Women who aren't feminists

[HumourlessFeminist]

I've been thinking about this for a while.

I was blissfully unaware of feminism for far too long 😳, probably until a few years after DS was born (and after a few years of MNing). Is this a relatively common experience for women? Are women more likely to become feminists as they experience more of what the patriarchy pushes upon them throughout their lives? And why do some women never become feminists?

Lol my mum is a feminist I was raised on Spare Rib and Greenham. But I think a lot of women who were not aware of feminism as a concept do feel the bite of the patriarchy once they twig the unfairness and double standards inherant in the wife and mother role, and discover their rage is neatly articulated by feminism.

I don't have too much time to respond tonight but I think many women aren't feminists sadly, many simply because they give it no thought and think we're fully equal now.

Worse than that I've recently been reading about anti-feminists, of all things. There is a group called the Liberty Belles (blog.studiobrule.com/2016/11/introducing-liberty-belles.html who are actively campaigning against feminism. And they're women!

Because we're pack animals. Therefore we always try to suck up to whoever's in charge. Besides, there's sex, and girls find out that being feminist - in the sense of "I can say no if I want" rather than "I can say yes if I want" doesn't go down well with boys.
@ILoveDolly - yes, arguably before I had a kid I was living a non-gender-specific life. I went to work, I came home - actually I spent most of my free time singing in choirs and so on, which is a whole-nother-story vis-a-vis gender, but anyway - once I had a kid not only did my priorities change, but what was expected of me changed, and what I was able to do with my life changed. I'm not complaining about the fact that I'm very part-time, living off DH and responsible for all the nappies - I made that decision and it's been good for me - but , yes, it has made me take a look at how society looks at women doing Woman Things, and recognise that it doesn't think much of us.

I think some women are heavily invested in the patriarchy, and not just a my man brings home some good bacon kind of way.

Some are invested in being daddy's good little girl, or being daddy's bad little rebel. Some believe that God is a man. Some think that their sister went off to university and thinks she's so smart while I have to drudge and that's not okay.

Others, well, they've convinced by a "you can't be a feminist until you meet this perfect ideal" mantra that since no one one's perfect no one is really a feminist anyway.

I made an honest to god friend for life (well, online life) by explaining to one of those Liberty Belle types (if you're from the US, you understand they're a type of Daughter of the Confederacy). All I did was explain that every strong woman has been called a dyke at some point in her life, and it isn't an insult, just a mistake if they're het. There are points of connectivity everywhere.

I think women have to find out as they go on in life where oppression lies because they're born into it and taught to expect it as their due. Young men rebel because they can do better than dad. Young women often have to be treated the same as mom before they can see how unfair it is.

I suppose I think if we could understand why some women aren't feminists then we could speak about to them about feminism more effectively.

It feels like a massive case of under-thinking things to me sometimes, and yes, I'm very much including my former self in that 😄.

I became a feminist after I read 'The Female Eunuch' at 15. I was drawn to it because I was working class and living at home with a violent father who often didn't work, whilst my mother went out to work and did all the domestic chores as well, with no-one having any expectations that I would achieve anything with my life. I was probably more of what you might call a liberal feminist in the past, sucking up to men to some extent because, well, I'm heterosexual and due to my background as well I was desperate for love. Now I'm a little older, I really couldn't give a shit if men don't like what I have to say when I speak my truth, I realise my own worth more and know that any decent man will listen and engage respectfully even if they disagree, anyone else isn't worth my time - unfortunately, I also find men who truly respect women as equals aren't so common. I sadly feel like I wasted a lot of my life trying to please men, I imagine a lot of women come to feminism once they reach that realisation.

cockBlocker, it is a moment of realisation though, isn't it? And once you've had that moment, you see inequalities (both large and small) everywhere and all of the time.

Yes, I suppose it would be easier to be ignorant of it in some ways. I think these women who are anti-feminist will have various reasons - some may have lived quite privileged lives or be quite young and so haven't felt the full force of inequality yet - and young women are rewarded for being sexually alluring, so there's that too. By the time they turn 35/40, there are less rewards and more drudgery, as well as more likelihood that they'll have been sexually, physically or psychologically abused in some way for being a woman, or felt the other inequalities in terms of work or the home. Also, people never want to think of themselves as victims. There is then what I think the most reasonable position of anti-feminism, which is anti third wave, which thinks obsession over policing language has gone too far, that such petty grievances just make women look weak - I do understand where those women are coming from and it's sad that this is what a lot of people think feminism now consists of, grievance Olympics.

I think it's a combination of education and experience. You get fed a lot of misinformation when you are young and optimistic and until life knocks the stuffing out of you a bit, you often don't really understand the meat and potatoes of feminism.

Eventually, women who have been muddling along with a vague but persistent sense of general injustice discover feminism, be it through books, or friends or groups, or even places online like FWR, and they realize what has been niggling at them for so long can be analysed and fought against.

I agree cockBlocker/ IloveDolly, not seeing the relevance of feminism to their own lives is a bit of problem for some women, often due to poor interpretations/poor information/ poor understanding.

I just didn't talk about anything radical, socialist, environmental at home or school. Bland and pretty uncritical about the world, conservative as were my family...met some alternative people as soon as I got my first motorbike and that all began to change...

I have joked before that I credit my ex-husband with turning me into a feminist. Even bland teenage me was aware of and totally dismissive of social expectations of what girls/women should be, do or wear, somehow those expectations didn't apply to jeans wearing 24/7, motorcycle mad me...silly rules

It wasn't until I got pregnant and had first DS (before I was 20) that I realised just how different things were for women once babies/children came into the equation. Steep bloody learning curve. Real steep.

I was quite an isolated feminist to begin with IRL. I didn't always own the term. Wasn't sure if my environmentalism or anarchism were more important. Also everything about the term feminism was derided and disparaged. Finding other strong women/feminists really helped my confidence to grow and thinking to develop...

Thank goddess for feminism

A lot of women are really fed up with male behavior starting in high school (or earlier), but they have the wrong idea of what a "feminist" is. Also they don't realize much of the mistreatment from young men is due to sexism, or that toxic masculine behavior is influenced by culture and not biology.

I didn’t really notice the hard boundaries of patriarchy until I had a baby. Then I wised up pretty fast.
I do think most women become more feminist with age, for all the very good reasons above but also because when we are younger we are still in competition for a mate - we are smart mammals, but we are mammals nonetheless.
It becomes much easier to centre other women in our lives and in our politics when some of that early instinctual competition stuff has worn off.

As for women currently rejecting feminism, well, the mainstream definition seems to involve posting selfies on Instagram wearing just your pants (hashtag empowerment 🙄) so it’s probably not very appealing to women who actually hold (proper) feminist views.

Why would we bother to be feminists in the face of all this spite and bullying? Raquel Rosario Sanchez on WordPress (whilst feminists are still allowed on there) Same as it ever was?

wp.me/p93fWF-2Y

A lot of women aren't feminists because being a feminist is bloody hard work. It's exhausting and depressing and dispiriting. And it gets you shouted at, or, worse, laughed at a lot. Sometimes I wish I could unknow what I know.

I have friends who've said feminism wasn't even on their radar til they had kids (daughters), and saw what faced a girl growing up.

Thanks for that link Socrates11, it was really interesting.

I do think motherhood is a great radicaliser. My life was definitely fairly unaffected by patriarchy until I got pregnant. I have a lovely DH who does a lot with DS, he looked after him full time for about 4 months last year. Unfortunately, while he was very capable of sorting out the baby, it transpired that the poor dear couldn’t also manage housework and had absolutely no fucking concept of what actually goes into running a house - THE WIFEWORK. God it pissed me off. Discovering that actually, my “equal” relationship wasn’t equal at all. I’d been enabling the fucker for 8 years, washing his clothes, prompting him to hoover, sorting out all the bills. I just fell into it with my eyes shut.

I saw that French cartoon on MN around the same time and it was like the scales fell from my eyes. I discovered that the reason I was exhausted, pissed off and wondering if I wouldn’t be better off as a single parent was that DH was being given medals by everyone we knew for looking after a small kid while I worked FT and dealt with every other bastard thing.

Then I found FWR and read loads and learnt loads and I told DH that if he couldn’t pull his weight I was off because I couldn’t be fucked with it To his credit, he actually did apologise profusely and has been great ever since.

You can’t unsee it though, definitely. There’s so many things that I watch now and think pffft, sexist or misogynist. Feminism has ruined a lot of films but it has also prompted me to get off my arse and campaign, and I’ve met some wonderful women who I’m proud to know. I love this little corner of the internet, full of intelligent, witty, funny women who are teaching me about feminism and making me look at things differently. and for all on FWR, I loves ya

I was a feminist when I was a teenager in a bit of I don't really know anything about it way. It's always been there with me but I haven't properly thought about a lot til recently. I've got a ton of stuff to learn. I like asking questions, listening and pondering what I think.

I think things like the advent of The Spice Girls, about the time dd was born, gave people the idea that so called "girl power" was what feminism is about. It's set us back even further as far as I can see.

I've always considered myself to be a feminist, but some other feminists don't think that I am because I'm not pro-choice. I guess for other people in a similar situation this puts them off describing themselves as feminist, because it's not seen to be something where the woman is able to say for herself what the word means for her (even though there's massive variety within feminism), you either sign up to the programme or don't.

No longer call myself a feminist though. A huge swath of feminists tell me I can’t be one as I don’t agree women have penises - and i’m not totally on board with radical feminism though agree with a lot of their aims in regards to gender and sex work. Feminism is so fractured at the moment.

I grew up being aware of the suffragettes and bra burning in the 60s(?) but also of feminism as a concept of equality between men and women, but I've only become familiar with the different currents and perspectives fairly recently.

I remember discussing feminism in, of all places, a "moral and religion" class at school when I was about 13/14.
I remember discussing with a friend if some professions were more appropriate for men or for women. Her point of view was more feminist than mine at the time.

"No longer call myself a feminist though. A huge swath of feminists tell me I can’t be one as I don’t agree women have penises - and i’m not totally on board with radical feminism though agree with a lot of their aims in regards to gender and sex work"
That's a very interesting post. Can I ask you something? Can I ask why you have given up the title "feminist" simply because some other feminists don't agree with you about one particular issue? And can I also ask what bits of radical feminism you feel out of step with? Feel free, of course, to ignore me!

No longer call myself a feminist though. A huge swath of feminists tell me I can’t be one as I don’t agree women have penises

Yeah..those are the ones who shouldn't call themselves 'feminists' because women don't have penises. Those people to which they refer are men.

I was pretty oblivious to feminism for a very (very) long time, I think because I grew up in a female-dominated family, went to a girls' school for 10 year and have worked in a female-dominated industry for 20+ years. The women in my family were highly educated, working mothers with their own incomes who by-and-large don't take any shit (though I can also see, looking back, where my mother slid into the feminine role at home).

So I would not have called myself a feminist for a long time. I'm making up for it now!!

Bertrand - is it just “some other” feminists, would be interesting to know the numbers of different feminist groups. I’ve never read or studied any feminist theory so felt i was only every really a lightweight lowercase f feminist anyway and mostly called myself a feminist to oppose the numpties trying to shame women for saying they were feminists, the numpties who love the phrase feminazis etc.

I did try to join a radfem group on FB and they gave me in-depth questions to answer before they would admit me - so i slunk quietly away.

I did join a closed group called Feminists Against Transphobia and it became quickly apparent, I wasn’t the right kind of feminist for them too.

I probably naturally lean more to radfem sympathies but I hate the word Patriarchy and think society just naturally developed to be male dominant - rather than it being a calculated control tactic - as men are bigger and stronger than the more vulnerable female sex that’s not to say it should stay that way in more secure and enlightened times.