Safe place for budding feminists

[Mamaka]

As some of us have had our opinions, feelings and questions so completely bulldozed in other threads, I thought I'd try and start a safe place for newly questioning and of course veteran feminists to explore without fear of being misunderstood or ridiculed.

A couple of things I'd like to know:

I've just found out that there is no feminism group where I live and am seriously considering starting one but feeling a little unqualified for it. Any recommendations for where to start if I wanted to do this?

I've just read the equality illusion by Kat banyard in its entirety and now I'm feeling riled up. How can I start to move from anger and frustration towards positive action? (This is really what my previous thread should have been called!)

Xenophile i think maybe the holiday and sickness entitlement is the same point I was trying to make about maternity leave.

But I am guessing they were adopted by business largely because they had to.

I get what you are saying but i still struggle with the idea that you can sell good diversity policies in that way. It will work in some areas of employment (those who probably go over and beyond the legal requirements on maternity pay etc already) and in some positions - but aren't there plenty of jobs where staff can be recruited and good output achieved without valuing them in any way.

I haven't worked in quite a few years and worked in one area before that so am wildly out of touch with reality as per posts like Lass's.

Going back to birth plans.

I too have heard of women traumatised by their birth plans not working out...on Mumsnet. Not actually met one. Most women I know who had a traumatic birth were traumatised by the birth, not by the birth plan.

I dunno... It's like going to the train station to buy a ticket to Leeds. 100 tickets available, half of them are first class, allocated randomly. You turn up and oh...you got a second class ticket. You still get to Leeds, you're fine and don't experience much discomfort...but you still might be pissed you didn't get to travel in first class. I don't think the solution to that is to pretend to women that first class doesn't exist so the poor delicate dears won't be upset over it

I am NOT implying any one type of birth is first class by the way - 'first class' is merely an analogy for getting your birth plan (ELCS, timely epidural, vaginal water birth etc) whatever that plan might be

I feel like there is something totally wrong, mysogynist and like I said before, infantilising about in the way birth is presented to women as out of your hands so put up and shut up. I'm not convinced that it is btw, I think the way women approach birth and feel about birth is important. Even if it was - if I was to have an operation for a different health condition, I wouldn't appreciate the surgeon patting me on the head and saying 'well we'll just wait and see what happens shall we? I wouldn't want to scare you by talking about the possible outcomes' no I'd expect the surgeon to outline the procedure and what he might have to do, long term effects on my body etc even though my knowledge of these things would have no physical impact on the outcome.

Because I am a person, not just a body or a vessel.

Oh and I am aware that surgeons outline the process and possible complications of an ELCS. I'm talking more about the fact that the facts of pregnancy and birth are rarely presented clearly and objectively to women at midwife appointments, and instead we're told to just hope for the best and trust in the doctors like a good girl

I found it stressed by both NCT and the midwife that birth plans might not be met. It's still useful for your midwife to have it, IMO. For one of my deliveries, I expressed preference for a cetain approach; in the event, the doctor recommended an alternative and I was able to listen to that and take the recommendation even in labour. I was pleased to have taken the time ahead to think about both routes though.

On the other hand I was very happy to trust doctors. I don't think I had a midwife. I went to the appointments I was supposed to go to but I don't recall there being any particular midwife allocated to me.

I have a question for you Lass, asked in the spirit of genuinely wanting to understand your pov. So I get that you and your clients would find it unacceptable for something work-related to be delayed because someone needed a break to feed a baby. So I want to ask, under what sort of circumstances would a brief delay be acceptable?

One example. Settlement meetings. Frequently involve several firms all of whom have to their parts to pull a trsnsaction and to meet banking close off time limits.

The assumption that it is realistic to say well I'm entitled to have a one hour lunch break between 1 and 2 and I'm going to have it , no matter what is happening because I'm going to feed my baby.

Can I ask some personal questions? Ive dithered whether to post because I'm not discussing any particular issue. I've shortened my list of questions. Hope they make sense and don't seem too waffley.

• What does being a feminist mean? Is it something in the background that underlies your personal choices. Is it away of life? Is being active a choice or an obligation?

I see being a feminist as a values thing, in a similar way to political values. For me it is a way of life because it's like a lens through which I view a lot of social structures and activity.
I'm not sure about whether being active is an obligation. I think if you have certain values then the choices you make will unavoidably reflect those. So I am bringing my children up in a feminist way (I hope! ) some of that is conscious choice and some isn't.
I wouldn't call myself an activist but I do talk to people about feminism a lot, challenge sexism and misogyny where I see it and also am actively involved in D&I at work because it's important to me.
Not sure if that is helpful or waffly

Thanks Fela. I suppose the more sensible question would have been how active you feel obliged to be - which is what you have talked about.

I guess I'm trying to place where it sits in terms of politics/values. I think to me it's been in some sense (too small) a part of my values alongside others. But it feels like an overriding value to some - perhaps it obviously would given I'm focusing on it. "Overriding value" sounds a bit clunky. Not sure I'm explaining that well.

I had to Google D&I. I clearly have been out of action for a long time.

Lass

Once mine were out of the early months, BF was fairly predictable. I had a fair amount of power to schedule around my expressing time but also could be flexible whether I did it at 1230 or 1330 or whatever.

I would expect, on a day of an immovable meeting, the baby would not come in that day and the mother would express before or after. I'd expect reasonable but not exhaustive efforts to arrange the meeting at the best time for her (just as meetings would be arranged around health appointments if reasonably possible but not to the extent of the meeting not happening6

Trying no idea what a feminist is anymore. I mean i understand the basic concept but so many groups seem to add x or y or z to it. I'm just told i'm not one I do really enjoy the discussions though,and highly value them,and wether i agree or disagree... I'm always learning.

Batteries i'm sorry i hope you don't think i was dismissing your feelings. I think the way you have been treated was awful and ofc you should be allowed to make a decision,and receive all the necessary information to do so. Hell you should be trusted to do your own research as well and make your own mind and no one should comment unless there was a significant risk to you and/or baby.
I have to say i was lucky as my "plan" was pretty straightforward.. I wanted hospital,oh there,drugs if needed etc.

Also, when i said women are affected by things not going to plan,it also means in most cases some kind of trauma,for example planned water birth/vaginal birth/no pain relief etc ending up in an emergency csection. The two tend to go hand in hand,and even if they don't many women take it as a personal failure,for example asking for pain relief when all the meditation,breathing and calming music in the world couldn't help you. I feel that so many people are so focused on telling women what the right way to give birth is,that they forget the end goal mum and baby being safe,happy and comfortable during and after delivery.

I think BFing can work in many high powered jobs - I'm part of a start up, I could be BFing now no problems (even a new born TBH - lack of sleep would be more trouble than the newborn).

I've had many meetings either with my own baby, or with the babies of clients or other directors present - in fact, every management level and above person at my (small) company has at one point or another had one of their kids (of varying ages) with them in the room on a call. Yes, things are urgent, but we're all parents, and we all work hard and all hours but also need to balance that with family needs. It's really not a problem.

I think that giving birth really highlights the difference in how women and men are treated. I've had babies in two countries, and in Canada, I was treated as a human being who could make informed choices on her decisions. In the UK, I couldn't get anything unless DP went and asked for it, I had Consultants shove their hand up and give me a sweep against my express wishes, and a midwife threatened me - telling me that if she couldn't get a long enough read she'd make me get on the bed. I actually paused in my labour for long enough to tell her that she could do no such thing, that it was entirely with permission there was monitoring at all. My sister had such bad experiences at another hospital she scraped and hired a private midwife. We have a real problem in this country with maternity provision.

You are talking about a small start up firm. I'm thinking of the last major completion meetings I was involved with. It would have been ludicrous to have children running around and people dropping out to breast feed.

It was over 25 years ago so maybe much has changed but I had no complaints about NHS maternity care. I suppose however I was happy to trust doctors. I knew nothing about babies or childbirth , they did. I had no issue with the procedure being meficalised. It suited me perfectly when a minor complication meant they offered an elective caesarean if I wanted it.

I have a question. A female artist was arrested for allowing passerbys to fondle her breast and genitals through a mirrored box. Her performance is designed to promote a woman's right NOT to be touched. She says she stands for women's right and sexual equality and we have the right when we want to be touched,and people have the chance to touch for 30 seconds in the box.
I agree with the message but....just don't get how the way she's doing teaches anything? Dunno...

I suspect the subtle difference of why this is any different from a private "lap dance" or peep show performance was lost - or non existent. No not the right way.

(aside can anyone think of a word or phrase to describe the activity which I have put in inverted commas which doesn't use the word "dance" as it irks greatly to dignify it by describing it as "dancing")

Lap rubbing? Lap grinding ?

My gut reaction to that is that it's brilliant.

She's taking male entitlement and broadcasting it - plenty of women get felt up if they want it or not because a man wants to do it. Providing the box is a very obvious way of demonstrating that I guess?

And it holds a mirror up to general attitudes - men will take what is there, (which is right and proper, and after all men can't control themselves) it's the woman's fault for making it available.

Its a in your face way of saying look how predatory men are... Or is that just me?

Meghan Murphy at feminist current did a great takedown of that artist. I really didn't like what the artist was saying at all - how does that represent female sexuality? Being looked at and touched? I watched the video and it made me feel very, very uncomfortable - her facial expression was really off, like she wasn't even there. It's doesn't look like female desire to me, quite the opposite in fact.

Maybe if she wasn't conventially attractive it might have said something a bit more profound, but as it was it didn't look like a feminism that I'd be on board with.

Wait...the artist said the box was liberating her sexually?

Oh OK then yeah I agree with you all. What a twat.

I tried to get it, I'm never great with conceptual art. But I can't make her message work.
That article is really good. I couldn't watch the full clip. Yes, very uncomfortable viewing.

Baterries she asked women to touch her as well not just men...dunno i just couldn't get it it made me very uncomfortable so just thought i'd ask what others think and if i'm missing something.

Freshwater thanks for the article it definitely makes more sense to me than the "artistic performance"

Ok so just caught up on the boobs in box thing and have a question I've been wanting to ask for ages.
Once the light has come on and you start to see everything in your life through the lens of the patriarchal society where everything is designed to benefit men, how do you go forward with sex? It's become a bit of a block for me. All I can see is the pleasure and benefit that men get from it!