Feminism. The Elephant in the Room.

[DJLippy]

I wondered what people think Feminism's Elephant in the Room was. What is the big taboo that we're not supposed to talk about?

That the wage gap is mostly due to personal choices wrt work-life balance

Why do women make those choices? They aren't made in a context free bubble.

I guess I'd also have to add - generally, feminism's fear of being accused of Islamophobia, and refusal to speak out consistently for ex-Muslim women, and women living under oppressive Islamic states.

Feminism being way more likely to speak out for a Western woman's right to cover than focus on the active harms hundreds of thousands of women undergo globablly every day under coerced religion/culture, including covering.

That not all women actually want equality and liberation, and that from some perspectives it could be argued having it doesn’t make your life better.

@MangoFeverDream

watch this please

That because of all the issues still unresolved about equalising domestic work and child rearing between women and men (as mentioned up thread), this means that it will fall to women to do many of the more time-consuming, more complex and cumbersome ways of doing things domestically that will be needed to be done to try to help to save us collectively from climate change and environmental destruction.

A lot of working class women seem to feel they have more common cause with working class men than with their middle class sisters

i can see this. It's easier to be a rich woman than it is to be a poor man.

Jane I care.

A lot of working class women seem to feel they have more common cause with working class men than with their middle class sisters

I’m unsurprised that women who are working for a pittance, coming home to do 90% of the housework and child rearing cannot be arsed with a middle class women coming in and telling her that they are sisters, especially as we are probably earning minimum wage to clean her house. If you want men to stop exploiting the labour of women, you need to practice what you preach.
So yeah, that’s my elephant.

I understand that there is a pink-collar penalty, and that female-dominated professions are historically not well paid.

But some of the gender pay gap debate assumes that men and women are getting paid differently for doing the exact same work ... in reality a lot of the difference comes from differing industries, preference for part-time work, and extended maternity leave (quite long in the UK)

Who is to blame when a woman headed for uni chooses sociology or English instead of STEM? Or she decides to go part-time because of childcare?

For example, it annoys me how many times on MN we hear people say they’ve gone into part-time work or became a SAHM because childcare takes their whole salary. For one, that’s only a temporary state of affairs until they go to school. The impact on their career is huge, and you’d hardly ever see men making that decision! And why is this calculated on the wife’s salary? If it was the husband they’d usually be encouraged to look for a better paying job or suck it up until they get a promotion or kids reach school age.

End rant. But sometimes our own choices do hobble us and I think it’s fair to point out.

But sometimes our own choices do hobble us and I think it’s fair to point out.

But in the absence of societal sex-based expectations would we make the same choices?

Would women gravitate towards lower paid professions? Would they give up a career trajectory in favour of more flexible, child-friendly jobs? Would they sacrifice work to take on the vast majority of child/housework?

My bet is no. Not to the same extent anyway.

But social conditioning tells us we should.

The mother-daughter problem, as exemplified by the Third Wave’s rejection of the Second Wave.

That women are usually better at childcare than men. I'm too scared to say that to all the feminists I know, as I know I'll get howled down. But I also know it to be true, and think it is also fairly obvious. We've gestated the DCs, given birth to them, fed them from our own bodies. I don't think it is any surprise that women are more suited to childcare. Doesn't mean blokes should do nothing, and never help out, and don't bond with their own DCs too. It's a conundrum, but I think it is a biological fact that mothers are usually best suited for the enormous and important role of looking after DC, and outsourcing childcare I think causes enormous harms. And we also know where ignoring biological facts has got us... To me, this is the enormous elephant in the room with feminism

I think that men and women have different bodies... it is women who get pregnant and breast feed but also different differences that we see quoted in discussions about sport and this will effect whether we can function/compete in a men designed world. There is a hell of a lot more work to do.

That women are usually better at childcare than men. I'm too scared to say that to all the feminists I know, as I know I'll get howled down. But I also know it to be true, and think it is also fairly obvious. We've gestated the DCs, given birth to them, fed them from our own bodies. I don't think it is any surprise that women are more suited to childcare.

^^ this

I was a bit shocked when my mother said to me "very few women over forty like men", but it's true. Even if you haven't had bad experiences yourself, you'll have seen friends being hammered down and dominated.

I have never felt that (most) men and women want the same things from life. Always had a sneaking suspicion that men feel a bit surplus to requirements, and do all sorts of things just to feel like they have a purpose.

But what does that mean for those of us who don't have that supposedly natural urge? Those that don't want kids or those like me that do and love them but don't enjoy "home making" "baby rearing" I would say DH's and mine maternal/paternal feelings reactions are the same. Does that mean something is wrong with me, or perhaps society has programmed us to feel a set way?

@Sunkisses immediately after being born yes, but what does a mother do that a father can't beyond breastfeeding? I don't think that's programmed but societal expectations (or lack of). There is not a single thing I can think of that I do for our kids that DH doesn't do, and not after being told. His instincts, reactions and emotions are very much on par with my own in this context. Does that make us statistical oddities, or demonstrate when raised well we don't have to sit set roles?

But what does that mean for those of us who don't have that supposedly natural urge? Those that don't want kids or those like me that do and love them but don't enjoy "home making"

I didn't have any of the natural urge, and certainly had no interest in home making (wish I did). My ex was much better with the children than I was, knew how to play with them and amuse them, but didn't have the hyper-vigilance that I had for keeping them safe - when he had them on his own they were forever getting into scrapes, being dropped on their heads, falling in ponds or in the deep end of swimming pools I was lucky that they were past the toddler stage by the time we broke up, or I'd never have allowed him to have them on his own, they wouldn't have survived

I was (am) a dreadful housekeeper, but I could keep them safe and healthy.

I would never have a male childminder (if I was in the position of needing a childminder) and I wouldn't give a shiny shit how unfair that was.

One point here is to accept variety, and try to avoid seeing someone else making different life choices to you as implicit criticism of yours

Many women feel strongly that they want to be with their children as much as possible when they’re young. Many women don’t feel that compulsion

Surely the point of feminism should be to support both, without judgment or consigning them to poverty in old age, or financial reliance on their partners to the point that they can’t leave an abusive relationship

@Juells see I would absolutely say DH has the heightened safety concerns over me, he is laid back and I am highly strung generally, but he worries about things like untied shoe laces, high temperatures much more than I do, and as I say personality wise he is extremely laid back so it's not a personality thing. It's why I just don't believe it's quite as programmed as people think, but then I accept we may be unusual, perhaps he is over compensating for my more relaxed approach in this context? I have read that dads are important for instilling risk so I'm sure there is a biological element, but I believe social programming has a huge, if not larger, part to play than biological.

Radical feminism: great at shifting the Overton window, but I think its elephant is possibly that while great at critiquing power, because it consciously eschews playing within the patriarchal power structures that dominate society, it kind of opts out of being able to effect any genuine change. (In that sense, I think for all its flaws, liberal feminism probably gets more accomplished).

I agree with Fermats point and I am trying to become as self aware as possible about this because the possibility of genuine change is the thing that sustains me when all of this feels overwhelmingly shit. Small victories count, big ones even better.

We need to form alliances on single campaigning points with people that we don’t like overall, people who have shit views in other areas, and people who argue their points in ways we don’t like. Often all three at the same time!

Public and political opinion is swayed by seeing a broad base of support from unlikely allies coming together- that is what makes effective campaigning or lobbying.

We need to speak to each other for support but to effect change, we need write and speak very regularly to Secretaries of State and MPs who can make legal change. Same with Chief Executives, university Vice Chancellors any other senior leader in organisations who have the power to make policy change. This while being at the grassroots individually or being informed by women who are at the grassroots, either of which can be hard to do.

We would probably be more effective not trying to effect change as campaigning amateurs alone but by seeking more professional lobbying and legal advice as other campaigning causes do.

We need the big thought leaders/influencers/popular people with massive social media followings to campaign on this and they won’t all be likeable, politically sound in everything or do it all correctly in our view. Many of them will need to be men, for example. It’s going to be a trade off of gains on this issue vs other issues. Requiring ideological purity in ourselves or allies is not going to get us anywhere.

So let’s look for common cause but also have well thought-through boundaries because allying with others creates obvious vulnerabilities as well as creating otherwise-unachievable strengths and benefits.

Oh and depressingly while we are all looking at this issues, other important issues will be growing unchecked that need to be tackled.

So we all have to prioritise and make choices about which bits we personally focus on.

MRAs and TRAs will not accept even solid legal defeat without backlash and appeal through legal process so even on this one issue, we have generations of work ahead of us.

I was a bit shocked when my mother said to me "very few women over forty like men"

OMG! That's the message I got as a kid from all the elder females in my large extended family. The completion being... that's why you need to be careful picking which one you marry.

Some of the above:

Yes working class women feel more affinity to working class men than middle class women. As class as with race. The elephant then being the bullshit misrepresentation and misunderstanding of intersectionality which bugs the shit out of me.

The whole domestic / economic sphere argument for me is a bit of an elephant. The problem for me is not whether women or men are better / better suited to one or the other but that we respect economic work more because of the intersection of capitalism and patriarchy. There is nothing inherently unequal in a sex based division of labour, but there is huge inequality if society values one over the other. In this case economic labour which for most of human history has been peripheral and is now seen as central. I could go on about this for ages @DJLippy and would be interested in a debate on it at your meeting if that's what this is about.

Another, perhaps more elephanty elephant, is weather feminism has really helped. This allies with an MRA argument which means I'm reticent to discuss it. But it is the argument that actually things are worse in general now. Obviously the MRAs blame nasty women who are trying to keep men down, rather than it being either unrelated or an unintended consequence, but most families need two incomes now. It was expected in the past that one income, even a low one, would support a family. Obviously this isn't the fault of feminism, it's rampant capitalism, which co-opts any progressive action.
It could be argued too that if women would just put up and shut up more about dickish behaviour from men that we wouldn't have to deal with being single parents and be scarred by our experiences. (We'd just expect to be raped and treated like shit.)

I am not - repeat not - advocating that any of these arguments should be used in any sort of anti feminist way and to use them against women (as they are used) is to display a woeful lack of critical thinking. However often people do have a woeful lack of critical thinking and so look at surface solutions / cause and effects not at anything deeper.

Also let's just talk about Marxist feminism more.

Similarly, I've read many black women say "if you ask me which form of discrimination has the bigger impact on my life, sex discrimination or racial discrimination, I'd say race every time. And this is something white feminists just don't seem to get."

Yes, this is true. As a girl and young woman I was convinced I was inferior to white people and it took a whole lot of internal work to get over that. For most of my youth I was far more impacted by racism than sexism; in fact, I wasn't at all interested in feminist issues until this transgender thing came up.

Yes, as a young woman I found it a nuisance that men harassed me for sex but once I developed a clear attitude on that I've not had a problem. And I always got the education and jobs I wanted. But race?

Do pregnancy and related hormones make women more interested in home and child ?

In my case, absolutely; though "child" much more than "home", if "home" means domestic work. I am not a natural domestic goddess! But I have very clear maternal instincts and I stand by them 100%. Once past girlhood I yearned for a child and once pregnant I was constantly turned inward, connecting with the growing foetus, speaking to it, feeling it, getting to know it. Something a man can't possibly do. And once my babies was born, yes, an automatic sense of being totally in love, an internal bond and need to care for them, kicked in. This was never apparent when I was a wild young thing not even dreaming of having kids (I had them aged 34 and 39).

I lost all interest in my job and having to go back to sit in an office or do the other career stuff -- I would have hated it. It would have been almost a physical pain, to leave my babies with others, even the dad, when they were very young.

I'm not very good at cooking, cleaning, laundry etc but given the choice between those tasks and working in an office, I'd choose them every time. They do allow for a certain mental freedom which a job doesn't. I'm glad that I lived in a country, at the time, which allowed me to be a SAHM.

Which didn't prevent some of my friends insinuating that my mind would grow rusty and I'd be bored stiff just looking after babies! I simply didn't get that sense at all and I don't understand it. Other people's babies might be boring, but I found mine fascinating every minute of every day!

I do realise this is not the PC feminist thing to say but it's my own truth.

I'm 3/4 of the way through Invisible Women by Caroline Criado Perez
https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/111/1113605/invisible-women/9781784741723.html

And I think most of the elephants are exposed in this book! And explained, beautifully. Read it

The whole domestic / economic sphere argument for me is a bit of an elephant. The problem for me is not whether women or men are better / better suited to one or the other but that we respect economic work more because of the intersection of capitalism and patriarchy. There is nothing inherently unequal in a sex based division of labour, but there is huge inequality if society values one over the other

Thank you; yes, indeed! One of the reasons I could not call myself a feminist was because I felt the feminist values were simply an adoption of the stereotypical male goals: a top career, being the top dog, money, position, prestige. A total ego trip, which I could not get into at all. And at the same time, feminists would deride everything to do with caring for children, mock SAHMs, call us 50s housewives with rusty minds etc. Which was something I could not at all agree with.
It's as if feminism simply wanted what men had along with the values.
I believe that every person is of value and the work you do does not make you more or less worthwhile. Respect for the maid as much as the CEO! But society values economic power more than anything so that those who do the invaluable work of caring (ie women) are of less value. THAT, for me, is what needs to change.