Why do people get so defensive over feminist issues?

[amispartacus]

'I write them because my handwriting is neater' when discussing Christmas cards.

"I didn't like my surname" when discussing name changing.

"There's no issue with stereotyping".

It's amazing how defensive people get when feminism is discussed and how much justification goes on. Sometimes you wonder if people can't see it - and think you are making a fuss about nothing.

There is also the problem that one poster on FWG can be rude or cross- and 10 other posters go on 10 other threads saying that all feminists are bullies. And then 10 more posters from each of those threads can now say they know personally someone who was bullied off the FWR boards for saying that they like having sex with men or painting their fingernails.

It does seem odd to me that people are prepared to completely abandon the whole idea of feminism because they once met a rude, cross feminist! I'm a Labour supporting atheist. The fact that I consider Owen Smith and Richard Dworkin to be dickheads doesn't make me want to run off and join the Tories and the Chirch of England.

It does seem odd to me that people are prepared to completely abandon the whole idea of feminism because they once met a rude, cross feminist!

The people who say this kind of thing never really wanted to be feminists though, did they? It's just a way to justify a position they already held.

I agree, Not. Odd that they seem to want to join in with feminist discussions so very often and so very vociferously.......

it's a very odd dynamic, isn't it?

I can't think of any other movement that provokes in people such an urgent need to distance themselves from it. Isn't it interesting?

I think you're right that people hear any questioning of "why is this thing like this?" as "if you do this thing you're a mindless sheep". I don't know how you can change that, if it's even possible. The charge that's often thrown at feminists is that we over think things, bit to be honest, i doubt that there's much that you can do to change the mind of someone who thinks that it's possible to overthink how life, society and the world works...?!

I also think it's very painful to reevaluate the world from a feminist perspective and it might not seem like there's any benefit to doing so if you think it's unlikely to change anything. Better just to accept things the way they are and get on with it as best you can. A lot of people prefer things that way (I have never been very good at doing that )

Lass I'm with you. We're not married and dd has OH's surname. I navigated school,nursery,dentist,gp,airports and travelling just me and her (she has british passport, i don't,and different surnames) ,online stuff etc without any hassle or raised eyebrows. Most letters i get about her are addressed to parents/carers of miss x.

I changed my name on marriage and it does sting a bit to be criticised for it. But I have a few things I would like to throw into the discussion.

It is much much easier to not change your name now than it was in the past, even the quite recent past. And it is much easier to do it in more progressive places. I'm from rural N Ireland which is much much more conservative than the rest of the UK. It's simply not the norm at my children's school for parents to not share the same surname, and it's fairly rare for parents not to be married to each other - there is only one child in my daughter's class of 30 who doesn't live in a 'traditional' family set up.

I only know one woman who didn't change her name on marriage, a work colleague. Her manager refused to participate in her performance appraisal and sign off her payrise because she said that as a born again Christian, she believed it was my colleague's legal duty to take her husbands name and she refused to use the correct name. So that resulted in months of grievance procedures and disciplinary issues (for the manager) and a lot of 'why don't you just use your married name and get your payrise, it's easier that way?'.

In my own case, I considered not changing my name and my father sat me down and told me how ashamed he was and that he thought he had raised me better. That it showed a lack of respect for my husband to be and that I would be starting our marriage by humiliating him and my parents and that it was a public statement to the world that I cared more about myself than anything else.

On the other hand, I had a very unusual name and I hated it, I craved the anonymity of disappearing into the crowd. But then, that was my poor self esteem that caused that, I was ashamed of existing, ashamed of who I was. I was bullied at school and told I was ugly and that people disliked me and found me annoying. The opportunity to change my name felt like an opportunity to be a new person. That felt very attractive.

If I was getting married now, in 2016, I'm certain I would keep my name. But 20 years ago when I had to make the decision, it was all just too much for me.

That's a good post treacle. Sometimes we just pick our battles.

I have come to accept that there are things I am prepared to make a stand on and things I just don't have the energy for. I will openly acknowledge that I shave my armpits and keep my face fur free simply because of socialtal pressure to maintain certain ideals around feminin beauty. I don't particularly want to do these things (or rather I believe my desire to do it is purely formed by growing up in a culture that says this is what women should do, it is not a 'free' choice), but I do so because it is a fight I can't be bothered to make.

There are other areas of my life where I am prepared to challenge myself and stand against the convention. I did not change my name when I got married, I didn't have a wedding, I went back to work full time 6 months after DD was born. All these things I have had varying levels of critisicm for. These things are important to me and I make the decision to practice what I preach in these areas.

I don't think making these choices about where I will stand and where I will roll over to pressure makes me less of a feminist. For me the important thing is that I acknowledge that where I choose to conform I do so knowing I am doing that and understanding my reasons for doing so. I believe other people will make different choices about what areas are important to fight for. There are few people who have the strength to do it all.

However, as others have pointed out realising that there is no such thing as free will is a hard thing for people to accept. It can make you feel powerless at first and I think people prefer to think they are doing things because they want to rather than because they are, perfectly reasonably, choosing to take the easier path.

Bertrand Pooch

I think that the thing is it feminists rarely come on to the FWR board and criticise the kind of gross generalisations that are made about men. If someone pops up on a thread anywhere else on the site about silly feminists OTOH there are right there to point out how they are misrepresented.

I mean why do you think this is the case ?

I can't think of any other movement that provokes in people such an urgent need to distance themselves from it. Isn't it interesting?

I think one has to understand that Feminism is a controversial theory. It is a reframing of history where the dominant narrative is the creation of a system by men, expressly designed to oppress women. What evidence exists for this massive apparatus that you are announcing to your unsuspecting conversational partner ? Wife writes christmas cards, you shave your armpits. Men do not feel oppressed because they shave their chin or style their hair. It sounds a bit silly I guess ? There is also the idea that feminists demand things and can "win" them whilst at the same time reminding women that men infact have all the power, there seems to be a massive contradiction there. I'm probably not very clear on that last one - but don't want to derail this thread.

I think people prefer to think they are doing things because they want to rather than because they are, perfectly reasonably, choosing to take the easier path

Taking the easier path and picking your battles is perfectly natural. It does make getting through life easier.

But things are changing. It is hard though trying to change expectations and challenge them as the response of people can be very negative. Today's world with Twitter can make fighting battles and expectations much harder. I've been surprised at the vocal response on MN when issues have been discussed - less surprised at the negative response on the internet though

Do you think women have had equal rights historically, girl, and that feminism falsely claims that they have not?

In my experience, the gross generalizations about men are not made by feminists.

Some of the worst "trouble" I have ever got into on Mumsnet (trouble in inverted commas because words on a screen ) is when I challenge the "men don't see dirt/can't buy presents/can't be expected to look after children properly/can't cook/all watch porn/can't multitask/are useless at empathy" narrative perpetuated by handmaidens some other women.

I totally empathise with treacle on this - I only write Christmas cards for my family, I expect DP to plan, buy and wrap Christmas presents for his family and I'm not changing my name on marriage. It's 2016 and I live in a supposedly progressive place but the amount of crap I've had from my family about being "difficult" and how unattractive a trait it is.

This isn't something causing an issue in my relationship, but somehow people see it happening and want to push me back in line, it's as though they've decided to take on the woman's stuff and so I should have to as well.

when I challenge the "men don't see dirt/can't buy presents/can't be expected to look after children properly/can't cook/all watch porn/can't multitask/are useless at empathy" narrative

You should have a bingo card

To go back to the OP the assumption has to be that once primed with the knowledge of the systemic oppression visited upon women by men, there is an expectation the something is done.

You seemingly cannot fathom that anyone could not agree that women are massively oppressed by men (I assume) yet feel the need to point out the myriad manifestations of said system.

Why would you want to go back to that instead of addressing the statement you made about unchallenged gross generalizations about men made by feminists?

Speak

Yes, I've found that a lot of the generalisations come from the other side. And also that no matter how careful you are to say "not all men, but a large enough percentage that they cause real trouble" you get jumped on - people immediately leap to the "you're saying 'all men are rapists'" straw man (interestingly, often the very same people who will say on other threads "all men watch porn and you're deluding yourself if you think your partner doesn't"). And you can point out the statistics on, say, relative rates of imprisonment of men and women, or numbers of women living in poverty, or those interesting studies on campus rape showing that round about 5% of men actually commit rape (leaving aside the even bigger proportion who say they would if it could be guaranteed that they wouldn't get caught), and yet people still claim there's nothing gendered (in the old-fashioned social sciences sense of gender as culturally conditioned differences in social roles and behaviour between sexes) about the stats.

And I've lost count of the number of times people have said "there is no gender pay gap", then when I point out that my employer found, in its own audit, a systematic gap, but claims it doesn't have the money to fix it, so my equal pay claim is actually going through the courts right now, in 2016, it's as if I become invisible. Talk about confirmation bias. People just won't listen to anything that doesn't fit their world view.

(I have to say one thing that puzzles me - and this really isn't meant as a criticism of people who've made the choice, just that I'm puzzled - is women I know who have literally international reputations as scientists and publications records as long as your arm in prestigious journals, who've still changed their name on marriage, not just in their private lives, but professionally as well. I just don't get why you'd make the decision to have one half of your publications history not connect up with the other half. And I know female colleagues from countries where changing one's name on marriage isn't widespread also find it totally baffling.)

o go back to the OP the assumption has to be that once primed with the knowledge of the systemic oppression visited upon women by men, there is an expectation the something is done

Actually, the OP is about the reasons given when something needs doing and it's the woman who ends up doing it.

Choices don't exist in a vacuum. We do not have free will in our decisions and so much is influenced by expectations. There is a 'social penalty' with our decisions - and sometimes it's easier to go with the flow rather than 'be different'.

Men pay social penalties as well.

I think one has to understand that Feminism is a controversial theory

Well, all I can say to this is "no shit, Sherlock"!

As for "what evidence exists for this massive apparatus"- honestly, truly, where would I start to provide that to you? Can you pick a topic and I'll try? Reproductive rights? Employment?

Maybe if I began by asking you if you have read anything by feminist authors, and what that is, and why you don't agree with it, then we would have a starting point. But at the moment, all you're doing is telling us we're wrong because we're wrong and it's all a load of bobbins. You're saying "feminists do this" and "feminists say that", much of which the majority of feminists here don't say or do, so rather than chuck accusations, how about you pick a topic and we could debate specifically, just that topic and if/why feminism has got it wrong?

I wanted to amend my thought about wondering why so many people desperately distance themselves from feminism - I then moved on to wondering why so many people do so while fundamentally agreeing with so many of its core tenets? Now that is really interesting. I assume it's "bad press", bad associations with the word, but I am less sure that it's directly the actions of feminists that caused that.

I don't understand why any woman would not be a feminist. I can understand the argument of type, e.g. Rad v Lib fem but actually NOT being a feminist makes no sense to me. It's like standing in the middle of the motorway and wondering why you are getting run over.

MostlyHet - I used to do wages for a temp agency. There was one factory in the valleys that had three pay rates for one job - trainee, regular and expert. The trainee rate were all female, regular mostly men, and expert all men. For the same job, and one the women had been doing for 20 odd years (and also a fiddly job that usually only employs females), versus most of the men being in their twenties.

Regarding the opening post:

"It's amazing how defensive people get when feminism is discussed and how much justification goes on. Sometimes you wonder if people can't see it - and think you are making a fuss about nothing."

For me, the problem with this wording is that it sets up two groups: people (who are characterised as unable to "see" things that should be obvious, and therefore employ justification); and the you group, who from a superior position can be "amazed" and "wonder" at the people group's inability to "see". So you immediately set up an "us and them" paradigm, in which "us" comes across as believing itself to be superior. No surprise that this is alienating.

I've noticed, however, that throughout the thread this has changed to much more use of "we", as in "We do not have free will in our decisions and so much is influenced by expectations. There is a 'social penalty' with our decisions - and sometimes it's easier to go with the flow rather than 'be different'."

I am old enough to have been part of second wave feminism at university. Back then, there was a lot of emphasis on sisterhood, a lot of emphasis on "we". I can't help but feel that was better, and much more likely to engage more women with feminism.

Some of the worst "trouble" I have ever got into on Mumsnet (trouble in inverted commas because words on a screen grin) is when I challenge the "men don't see dirt/can't buy presents/can't be expected to look after children properly/can't cook/all watch porn/can't multitask/are useless at empathy" narrative perpetuated by handmaidens some other women.

Oh Gawd don't you hate that? Sadly it's 'true' in the sense that many men don't see dirt, etc. ... but that is only because they have been brought up to know that cleaning is women's business / women are held to higher account, etc., many just know that women will do that work and are prepared to have an easy ride.

What gets me, though, is that it's fine to tut-tut over 'useless men' when it is to men's advantage - i.e. men get away with not being challenged for shitty behaviour, etc., but when it is the opposite - when men are being held to account for the exact same behaviours and challenged on them, then suddenly it is not on or not true and women who call then on it are ballbreakers and ebil feminists etc.

"Men are lazy and will always cheat" - not hating men
"Men are not innately these things" - evil feminist man hater

Bertrand

I have in the past provided evidence of gross generalisations/sexism about men from these forums, but you ignored them. I agree that feminists also do challenge these when they are aired - but usually on other forums, not this one. For example earlier in this very thread someone said "It's just something you don't see men talking about - finding reasons to say why they do something." IMO a ridiculous generalisation about men. Maybe you didn't see it ?

I used forum there maybe i mean board ? AIBU vs FWR