Feminism - College Project

[roisinjf]

Hello everyone!

I'm a college student in need of some responses to a survey I am doing for a report about Feminism and current attitudes towards it, including the influence of media and celebrity culture. It would be a great help if you could please answer it for me, here's the link:

www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/GX3WNNH

Thank you all.

And I think everyone I know would make the distinction between nice and kind.

April229 we are real feminists here. The OP is looking for fluffy intersectional’ brainwashed women who pretend that they are feminists, while believing the mantra transwomen are women, cause the men say so*. She’s going to find that bullshit doesn’t fly here. Better that she reads a few harsh words online and learns the truth, rather than continuing to sell women down the river by being encouraged to believe the Male fantasy that is trans. Women here are wonderful, supportive, kind and intelligent. We are not here to ‘be nice’, because someone wants to stick their fingers in their ears and go ‘men are women because they say do’.

AfterSchoolWorry shush 🤫 You’ve said out loud what we’re all thinking, but didn’t want to say, in case OP reports poor tutor for being a nasty transphobe, for daring to teach the IP critical thinking. Better that OP is encouraged to stay in her little university #nodebate bubble.

Newtlover posted a very helpful suggestion of changing the first question to "Are you male/female/other?" This seemed like exactly the sort of constructive feedback the OP needs to hear. There's no point doing a survey on feminism that a fair proportion of feminists won't fill in.

Newtlover posted a very helpful suggestion of changing the first question to "Are you male/female/other?" This seemed like exactly the sort of constructive feedback the OP needs to hear. There's no point doing a survey on feminism that a fair proportion of feminists won't fill in.

Yes. She and she clearly doesn't understand why surveys ask people their sex (not gender).

Gold - you will see, had you read my post is did not say I didn’t understand the difference between kind and nice, I suggested few people would split hairs about it.

Easter - exactly, a constructive point which I think the OP took on board.

PERF - we are ‘real feministis on here’ - seriously? This hostile angry group is the face of real feminism, than I will think twice about the way I refer to myself in future. I think many people would call themself a feminist but not agree with every view you, or I or another feminist would hold.

Isn’t it the focus that we all want a more equal society in terms of opportunity and outcome, and want to work constructively and supportively with one another to reach that point? I don’t think your views on ‘brainwashed woman who want to believe xyz’ really supports that. You don’t ‘own’ feminism any more than I do, or the woman you are referring to do. Everyone is entitled to their own view - lets look at the things that would unite us in the debate for change rather than the areas that divide our view.

Ok, if I understand the different meanings of words I tend to use the one to convey my intended meaning. So I tend to assume other people have done that too. So when you told us to "be nice", I assumed that's what you meant.

You understand the difference between kind and nice but use them interchangeably?

Fair enough. I'm not sure why you'd do that though...

I think it’s because I don’t pay a huge amount of attention to it because I don’t feel it’s the most important issue, especially in a debate about inequality. I acknowledge you may consider it to be a priority to pick out it which I why I said in my response to your initial comment ‘ok, let’s focus on being kind if you prefer the terminology’.

It's an issue for me because so much of the shit that women put up with is done in the name of "being nice". That element of female socialisation passed me by but I think it's crucial in a fight for equality.

So many women willingly giving up their rights and freedoms in the name of being nice. So many women keeping quiet about things that upset them in the name of "being nice". So many women unable to stand up for themselves or assert their boundaries due to not wanting to be seen as not "being nice"...

If women stopped "being nice" (whilst still being kind) their lives would improve dramatically!

I think it's a little thing that could make a big change to a lot of women's lives. That's all.

But if we want a more equal society, surely we have to look at what the actual barriers to attaining equality are. And those barriers are not because society discriminates against people who like pink sparkly things, it's because society discriminates against people on the basis of them having had, or possibly being likely to have (or at any rate belonging to the class likely to have) children at some point in the future.

When I had to take my employer to court for equal pay, the reason my pay had drifted wasn't deliberate policy. It was an artefact of long pay scales, which meant that a couple of "satisfactory" (the default mark while on maternity leave) rather than "outstanding" marks in one's annual review history meant women's pay slowly drifted apart from that of men doing exactly the same job, to exactly the same level of competence. You can't address this sort of subtle structural sexism unless you can collect statistics based on actual sex, not gender feels.

We live in a society where sex matters - sometimes for rational reasons (the need for protection for pregnant and lactating women), sometimes for irrational reasons (all sorts of prejudices based on women being supposedly lesser). Yet we're reconstructing language in such a way that we cannot talk about sex - and unless we can talk about sex, we can't talk about sexism.

OP I’ve done your survey but like PP the firstborn question is silly.

I do wish people would learn the distinction between gender and sex.

If women stopped "being nice" (whilst still being kind) their lives would improve dramatically!

So fucking true.Just read AIBU.
So many women trapped in social situations because they feel they have to be ‚‘nice‘

I have purged the word nice from my vocabulary when speaking with girls.

Tbh, I read al the questions on the survey and can't see how it will provide any meaningful data whatsoever.

Do I know of any feminist celebrities and do I own any feminist themed clothing?

Gold - all of those are great points, I think the magority of people would agree that you can object to, or challenge something nicely or in a kind way. I completely agree that woman being expected to adapt and go along with things, and not rock the boat etc in the face of things that don’t work for them is not ok.

Hairy - I completely agree with the point you have made and yes we need to talk in terms of sex. I was not saying the the wording on the questionnaire was not something that could do with some work to provide the OP with a clearer understanding of the issues.

This is not feminism.

Hope that helps your survey and attitudes to feminism

Feminism is not compatible with gender. Gender is sexism.

Removing the term sex in your survey is the embodiment of semism.

Hope that helps.

Sexism not semism.

You can fill in the survey omitting questions you don't like btw. Including this gender bollocks.

I will repeat, only answer this survey if you are happy with the questions.

This alone will skew your results. Because an awful lot of us are not happy with the questions and for very good reason.

You’ve shared on social media - that’s an echo chamber too because everyone on your social media (or the vast majority) will share your general stance and outlook as well. So from the off, even if the questions were spot on, youve a self selecting audience, so that’s one error you’re introducing.

You’re also approaching it from as you say an ‘intersectional’ viewpoint but to me, the removal of the word and concept of sex and it’s replacement with gender is already excluding the large tranche of feminists who have great trouble with the concept of gender but an lot to express about sex. So again, your sample is skewing further.

I won’t repeat the excellent points above but I am really saddened that it seems to boil down to grrrl power slogans on clothing. That’s not feminism.
A feminist issue on clothing for you: for example would be the ability to call out a high ranking male colleague for bitching that not all women at a conference were wearing high heels.
Or Clark’s shoes ‘girls’ range being of poorer quality ballet pump styles called ‘dolly bird’ while the boys are able to withstand active play and are called ‘leader.’

Feminism is not something for you to use to flog T shirts.

Perhaps the survey is aimed at mummies not feminists?

Or the tutor is setting the OP up and the OP will report back on the comments here and it is the tutor's way of discussing sex versus gender without getting sacked?

Who knows...?

With respect Kocah in terms of collecting data it’s college project to collect some views, not a PhD thesis. Or even a degree. She was just asking for some thoughts - more fool her it seems.

Being saddened about the questions she is asking - again she has not stated - this questionnaire is designed to explore the be all and end all of what feminism’ is it’s about the impact of celebrity on it. I don’t understand why it’s unacceptable to ask woman if they show / express feminist attitudes with slogan t shirts as per some celebrities? Iget that you do not see these as the core concerns of feminism, and that’s ok, no one has asked you to compromise your views just by asking questions about something else.

Certainly the wording around gender and sex needs further consideration - I’m not sure I would have articulated these descriptors very well when I was at college either, but that’s why it’s very important for people to explore and learn about this. Progress is based on the curiously of people asking questions and I think that should be encouraged. In this case I think the OP left the debate pages ago to look at doing a different study, as a result of the flaming from the readers her and I don’t blame her - if this was my first step into feminism I would not return to it either. This whole thread makes feminism sound like some exclusive members only club you’re only ‘allowed’ to be part if everyone else agrees with your take. There are loads of young people who don’t give a shit about these issues - perhaps this thread should save their lectures and critism for them rather than people trying to learn.

I think it's important to challenge wrong assumptions, though.

Early on in one of my undergraduate research projects I was trying to find out about a certain group of people (not feminists, but it's comparable). I posted on a forum specifically for them, and got some fairly harsh critique about my focus and choice of terms. I felt a bit piled-on and soon left the thread, but I did go and do more reading around the topic and looked into why they preferred the terms they did, and the issues they had with my initial plan. I felt a bit hurt by their comments at first, because I was sympathetic to their aims and so expected a more positive response. But I think that taking on board what they'd said improved the project considerably.

Hopefully the OP will have got something out of this thread, even if not all the replies were 'nice'.

And I agree with all of that, but I think all of those learning points could have been achieved with more constructive, less hostile responses. There shouldn’t be some kind of ‘hazing’ process to exploring feminism.

Roisin, as a student collecting data for a research project, your survey should include an information page detailing which school, an email address to contact you/ your supervisor, and how to receive details of the results, and show an awareness of the principles of informed consent.
Your survey is clearly biased in all the myriad ways explained above, and yet no doubt you will be using the echo chamber responses from male people to reinforce your ‘feminism’, while actual feminists are excluded.
This is not a survey to research opinion. It is a product unconsciously designed to underline your own bias and those of the transactivist community. It has nothing to do with feminism.
Please use this an opportunity to exercise some critical thinking that goes beyond ‘male children can totes become women’, and stop centring men’s needs for validation in your ‘feminism’.

Astraia - me too. You should have seen the burns I received from my first foray onto a trans forum.

And so that is how you intend to respond to others mam? Your response is really condescending, as a feminist I don’t agree with the points you have made.