Liberated from what?

[Trebe]

OK I'm gonna try and approach this topic in as delicate a way as possible as the last thread I started did not go down well.

However within that thread there was a question I asked when someone said 'we want to be liberated', that question was, liberated from what?

Now before that pisses anyone off, I'm not saying women have nothing to be liberated from. I'm actually in the camp of thought that says there are things every people and person need liberating from.

The question however stands in my mind as I would like to know what feminist activists feel they need liberating from?

I think I would like to figure out what it is feminists feel is actively confining and liberating women alone. What is it you wish to be liberated from and how will that happen?

I'll even start it off. I believe that the liberation from the natural reproductive cycle is paramount to not just the liberation from that cycle but from poverty. I believe that effective contraception that a woman gets to choose to use has liberated countless people.

I think if more women, especially in religious countries, were to have access to effective contraception the world would be a better place for all.

Sorry for starting the same thread twice but I put it in the wrong area, if a mod could delete the other thread it would be greatly appreciated.

I know the thread is over now but I just wanted to highlight this gem

In the UK at one point in the past couple of years the 5 most politically powerful people in the UK were women

You heard it women. After millennia of men, hundreds of men at any given time being politically powerful, at one point in the UK we had 5 women.

Excellent.

@TescosFinest summed it up perfectly.

And, for me, the other standout part, is how frequently this happens, and how every time it does the person thinks they are the first one to say it/ask it/express it that way.

Just like those divs who are always bleating "why isn't there a Man's Hour on radio four?"

Pricks.

I'm guessing trebe has gone but I'm going to answer anyway because we haven't had a thread like this for ages and it makes a nice change from trans discussion.

Liberation from Male oppression:

1. full body autonomy - this means the right to abortion at any time a woman wants it because we trust women are adult humans that can make the best decision for them. It also means women can express their feelings about being touched and men automatically respect that and don't push boundaries.
2. The world is designed for women as much as men - men not assumed to be the default in medical trials, work practices designed round female biology as much as men, car crash tests undertaken on women dummies as well as men, etc etc
3. women round the world stop being ostracized and shamed for a natural bodily functioning I.e. menstruation
4. men stop requiring women have bits chopped off them or added to them to make them sexually valuable (FGM being the most severe example but also plastic surgery, waxing etc in western culture)
5. Men stop imprisoning and enslaving women into marriage and motherhood against their will. Whether that's kidnapping and forcibly "marrying" women like Boko Haram or whether its coercive control and building financial dependence as is the case in many many western marriages
6. womens work is valued and paid equally to mens work

Not all men do the things in these examples but all the things have been caused by men. It's unfair and oppressive, that's what I think women want to be liberated from.

That seems like a good list Quentin

I noted that little gem too, DpWm - and thought the same as you, here we are in 2019 and we can boast that a grand total of 5 women held the most politically powerful positions a couple of years ago, well woopy do. Furthermore, how were those women treated by and judged against men?

The men suffer too/have it hard/I've been subjected to male violence is always trotted out and proves conclusively that they have no interest in feminism, what women want or what women say unless and until it includes men.