"ask what you think are silly Qs here and forkful will try to answer them in a polite helpful way by directing you to the resources she found useful and try to use persuasive arguments and

[forkful]

if anyone feels scared just shout" THREAD

Sparked from the 700+ post thread. Honestly where is that thread going now . The people who hate women will be loving that thread.

Lots of posters don't want to explain Feminist thinking all the time (fair enough - I don't always - but I try to provide useful links and book recommendations and write wordy posts trying to explain my point of view when I have the time/inclination).

So to all those who are scared/lurking - come and ask some questions!

BAHB - I remember hearing on the radio (round about the time of the Slutwalk debacle) was that only 5% of rapists can actually recall what their victims were wearing.

Nice thread btw Forkful. I'd hate to think that people were put off an awesome thought-provoking section such as Feminism because they were afraid of asking questions.

Ok so here is my question - which is know is probably a silly one .

I do consider myself a feminist. For many reasons. However I also always wear make up, wear a wonderbra (sometimes), cover my grey hairs and shave my legs/armpits. I do all those things for myself, and for my DH actually, and because it makes me feel more attractive & confident as a result.

So can I really be a feminist or am I letting the side down?

I do that MooMoo, but probably less often than you do.

I often look down at my legs and when they resemble a pigs back instead of legs, i take a razor to them, and that'll do until the next time. Same with pits, although DD did tell me the other day i had hairs like a 'dad'

I colour my hair too, white is such an unforgiving hue i find , so am very interested what the general consensus is.

I love answering that question MooMoo, it is one of my favourites.

You are DEFINITELY not letting the side down and you can DEFINITELY be a feminist and wear whatever the hell you want for whatever reasons you want.

We had a huge thread a while back about resisting 'compulsory femininity', which meant that women who felt like it was being assumed they would do these things but didn't actually want to, or who had always done it and weren't sure why and just wanted to have a go at stopping and see how it felt, could get moral support and discuss it. But lots of very keen feminists on here didn't join in for a variety of reasons such as 'I have a hot new boyfriend' and 'I've just started a new job'.

The double standard, where women get judged on their appearance more than men, and are expected to put in loads of effort and spend lots of money on it, IS a feminist issue, and some women like to attack it directly by growing their leg hair whatever, but as feminists we all fight on different fronts, some people have careers in male-dominated professions, others work in women's refuges, others stand up to builders who order them to make a cup of tea instead of meekly asking how many sugars they want

Some women derive great pleasure and enjoyment from doing beauty practices and use it as a creative outlet, or the confidence they get from it allows them to go out and do other stuff. In the end only you can decide whether or not it is the right thing for you. Some of us got to the point where certain practices didn't make us feel attractive, they just felt wrong - I put on make up a few months ago and thought 'I hate this, it's not me' so I stopped but I never felt any compulsion from other feminists or like it was any effort to stop, it just felt right.

If anyone tells you you can't shave your legs etc and be a feminist they are talking twaddle. (However I would expect you as a feminist to support my right not to shave mine. )

sorry that's a bit long, is it any use?

Short answer, MooMooFarm: You're a feminist.

I would say that the only qualifier to that statement is that are you willing to see why some women don't do these things, because they think that wearing make-up and shaving legs are evidence of the patriarchy's hold on female beauty? That only women-as-a-group do these things, and men-as-a-group do not? That such things are profitable to companies that are largely not run by women? That even women who don't do these things are beautiful and sexy and attractive and feminine as well?

I occasionally do all those things you mention, and it does make me feel better about myself, but I do recognise that these things make me feel better because when I do them I 'fit in' better with a narrow band of femininity that has largely not been defined by women themselves. I think it's the second bit that makes you a feminist, not whether or not you do the first bit.

I'm sure someone who has thought it out better than I have will be along in a minute..

In fact they beat me to it!

How do I know if my questions are silly?

Could you provide a list of silly questions to avoid because sometimes it isn't always obvious?!

Reminds me of my old school reports 'Niecie must ask more questions'. If they could let me know what I don't know then I will ask about it.

Actually going into the Feminist section is a little bit like going into No Man's Land where you know there are landmines but you don't know where. Probably best avoided if you don't want to get blown up.

Niecie

the whole point of this thread was that people could ask questions without worrying about whether they were silly or not. No-one is going to call anyone here silly!

Thank you! That's the answer I wanted .

And don't worry I don't do a catsbumsmouth at anybody's unshaven bits and pieces.

I was going to post Brian's Q. I had this chat with my DH in the car the other day. He just gave me this look and I must admit I failed to convince him.

I have a very long question.

Firstly how do you balance feminist "perfect world" and RL? For example in a perfect world my DD wouldn't give two hoots how she looks. In RL she'll be judged for her looks and I suppose I want her to have confidence in herself about that. So do you tell your DDs that they are beautiful even if that reinforces the social pressure for girls to be beautiful before anything else? DO you never comment on their appearance? Do you always live according to feminist principles or do you try to strike a balance between principles and, oh I don't know, the reality of life under the patriarchy?

SybilBeddows - I think my point is that I don't know if my comments are likely to cause offence or not. There aren't really any questions for this thread unless I know what offends iyswim.

I posted a bit tongue in cheek as it did remind me of school - I always wanted to say if you want me to ask questions tell me what to ask!

OK how about this? Does anybody knowledgable in the subject have book they consider the equivilent of Feminism for Dummies? An overview or a starting point if you like. Presumably it would be different for different versions of feminism or would there be one size fits all introduction from which you could branch out on your preferred viewpoint.

But does telling your DD she is beautiful reinforce the social pressure to be so?

IMO, it's when you make the comparison between natural beauty and 'enhancement' that causes unrealistic goals and competition.

I'm more than happy to picked up on this, i'm only starting out on here

Niecie - don't feel like that! (I know what you mean about school reports though - still drives me nuts!).

I think sometimes there are questions I want to ask on-thread but some threads it just doesn't feel appropriate - eg., I don't want to ask about acronyms on rape threads because I'm aware they're partly there so people don't have to see the words that might trigger bad memories.

This thread would be a good place for that kind of 'silly' question I reckon?

Ok, as this thread seems so welcoming I'm back :)

Please - if this seems inflamatory, I am posting from my phone so can't put my thoughts down in detail.

I got roasted for my prochoice stance. I went off and did some reading but never really got the answer. So my question is: Can I be pro choice and a feminist? Or are the two mutually exclusive? My brain tells me the freedom of choice is a good thing, but the term choice feminist does get used here like a bit of an in insult (sorry, Im really not stirring, its all part of mt question).

Any answers much appreciated :)

ConradeJing Someone very wise on another thread (can't find it and I really need to find out who it was) said that the key point is when something becomes burdensome. It's a brilliant point and I need to write out the full text and stick it on my fridge.

I take that to mean that, if your DD has all the confidence and knows that she is beautiful just the way she is, and knows that the beauty standards applied to women are created - powerful, but created nonetheless - then she can pick and choose what she wants to play with and when she wants to do it. So, she might wear make-up for work, because it's less hassle not to - but she'll recognise where this demand has come from, see it for the daft practise that it is. There's a difference between conforming to a standard temporarily and REALLY internalising it.

My mum's friend, for example, won't even go out to get the milk if she hasn't got a full face on. She doesn't find the process of making-up a burden, she finds it relaxing. But she genuinely thinks she is ugly without it - that is burdensome.

I think the best 'starting point' book at the moment is The Equality Illusion by Kat Banyard. It's not a 'feminism for dummies' in that it doesn't, for instance, give rundowns of what all the different schools of feminism are, because it doesn't talk much about theory or the history of feminism, it's more about why it's relevant in this country today, so it would tell you what mainstream feminists think the issues are but not what a lot of the jargon means, for instance.

Re telling DD she's beautiful.
well, I don't know, I'm puzzling it out, but I think the key is to compliment them on beauty as though it was just one of their many accomplishments. IE also praise their bravery, helpfulness, cooking, footballing (Deliberately mixing up my male and female traits there). And also not to say You're beautiful, but Your hair is so shiny today, you've lovely blue eyes, that type of thing.

(disclaimer - my DD is only 2, but i cringe when everyone tells her how gorgeous she is when she is so clearly a genius who can count to 4 already!)

so reading these replies, i'm sort of coming round to the way of thinking that being a modern feminist is more about choice than ever before?

that as long as i have chosen to anything, as it pleases me, not because of the riducle i fear if i don't, then on the whole, that's ok in the feminist book?

Toddler- I thought all feminists were pro choice? Would strike me as strange if they weren't (although I am new to this so probably wrong).

ComradeJing - I think I try to strike a balance. I probably used to be more about principles and hardline rules but as a parent you probably end up being more pragmatic because no-one is going to want their child to suffer in any way for their beliefs (plus I probably realised that lots of hardline rules were nonsense anyway).
so for instance I keep my mouth shut in the schoolyard sometimes.

re the 'telling dd she is beautiful' thing, I read about some research a while back that suggested that the women with the best body image actually weren't the ones who were always being told they were beautiful as children, but the ones whose mothers never really talked about appearance. So with that in mind I always try to avoid commenting on dd's appearance (despite the fact I just read it in a Sunday paper so it may well be rubbish research anyway ). Except I am physically incapable of not telling her she's beautiful, because she is, so often I actually do!

which of course relates to the fact that you can be a feminist parent and have read all the right books but feminists are just as susceptible to societal influence as anyone else; I try to treat my dd and dses the same but I know I get it wrong all the time. Before I had dcs I thought I was going to be a wonderful non-sexist parent but I really am not!

Will you recommend me a new-to-feminism-and-would-like-to-know-more book?
I often see recommendations on threads but forget to go back to it once I've read the rest of the thread, and when I remember again I can't remember which thread it was on... :o and I'd have felt a bit stupid starting a thread just to ask.

toddler - in what sense are you talking about prochoice - abortion? Or everyday choices?

It's not about choice as in 'I'm a woman and I choose do to X, therefore X is feminist'. It's about recognising that some choices, even though individual women make them, can be harmful to women as a whole.

So I said I wear make-up sometimes. I can do that and be a feminist. But I have to acknowledge that my 'choice' to do that actually isn't a FREE choice, because patriarchal notions of beauty are so entrenched. Me wearing make-up contributes to an industry that tells women to be thin, to be white, to be hairless, to be sexual objects, to be covered in a way that men are not. I can subvert that choice; play with that choice. But I'll never be truly 'out' of it.

If another feminist tells me that I am subscribing to the patriarchy by wearing make-up, she's right, in a way. But all women have to make our way through the patriarchy as best we can.

Re: mentioning beauty etc to girls, DaisyHayes linked to a very good article about that recently. Here