Men in feminism.

[Jeanhatchet]

They are invariably a distraction at best.

We are taught to accommodate their needs and they are socialised in turn to feel entitled to us feeding them with both food and knowledge.

I have seen too many "nice" ** men .... y'know the "good" kind .... the "my man is different though - he gets it" kind hang around and place themselves at the centre of feminist circles with the end result that women spend time stroking their gigantic egos and falling over ourselves to bash women who won't.

Then.... they begin to offer themselves as goddamn experts. Also - I've seen lots of abusers hoppety skippety around women in this way.

Men who want to be better men can just go away and do it. Women have written enough about how they can do this. In fact I'm sure some man saw a woman blog about it and then rephrased it better. The men could go and find his stuff probs.

1. Stop using porn

Not all feminists think porn is bad. Only certain types of porn that promote abusive behaviour. Wider society certainly doesn't have problem with porn in principle

Hmm not so sure about your claim about "wider society". There might be no active Festival of Light movement campaigning against porn but it is a big assumption from that that no one apart from some feminists don't like porn. I don't; my husband doesn't. Our preference is not that it is not for us but that it didn't exist.Neither of us describe ourselves as feminists.

1. Stop using prostitutes

Not all feminists think prostitution is bad in principle

Not all people who think prostitution is bad (and punters are scum) are feminists.

3.Take full and equal responsibility for domestic work and child care

Fair point if said man is a stay at home parent or paid work is split equally. However if the man is the primary wage earner, why should he also have to split domestic labour as well?

I agree on that one. Tasks which need to be done /can only be done out of normal work hours should be shared but if your job is domestic work then that is your job.

1. Always challenge misogynist attitudes and behaviour in their workplaces

Agreed but please define 'misogyny'? It literally means hatred or abuse of women, which is of course completely unacceptable. However when you use the word 'misogyny ' to mean 'anything that goes against my Radical Feminist agenda', then not so much

I have seen comments on here by proclaimed radical feminists which I thought were misogynistic.

1. Always challenge misogynist attitudes, speech and behaviors in their social lives

See point 4.

1. Stop hitting people
2. Stop killing people
3. Stop raping people

Agreed.

Lass, I clarified my point 3 in a later post. I said "full and equal responsibility. That does not necessarily mean actually physically doing half the work. It means being aware of the work that needs to be done, treating it as important, and sharing in finding solutions to getting it done.

Bowlofbabelfish was just telling me on another thread that the reason feminists have a bad rap in society is because of the 'negative PR job' pulled on them by men.

Afternoon patriarchy

By the media actually I said.

Then you came out with this little gem, which I quote verbatim for the ladies on this thread (spaces removed a bit to allow bolding on app.)

BabelOppressed/oppressor Ok. Here lies the root of the entire problem. This. You are not oppressed. See my post near the beginning of the thread about the'Patriarchy'. You seem like an intelligent person, how can you buy into this infantilising nonsense?

So you don’t actually believe women are oppressed at all.

Now do carry on explaining feminism to us please

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3233153-Nearly-every-mass-killer-is-a-man-Why-aren-t-we-talking-about-that

The thread, should anyone wish to peruse and check I’m not misquoting.

Does not believe women are oppressed. Infantilising nonsense apparently.

As you were.

Patriarchy has no clue of your circumstances, Bowlofbabelfish, but they know you are not oppressed because IIRC no one with an internet connection can possibly be oppressed according to manlogic.

Maybe it is PoMo logic, which is a subset of manlogic.

PoMo Logic. Now there’s one for the oxymoron pile

If you want to post misogynistic views on this site and then proclaim to be a feminist or an ally, you will be called out on it.

Just so you know.

Babel

Apologies, you did say the media, not men. I stand corrected.

However, I also can confirm, you are not oppressed.

Can you confirm next week’s lotto numbers as well? Also where the spare key to the garage has gone, that would be really useful. Ta.

I think we need to add
13th rule of misogyny: Women are not oppressed! Rape and catcalling and objectification are all compliments, not oppression.

I’ve just last month seen a colleague fired when she announced her pregnancy at work. Fired for being pregnant. I’ll tell her it’s nothing sexist, she’ll be dead chuffed. She’s got netflix and a mobile too, so really nowt to be pissed off about eh?

Babel

Have you ever been to Saudi Arabia? Or Afghanistan? Neither of them are particularly nice. (Afghanistan is actually the better of the two, in some areas obviously)

I wonder what the women who live in those places would think of the idea that you feel 'oppressed' in western society?

Honestly, im not saying it to shit stir or goad you into a reaction. Its just a statement of fact.

Western women are not oppressed. If you honestly think you are, then you don't understand what the word means.

Piers Morgan "is" a feminist (any questions) enough said about men who claim to be feminists. Just try and be non sexist decent blokes.

rule 14. ‘Shut up, women elsewhere have it worse.’

Is a man raped in prison in Doncaster to shut up because prison conditions in Brazil are infinitely worse? Or do we acknowledge that rape in jail per se is a pretty bad thing?

Women in this country are beaten, raped, subjected to FGM. They are controlled financially and emotionally by abusive partners. Two women a week are killed by abusive partners. Women in this country have been subjected to honour killings. My mate just got fired by someone who the week before was lining her up for a C suite role, because her uterus is now occupied.

Would you earnestly tell those women they didn’t understand oppression? I suspect they might think you were the teensiest, tiniest little bit goady.

Babel

If said Doncaster prisoner went on to tell me that Doncaster prison was in any way on a par with a prison in Rio, Bogota, Lagos or Mogadishu for example, then he probably should shut up, and develop some perspective.

You haven't answered the question. Would you be comfortable telling a Saudi women how badly oppressed you are?

And again with the straw man arguments. Nobody (least of all me) has ever argued that rape isn't a bad thing.

Oh Em Gee is it another Dawkins with a "Dear Muslima" letter for the uppity women?

Unlike you, d00d, some of us do talk to Saudi women. Yes, we compare notes on oppression both legal and illegal.

How could you not know that? They have the interwebs in the Middle East, yanno.

So being raped in doncatraz is fine?

I have several Saudi female friends and colleagues actually - science is an international place.. do yrs I have had this conversation. And... we all have similar outlooks on this. It’s all the same shit, just different philosophies behind it. They have issues with guardianship there, we seem to have a bigger DV problem.

We agree on the commonalities, which boil down to men needing to control women any way they can. In fact I’ll show this thread to one of them next week when I webex her.

What we don’t do is sit around playing ‘rank the injustice’ then insist Shitty Thing #39574 is sorted before anyone can get angry about Shitty Thing #39573.

That’s for guardian readers.

I don't agree with OP. Andy Murray has done things in his way to help the perception of women in tennis. They tease him relentlessly on the tennis forums as the Feminist. I'm not he's ever used the F word, but I would be happy for him to self-describe as that. He isn't a bell-end, he isn't a misogynist, he's not after pussy. He's a decent guy who sees how women are treated as second class citizens and says so.

Andy Murray is a great bloke.

He’s not telling us what feminism is on feminist threads though - he’s just doing what men should do. He isn’t trying to muscle in and tell women how to do feministing, iyswim?

Babel

We agree on the commonalities

Hmm. How... vague of you.

So your Saudi female friends agree that you are oppressed? As a western woman? Your last post wasn't particularly clear on that point.

Men needing to control women in any way they can, in fact I'll show one of them this thread

This is the root of the issue I think.

I'm not trying to control you.

Disagreement and debate is not an attempt to control

Most people don't struggle with making that distinction.

If you see any dissent against your (relatively extreme) position as an attempt at control, it's no wonder you see oppression everywhere.

We agree on the commonalities, which boil down to men needing to control women any way they can.

Is not vague at all, when taken in the context of the previous sentence. Although, I suppose it suits to make out that erudite women aren't quite up to snuff.

babel I have the same experience as you, women in various parts of the world saying that they experience different forms of oppression, but that they all stem from the same thing.

Although quite why we're allowing yet another thread to be merailed by some random bloke is beyond me.