My Feminist Fail

[msrisotto]

This is meant to be a light hearted thread!

I am a card carrying, soap box ranting, "This Is What A Feminist Looks Like" t-shirt owning feminist but......[small voice] I love watching America's Next Top Model. Shocker! I am embarrassed to admit it, I know how awful it is. Encouraging and celebrating the sexual objectification of women.

And I wear quite heavy make up when my skin is bad. But I don't think Feminism would blame me for that, a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do to survive in the patriarchy!

Don't tell me everyone else is virtuous here! Care to share?

I think, Isla, men can be judged on either looks or intellect. People will still take an unattractive man seriously if he has some other skills, intelligence, whatever.

Whereas people just take the piss relentlessly out of unattractive women.

You're supposed to feel how you feel, Mud. It can be nice to get attention, of course. Personally I hate it, but if you like it, that's fine.

Yes yellow I remember that in a London club I was in I was warned in hushed tones about ONE regular member who had once or twice been known to 'get pushy' with women. ONE.

In regular clubs you are often left looking for the one who wasn't, as I recall (that was the 80s though :D)

yes I also feel ambivalent when I get whistles. It happens so rarely now that I feel flattered!!! eeekkk

I suppose I think that instead of moving away from valuing women predominantly on their looks - a nice healthy feminist objective - we're actually moving towards valuing men that way too.

Yes, women have it worse. Yes, we've had it longer but this new "equality" we're heading towards is very, very bad for everyone and doesn't solve the feminist issue.

Yes, I agree it's not good to value men for their looks. But that doesn't mean it's not a feminist issue. IMO it's a huge feminist issue and the fact men are also suffering from sexism isn't new or reason to give up.

I know you're not saying it is reason to give up, but I think saying something's not a feminist issue is a bit defeatist.

Sorry I think I missed out the word "just" in one of my posts. It's not just a feminist issue but is now becoming an issue for wider society.

Sorry, that came out wrong ... I didn't mean to be having a go, just feeling that what you said hit a chord for me, that there's so much of a feeling that feminism is out of date, or too narrow, or the issues people get worked up about don't matter. And for me one of the things I feel as if I'm failing at all the time is saying why it matters to me without getting utterly depressed about it.

Actually even if I didn't think it was a feminist issue, but an issue for the whole of society, that would be defeatist. It's saying it needs to be tackled on behalf of more people, not less.

Cross-post. Yes, I agree.

Add to that: my biggest feminist fail is not me, it's my marriage. Issues that I'd like to pretend are just to do with my feminism are his responsibility too. I think that is why I am so snappy, sorry!

I work in gender studies and spend a lot of time teaching ideas about body image, consumerism and materiality to students, consciousness-raising as I go. I weigh myself at least once a week and if it's crept over 50 kg, I restrict my diet to fruit until it's back down to 49, thereby maintaining a BMI well below the healthy minimum. But I don't shave anything and although I often plan to wear make-up, in practice I can't be bothered most mornings. We're all damaged - that's how we know this stuff is destructive. And most people have secret little reasons for their professional inclinations. The best academic feminist I know is in an abusive relationship with a man who calls her a bitch in front of their 4 and 6 yr old daughters.

That's awful picot!

Poor woman.

my feminist fail is that I'm not a chemist. DH is (well, was) and it was his gamer tag.

His gamer friends knew me as MrsChem, so when I occasionally played, that was my tag.

I kind of want to change it, but I've been MrsChemist since I joined.

I find more and more that issues I used to think were "feminist" are actually issues of "equality". I don't know if this is a shift in my thinking or a shift in the cultural consciousness??

To take as an example one of my feminist fails. Childcare. It has been assumed that it is my responsibility in what is otherwise a very equal relationship. This has started by my taking a year's maternity leave and then being made "redundant" for taking maternity leave and being at home for a further 6 months and then going out of the home part time.

If leave after a baby could be split equally between both parents much of the issues I had with taking maternity leave the resulting discrimination and the resulting status quo of me being responsible for childcare and dh for breadwinning would have been significantly less likely to occur.

What feminist issues have is more history (I think. I've not fully formed that thought yet).

But even my example is flawed because gender roles are so enshrined in our consciousness that many women feel they should be at home and many men feel they should not.

I do think changing either the perception of what the gender role should be or changing the infrastructure would help achieve the same objective. Ideally both.

But surely if childcare is seen as your responsibility because you're a woman, it is the very opposite of an issue of equality?

I like the fact that I look the exact opposite of what people would expect from a feminist. It gives me greater shock factor when I come out with a killer line.

I agree with LRD: it's an issue of inequality that childcare is seen as women's responsibility because they're women, which in my view makes it a feminist issue. It's largely women who've been pushing for more and longer paternity leave, precisely because of the structural discrimination that you describe.

Yes. That's why I made my second post.

MrsChemist - I like your name (I am a chemist), have always wondered if you were really one too!.

I used a MN nickname starting with Mrs for a long time as a bit of a decoy / ironic gesture because I only use Ms in real life, but felt a bit silly arguing against the use of Mrs with it in my nickname.

Sorry isla, I keep cross-posting with you!

victoria - yes, I enjoy that too.

Sorry, Isla, hadn't read your second post properly before I posted mine.

That's alright. I'm thinking aloud. I made the first post thinking of all the clever feminist women I know. Then I remembered all the drippy women who post on the NCT facebook page saying things like "I don't want paternity leave changed because I WANT to stay at home with my baby and dh is a great father but he's just not a mum is he?".

As if having the option to choose would mean that those in "traditional relationships" would not be able to carry on exactly as before but those of us who do not want to will not have to.

WhoKnows I'm a geoscientist (studying) so do occasionally foray into the world of chemistry, but I can't say it's my favourite subject.

I could make a stand and be MsGeoscientist, but it doesn't sound as good.

Huh. I work for a women's magazine.

Beat that, eh.

I would shag Howard from Take That.

I know, I know.