Why is feminism seen as a bad thing by other women??

[ledkr]

Hi,I would describe myself as a feminist but have no majorly radical views and am not an activist,.However,i am a female parent of 2 females and I expect myself and them to be able to move through our lives free from prejudism and discrimination so am therefore a feminist. However often in rl and on some of the threads on here it seems that that is a bad thing.I dont understand,surely if you are a female or indeed an intelligent male then it should go without saying.

sunshine - reported how? Most private sector companies have clauses in their contracts of employments which specifically forbid you to discuss your pay with colleagues.

'sigmunda good name change. Much clearer now, although I still think you are a man, not because of your views, but because your name states that you are a fraud.'

I quite often try to psychoanalyze DH, much to his irritation. He tells me I'm a crap psychologist and have no idea what I'm talking about, hence Sigmund Fraud. There are quite a few Sigmund Frauds on MN I reckon

Glad you like the name change .

There are quite a few Sigmund Frauds on MN I reckon

sigmunda I would agree with that!

It isn't that women don't like feminism - it's that they dislike the interpretation of feminsim by some women, or dislike some of the ideas / actions that purport to be feminist.

Feminism is simply believing that women should be equal politically, socially, financially, etc. I think you would struggle to find many women who dislike that idea. But you might find women who dislike some of the more radical ideas that people claim as feminist views.

It is like saying "Why don't people like Christianity" when someone says they find the Westboro Baptist Church offensive.

sunshine - reported how? Most private sector companies have clauses in their contracts of employments which specifically forbid you to discuss your pay with colleagues.

Not any more they dont widow as it is now not lawful to have such clauses

The pay stuff is difficult.

I found out that I was being paid less than the men on my team - to do the same job - one I had 10 years more experience than and I was training him.
I tried to make a fuss but as I was pregnant at the time I didn't have much leverage in terms of if you don't sort if out I'll walk
Then I was told to shut up about it as it was against company rules to talk about wages and I could be sacked
My performance reviews were always exemplary BTW so it wasn't that.
Company was know for being "old fashioned" in fact that industry is as a whole.

As it was, due to that and a load of other similar stuff I left after mat leave. Of course I didn't take them to court or anything, as sueing the pants of huge rich companies isn't something that bog-standard people tend to actually do IYSWIM.

This was 5 years ago. It's just my experience, obviously. But figures and surveys and things show that these things still happen, and certainly loads of women lose their jobs every year because they get pregnant.

The idea it's all fine and dandy is great but scratch the surface and there are a lot of females being underpaid, undervalued etc.

Another angle as to why more women don't identify as feminists.

Because feminists do a lot of work with victims of sexual and domestic abuse. It's obviously a big big issue. BUT it's still quite often seen as shameful to be a victim of rape or dv. So people don't want to admit it's something that touches their own lives.

this struck me earlier when i clicked 'like' for an illness awareness page on fb. My bro suffers from this particular illness, it's close to my heart. But i asked myself if it was a Rape Crisis Page would I have clicked. i don't think I would, actually, because I wouldn't like random acquaintances suspecting something about my past. That's anecdotal and incidental, but I would not be surprised if it's replicated on a larger scale.

I think sometimes it's just apathy. Then something happens to you or someone close and you realise that there are people out there fighting for you and for women in general. I am not very clever or political and feel a bit intimidated posting in this section but I really do appreciate the people who do rock the boat.

Perhaps because feminist is a broad church, with many different views, some of them at odds with each other. Maybe women who are seen to 'oppose' feminism may only disagree with certain aspects, e.g. those ideas that seem too radical or not applicable within their own culture.

Perhaps it isn't for this thread, but I wonder where feminists think our Western culture should be right now with respect to equal rights. Is it commonly believed that the important framework (e.g. laws about equality) are now in place, and we are just waiting for social attitudes to catch up? Or is the framework not yet adequate to allow true equality?

I don't think the framework is there. If we take just one example from this thread, the equal pay legislation is in no way enforced and everyone just carries on as if it isn't there.

Equal pay is one area where, I believe, all the arguments and back-and-forths that usually surround arguments for equality just fall away. If you do the same job, you get paid the same amount. Easy. And I think you'd be hard pushed to find anyone who disagrees with that statement.

I find it extremely significant that it isn't enforced. It would be extremely easy to do so. What hope have we, then, for more 'complex' legislation that doesn't necessarily have popular support?

Victor, the equal pay legislation is broadly followed. There's only a significant wage gap when looking at all female income vs all male income. People doing the same job can expect to be paid the same.

The framework IS there though, Victor. Like you say, it just isn't enforced. All the laws are in place.

Likewise, you aren't supposed to be able to ask women if they're planning to get pregnant, but we all know it happens (Alan Sugar said as much.)

I think things are so engrained in our minds that we as women accept things we shouldn't and men don't probably don't even think twice about it.

I find the difference when I look at my partner and I so telling. He will happily ask for a raise (a huge one) without blinking an eye, he'll ask for more and better work, he'll ask for things he doesn't have at work that he wants.

I turn up, keep my head down and get out as fast as possible.

We are in totally different jobs, and we have very different personalities but a lot of it is to do with our genders too.

yellowraincoat - i thought the "women don't ask for rises" thing had been thoroughly debunked?

weareskeptixx.wordpress.com/2012/02/10/pseudo-feminism-gender-pay-and-skepticism/

FWIW, n=1 and all that, I'm usually more proactive in that area than my bloke.

If the framework isn't enforced then it's no framework at all. 'Framework' suggests something fundamental, something supporting, something on which to build: something strong.

yellow - It's true about men and woman and payrises, but I don't think it comes from within. I think your partner, as a man, can ask without being afraid that he'll be thought of as 'pushy' or 'shrill' or 'grabby' - all things that women would be right to be concerned about.

Might be true WW, I just know that I never do it and probably never would. Could be more of a personal thing. I do think a lot of men worry about asking for payrises. My partner was called a cheeky bastard last time he did it. Oh and gauche (he works in a total posh Oxbridge office.)

I thought we were talking about a framework in the legal sense - in which case we do have the legal framework for these things in place.

Is this just an apathetic generational thing then? Interest in voting in the UK (general elections at least) has tailed off since the early 90's. Perhaps this generation of Simon Cowell and Facebook worshippers simply don't care about anything remotely important.

It's partly apathy, although general election turnout hasn't actually dropped that much.

Partly to do with the fact that things are just good enough in the UK for most women - there aren't the huge and obvious fights any more. It's one thing to get the vote, it's another to stop porn because porn is so insidious.

Partly it's to do with feminism having a rep for not being a lot of fun for whatever reason (even though it is.)

I guess it's also difficult to stop porn if some women enjoy using it. Maybe feminism needs to pick its fights more selectively. Nobody wants to be paid less for the same work.

Sanjeev whatever feminists focus on they will be told by someone that they're focusing on the wrong battle and they need to be more selective.
Women's representation in politics - it's a middle class problem not relevant to the vast majority of women. Equal pay - women in the west have it easy, you should be focusing on women in countries where they really are oppressed. Women in the developing world - not relevant to us here/it's colonialist to export Western ideals. Rape and domestic violence - you're putting most women off by being too negative and focusing on women as victims. Etc etc.

Tunip - you do realise I am putting forward a possible reason in answer to the OP's question, don't you? Not necessarily my own belief. I was responding to yellowraincoat's post above mine. Women generally have a more 'open' attitude to porn now than 20 years ago. Perhaps younger women see the 'all porn is bad' attitude displayed by some feminists as a bit 'killjoy'-ish, and that taints their view of feminism as a whole. Maybe.

Re equal pay legislation (in the UK). In our Government, the two ministers most closely aligned to implementing this policy are Theresa May and Lynne Featherstone. If the UK legal framework enshrines this policy in law, and the PM appoints two women to positions where they can directly affect it's implementation - well, what is stopping it being applied? Apathy again? Are even women in Government deliberately anti-feminist?