What's your number 1 feminist ishoo?

[ladyblablah]

I know there are so many, but which is the one that gets your goat

Mine is women wasting their lives, careers, self esteem and potential in shit marriages with shit men.

[micah]

Mine would be the sex stereotyping that's endemic these days. Girls must have pink, like dolls, crafts and glitter. Boys like wheels, rough play and physical activity.

Imo that's the base to change many of the other issues. People think it's harmless but we're teaching children from birth that females are the weaker, gentler sex who like babies, while men are tough and macho.

Teach girls (and boys) that they are equal from the start and hopefully they will learn that they don't need to take lower pay or crap off men. They will stand up and say the deserve the same treatment...

[micah]

Jennyontheblocks- x posted, but yes, behaviours being explained away by sex rather than individuality, it's unavoidable :(

[CaptainJaneSafeway]

I think my no 1 bugbear is the general issue of people (male and female) just not seeing the sexism that's right in front of them or being enacted in their own workplace, relationship, school, the way they are raising their DC etc.

Sexism is a deep and intractable problem that can't be rectified overnight, and we're all mired up in it - but we need to at least see that, for starters. People just accepting that women get a worse deal, and an unfair hand, and not even being able to see that clearly because they are so conditioned to expect it that they don't even realise they are.

I don't think I always see it all myself either. I'm always realising new examples of it that I didn't really take in before.

Often if you take "woman" out of the situation and replace it with "black", or reverse the male and female in the situation, you can suddenly see how ridiculous it is - as in the recent thread about some people not wanting a female pilot. Yet people still shy away from it.

[Lottapianos]

Jenny, that's not selfish at all. Being a feminist doesn't mean being a martyr and only thinking of other people's problems.

I work with young children - just don't get me started on gender stereotyping, especially from professionals who should know better FFS. It does absolutely no-one any favours but the example of what your daughter's PE teacher said is a particularly damaging one.

'she is being given the vocabulary to 'fit in' without her understanding what it means to be 'her''

It does make sense and its very very sad. I wish I had some advice for you.

[Failedspinster]

For me, the myth of free choice and the denial of context as an influence of women's choices e.g., "nobody forced me to pose naked." It's bullshit, and dangerous at that.

[Ev1lEdna]

I think that the issues of pornography, the sex industry and rape culture are inextricably entwined and that the first two issues create the conditions for the third to exist. I believe that the porn industry creates an unrealistic expectation of women, this could be with to do with appearance in the case of soft or main stream porn or of actions within relationships of the more misogynistic porn which exists (the 'tear the b*** in half' genre.) On a larger scale it has gradually crept into main stream culture and ever so insidiously normalised the idea of woman as object or a things for men.

From this ideology so many things follow; page 3 as a tradition and a right; human trafficking;the 'cool girl' syndrome; the idea that teens must expose or 'put out' to be considered sexually alluring; the idea of breast feeding as something to be banned in public because breasts are merely sexual... and so on. There are so many issues which stem from the sexualisation of women for enjoyment of men. It invades our society at every turn and it is one of the main issues which has created a backward step for modern feminism.

That isn't to say that I don't find other issues pressing and extremely important I do. I really do. However, I believe that this issue above all creates a toxic environment for women in general all over the world and it makes it difficult to deal with other equally important issues effectively.

[JennyOnTheBlocks]

thanks, Lotta

it's not only sexist to make assumptions about her, but disablist because they are using her gender (or is it sex? that's a whole other thread ) to minimise her additional needs. If she's not doing so well in maths, that's fine too - being a girl, with SEN - she's not going to really need maths, is she?

if i try to bring up the sexist argument, i get shouted down and mansplained at...it's bloody exhausting, but i won't give in

[Longtalljosie]

Housework. Because you're treated as bonkers by most of society if you even bring it up, and there's the hypocrisy of it all - you can live your life and do what you like, but there's this 20 hours of manual work per week which you have to fit in and not even discuss...

[Ev1lEdna]

I should also have said in my first paragraph that obviously both the sex industry and the pornography industry are poor working environments for the women within them and that the debate which surrounds them regarding liberation and freedom of women to work where they please diverts the real issues. Generally these things get lost in the midst of the token sex workers who appear happy in their work or at least happy to tell the media or forums they are happy in their work.

[trice]

Violence against women/Sexual harassment.

I have never had my bum slapped or my cheeks pinched or my hair pulled by a woman. Keep your hands/eyes/comments to yourselves you male scrotums.

[Ev1lEdna]

There's a thread about prostitution at the moment, which I can't comment on because we're not supposed to be cross and agrue and I can't think of a nice response to women who say that those 'other' women can be used as wank socks by misogynist men because 'agency'.

I agree.

I am finding this thread very interesting and nodding along. Jenny I have heard this from friends with girls with SEN too.

[AnnieLobeseder]

The fact that in so many parts of the world women are not considered human beings in their own right, and have no rights over their own lives. That they will be the ones put to death if they are raped. That their own fathers and brothers will kill them if they behave in a manner deemed to damage the family's honour. That throwing acid in their faces is seen as acceptable and normal if they are not suitably compliment and submissive. That millions of Chinese and Indian female babies have been killed before or at birth for being female.

[cailindana]

The fact that women have had such a number done on them that they can't see their own oppression, that when you point out blatant inequality they shy away and deny it, or minimise it, the way we are so ground down, so fearful, so lacking in agency that we collude in our own oppression.

[OnIlkleyMoorBahTwat]

It should become the norm for men to be equally responsible for housework and childcare, because I believe this effects more women than the more serious issues like domestic violence, rape, prostitution.

In a lot of homes there is the expectation that housework and childcare is solely or primarily 'womens' work' and that men that do their share are unusual, or 'under the thumb'.

The above also extends to the workplace - it is assumed that men can work long hours, travel etc as they have a wife at home to keep all the domestic balls in the air on her own. This then affects what the wife can do, because any work or other activities she wants to do come second and has to fit round her DHs.

YY to those posters that sexism is still seen as 'acceptable' and not as bad as racism or homophobia.

I know we're only supposed to say one issue, but also it should become the norm to address adult women by a single title, removing the convention and widely held perception that Mrs = married and Ms = lesbian man hating trouble causer. I don't care whether Mrs or Ms is used, but it's an indignity that women have to suffer every time they are addressed in a formal setting or complete a form.

[Damsili]

The problem here is the dichotomy between issues that affect us personally and those that affect a larger group to which we don't belong. Feminism, by its very nature, is about women as a class.

So, as a class 800 women a DAY die from pregnancy are big fucking headlines. There's obviously a whole range of issues there: healthcare, women's status being related to children in a way men's isn't... But sex is a major factor. Patrirachy is set up such that men feel they have a right to intrude upon women and women's lives for purposes of sex. This intrusion and entitlement stretches from rape to cat-calling. Ok, so we can largely deal with cat-calling... but that same dynamic surely sits as an integral part of what leads to that figure almond quoted.

800 women a day die from pregnancy

[Yourstruuly]

The fact that rape and domestic violence against women is seen as just a criminal case and not also hate crime.

That the burden of proof in rape and domestic violence rests with women in court

That rape is now called sexual violence. It is increasingly easier for men and wider society to talk about rape if they substitute rape for sexual violence. I also think it is because we all know that rape is force and power used by men on women whereas sexual violence does not have the same connotation

[AnnieLobeseder]

And despite the horrors that women face in other parts of the world, it also makes me very angry when Western women are told they should shut and be grateful because women elsewhere have it so much worse.

[PetulaGordino]

damsili, this isn't an argument, there is no "problem". this is women talking about what bothers them most

[Yourstruuly]

My last gripe is that we seem fixed on Mrs and Ms. The real question is why do we still need titles at all? There should be no need for Mrs, Ms, Mr or Miss.
The question of women change of surname upon marriage and children given paternal surnames challenges patriarchy more so than whether a woman is known as a Mrs or Miss.
If Mrs and Miss were to be abolished, I doubt many women would have a problem. But would men be happy if titles where no longer required, for example, given the unspoken privilege a Mr will still have over Ms?

[Damsili]

Ok, re-phrase:

I find it a problem. I struggle that my car windscreen being iced up in the mornings is more annoying to me than - say - the rail strike in Germany, because me being delayed by five minutes is more important to me than a bunch of folk I don't know being seriously disrupted.

I probably should have picked a better example, but hopefully I'll have communicated what I meant.... I won't hold my breath though.

[PetulaGordino]

i understand perfectly what you mean

but please let women share what really makes them angry and sad and frustrated, rather than turning this into a discussion about how and why we might put certain things ahead of others

[MummyBeerest]

For me personally, women/girls in unhealthy relationships, be it emotional, verbal or physical/sexual abuse.

So many women go through hellish situations, because they don't feel strong enough to get out of them. It makes me so sad and angry at the same time.

[Damsili]

But Petula, it's you that's doing that.

Asking what the Number 1 issue is necessitates some weighing up doesn't it??! I think you're just being difficult.

[Roonerspism]

I need two, too.

Internet pornography terrified me with its impact on kids. I cannot see things improving for my daughters until more is done to tackle this. I am astonished at the violent, degrading material that is "legal".

And also, yes, equal pay. We still don't receive equal pay. And I don't think we will until there is a huge shift in terms of the role of women in the workplace.

[LoafersOrLouboutins]

As the mother of mixed race DDs (half Iranian), intersectional feminism is very important to me. I'm aware of the expectations people have of women purely because of their race. A lol of white feminism excludes women of colour. Similarly, forced marriage and honour killings are both significant concerns to me. My DDs have family (their father) in a country where a woman who has been raped will be killed .

Also, the 'smash her' kind of sexual attitude is a huge concern to me. I hate how sex is seen as a chance to show male dominance and to 'own' a woman. I've heard a man (in a pub, he was probably around the age of 19-ish) say that a woman couldn't argue with him because he had ejaculated on her. This kind of attitude isn't uncommon and I fear for when my DDs are of an age to encounter this kind of attitude.