Men, if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem.

[curlew]

Fantastic article by Laurie Penny

Scallops, I was careful to state more than once that both men and women's attitudes have to change.

Women can wear what they want, go where they want, act how they want within the law. If they want to show lots of skin, good for them. Girl power and all that. If they want to go on TV, or pose in lads mags, that is their choice. I am comfortable with that because I cannot influence them. All I can do is not buy those mags and papers, and that is my choice. And I would tell my daughter not to do it because I think it is a sad and pathetic choice of action.

Yep and I am saying men are the ones doing the harm. They sohould be the ones changing.

And it is disingenuous to suggest that women don't already change their behaviour to avoid objectification, insults, stares etc. Most women modify their behaviour to a certain extent to avoid unwanted attention from men. It just shouldn't have to be that way.

The problem seems to be that some men cannot - or will not - distinguish between wanted and unwanted attention. I think you will find that these men are deficient in other areas of life and social skills, not just attitudes towards women.

And that is women's problem why...? Why should we have to put up with shit because some men can't "distinguish between wanted and unwanted attention"? And those men... I bet they have no problem distinguishing between wanted and unwanted attention with other men and work colleagues. Strange how their social skills depart them when it comes to objectifying women.

You are misreading me. It is up to those men to recognise their problem and change. Why do you assume that they act differently with men? I don't think they do. In my experience, and arsehole is an arsehole regardless of situation.

on the question of what is oppression - I think if someone is unable to ezcape from a situation, even if it is fairly low level discrimination, then it is oppressive. For example, if I have a bad employer but I can change jobs, that isn't oppression. If I live in a society where women are paid less than men (around 80%, depending on stats) then it doesn't matter where I work, I will have that discrimination, so that is oppressive.

Sadly, we DO live in a society where women earn less than men (comparing like with like for qualificationes, experience etc), so it IS oppressive. I hate that I have to fight hard to get the recognition I need at work, that it is assumed that I have the 'second job' etc.

And as we do live in a society that treats women as secondary to men, then the onus should be on men to correct this. We don't expect victimes in other situations to fight their own battles, why do we expect women to do this? The civil rights movement wasn't saying that black people in the US needed to change. It said that black people could and would be equal, and that white people had to instigate the changes to make it happen. Men hold more power and wealth than women, therefore they have the means to instigate changes. So if they aren't trying to bring about change, they are passively allowing opression and discrimation to continue - they ARE part of the problem.

fwiw - in US Congress, men who have daughters, even Republicans, are more likely to vote in favor of equal rights legislation for women than men who don't have daughters. In other words, once men see it affecting their own children, they start to see the inequality. Until then, an "I'm all right, Jack", mentality prevails.

"Why do you assume that they act differently with men?" I don't assume. I see it.

"You are misreading me. It is up to those men to recognise their problem and change. Why do you assume that they act differently with men? I don't think they do. In my experience, and arsehole is an arsehole regardless of situation."

The problem is that behaviour which you or I and any other reasonable, thoughtful person, would consider the behaviour of an arsehole, like leering at women in the park, telling sexist jokes, going to strip clubs....is behaviour that society in general condones, and which women are daily expected to put up with. And many men who are in other ways not arseholes think this is acceptable too(there was a long "but that's just what happens on stag nights" thread a while ago). And they think it's acceptable because society at large tells them it is- and the men who don't think it is find it very difficult, because they are under the same pressures as the arseholes, to say anything. Which rather takes us back to the original article.........

Or what curlew said sooo much better than me !

Buffy, I see what you're saying, but I'm not sure the analogy works. If the article really did just ask people to stand up to sexism when they saw it, I'm not sure many people would argue with that. Most people would agree there's still at least some sexism in society.

But what the article is positing is that society and culture are misogynist and hateful, that men benefit from patriarchy, that if they do not stand up to it then they are part of the problem. That stance is a bit beyond what a lot of people think. And I think one common response to it would be, wait, you think British culture oppresses women? What about places that are worse? And all I'm saying is I think we should allow that conversation, not automatically shut it down. I mean, obviously not if the response is done in a 'shut up' way, but if it's a genuine line of inquiry. It's not always an absurd question.

I don't think most people object to the idea of sexism existing it's the question of intent that is a stumbling block. I think most people agree that women are discriminated against, it's when words like oppression and hate are used which imply that this is something actively intended and planned that people need convincing. What they think of as oppression is usually something that is actively done the Taliban do intend to oppress women, the Iranian regime does intend to oppress political activists (or even closer to home, the Met actively try to oppress certain activist groups, if you like). So you have to sell this idea to people that oppression can take many forms.

Basically I think if you want people to agree that women in the UK are oppressed, you should probably be open to conversations about what oppression means and how it varies, etc and so on. You can insist that people simply accept your premise, but I'm not sure how far you will get.

Btw I would not post about Afghan women on a thread about UK corporate salaries. I saw this discussion as being quite broad and general and not necessarily UK specific.

kickass I agree with a lot of what you say there, I think that's a really good way of approaching the question of oppression.

I agree that the onus should be on men to change things. I also think though that if you look at the history of emancipatory movements, there probably has never been a case where the dominant group just decided to change out of some moral conversion. The civil rights movement overtly challenged and in some ways threatened the dominant order. Gandhi didn't just write op eds telling British people they were part of the problem.

Victims shouldn't have to fight their own battles but in reality this is how it often works and often it does work, empires crumble, societies are rewritten. It is not only men who have the power to change things us women have power too, of a different sort. And while I know "hearts and minds" is an important part of all this, I don't think we necessarily need to convince every man of the rightness of our cause. History shows that oppressors change things when their grip on control is threatened.

That's interesting Buffy. I suspect I don't think that all cultures are equally misogynistic, even at heart. I feel like you wouldn't see such variation in outcomes if that were true. But let me give this some more thought (dons tedious academic hat )

anyone follow the recent child abuse gang trials? Gangs operating in about 4 or 5 cities; also schools/children's homes following the Saville case. All those cases saw histories of little girls being disbelieved then finally facing defence barristers for each of the accused suggesting the girls were lying over and over again. Some girls withdrew and cases were dropped as a result. Meanwhile those men were innocent until proved guilty. That is hatred and oppression of women, officially sanctioned. Those men benefitted directly, and ALL men benefit indirectly because they know their word, their life is more important than any woman no matter what circumstances. The tiny percentage found guilty of rape is a small price to keep the unjust system going. That's why 'We Believe You' happened; we know the system does not protect women

pay gap difference news out today.

Buffy, I think it's often deliberately employed as a distraction technique, not so much by those who don't think there's a problem, but also by those who see that there is but don't care, or recognise the situation but don't think it is a problem because they believe women should be subordinate.

I find it fascinating that focusing on a single issue or idea seems to provoke such ire in the kind of MRA trolls who are so drawn to online discussion around feminism. I think deep down they still see it as uppity women getting above their station and the whataboutery is meant to remind us that our concerns are unimportant and that, as women, it's somehow unseemly to focus on our needs unless we've tended to and fixed everyone else's needs first.

Dreaming, I don't mean to imply that you were derailing, it's actually, for once, kind of relevant within the context of the thread whereas it's so often trundled out as a piece of flagrant whataboutery.

kim and dreaming you say you are not using the situation of women in Afganistan as whataboutery then say but their situation is so much worse therefore we mustn't use the term "oppression" about the situation for women in this country. I find that highly contradictory. I believe women as a class are oppressed in the UK by looking at the position of women as a class in the UK versus men as a class in the UK and I believe this results from living in a patriarchal society. Some recent changes in laws achieved through feminist activism have not dismantled the long standing patriarchal societal structures existing in the UK. Kim has admitted that she raised the issue of other cultures precisely because she thinks we can't describe women as oppressed in this country because it is worse in other countries.

if oppression as a word/concept is just de trop for what women experience in the uk, what do posters suggest -

"when i was groomed by a paedophile sex ring, reported it, only to be told i was lying, i found it somewhat inconvenient"

"after i told my boss i was pregnant, my job was made redundant. this was rather upsetting"

"after my local sexual assault response team no crimed my report of rape, i felt a bit narky"

Oh please. I'm not suggesting anyone minimise their feelings or not use certain words. I might disagree about how to characterise society overall, that does not translate into saying that individual women should not feel horrified, traumatised, angry, etc about what happens to them.

Are you suggesting that women who have been victimised must believe that they live in a society that's oppressive? Because I've been raped myself, among other things, and I'd like to maintain my own judgment on the matter.

If you want to call it oppression, I have no problem with that -- you can certainly make a case for it. I'm just explaining why I personally feel a bit ambivalent about it (due to global context) and why others might be wholly resistant to the idea.

This isn't about how individual women describe their experiences. It is recognising that these experiences do not occur in an individual vacuum but result from oppression of women as a class by patriarchal society.

If you don't have a problem with people using this term, why bring it up? Especially as you know that it is a commonly used derailing tactic used when women wish to discuss feminism. I think most people on this thread are very aware that lots of people reject the need to discuss oppression or feminism because we are not living in Saudi Arabia. Why do you feel it is a useful contribution to say this?

Chibi - quite. I do think it's absolutely a derail on this thread.

Also, I have been on many,many threads on this site discussing women from "those countries", all the following things have happened:

A refusal to read any links provided.

A refusal to google/ look into any suggested topics

Insisting that women from "those cultures" refuse to integrate or speak up.

When women from "those cultures" do speak up on here, they are told they are not the right sort of women to speak and should be silent.

Or that they are brainwashed anyway so shouldn't be allowed to contribute to the discussion.

There is a complete refusal to acknowledge the impact of colonialism on "those countries".

There is also an insistence that all "those countries" have the same root problems. How I laughed when someone on here was most insistent that Syria was a religious theocracy.

So I have come to the conclusion that people generally bring up "those countries" to either wallow in some DM style airing of prejudices or to derail feminists.

Also, dreaming, in case you hadn't guessed, I have family in one of "those countries" so I am not speaking from a position of lacking concern.

I was replying to chibi's post. Is she not invoking individual women's experiences there? Equating the questioning of oppression with telling women they're only allowed to feel 'a bit narked' by victimisation? I reject that idea.

I've explained several times why I (and others) have brought up other countries. The article asks men to stand up against misogyny and says culture hates women. Many posters on this thread have said the UK oppresses women. I consider myself a feminist but as an academic I also feel uneasy about using a term that encompasses such different contexts. I think that's a perfectly valid discussion to have. It's not like I'm bleating about paternity testing here.