasn't an automatic right that a mother would keep her own children upon the death of her DH. Ah, the good old days, eh?

mysoginistwanker · 05/12/2010 20:19

(am SSM really, but have just realised this alias isn't going to work because the reality of misogynist wankery is just as bad as anything my limited satirical imagination can come up with)

HerBeatitude · 05/12/2010 20:21

Scallops, there was a massive amount of desertion that went on in the past. Men just up and left and went to another county, leaving their wives without even the status of widowhood.

Did anyone see that episode of Who do you think you are with Kim Cattrall on it? One of her relatives was abandoned by her father, who went and lived in another county and had another family, while her relative was brought up in abject poverty and the stigma of not knowing whether her father was alive or dead.

It was quite common before the advent of easy divorce.

sixpercenttruejedi · 05/12/2010 20:21

Grin I thought it was scottishmummy
btw loved the crap spelling. absolutely perfect.

scallopsrgreat · 05/12/2010 20:22

Ahh I thought your post was a bit tongue-in-cheek mw/ssm!

HerBeatitude · 05/12/2010 20:22

Jude the Obscure deals with that issue, of no divorce for poor people.

scallopsrgreat · 05/12/2010 20:23

Hadn't thought of desertion - probably because we were talking about wars Confused! But yes that makes even more sense!

BillHicks · 05/12/2010 20:24

TheCrackFox Sun 05-Dec-10 19:57:14

Oh, so getting shot is an excuse but getting bombs dropped on you isn't an excuse? I guess, though, you being a Yank, you managed to miss half of the war.

--

Great grand father was Royal Navy in WW1 and WW2, grandfather was Royal Navy WW2. I have another grand father who fought to hold off the Japs at Papua New Guinea in the Australian infantry, my great grand father on that side fought in the British army, joined up with some lost Aussies in WW1 in flanders after a brief firefight, LOL.

I suppose no men died in the blitz then, hey? Nah, they had to put up with both risks to their health proudly.

Trop · 05/12/2010 20:28

At the risk of derailing the thread even more, I'm sorry Bill do you answer my question? I tried to find it but the hate in your posts is palpable and makes for difficult reading.

A woman, working in an environment you clearly feel is dangerous and entitles men to higher pay - what would you say was my 'danger money'?