Is my understanding of feminism wrong??

[SilverHoney]

I find the statement "I'm not a feminist" very confusing...

My understanding of feminism is social equality for men and women (wages, laws, education, opportunities). So for someone to say they are not a feminist would mean they DON'T think men and women should be equal?

Am I confused? To me, openly admitting you're not a feminist is like admitting you're homophobic or racist. Would be interesting to hear from people with differing points of view!

My personal thoughts are that feminism is actually quite a personal thing. It is about women being treated as equels, which to me means the right to choose. I would be slated if I wanted to be a 1950s style housewife waiting on my man and polishing the formica but I think to me, women should have the right to choose that if they want. Just because we now have the right and opportunity to have high powered careers doesn't mean we all want it.

personal issue atm, sorry!

Which feminists have described a woman as "wank fodder"? shock Was it on here?
I find it particularly offensive that this example of derogatory language has been brought up again. It comes from a thread where the OP was treated appallingly. A thread which was totally genuine in my opinion unlike some others. Also I don't think 'wank fodder' is a gender specific term anyway.

If people choose to have children, then they need to accept that employers may not be delighted by losing a valuable employee for a year at a time.

This, to me, is one of the very biggest feminist issues and the one that takes up most of my gender-equality thinking time.

The whole reason the above is true is that all our business practices and expectations around 'work' are structured according to a patriarchal Victorian assumption - that the worker's home, family and personal life is taken care of by other people (most of whom would be women.) This is what leads to all the angst about work/life balance - did you ever notice that the very phrase assumes 'work' excludes 'life'?

I wrote quite a bit about this on a thread last week so I won't again today. Upshot is that there are beginnings of a will to restructure work so that it doesn't exclude life, and increasingly global business favours the organisation that can be flexible regarding time.

Abbey I am not about to flame a survivor of rape for how they're living with that, I have no right to judge anyone... I am sorry that such a thing happened to you, and further sorry that your experiences have included flaming over it. That is horrendous.

You're right, we need people to take full responsibility for their own actions. Nevertheless we are all raised within the context of our society, we learn behaviours through experience, and somewhere some people are being taught that rape is an 'acceptable', or normal, element of our behavioural range. That's what I think anyway. That is not intended as an excuse for the individual at all, unless actually insane we all have choices. Where is the boundary between individual and society, hey Buffy have you academics measured it out yet ?

Not the point but both parents can now take equal time off after their baby is born.

NoTech Sorry I wasn't trying to imply that you would do that. I only expected to be flamed for my attitude if you see what I mean. I know that the FWR boards are unfailingly supportive to women who have been sexually or physically assaulted. (Regular lurker!)

Buffy (Welcome back btw!) I found your list very interesting. The 'innate differences' point struck a chord - it's one of those things that I struggle to verbalise for some reason. How much 'free will' people have in their particular circumstances is obviously a big variable.

The decisions I have made into life haven't always been 'conventional' but they were and are the correct ones for me. I do admit that I felt like I was pushing against what was expected by society (I've been celibate for nearly 15 years and have no children) but they were easy for me to make and stick to. I understand that it isn't that simple for everyone.

Oh this is another stream of consciousness Sorry, I find it hard to articulate exactly what I mean on this subject!

It's quite a big part of the point, Yonic. It still, wrongly, means the parents then split the risk of compromising their careers and there is a hell of a lot more to be done. But paternity leave sends a message that men are actually supposed to be interested in their children; it's a start!