How to explain why feminism is important to DH?

[Bumperlicioso]

Just had a little debate with dh over why I get so het up about feminism when, in his words, 'it doesn't really affect my life'.

How do I explain to him why feminism, or rather inequality, does affect my life and will affect the life of his two daughters.

He's not anti feminist as such, he grew up in a very matriarchal family and consequently tends to be equally, if not more, comfortable around women. He is very egalitarian when is comes to work, house work and child care. In fact when not on mat leave I tend to work longer hours as I earn more and he does the majority of childcare.

I think because he is so personally egalitarian it doesn't occur to him that in this day and age others might not be, and wrt feminism I think he sees it as anti men. How do I explain to him that it isn't, it is relevant and will be relevant to his daughters? I might persuade him to read this thread so be welcoming

maybe he needs to watch more reality tv.
there was one recently where they had nice girls living with total losers (eg the woman would do all the housework and earn the money while the man would sit at home playing video games and get waited on hand and foot) and the point of the programme was to try to improve the man so the woman didn't dump him

it came as a shock to my very egalitarian dh as well. Helped him see the point of it all!

how about showing him a few choice Employment threads on here too? There was one a while back where a woman got sacked for allegedly being too emotional and it was clear what they really meant was too female.

agree Equality Illusion is vg.

It's not really an answer to your question in some ways, but I have enough privilege (e.g. white, educated, middle class) that I am not impacted upon so much as many other women in many ways. I fight for women in general. For everyone's daughters. Not just for me and mine.

Many of the things I get angry about don't affect me directly. I get angry about inequality in general though.

I have got the equality illusion, but with the baby and all haven't had a chance to read it. Dh would never read it, trying to get him to read childbirth books was tough enough, though i managed to get him to skim a bit of Ina May Gaskin, but that was only because I had leverage, what with pushing a 9lb baby out of my fanjo'n all

But I could read it and highlight bits for him. Trouble is he will tolerate me doing so and nod in the right places but he doesn't see what the fuss is about really. I just don't think he sees the impact on our lives. I told him that a 7 year old girl was at the park wearing mascara and he was suitably horrified but he doesn't understand the origins of that behaviour and I find it hard to articulate.

Hi, yes I agree with Aliceworld's world point - it might be worth pointing out to him that while he might not see the burning need for feminism in his/your daily life, there are millions of women worldwide for whom the achievements of women in the west are a distant dream. A stark contrast might show him why feminism is relevant and then perhaps you can bring him slowly round to seeing how feminism is still necessary in the west too.

good luck!

Do you have a DD? Explain to him that she has a 1 in 4 chance of being raped or sexually assaulted with practically no chance of getting justice for that, because contrary to the reality, most people believe that women are constantly falsely alleging rape when they're not. (About 4% of rape allegations are false, if that. But most rapes - estimates vary between 60% and 90% - are not reported at all, because women know there's no point. So far from being a mountain of women out there alleging false rape, there's a mountaing NOT alleging true rape.)

Then if you have a DS, he has very little chance of being raped or sexually assaulted, but his chances of being raped or sexually assaulted by another man, are actually much higher than of being accused falsely of rape.

So why might that be? That might make him reflect on why feminism is needed.

Is that stat really true herbex ?

Yes, it's true, Bumper And, worse, not only is she unlikely to get the rapist convicted, but she's at high risk of not being believed or even blamed for it . Women just aren't seen as important enough for rape to be taken seriously - it's just lip service that's paid to it. if it was taken as seriously as other crimes, there would be a far higher conviction rate and people would be far slower to find reasons why it's a little bit the victim's fault.

That's reason enough, IMO, to fight for the attitude towards women to change...and that's what feminism is. Fighting to stop women and girls being sexualised, objectified and to get them taken as seriously as men.

raped or seriously sexually assaulted, is what the 1 in 4 figure is.

and yes it is true.

if we count minor sexual assaults (being groped on a train for instance) it's probably way higher

Useful thread for me too as I have no way of getting dh to read a book. Let alone one about feminism.
Other stats like that are good. Almost bullet points to get the message across.
Things like differences in pay are good for this too.

And that figure obviously only counts reported sexual assaults - we have no way of knowing how many women are sexually assaulted and don't bother to report it because they've been taught by society that they shouldn't make a fuss - it's not important or serious.

Also, google 'privelege checklist' and get him to read one of those. That'll show him quite how lucky he was to be born with a penis and hopefully make him want to help improve the world so his daughters aren't suffering under the disadvantages they currently will be.

Privilege checklist - scroll down if he doesnt' want to read the beginning blurb. The checklist itself is enough to open eyes, I find

I thought the 1 in 4 was backed up by the British Crime Survey which does include unreported crimes, though obviously it doesn't include anything women thought was too trivial too mention (cf the minor sexual assaults thread where some people described things that were actually pretty bloody serious).

How can they possibly include unreported crimes? I guess it's an estimate. But surely the number of unreported sexual crimes is far higher than that of any other crime?

as I understand it, the BCS involves in depth interviews (questionnaires?) including asking interviewees about crimes they have been the victim of but not reported. more info here

Actually I might just write down what Judi Dench said in that ad. Don't want to show him the actualy film because of the Bond thing but what she said was good

You should get some stats from here. (Home office website - about VAWG).