A favour...

[deepheat]

Howdy. I'm a bloke wo has posted on a couple of threads here, got interested and then lurked on a few more to try and get an idea of what views might be expressed on a feminism messageboard.

And I'm none the wiser as to what feminism is. I figure that this is pretty understandale bearing in mind that I'm guessing every person on this messageboard will have different opinons anyway.

But its an odd thing. Feminism is a massively loaded term and yet would appear to encompass so much. People have talked about radical feminism, but what is that? What was radical ten years ago would no longer be radical now. Is it a standalone ideology or one that responds to the culture of its age?

It also seems like it is quite a politicised ideology, e.g. the threads about Assange and football are full of people trying to turn them into issues of sex/gender rater than addressing the issues on the terms as they present themselves (I accept that this may be to be expected on a feminism messageboard).

I'm not a troll. I am genuinely curious and genuinely eager to understand more. I wouldn't call myself a feminist (partly because I don't know what one is) but I am keen to address issues of discrimination in my sphere and have done so. But I do want to celebrate the difference between men and women, and I believe that those differences are fundamental. By the same token, I also believe that there is still a massive cultural inheritence for women that does disadavantage them in many aspects of daily life and that this is willingly perpetuated by men (and women) to their own ends.

For what its worth, I'm 31, very happily married with one kid and another on the way. In our house every decision is discussed and each other's views respected but... the final decision is mine. And it is because I'm a man. My wife believes that it is important for a man to be the 'leader' of the household. We talked this through at length and I wasn't fond of it (lots of responsibility!) but it has worked for 12 years. BUT... it only works on the basis that I am a model husband who gives her absolute respect at all times. And I do.

Basically, I would like to ask everyone on this board to reply, stating what feminism is to them. If feminism is a cause, then what is the final destination people are aiming for?

why did you accept it andre? did you ever discuss with your wife why she didn't want you too involved with the children?

HerBeX It' very useful to name things but names can obscure as well as illuminate. 'The patriarchy' exists to the extent it does by sustaining the illusion, where it suits, that naming things is enough.

One of the things that I think was a significant contribution of feminism was the insight that 'the personal is the political'. But this cuts both ways.

You can't have 'the personal is political' and a meta-narrative that explains and determines everything. I think there are battles to be fought at all levels but they are not the same battles.

The way YOU get around it HexBeX is to make absolutely certain you are fully aware of the bias I'm talking about, identify it as a serious issue and make certain you're not perpetuating it. That would help me greatly because it would be one less fucking person telling me I'm an arsehole without meaning to.

Sorry - not meaning to be stroppy.

madwomanintheattic

You misunderstand. She did want me to be involved with the children - it's just that she wanted it to be on her terms as she knew our (mine, hers and the children's) respective needs and priorities. She's a woman and understands about these things and so it was only natural that she would be the final authority. You can't argue with that. The test for me is speaking to women about it! One ends up in some very interesting territory, none of which is 'a feminist issue' so far as I can tell!

omfg. 'she's a woman and understands about these things'. what things?
'only natural that she would be the final authority'

never mind. i thought you were looking at it rationally. obviously i was mistaken.

i assume you aren't really saying that men are incapable of working out a child's needs?

or are you?

worse. you're saying a man can't work out a family's needs and priorities. only a woman can.

why's that then?

as far as i can tell, we've all got brains and are capable of judgement.

madwomanintheattic

I was being deeply ironic. We've all got brains and are capable of judgement but only women have wombs. You would be surprised how often it's used as a trump card. Most of the time, I suspect, you don't notice. That's how it is with people (me included)- they tend to notice stuff unless it disadvantages them.

When it comes to matters relating to children, women will play their card if they need to and most women will support them by excuse or justification. When you unpick it all carefully some interesting prejudices and assumptions are revealed. Those prejudices take some effort to overcome because they're much more ingrained and vociferously defended than you'd expect. Like a lot of prejudices they are not even acknowledged. That's my experience, anyway!

great.
so difficult to pick up deep irony from text.

i'm curious why a women would need to play a trump card like having a womb though. could it possibly be that every other aspect of 'power' has been systematically withdrawn, leaving them no other card to play?

if it helps, anyone daft enough to come on here and say 'oo dh never looks after the bairns - he's not capable' is usually given a good shooing and told to leave him alone with them for the weekend. not much playing of the womb trump card in these environs.

it's amazing what a lack of choice does for your decisions, really.

why a women? i can barely type. woman, obv.

We know that very many women are not feminist, and/or haven't thought much about the assumptions that go with their gender. This is true on mumsnet, which is fairly 'feminist' as women's message boards go. I suspect such women are not playing their womb as a trump card (love that expression!) so much as thoughtlessly following the assumptions that label them.

Childbearing is woman's power source - the only inalienable one; also her shackle. I'm getting a bit polemic here and I think it's because I'm trying to enter into the vocabulary of this thread. Sticking by what I wrote earlier, though. And I did get andre's irony.

I know what you say about many men is true. I think you would be surprised, though, at what men have to overcome in order to be fully-involved and fully-competent with their children. It's a pleasure that too many men miss out on - and it is a great joy and pleasure - but there are more obstacles than you might credit.

When you try to overcome them, as I have, you realise how many there are. What I've found frustrating is the number of women on the other side of these barriers fortifying them with lots of energy. It's a cultural thing. What I'm saying is that it runs more deeply than you may think.

I've fought a custody battle for my kids, which has been very revealing. When men and women are in agreement none of this matters a great deal (rather like the OP's comment about his being the final decision, but it need never come to that). However, women, like men, like to keep their trump card just in case they need it. The family courts know about wombs and how they must be properly accounted for. Part of it is an appropriate allowance for the suspension of brains and judgement because wombs are in play. That is how it is.

i'm not sure if you are talking about personal obstacles in terms of a female partner's views, or more widely in terms of what a man's (horror) business colleagues or rugger mates might think? or just a cultural assumption about gender roles and apathy about any challenge to them.

i'm slightly curious about the competency thing - why would it be harder for a man to be 'competent' at looking after a baby/ child than a woman? given a room, a baby, and a free hand, why should one gender be more competent than the other?

i can see that the 'competency' issue might be creditable if you've spent 6 years avoiding being on your own or doing anything for/ with your child, but at the point of 'push, ms x' with that pfb, competency is entirely up for grabs, no?

family courts are (tee hee) a law unto themselves. i recently posted on here about a man whose wife was charged with his attempted murder (she stabbed him in the chest in a drunken rage) but was bailed and left in the house with the children who witnessed her attack. the victim/ father was temporarily rehoused. i was livid. still am, actually. it would not have happened if it had been the man who had drunkenly stabbed his wife. can you imagine the uproar if he had been left in the house with his kids?

i'm not a huge fan.

i'm interested in your feeling that it is the number of women fortifying the barricades that you find frustrating though. are you not equally frustrated at the men who uphold the status quo? cos it's, like, pretty much of all of them (your good self excepted, natch), whereas at least there are a good few women attempting to break them down...

i'm pretty much frustrated by both - but do recognise that most of the women don't have much choice, whereas the men do.

'it runs more deeply than you may think'. really?

Ramble.

When I first 'caught feminism' I was equally concerned about the gender stereotypes that proscribe men. Over the ensuing decades, though - and particularly as my career progressed (and I remained childless) - I had to become aware of how much greater the restrictions on women, and the impediments to our freedoms and our progress. We've had the Partiarchy discussion on other threads: it does exist. Not as some sort of organised club, but it operates like one. Someone here coined the phrase "inadvertent patriarchy" which describes it perfectly to me.

Just as the rich have no real concept of what it's like to be unsure whether you can afford to feed the meter and the kids all week, the modern male doesn't realise how effortlessly he enjoys advantages that women must battle for. You get all sorts of inadvertent dominators: the 'white oppressor', for example; the able-bodied people irritated by the wheelchair user looking for a non-existent ramp; the educators who label kids as no-hopers. It goes on and on - I'm guilty of it myself sometimes.

The inadvertent oppression of 52% of all people, however, is spectacular. It's been going on for so long that it infects practically every fibre of our societies and all of our expectations. Many (most?) women either choose to ignore it or play along with it: black American slaves used to play up to the Minstrel stereotype because it got them favours; women have an equally good reason to play Flirt and Mother.

There are men who get it, and who honestly have no patriarchal feelings. They are dismally few & far between. I suspect they were all born to feminists, who did not play the Mother card.

madwomanintheattic

"could it possibly be that every other aspect of 'power' has been systematically withdrawn, leaving them no other card to play?"

I can't remember whom, but someone mentioned something about willingly relinquishing power. Also, I said: there are many battles to be fought, each of which are different. That's what I don't like about meta-narratives - they imply there's only one battle.

I'm glad you're not a fan of family courts! I'm finding myself becoming very fond of you .

I had a not dissimilar experience to the one you recounted (no knives, fortunately!). My wife attempted to force entry to my house. I called the police, she went away, they arrived and did their best to keep a straight face. I had no grounds, it seems, for a legal complaint. A few days later I was arrested because she injured herself trying to get in. I'm serious! It was dropped when it was looked into, of course, but it was still me who spent hours in the police cells and was fingerprinted, photographed and DNA tested. Ultimately, I was to blame for getting myself into this situation with a woman (not handling her correctly?).

I also get very frustrated with men who uphold the status quo. The fact is they make themselves less of a man by doing it, in my opinion. That's a fuck-up for me and a fuck-up for them. That is the problem with some of these prejudices - they make men less like men and women less like women because we're hanging onto things that may or may not not have a lot to do with us.

I believe it may run more deeply than you may think. Some of the early precepts of modern feminism should alert you the probability that this is so. However, from what you've written it's clear you've got more awareness than many.

Sorry for such a delayed reply. It's late!

AgeingGrace

I think the analogy with black American slaves serves a useful purpose but it deceives as much as it informs. There are complicated issues in play in the relations between men and women. I don't think they can be explored deeply enough through an exchange of posts on mumsnet. There is much work to be done by good men and good women though!

Interesting, Angry1960

What would be the complicated issues in play between men and women, which did not apply to plantation slaves?

These days, in the 'west', the woman has not been unwillingly wrested from her home turf but you seem to imply there are more compelling reasons why women may play up down to stereotype for favours? I'm curious!

grace - i started with chaps. was thoroughly bored with everyone (well, ok, everyone in my particular sphere) banging on about women. all. the. time. so i looked at what it meant to be a man. it interested me muchly. but it is, of course, impossible to look at the culturally acceptable traits of one without reflecting on what it means for the other. or should i say Other.

only one battle, andre? just because i'm on this board doesn't mean i'm not a disability rights campaigner. i'm equally as ticked by lots of other culturally accepted norms. and i'm sure as hell my daughter will be when she realises what it means for her.

i'm not really sure what you mean by 'they make men less like men and women less like women' - shouldn't it be, er, they build distinctions where none exist? what should a man be like? are we at cross purposes? i'm not merely discussing prejudice - my concern is with prescriptive stereotyping which makes men into Men, and women into Women, rather than creating individuals...

'there are complicated issues at play in the realtions between men and women.' you wouldn't be being patronising, now, would you? if i was being mischievous, i'd ask you to mansplain.

He can't be patronising us, mad, cause there isn't a patriarchy.

. Perhaps he's
. . matronising us?
Boom! Boom!

Oh, yess! You're a fine spirited filly, allow me to saddle you up!
(I have now STOPPED channelling puppet foxes, you'll be pleased to hear.)

Oh, yeuch, orville!

I don't do fainting, mate. Here, have a

me either. but i do like a nice
[wanted to try the new emoticon emoticon]

but apparently, willingly relinquishing power is quite common.

it's not that i'm phobic about green acrylic hair balls in nappies. nope. no sirree bob.

drop-kicking the damn thing would be far more appropriate though.

"" For example, I am a woman and if you met me you would assume I am female. I wouldn't be offended if you made that assumption and outside of a feminist discussion I wouldn't correct you, but I don't see myself as female."

rinabean why don't you see yourself as female? YOu sound almost ashamed of it.

OUr chromozomes denote us as male or female from the moment of conception (despite what the in vogue scientific quackery on this subject might tell you). Denying femalehood is not the same as denying femininity. Female=sex Feminine= Gender.
We should smash gender, of course. There is no reason why women should wear make up or why men should not.

Not quite sure where I called you an arsehole Andre.

It is an interesting discussion about how women gatekeep the role fo parent. That's partly because that's what they're expected to do and they're pushed into it, but I'm sure there's something in what madwoman said, about that being the only bit of power many subconsciously feel that they've got left. Women will feel less pushed into that/ determined to hang on to that, when we have equal power with men in all the other areas of our lives.

Exactly... Until very recently, under all patriarchies children belong to the father. IN the UK if the father died there would be no guarantee that a mother would be allowed to keep her children if he'd stated in his will that he wanted them to live elsewhere...!

It is the one area that women have retained some semblance of control. There is no reason whatsoever why women don't hold at least 50% of the seats in parliament today except that we live under a patriarchy. WOmen giving up their parenting role isn't going to change the power structures in society.

In Japan, the fertility rate is the lowest in the world. I personally know many women who chose not to have children and very few families have more than one child, and yet it remains one of the most strictly patriarchal societies in the world. Which tells me that childbearing and rearing is not the root of female oppression, although it most definitely plays a in it.

BUt when we talk about women gatekeeping the role of mother we definitely have to touch on men fleeing the responsibility of fatherhood.

Sakura, I didn't mean that childbearing is the cause of female oppression (women in matriarchies still have children!) but that it is used - falsely - as the explanation for it.
I was trying to argue the speciousness of this 'explanation'.

I don't know rinabean's circumstances but feel I should point out that gender, like all natural things, is a continuum not an either/or situation. There are many intersex conditions, some genetic and some are developmental abnormailties. A fair few women walking around today have male chromosomes.