Separatist Feminism

[VictorGollancz]

Ok, I really am really very late for work at this point but I thought it might be nice to have a space in which we can discuss separatist feminism. I've read a lot of advocates of it, and even incorporate some elements of it into my own life - I prefer not to live with men, for example - but I don't practise it totally and I can't find any examples of any separatist communes.

Does anyone know anything more about it? Does anyone live in a separatist way?

Surprisingly good Wiki link here

But aren't we taught those things because through centuries, humans have found that that was the best for society as a whole?

imo,%'s in each group not the issue
what more interesting is there are many ways of living and raising kids.not just married man-woman. and thats needs to be acknowledged.

i associate life long partnerships with religion,and protection of assets eg property

and certainly when unmarried its something habitually bought up as reason to marry

LeninGrad, most people do not want to live communally. They are individuals who prefer family units. they want to own their own property and land, they are not communists. Kibbutz systems failed, as did hippy communes, the majority do not wish to live like that, they don't wish to be bullied by teh most forceful communal members, they want their own independent family units.

The Spartans were a patriarchal system of communist type communities, where men separated from women and boys were removed from families at an early age. They were brought up apart from women in order to train them for war. They were successful at war, but their example of communal living in separate sexes never caught on, because they were ultimately defeated by socities where teh sexes mixed. The Spartans are teh inspiration for many modern communist systems, but they also always fail because they impose unnatural communal living on teh majority and teh majority prefer to live in family systems.

I think lifelong systems were intended to protect women and stop irresponsible men running off with younger women and leaving women to bring up children.

There is nothing stopping people living in communities. Hippies often do so, but it never catches on, because teh majority do not wish to live like that. Most people want small units of family where they have independence and privacy. There is teh saying that an Englishman's home is his castle, people don't want the community telling them how to live or what to do.

Certain cults live communally. But most people don't wish to join these communities, because every community has a leader or guru and they tell others what to do. People love independence and freedom, and communal living does not offer those human needs.

The community will never care as much about your children as you do, and they will never care for your family or you as much as you do. That's why people prefer independence to communal living.

Even most old people are very reluctant to go into communal care homes. They try to remain independent in their own homes for as long as they can.

'yes but those individual family units don't have to be married man and woman with 2.4 units'

yes that's right, but the key is that they are still family units. There are all sorts of families, single parent and nuclear and some grandchildren brought up by grandparents, but teh family is the system that society has found is teh best for individuals in society. If teh family is destroyed (which is the goal of communists) then that leads to teh destruction of society and leads to tyranny.

I think biology has much to do with how we live, one minute we're asking men to step up and denying biological differences in the brain, the next we're saying children don't need fathers.......

Oh FFS for centuries people who didn't conform to the 'norm' knew they faced being disadvantaged, ostracised, imprisoned, beaten up or killed. If nuclear-family-heteromonogamy was the 'natural' option there would be no need for such intense and brutal reinforcement of it. Women were men's property until fairly recently, married off with little or no choice, forbidden to have any kind of money or property of their own.
And don't bother me with bullshit about what 'worked in the past'. Slave-owning societies worked well enough in the past - for the slave-owners, at least.

But we do expect men to change don't we? Want to be active fathers? What for? To take the childcare out of their hands anyway?

I think nuclear family heteromonogamy was the 'social' option rather than the 'natural' option. It was encouraged and enforced by society as a whole for social reasons, mainly to prevent men abandoning women and not investing in the future of the family. The other main reason was for social control. If men were allowed to have no stake in a family unit, then their 'freedom' would pose a threat to society and the ruling elite.

Humans are social animals and live in social systems which follow certain social rules, just like animals instinctively do. But humans can reason and challenge their instincts. I think it is about socialisation and being socialised for the sake of society. The alternative risks men becoming anti-social which would threaten the structure of society.