Why do we bother?

[JessicaWakefieldSV]

I’m mid 40’s now and for as long as I can remember I’ve been a feminist and rights campaigner. I’ve marched, written letters, seen MPs, shared my story of DV with loads of men, all sorts. Recently I’ve just got really down at how bad things are for women. It doesn’t feel like anything’s improved, it feels worse in some ways.

I guess I just want some success stories to keep me motivated. Otherwise I’ll just retreat and never care about any of it again. I could so easily do that. Or some reasons to keep going. Is there really any point? Nobody seems to give a shit about important things like domestic violence & our basic right to privacy and dignity away from males. I’m tired enough without this constant battle for every little thing, even healthcare!

ThePankhurstConnection

Thank you, I equally admire your contributions. I’m actually not on social media, so that’s great! Just real life stuff getting me down. I appreciate your words x

FormerMediocreMale

Thank you too. I actually prefer living in the UK, believe it or not it’s not as sexist and awful as living in New Zealand. I see progress in areas here I don’t see there.

I was really involved in online feminist radfem blogging about 10 years ago. We did a lot of talking in private groups. One of the conclusions we came to was that the reason feminism has failed so spectacularly is because your average woman on the street can sense there is no point, that we are doomed from the start.
Furthermore men enjoy a fight, it excites them. But the punishments are swift. ( I'm remembering the witchcraze here). I'm afraid they've thoroughly beaten us, and the only women who haven't caught onto it are us feminists. That's why non feminist women are appalled and amazed by us and why we regularly get called "unhinged" or mental.

Stay strong, your posts mean a lot to everyone on this board, and remember, there are lots of lurkers too, so you are informing many women, even those that don’t post.

I have one friend who is GC, we both get to the point where we feel total despair over the dismantling of women’s rights and have to step away for a short break. We just let the other know, so that we don’t do the whole ‘ OMG, did you see this?’ , and step back in when we are ready.

Sometimes this seems all encompassing, and having a few days of respite helps to get things back into perspective.

My dgm had all her teeth taken out before marriage as a "gift" to her husband so he wouldn't have to pay for future dental treatment (1929)

My mother did this in 1964. She thought it was something that all married women did. I'm appalled that the dentist, at the very least, didn't try to dissuade her from having perfectly healthy teeth removed but perhaps he thought it was something all married women should do too.

She couldn't get over the fact that I was able to apply for a mortgage in 1986 as a single woman, in my own name and without a male guarantor. Better still, the mortgage adviser was a woman too and it's hard to say which one of us felt more empowered by the experience.

I couldn't get over the fact that subsequently as a married woman, my income was treated as my husband's for tax purposes until 1990. However, what I really can't get over these days is that we are still having to fight battles that I thought had been settled years ago. It's disheartening but we have to keep going for the sake of generations to come.

My mother did this in 1964.

I'm surprised at that - it was comparatively common before the NHS, not just for women. Some people had it done as a 21st birthday present. But I am surprised it went on as long as 16 years after the NHS was founded.

I'm surprised at that - it was comparatively common before the NHS, not just for women. Some people had it done as a 21st birthday present. But I am surprised it went on as long as 16 years after the NHS was founded.

A lot of my more elderly relatives (born c1910 or earlier) had this done - male and female. What I was told is that it would prevent problems with teeth later in life. Getting it done as a present seems a bit weird, the people I know who had it done had it done for themselves.

Feck me. The teeth stories. Thats godawful. Anyway OP understand how you feel. Agree with others its good to take a break every now and then as it often gets overwhelming. Im on twitter and its particularly bad just now. Especially after snps announcement on self id. Realised earlier today that the tirst thing i do on my days off is open the app and how angry i get at the awful misogyny. Ive become obsesed with ir. Time for a break again i think!

But not from here. Here is good.

Although I do think things are much better now for women and girls I think one difference is that in the 70s things might have been grim but I could see things were changing for the better. So I felt excited and optimistic (as well as angry), whereas now I mostly just feel angry.

Things are definitely better than they were in the 70s but are at great risk of going back to the bad old days with the erosion of women's rights

I’ve been lurking on here for a few months. I’ve always thought of myself as a feminist but now I realise I simply did not have a clue. I’ve learnt so much from posters on here. I’ve discovered women like Magdalen Berns (who I am in awe of) and Posie Parker.

So I want to thank all of you. For teaching me and, most of all, for making me bloody angry.

There is a huge backlash against women’s rights, misogyny was always going to rear its head. Didn’t expect it to manifest itelsef in this way, but here we are.
I live in Scotland and have got to know loads of amazing women in our campaign against self id proposals. That’s positive. We have made a change, the government cannot now push its changes through without debate.
Personally? I’m 54. I know my country has no use for me and sees me as worthless and on the wrong side of history. I do what I can for girls and women who come after me. I know what we have done and the women before us went through to get the rights we have now. We’ve just learnt that those rights are always in loan and we have to keep struggling for them.