I think feminism will make things better for boys/men

[TrillianAstra]

No suspicion when a man wants to work with children

No sarcastic remarks about male nurses

No "you can't play with that, it's for girls"

No teaching little boys that to be a man is to be tough and hard and unemotional

And of course all the women in a man's life will be much happier

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Of course they won't get disproportionate amounts of pay and won't be chosen for promotion unless they actually are the best candidate, but I think the above makes up for that.

Fewer people muttering that my DS is a wimp if he cries or wants to cuddle his friends/hold hands.

Making a dollhouse sounds like loads of fun!

My ds wore a tutu until he was four and carried a sparkly wand, whilst playing with his trucks in the mud

its really nice thread OP not

I actually saw a post saying 'we all know most men rape'

nice to see a rational thought out response. you can't tar all with the same brush

A few weeks ago, a new neighbour invited herself round, as her DS and DD are similar ages to my youngest DS and DD. When the children were playing, my DS was making cups of tea an dmy DD was playing with cars, and this neighbour actually said, "doesn't it concern you that your children are playing with WRONG gender toys, my husband would never allow it?!"

It taught me that we still have a way to go.

Are you on the right thread wrongdecade?

Yes. Agreed.

As a mother of 2 boys as well as a girl, that is one of the the main reason I am a feminist.

Cleverything - I just smiled and told her we don't assign gender to toys in our house, because we want our children to grow up without the restrictions of gender stereotyping. She just smiled and changed the subject.

I think this may be why she hasn't invited herself around again.

Very calm/polite/to the point - well done!

Lovely thread Trillian, I totally agree. I think a lot of fathers miss out horribly in their relationships with their children, just for example.

Separately, Lenin, would a Playmobil house hit the spot for your DS? Looking at completed listings on ebay, it looks like with a bit of waiting and watching you could probably get one for £30 - £40 including figures/furniture.

DD has a 'proper' dolls house (made for me by my dad when I was little) but I have to say it doesn't get a fraction of the play time of her playmobil stuff - she doesn't have a house, but often makes house set ups in cardboard boxes.

I think the biggest thing that feminism could give men is the freedom to make more choices about their lives. Even now most men (and most women) are still heavily circumscribed by economic and social pressure to conform to the norms that were accepted in the 1950s.

I have been able to make more choices than my father about how I live my life but only because my wife was able to have a well paid job. The freedom my wife enjoyed to pursue a well paid career gave me freedom to enjoy our children more than I otherwise would.

That said, I wonder if some men at the bottom of the economic scale have lost out to feminism as many more women entering the worklforce have competed away their earning power down to minimum wage level. Just a thought. The union movement has never been an avid supporter of equal pay on a practical level due to this erosion of the 'working man's economic power.

mine had to invent teleport because we didn't want to cut doors in the sides of the shoeboxes they were living in

all the dolls houses ended up in my son's room! I picked them all up quite cheaply at school sales. My son dressed up as a female nursery rhyme character at hallowe'en. I know my X wouldn't approve, but he is not around which has allowed my son much more freedom to play with ovens, dress up as a fairy, wear red shoes, pearls....! He probably won't want to for very much longer but at least he had the chance to experiment without a Dad saying [cough ahem] are you taking a handbag with you son?
I know some men are fine about this stuff.

An interesting question, MoreBeta. Its very true that right from the earliest days the union movement has been (was? hopefully not so much now?) very ambivalent in its support for women workers for exactly that reason.

I'm not sure that in practice women workers have actually depressed male wages. Of course relative wages have fallen in jobs that have moved from 'male' to 'female' (bank clerks and secretaries are two particular examples that come to mind). But male workers in 'female' jobs tend to rapidly get promoted & move up the pay scales (eg male primary school teachers are more likely to become HTs).

I think that a far bigger influence has been the fall in the number of manufacturing jobs. Its not that men are earning less for the same job because employers could hire cheaper women, but that those relatively well paid lower end jobs no longer exist.

Great idea for a thread Trillian :)

Thanks Takver, you've reasoned that through much better than I would have. It makes sense that if the number and type and pay of jobs were static then an influx of new people into the workforce would mean that the people already there would have to compete harder for the jobs, but these things are not static.

And at the bottom of the economic scale it's better for men if their wives/daughters are able to bring in money to the household than if they can't.

Takver - yes loss of traditional male dominated manufacturing, mining, heavy industry has definitely been a factor. I remember reading about employment issues when steel mills shut down in the 1980s. Many men refused to take call centre jobs because that was seen as 'womens work'. In a way, men lost their economic power even as their own wife, daughter, sister gained economic power when call centre operators moved their operations to former industrial towns. Women went out to work when the men lost their jobs.

Its a kind of chicken-egg issue. Do women gain equality as they gain economic power or do they gain economic power as they gain equaliity? As men lose their grip on economic power do they always gain in other ways? Are large numbers of unemployed or under employed men bad for society? Will unemployed and underemployed men be happy to take on more caring and homeking roles and will society let them?

An interesting thread with complex implications for society I think. Men (and women) could gain a lot but at the individual level there might be significant losers.

In my imaginary post-feminist world men wouldn't refuse jobs because something is "women's work".

(Seriously WTF? You'd rather be unemployed? )

I don't see economic power as something that there is a finite amount of. One group gaining does not mean another group loses out.