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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

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Original poster

What is feminism?

52 replies

InnocentRedhead · 19/09/2011 17:03

How would you answer that question is as few words as possible? I know there is the ever obvious 'Wanting equal rights for women as men in society' which essentially in my uneducated view, is what it seems.

But what is feminism to you?

New to Feminist boards and I want to know if there is a typical view or many differing.

OP posts:
blackcurrants · 20/09/2011 14:06

InnocentRedhead
I'm very sorry to tell you this, but my diagnosis is - are you sitting down? - you're sounding like a feminist to me. Please put on this pair of dungarees and proceed to the "Man Hating" classes down the hall.

Grin

By which I mean, you can be a feminist who works, a feminist who stays at home to raise a family, a feminist who works part-time, a feminist who is off sick, a feminist who cares for a disabled parent or child or partner, a feminist who is a student, a feminist who is sneezing... and you're still a feminist. I've found the feminist community extremely supportive of women who are at home to raise their children, in face I've noticed that the rest of the world likes to pay lip service to how very important mothering is, but doesn't follow through on that with real life support and recognition. Whereas the feminists, well, they do things like provide creches at feminist events, or let you bring your demonspawn DS precious children along! Because Feminism doesn't see motherhood as a way of exhausting, sequestering, and shutting up women - but one of the most powerful and important things that women do in their varied and meaningful lives.

LRDTheFeministDragon · 20/09/2011 15:12

There are dungarees involved? Shock

HereBeBolloX · 20/09/2011 15:36

I think the man-hating thing is something the media put about to scare women away from feminism.

It's been largely successful

blackcurrants · 20/09/2011 15:44

LRD
mandatory dungarees! And mandatory man-hating! or so the media would like us to believe. Alas, the feminists I know seem to be perfectly normal women (and men! Gasp!) who have their heads screwed on right, and who think carefully about the messages that they are presented by a patriarchal world. Then reject them :)

SybilBeddows · 20/09/2011 16:05

Excuse me Blackcurrants. That would be womandatory dungarees and man-hating. Sister.

blackcurrants · 20/09/2011 16:26

oh noes!

surely wymmndatory dungarees? Oh dear now my grammar has exploded. And I don't even have the usual 'typing on the train' excuse! :)

LRDTheFeministDragon · 20/09/2011 16:41

Ok, I'm back, the quality of puns is far better here than S&B. Smile

What was the thinking between 'wymyn', btw, O my sisters (that just sounds like something out of Kipling)?

LRDTheFeministDragon · 20/09/2011 16:42

'between'?! Behind, I mean. I can't even write now. And I typed 'mean' as 'men the first time round. Blush

millimurphy · 20/09/2011 17:35

Aww - this place is ace. People actually talking about stuff that matters. And if I couldn't get much lower in a man's estimation, I am a vegetarian as well...I think about chickens as well as moan at airbrushed models [sigh].

blackcurrants · 20/09/2011 17:51

Chickens? Oh, you're going to fit right in here. Everyone goes on about bloody chickens. I have NO IDEA why, they should all talk about how great my dog is instead.

[secretly jealous cos doesn't have chickens emoticon]

Original poster
InnocentRedhead · 20/09/2011 17:59

Ooooh fantastics, Is bra burning still mandatory? - If it is then I have plenty of now too small wired ones that I think will go up nicely ;)

Blackcurrants - you need to get to the doghouse, i have heard they can be quite scary :) Chickens are fab though

Awh i like it here - you guys :)

And I can see from the other threads; that the debates are mostly well informed and educated, with some emotion thrown in sometimes - i love that!

OP posts:
blackcurrants · 20/09/2011 18:14

heh - I don't need another section of MN to steal away my time...

Keep your bras, you never know, you might get back into them one day. (14 months of breastfeeding later, I welcome the return of underwires!) But don't expect it to be soon...

Ahem. See? we've got everything here: bra talk, chickens, smashing the pointless and systemic patriarchy... Not lunch though. Must go find lunch...

wicketkeeper · 20/09/2011 18:25

Trillian I know that's what equality should mean. But the phrase is always used in the sense of us becoming equal to men. Which to me implies that men are the 'norm' and we have to move towards that position. It's more revealing to reverse the phrase.

Original poster
InnocentRedhead · 20/09/2011 18:36

wicketkeeper I see where you are coming from; but should feminists be striving to be 'better' than men? Moving forward to become equal to men with regards to opportunities, pay. education, etc. should be what it is about. Equality means that we should have to move towards that position that men are in, as that is the highest that is known at the moment.

If women were more superior than men, you would see a surge of 'masculinists' (if that is a word). Equality is achievable, but it is a delicate balance.

OP posts:
SybilBeddows · 20/09/2011 18:43

I agree it is an interesting thought-experiment, but there are so many areas where women get the raw end of the deal, so we don't actually want to make men them equal to us.
I don't want 1 in 3 men to be raped or seriously sexually assaulted, I don't want them to experience as much discrimination as we do at work (I would rather no-one was discriminated against for their gender), I don't want them to be conditioned into hating their bodies and feeling they have to spend a fortune on cosmetics or plastic surgery to alter them. Etc.

TrillianAstra · 20/09/2011 21:00

I think the phrase is used in terms of us being treated equally to men, or valued equally to men. Because right now they are treated better and valued more.

Feminism isn't about women becoming equal to men, because we already are. We just want everyone to remember to act like it.

Original poster
InnocentRedhead · 20/09/2011 21:17

I can see where you are coming from in your last sentence but is it not having the choice that is important? And not have to act like I am equal...

I have chose to stay at home most of the time and work part time, I have not being to university; however i RECOGNISE and THANK those women before me who made sacrifices and fought so i and many other women could have a CHOICE.

Also the fact that I was free to make this choice without pressure from men in my life is definitely a step forward from how it was in the past. And this is ultimately what makes women and men now equal in one sense.

I now believe, after a day of looking into a lot of everything surrounding feminism really, that there is a lot of areas that women can be brought up equal to men, e.g management in companies, pay etc. But there has being a lot of progress in the past 100 years.

I feel that women should be up at the top, and I think the thing that limits a lot of women is the fact that many women when they get to a certain age, procreate. Sadly, it is our biology being held against us, and this is ultimately the hurdle that needs to be jumped over and quite frankly obliterated.

DISCLAIMER I could be well out in what I am saying above, but this is what I think and is what i have picked up with looking into the feminist movement further and quite frankly I am fascinated.

I will hold on burning the bras though... Except those falling apart - excuse for a new one! Found one in my drawer that I have had since I was 15 - that is being lit up as we speak :o!!!

OP posts:
Original poster
InnocentRedhead · 20/09/2011 21:19

Note for paragraph number 5 - This is what I believe is stopping the manshapes at the top from taking women so far up the chain... Not our biology stopping us, proof read it and that's what it seemed like

OP posts:
HereBeBolloX · 20/09/2011 21:23

I got that IR. I think I broadly agree - the thing which should make us powerful - the fact that we produce and nurture the next generation of human beings - makes us poor, unless we are protected from poverty by the support of a man. Only an extremely misanthropic, as well as misogynist, society would have organised itself in this way.

AliceWyrld · 20/09/2011 21:24

I don't think anyone is free to make choices. We are all constrained by the society we live in. That's not to say there are actual individuals coming and saying what you can and cannot do, but there are norms and expectations. And sure we have a degree of choice, but this is not infinite, only the choices that are available to us in the structure we live in, which in feminist terms is patriarchy. (The same argument is made re capitalism)

Which I think is what you then pick up on OP when you talk about the children thing. That is hugely limiting and a big factor in the 'choices' that women can make. But society doesn't have to be structured in such a way that makes it a big issue.

Original poster
InnocentRedhead · 20/09/2011 21:38

I never meant infinite choice, as you say we are constricted by the society we live in. However are men not limited by this society too? They are often offered the same choices as us, their choice is not infinite too (If choice was infinite, I would rule the world by now :o) However is this structure we live in a patriarchy because it was ultimately 'set up' by men (with women behind them and inferior in times gone by)? I do not fully understand that bit.

Yes, society shouldn't be structured in such a way to make this an issue. Bearing children is a woman's ultimate right and should not be limiting in the sense that it can stop careers. Even women going for things such as promotions without children are having their biological make up held against them, in case they have children in the future. This is what i tried touching on, not sure if it was conveyed properly though, however I feel as if i have worded it better now. HBB you hit the nail on the head - the thing that should make women powerful, bearing the next generation, only puts us at a disadvantage.

OP posts:
AliceWyrld · 20/09/2011 21:41

Yep indeed men are restricted too. We all are. But in different ways. So compare the choices men have to make when they become parents with those women do, and I don't think that impact of those choices is equal. For sure there are some shitty aspects for men too, but that's not where the balance lies.

WilsonFrickett · 21/09/2011 00:34

Caitlin Moran helped me reconnect after many years not really thinking about feminism: 'do you have a vagina? Do you wish to control what happens to it? Then you are a feminist.'

Josephine was a bit more poetic though Smile

Catitainahatita · 21/09/2011 02:45

I'll pass on the dungarees. I'd burn my bras though, except that they are to small and holey to make much of an impression. And anyway, I'd much rather burn that underwear designed to "keep your tummy in" or whatever and improbably high heels; it's all too corsets and footbinding for my liking.

TrillianAstra · 21/09/2011 08:24

I do love Caitlin Moran, but I think that's a fairly narrow explanation of feminism - of course it was meant to be flippant to fit with the tone of the book, which was of course you're a feminist, don't be silly.

Of course if you do have a vagina and want to control what happens to it then you are a feminist, but feminism is not just about vaginas (and I am of the mind that people can hold feminist beliefs while not having a vagina at all).