Straw poll: what kind of feminist are you

[thingymcthingyface]

Hello de-lurking after lots of reading this board- I hope this question isn't too badly worded!!!!

I have a little straw poll question- would you say as a feminist your beliefs fit definition A or B more closely

A) you believe men and women are or potentially are mostly the same / similar in their needs and desires, capabilities, and so should be treated equally,

Or

B) you believe men and women are fundamentally different in their needs and desires, capabilities, so should be protected while being treated equally?

Or neither or both?

(Sorry I'm not focusing on dismantling patriarchy aspects of definition) I'm hoping for some really complicated answers!

I think being "treated equally" is a bit more complex than appears on the surface. Generally the idea of equal treatment depends on the definition of men as the benchmark for how women need to be equal.

So women having the same jobs as men, getting paid the same as men, having the same opportunities as men. But that's reductive of human capacity - we live in profoundly unequal societies which privilege certain behaviours and reward the wrong things.

Because women bear children; we are different, we have, at certain times, quite different needs than men. Should women achieve the kind of equality where they are, as one woman of my acquaintance did, continue working billable hours during labour?

I think the question we should be asking is what would society be like if we redefine equality as something which encompasses a humane existence for men and woman.

B. When I was younger I believed A. Biology changes everything; socially, physically and psychologically once a woman has children.

I don't have enough time or energy to elucidate the kind of complicated answer I have bubbling away and I suspect you want.

@DancelikeEmmaGoldman
Great answer- im understanding that you think they are fundamentally different, and that equal should be a better middle ground between the two?

@Andtheresaw
May I ask, do you think A is true until a women has children, or do you think the answer was always B but it took having kids to see it?

They should be treated equally, no such thing as a pink brain.

Biology is different and adjustments should be made, e.g. Sports, maternity consideration etc. Note. in the past with more manual jobs the biology would have had more of impact on what jobs could be done by women, these days particularly in western economies there are very very few jobs that may not be suitable for women.

Until discrimination is a thing of the past globally there should be protections in place

I think the answer was always B.
I thought A because I was fortunate enough to be unaffected personally by the need for protections for women. I believed that equality was already happening. It wasn't, and isn't, and protections are still needed, and the different needs which are begot by straightforward biological differences as well as subtler societal ones should be taken into account.

Not quite either. I believe that in most modern circumstances men and women are equal and should be treated equally however there are a small but important number of circumstances where the differences are important and so men and women need equal but different provision.
I also believe that equality is almost impossible in a system that so strongly favours men.

I think you need to reword to clarify.
Physical Vs cognitive/psychological.

Physically we are fundamentally different, with different needs. No man needs the postnatal care I needed when I tore in childbirth, nor does he need breastfeeding support or cervical screening or a separate sporting category etc.

Mentally I believe the sexes have equal cognitive capacity and equal potential to develop character and personality traits.

Socially I believe the sexes are groomed differently into developing specific traits by sex, and perhaps by adulthood that process is not entirely reversible. I believe that the needs of the sexes will be different in order to balance out this social conditioning, level the scales.

Psychologically a lifetime of this grooming, combined with the impact of physical differences will create differences between the sexes that may be profound. Women who are smaller and physically weaker growing up in a society where they are at constant physical risk of threat from men will end up psychologically different from men in a way that they might not if they were a. Men in that society or b.women living in a hypothetical society without risk from men.

So are we different? Yes. And not for the reasons some people believe.
Is that difference innate and unchangeable? Physically yes, mentally no.
Are all women physically different from men? Yes.
Are all women mentally different from men? No.
Do we have different needs? Yes.
Do we need to be treated equally? We need to be treated EQUITABLY.

Women and men have one extremely important difference which is the ability or not to bear children and it’s on this basis and this alone they’re treated differently as classes (and should be).

Individual men and women should be treated as individuals and not simply as members of their class though.

In this context "equal" does not always mean "fair".

The PP was right: the definition of male should not be the benchmark for how women need to be equal. What kind of world would it be if we were the benchmark? Kinder, more collaborative and less competitive, I'd say. I don't envy the kind of lives a lot of men have to tolerate in our society, not a bit

I really like the word equitably...

I'm a B kind of person. I tend to prefer females and their way of doing things, and not very interested in competing on a level playing field with males, as I don't care about any of the things that seem to be important to them. Not sure if that's a result of socialisation, it probably is

Not a libfem, and can't get my head around why anyone would be.

Don't have the brainpower to understand feminist writing, so I don't read it.

Neither.

I just wish men AND women could just go with their natural personality traits and values without having to worry about any boxes and labels having to be assigned to them, or prescribed ways to treat them.

There is a massive spectrum of differences in either sex, there may be greater weight of numbers on a specific part of the bell curve generally in one sex or the other. But that doesn't make 'all women and men fundamentally different' or 'all men and women fundamentally the same' either.

Sex is the unchangeable chromosomes, sex organs and reproductive capacity (working or not) that you were born with. Everything else is individual people and social/cultural influence.

As humans we have the same needs and desires.
The needs relating to our sex are different. Men dont need PAP tests and will never have to manage a pregnancy or miscarriage, women don't suffer from penile cancer.

“Feminism has fought no wars.
It has killed no opponents.
It has set up no concentration camps,
starved no enemies,
practiced no cruelties.

Its battles have been for education, for the vote, for better working conditions, for safety in the streets, for child care, for social welfare, for rape crisis centres, women's refuges, reforms in the law.

If someone says, 'Oh, I'm not a feminist',
I ask, 'Why? What's your problem?”

(Dale Spender, Man Made Language)

Why are you asking the question?

Barracker, Die and Pam have already given my answers.

The only thing all female people share worldwide is biology - that is the reason for our oppression.

Feminism isn’t about equality, it’s about liberation.

Ok. When I moved from one teaching environment to another I saw a quote that said "treating people equally does not mean treating them the same." I didn't initially get it; now I do (in the context of teaching). Previously my schools had upheld the belief we must treat all pupils in the same way. Equally. That's fair. Except it's not if you have adhd, asd, a difficult home life etc.

Your a and b aren't clear enough as m and f intelligence and emotional needs are completely different to m and f physical needs. There is (should be) no difference in intelligence and ability to achieve, however the sexes are treated differently growing up which can lead to difference. (Gender) eg, girls don't get access to stem toys, boys aren't allowed to develop emotional intelligence as it's not 'boyish.'

At puberty, key things happen to m and f bodies that causes physical difference, requiring specific treatments. Biology requires a difference in treatment in society for many reasons.

So this is a question that doesn't make sense to me as it doesn't take into account these key differences and samenesses, plus the effect of experience (gender stereotypes) on them.

B.

Some great answers here from Barracker, Die, Pam, Ekphrasis and others. I'd just add that people in a position of privilege (income, class, majority culture, being born male etc) will be less affected by pressures and discrimination and so harder for people in that privileged position to see what the structural problems are.

Agree 100% with DancelikeEmmaGoldman. Fantastic answer, and glad you wrote it as I would have had trouble finding the right way to say it!

@GorgonLondon
Why am I asking?
Cos I'm interested in the answers people give...

I don't really understand the question, option A suggests people should be treated identically. Which doesn't make sense. Equality doesn't mean identical treatment. We don't all need a wheelchair ramp.

Can we really be sure that we are the same mentally? As far as I can see that's a really hard thing to ascertain - one cannot change sex, therefore one can't ever wholly experience life from the pov of a different sex. We can draw inferences from neurology, we can make good guesses from discussion and observation, but there's lots we don't know or understand about the brain's workings.

A bit of an unanswerable question, for me. I lean towards B, though. Makes sense that we have evolved for different functions and will have different capabilities and inclinations to serve those functions.

Can we really be sure that we are the same mentally?

No we can't. And interestingly there are some sex linked differences in the areas of additional needs eg SALT, OT. In that there are often more boys struggling in theses areas than girls. But you could call that academic achievement impairment that's a separate issue (but possibly sometimes negatively impacts behaviour of young children, and so more boys and so later more men).

However we cannot truly account for how much stereotyping affects us mentally especially in terms of behaviour and emotional literacy and emotional regulation. Social conditioning - which is heavily stereotyped - has a huge affect on achievement and behaviour among the sexes.

It's especially pertinent that boys are discouraged by social conditioning from an early age to dismiss emotional literacy and may be treated in ways that encourages ott toxic masculinity, leading to disastrous consequences.

When I was younger I thought A. Now I'm a mother I'm more at B.

But I also totally agree with DancelikeEmmaGoldman.

Also - I'm not sure I want to be treated equally. I want what women and men do, to be treated with equal value. But if we're treated equally rather than fairly or justly, irrespective of our needs, that doesn't necessarily give us an an equal society overall.

This image explains it better than I can!