Feminist theory section

[EclecticShock]

Its a bit quiet non existent. I know there's lots of posters here who have something to contribute to feminist theory. Any reason that its quiet? I love the way this chat area is working out but I also think feminist theory is important... Would be good to get a balance and make this an all round board. I'm not experienced in feminist theory, otherwise I would start a thread.

Some women have low IQs, some men have low IQ's. Xenia, you seem to always base your viewpoint on your own experiences... Understandable, but what if one of your children had learning disabilities?

Speaking as a regular on the SN boards, we've all heard the Eugenics-style arguments before. Those with power and intelligence often lack ethics any sense of humanitarianism, or choose to ignore the question because it gets in the way of what they consider achievement.

As has also been said, everyone is only one car crash away from brain damage.
Xenia would have to choose whether to use her money to deal with the consequences, or ignore the now useless member of society that her child had become in her eyes.

< hands around the biscuits> do you prefer crackers or cooooookies?

Cookies please, sweet tooth.

Yes, staff terribly dim, better to buy a hoover, a lot less expensive.

Also, someone actually has to give a damn and bring up the future generations to be of "usefulness" as you put it.

falling over the dim housekeeper and the oh so thick nanny.

Hurry up mini... I'm in dire need of a sugar hit....

Sorry, fell over that damned useless gardener, crashed into the thick nanny and wrestled the cookies off of the dim housekeeper. Only just made it. Now I don't know which ones Xenia prefers. I wonder if these will be ok

I feel better, thanks :)

Sorry Xenia, we should be so rude... It's just your post took me by surprise. I have read some of your posts before and have seen merit in them. Low IQ though... You do realise you can only influence someone's IQ environmentally within a narrow range? You do realise, such thigs as learning difficulties exist and some people no matter how hard they try will not live up to your standard?

Xenia, families on low incomes (whether benefits or not) simply can't afford to have stay at home parents, whether male or female - it's not a matter of choice as you seem to imply it is. Walk about the shops in London during the daytime, there is nobody there but the people working in them. You may find plenty of ladies who lunch in Bond Street, but you won't find many SAHMs swanning around Primark in downtown Inner City. I think you've been watching too much Jeremy Kyle. It really has very little to do with gender politics, it's about money.

I have heard this worn out argument about islands a dozen times, thick women who don't deserve to expect a good education for their children because they do not have the means to pay for it, banishing men to kitchens and the eugenics crap. It crops up on every thread in response to every OP regardless of whether it is pertinent.

I'll be back later, I have to show the housekeeper how to polish DPs throne.

Okay, so trying to segue back into the topic, what kind of feminist is Xenia? What group does she belong to - seriously, I'm totally in the dark here.

Have you read 'The Devil wears Prada'?

I nearly watched it on telly last night. Is Xenia Meryl Streep?

I think Xenia would describe herself as a capitalist feminist. Personally I find it hard to reconcile the word 'feminist' with views that are so nasty about other women.

yes, capitalist feminist.

It's just a food chain isn't it? Survival of the fittest and always the lowest do the loo cleaning jobs from the untouchables in India to the housewives of the UK. Obviously some marry rich men and employ cleaners because they had enough sexual capital to nab a rich man but not all. We are a people rendered from the concept of survial of the fittest.

We have common cause - most feminists want more women in power with more money and fewer earning nothing reliant on men. The trouble is the more housewives you have the less chance women will ever get where most feminists want them to be.

Feminists who want us to go All Hale housework and child care, honoured worthy role - who lobby to make it something on a pedestal as important and nice as nasty money grubbing earning money are doing women down and in fact are part of the problem as the more we suggest dull low grade cleaning is some kind of wonderful task to be as exalted as being a female surgeon we are playing into male hands in making women think wow I'm wonderful I clean his shirt. No you aren't wonderful. You are doing what just about anyone could and you could do much much better.

I can't reconcile capitalism with feminism. The most socially necessary labour is reproductive labour, the one power we hold over men, in this we are not equal to men but instead men are jealous and fearful of us.

It takes generations to alter the social conscious of an entire people, every women I know works hard to further that aim. I know of no theory or philosophy, no rationale feminist or otherwise apart from fascism that would purport that some women are little better than wet wipes, to wipe the arse of humanity.

We are shaped by survival, I agree Xenia but we have long since stopped evolving greater brain power, instead we harness technology and whole generations of history, most of us would work towards a fairer society. Class and sex oppression are so intricately interwoven (just read about the birth of patriarchy and the history of slavery) that to fight one, necessitates the acknowledgement of the other.

As a feminist I would have thought you would be concerned about the rights of ALL women rather than trying to sell us the idea of a modern slave caste built not on sex and class alone but on the repugnant ideas of a few fascists eugenicists.

Socially necessary? We have a lot of people on the planet. I am not sure it is a social good to produce more.

I want all people to have equal rights under the law on the planet (and many women don't abroad). I don't want anyone though to suggest we are all the same. We aren't. Some people are pretty useless and some are better, some will therefore always do better than others. That's absolutely fine as long as we look after the worst off with some kind of welfare state but gaps between rich and poor are fine and very natural too.

You have five?

I wasn't the one saying was socially good to produce babies and some how elevating women who childbear to the number one position in society (whic is a bit like men who say the housewife is God and I coudlnt' do without her as a tactic to keep her in her very lowly place doing as she's told and scrubbing his house). let us not pull the wool over heads. Cleaning and childcare is just about as boring as it gets if you do it 24/7 and most people cannot bear it.

I don't have a problem with my producing five children as we are only on this planet for a mere blink of an eye and if humans are on it 0.001% or 0.005% of time that is neither here nor there. Actually the more hard working high paid clever working mothers have babies and the fewer dole claimants whose children will never get off teh dole have babies the better. I hneed my medal. My communist Mother Medal or something. Hero opf the People, sprogger extraordinaire or pehaps I should shyould only get it when all 5 earn £60k a year each and are all jolly little useful tax payers. We are getting there.

I wasn't suggesting breeding was for the social good