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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Feminism: chat

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Original poster

Can I have an easy to grasp introduction to feminism please?

75 replies

Squtternutbaush · 03/11/2014 12:21

Have wanted to venture over here for a while but somehow end up sticking my foot in it so starting afresh.

I'm not too clued up on the whole concept of feminism but would like to be so is there a basic introductory book that's worth reading or is it just a case of speaking and figuring out your own ideals?

OP posts:

Hazchem · 04/11/2014 04:48

I had liberal followed by radical which I find strange as I identify more with rad fem rather then lib fem.

It also showed me how woeful my understanding of issues for women of colour (which I feel really uncomfortable), so something to explore and try and think about more.

PetulaGordino · 04/11/2014 04:54

Well I guess it's only a limited selection of questions. So if on the particular subjects they asked about your leanings are more liberal than radical, that's what the outcome is going to be. If they had asked more questions on subjects where your views are more radical it would have even reflected in the results. It was an interesting exercise anyway and made me think

KeatsiePie · 04/11/2014 04:54

Olivia yes saw you posted that on another thread recently. Tbh. I don't think that has anything at all to do with equal opportunity. You can like your DH to be stronger than you and still want an equal chance to walk down the street safely or become a CEO. Plenty of feminists like their strong, masculine husbands!

I don't want to this to derail the thread though. I did think what I posted above might be useful in thinking about basic feminism.

PetulaGordino · 04/11/2014 04:56

For example, there were a lot of questions where capitalism was given as the underlying problem, where I would have said patriarchy (which obviously is not divorced from capitalism), so I had to decide whether I disagreed or was neutral on that point

Hazchem · 04/11/2014 04:58

Yes I choose loads of neutral responses because of that too.

PetulaGordino · 04/11/2014 04:59

Keatsie your posts are really useful and insightful, and I totally agree with you about legitimate anger. I'm not sure they're of any use to olivia though

KeatsiePie · 04/11/2014 05:29

Petula thanks!

Yeah. I just couldn't resist the urge to try ... perhaps will scoot off now and take the quiz.

PetulaGordino · 04/11/2014 05:34

Sorry my post looks really patronising reading back, I don't mean it to be! I think on a thread like this it's important to highlight the different viewpoints of different women

KeatsiePie · 04/11/2014 05:45

Petula I was just sitting here feeling bad about my last post! Totally agree, I am all for debate and I fully support this being an inclusive and polite thread.

Olivia because you're not responding to the words in my posts at all really, I have come to feel like you're just here to make whatever bold statements you think will get other people riled up, not to actually discuss what feminism is or should be, so I got irritated and snotty. If do you want to discuss the equality issue you brought up, or etc., I'd be glad to. If you don't, np. Regardless I apologize for my snottiness.

PetulaGordino · 04/11/2014 05:49

No no sorry - that's not what i meant at all! I don't think olivia is here to talk about feminism especially based on other posts on here. I think your reasoned posts gave a really good and useful feminist counteraction and alternative viewpoint to her posts, so please don't stop!

I must stop posting at silly o'clock in the morning!

PetulaGordino · 04/11/2014 05:50

I didn't think you were snotty either. Far less so than I have a bad habit I demonstrating

KeatsiePie · 04/11/2014 06:04

Hahaha we are just tangling ourselves up here

Anyway I definitely didn't think you were patronizing me, don't worry, thanks for your lovely posts. I think we are just fine aside from probably needing to go about our business!

OliviaBlue · 04/11/2014 06:35

I feel like you're disregarding me by saying "i'm trying to rile ppl up" I actually answer various threads on mumsnet that aren't specifically feminist and I wasn't trying to "rile" anyone up. If someone with an opinion other than your's "rile's you up" perhaps you need to open your mind and accept that ur ideals do not apply to everyone.

PetulaGordino · 04/11/2014 06:42

Are you interested in a feminist viewpoint olivia? Because your criticisms of feminism on this thread unfortunately do not represent the true opinions of real feminists, as keatsie has explained. It's not about whether your ideals match those of people here, it's that you are misrepresenting feminist viewpoints

Cherrypi · 04/11/2014 07:07

That quiz was interesting. I wasn't even aware there were branches of feminism. I'd heard of radical feminism but just thought it was an adjective. People of color is such a strange term. I've seen it used in a British book today so I think it is becoming the norm.

KeatsiePie · 04/11/2014 07:18

Olivia I didn't intend to disregard you at all, and I don't think you're a troll. I said I thought you were trying to rile people up (on this thread) because instead of responding to my words you started posting totally unrelated comments, possibly copied and pasted it from another thread for some reason. I thought you posted them to shit-stir, b/c honestly it was the only reason I could think of.

Np. if we don't have the same ideals, totally fine if we don't agree. But us disagreeing would look like this:

Olivia: Red is a great color.

Keatsie: Blue is better.

Olivia: Well I think red is better.

But instead it went more like some kind of weird absurdist play:

Olivia: Red is a great color.

Keatsie: Blue is better.

Olivia: Well I think rowboats are for losers.

... I really just didn't get it.

Hazchem · 04/11/2014 07:22

Is people of colour an Ok term? I'm white and it sounds so similar to coloured to my ears. I'm Aussie also so would tend to use the word black or if talking aboriginal people might use blackfellas or koori (or regionally appropriate variation)

messyisthenewtidy · 04/11/2014 07:24

"I know I'm not intellectually inferior"

And the reason you know that Olivia is because the feminists of the C19th and early C20th fought for you to have equal access to education. I always remember reading about one of the first groups of women to attend a medical lecture at a prestigious university in the late C19th. They were jeered and groped on their way to the lecture theatre and when they got there some other students let a sheep into the room as a way of saying "if we let women in we may as well let sheep in too as they are intellectually equivalent".

That was because that's what people thought of women's intellect at the time. And they were often right, because girls were not given the same access to education as their brothers. Mary Wollstonecraft, an early feminist, argued that it was unfair of people to dismiss women as frivolous and empty headed as the education they received surely made them that way. After a long campaign by women such as Frances Mary Buss girls eventually got access to equal education. But it was a long haul and even when my nan was young she was taken out of school young to be sent into domestic service whilst her less bright brother was kept in school because it wasn't seen as worth it to educate a girl. My poor nan regretted that all her life.

So I just wanted to give a background to your statement. Because no, you aren't intellectually inferior, and the reason for that, and the reason you feel comfortable about that is because feminists fought for you. Being a feminist for me, is simply about being proud of that tradition and grateful to the people who fought for me.

How sad that so many girls across the world still have that struggle to fight and literally risk their lives for something we take for granted here.

KeatsiePie · 04/11/2014 07:38

Hazchem I'm a white American, it's (still) a politically correct term here afaik. But that's really interesting, I don't know what people say elsewhere.

Hazchem · 04/11/2014 08:18

Oh that is interesting and I guess right that people define themselves as how they want to be defined depending on regional variations.

OliviaBlue · 04/11/2014 08:50

Well, whatever, KeatsiePie, if belittling people is your thing, you go ahead. If you "don't get it", don't comment.

OliviaBlue · 04/11/2014 08:55

MessyIsTehNewTidy I am not intellectually inferior because I am a human regardless of whether I'm male or female. I certainly never needed anyone to tell me that.

I've always said differences in men and women are physical only.

OliviaBlue · 04/11/2014 08:56

I did go to college, but I didn't need to attend in order to know men weren't more intelligent than me.

PetulaGordino · 04/11/2014 08:58

there was a thread on this a while ago (not in FWR iirc). it was interesting. the OP i think had thought that "people of colour" was offensive or american (or both - sadly often one and the same thing in the uk ), and a number of people said that it was widespread in north america to describe people who are not white, but without using the term "non-white" which can be seen as similar to describing women as "non-men". on the other hand there were some people on the thread who said they prefer to be described as black or mixed heritage or asian descent, and they didn't like "people of colour" being used to refer to themselves. so as hazchem says it does come down to being sensitive to how people want to define themselves

BuffytheReasonableFeminist · 04/11/2014 09:01

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

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