I'm not convinced that feminism has helped the women it should have?

[soapona]

I think on these discussion boards and on my Facebook I see women. They don't insist on marriage so they partner remains married to the ex for years and year, they live together and I wonder what will happen should the man die. I also see women with no security living with men with no intentions of marrying and having children. Women moving in with men too soon. In the days gone by women would and could have insisted on commitment. So now the position for women is worse hanging round waiting for a proposal.

I know they don't have to I'm fairly wealthy and a single parent so have choices and always have. I don't have a lot to gain from marriage.

I'm not sure things have got better for women we are expected to do a lot now two incomes are the usual for a mortgage instead of one in the olden days . So it's a given women work, do the most childcare do we honestly think these thing will change when the power imbalance is there from the beginning?

Also the women marrying "beneath themselves", that's not the correct term but a man earning less and not likely to come into a decent inheritance. What is the point in getting married there if you're a women? Perhaps if the woman is wealthy to avoid inheritance tax for her children but other than that I don't know?

So would woman not be happier marrying the same or above and insisting on marriage early on, like it was a given in days gone by?

Surely Women are now in very risky positions due to this living together in a man's property. I see much more domestic abuse these days. I believe the stats are much higher with non married couples. Surely living together unmarried has been caused by equality and feminism and the very people feminists has been trying to help they've hindered.

This thread has moved on very quickly, but it always makes me shake my head when I see posts about women having to have ten children because men want to stick their dicks in us, or even just a normal amount of children. Women have to use birth control because men want to use us for sex and children.
On a different thread, someone even posted "women don't want children, but men force us to have them".
This doesn't bear any relation to any kind of reality outside of FWR - even elsewhere on mumsnet, women are desperately trying to convince recalcitrant partners to have children and are encouraged to leave partners and find men who will have children with them, even stopping birth control in some cases.
Even in Victorian times, I'm sure women were as complicit in wanting large families as men.
In addition, women want sex. I know it's heresy to admit that on here, where men want to stick their dicks in us but we don't want it.
Well, er, plenty of us do, and we want it with men, and we don't necessarily want children.
Having birth control does not mean that men get "unfettered" access to us at all. Consent still exists, even if rapes are too common, and a rapist probably doesn't check birth control before raping anyway, so I'm not sure how the pill helps them.

Some very strange posts on this thread. Wish I hadn't bothered, frankly. But this:

The problem is not the difference between men and women. The problem is the value we put on those differences.

Precisely.

For all its drawbacks, doesn't the pill hand ultimate control to women?

If you want PIV sex, you control your fertility (99.999%). If you don't want to get pregnant, you aren't dependent on your partner telling the truth about whether he has of has not remembered to take his oral contraceptive. The fact that male contraception is visible also gives women control. No condom, no PIV sex. How is handing this control over to women a bad thing?

Fully agree Jurgen. I mistakenly thought all feminists agreed on this.

deydododatdodontdeydo

Oh I agree, and I’ve seen other women say it often here too tbf. I also like sex, I love it. I love it with men, only men. I also wanted children, originally quite a few but my body wasn’t having it and neither was my husband! Cats it is.

Well the pill gave us some control over when we had children, but it came at a cost I don’t think we even fully realise yet- especially as most studies are conducted by the companies that manufacture them. The worst thing about it is the mental health risks.

Is anyone else missing pages of threads this morning? And no ‘ I’m on’

@Myriade
*Genuine propensity is the right word.
Propensity does imply that some women will not feel all those traits. and imo implying that there is something wrong with women who do not feel those traist is just as bad as forcig them to act as of they dindt feel them.
Eg its ok for a woman not to feel like having children or to not awfully miss her dcs when she is away from them.

I think its also essential to separate roles and traits. A trait is something that comes easily to you but that you can nurture and develop and decide to ignore. It can be also be nurtured and develop in people who might not have that 'propensity'. For me, this means that men CAN be caring and loving and good parent, just as good as a mother can be if you can give them the chance to develop that skill rather than squashing it right from the time they are born by telling them 'they re strong' etc....
Role sis what is imposed by society and imo is mainly done throught education/endoctrination*
Biology and socialisation determine that as a class women have different traits than men. Some of these traits will be biologically driven, some driven by society and some a mix of both. Whilst differences in physical traits between the sexes can be pretty easily attributed to a cause (i.e. biology or socialisation), there is no such consensus on the origin of psychological or behavioural differences. Basically the point I'm making is at the moment the sexes are fundamentally physically and psychologically different and biology could very easily be a key reason for these differences.

I don't think traits or behaviour are inherently "good" or "bad" but I do think they do need to be managed to suit the environment people are operating in and different people will flourish or struggle in different types of situation or role depending on their traits and characteristics. For example aggression and risk taking (more male traits) could be absolutely vital in a battlefield but quite incompatible with a role in childcare. Of course we all have a responsibility to adapt and manage our natural traits and behaviour to suit the environment and to fulfill our responsibilities in society and the family, but realistically we can't expect people to manage these natural traits out of existence so that both sexes can fulfil all roles absolutely equally and in the same way. I just don't think it's realistic and I am pretty suspicious of this kind of agenda as it suggests there is an ideal set of characteristics or traits we should all have in the same measure. It's a bit like saying everyone ideally should achieve a B grade at all subjects as it shows general proficiency and should be managable in terms of workload etc, when actually society needs specialists with different skills and ideas that they can bring to the table and add an element of brilliance that may be offset by weakness in other areas. If one group of people is brilliant at maths and another excels at English, could we not celebrate that by valuing both instead of trying to level it all out in the name of equality?

Basically, going back to only hormones and our femaleness to define who we are, is opening the door to women to ony be at home and look after children BECAUSE its a genuine propensity, thats nature and who are we to go against nature??
I think assuming that it's inevitable that admitting any biological bias toward specific trait differences between the sexes will lead repression is part of the problem. Of course it would be more convenient if men and women had no biological differences but if differences exist then they must be identified, acknowledged and adjustments must be made if true equality is to be achieved. As I stated previously, we live in a society where men have set the rules and so many elements are shaped around men's biology and traits. It's needs a fundamental rethink and restructure if we are serious about achieving equality, otherwise we will always be hampered by our different biology.

If you want PIV sex, you control your fertility (99.999%). If you don't want to get pregnant, you aren't dependent on your partner telling the truth about whether he has of has not remembered to take his oral contraceptive. The fact that male contraception is visible also gives women control. No condom, no PIV sex. How is handing this control over to women a bad thing?*

Feminist analysis is based on a cost/risk analysis of PIV for women. For men there is no risk of unwanted pregnancy, therefore they are all very pro PIV. For women there is a risk, even if the chances of not falling pregnant are 99.9%. Plus risk of cancer from the pill and all that.

Even Julie Bindel admitted recently in a tweet regarding the new anti abortion laws in America, that refusing to have sex with men ( which is what women out there are proposing- and I think it's a good idea) "wouldn't work because men turn violent". I tweeted to her that she was totally right that they do turn violent when told no to sex. Doesn't mean the "no-sex" women are in the wrong.

Endofthedays
An average figure of global birthrate is meaningless. What matters is the reproductive rights, part of which is access to contraception and that is not distributed equally across the world.
ONE WOMAN DIES EVERY TWO MINUTES FROM PREGNANCY AND CHILDBIRTH…
Maternal mortality is the second leading cause of death for women of reproductive age, yet at least 225 million women around the world who wish to either delay or prevent pregnancy are not using modern contraceptives. Women and girls around the world face numerous barriers to accessing basic contraception and family planning services, and basic maternal healthcare, resulting in hundreds of thousands of women dying needlessly each year.

WHAT IT MEANS FOR WOMEN AND GIRLS WORLDWIDE
• Every day, approximately 830 women die needlessly from complications in pregnancy and childbirth. In 2015, an estimated 303,000 women died – and millions more suffered from injury, infection or disease – during pregnancy and childbirth.
• Almost all maternal deaths – 99% – occur in the developing world. More than half occur in Sub-Saharan Africa and almost one third in South Asia.
• Of the 303,000 maternal deaths each year, up to 44,000 result from unsafe, often illegal, abortion. Almost all of these deaths occur in the developing world, with the highest number of deaths in Africa.
• 16 million girls worldwide between 15 and 19 years old, and about 2 million girls under 15, give birth every year. Most of these girls have limited access to healthcare services.
• Around 3 million unsafe abortions are performed on girls 15 to 19 years old every year. These young girls are also more at risk for maternal death and obstetric fistula because of physical immaturity, making complications from pregnancy and childbirth a leading cause of death for these girls globally.

*@Myriade

S*orry but you areally have made me laugh.
*so somehow men hormnes have NO EFFECT AT ALL on their behaviour and its all society and patriarchy but women's behaviour is all hormnes and none of it is conditioning from society?

Come on. Its cant be bot at the same time.*

I know it's utterly ridiculous to say it's not part nature on men's part. I read somewhere that all of men's behaviour is natural and only some of women's behavior is natural.

So men have a natural propensity to rape and kill, that this is not social constructionism, and we know this because men are in control, just doing what they do.
And then that women arent naturally subordinate. They become subordinate through fear through the violence imposed on them, actual or predicted. I also add that from my own experience I think that women are naturally very protective of their babies , and "may" wish to raise them and be around them. That this part is natural too.

I have no idea (although I have a few theories( why society has declared that because women might like to be with their babies they are therefore allowed no material resources of their own. Like I say I would like to study the pre- witchcraze era where there was no public/private sphere divide and you just got on with your work with the baby around

Imnobody4

Those stats are horrible. Also, is America still like 42nd or something in the world for its abysmal maternal death rate, after some developing countries like Kenya

I’m nobody, I am well aware of the stats for maternal mortality. I don’t know why you’re addressing that post to me.

I posted that stat about global fertility to refute a statement claiming otherwise. There is no country in the world where the fertility rate is 10 children, and in most countries the pill is not the most popular method of contraception.

There are many downsides to the pill. Many women need protection against STDs and many women prefer sterilisation because they don’t want any more children.

Also, if you’re copying and pasting multiple paragraphs from a website, not putting quotation marks around it gives the impression you wrote it.

I read somewhere that all of men's behaviour is natural and only some of women's behavior is natural.

There is a lot of rubbish written on the walls of public toilets.

Tolstoy's wife Sofia bore 14 children. She was an excellent writer herself judging by the extracts of her diaries I've read. She transcribed his books, laborious work, all for free. Tolstoy admitted "If we want to stop killing women, we have to stop making them pregnant"

HorsewithnoRegretsNonJeNeRegre

I've said below that I think it's not all natural . If it were there wouldn't need to be such a concerted effort by society to turn little boys into tyrants.

"wouldn't work because men turn violent"

The main reason it wouldn't work is that women don't want to stop having sex.

deydododatdodontdeydo

No you've missed the point. Bindel was addressing the women who are saying they protest the abortion ban by refusing to have sex.

And oooh are we going to get into the reasons women want sex. Cause that's always an interesting one. And what exactly sex constitutes(PIV I assume), and why the most dangerous form of sex for women (not for men) is the one that is promoted and insisted upon. Because PIV is "natural" therefore it's only to be expected that women die of illegal abortions and of childbirth itself.
Because if you want to go there there is another thread right now discussing Dworkin's Right Wing Women, with a full pdf attached to the OP

Because PIV is "natural" therefore it's only to be expected that women die of illegal abortions and of childbirth itself.

This is a weird tangent you’re on. The fact some people think heterosexuality is ‘natural’ or whatever, has nothing to do with why women die in childbirth or abortions. Really it doesn’t. It also doesn’t have anything to do with what dey said, which is that women don’t want to give up sex. I’m not sure if your comments on several threads reflect a belief you have that no women enjoy heterosexual sex, but it comes across that way. I don’t think we should be telling women why they like sex or who they should be having sex with. I don’t feel I need to justify my sexual desires to anyone, or have them explained to me by someone who thinks she’s a radical feminist but just comes across as an extreme man-hater- that’s not radical feminism.

I didn't say no women enjoy heterosexual sex. I've enjoyed it myself. What I'm saying is, I was wrong and stupid, to think that the enjoyment you get is worth the consequences-- to women. Also, I've had lots and lots of sex that I didn't enjoy and I know other women are the same.

I mean obviously PIV aid always worth it to men as by comparison there essentially no consequences to them. If they don't want a baby they shouldn't stick their dick in a baby maker should they. I mean obviously.

Men have a lot of power over women in society: this is feminism 101, so we can't say that intercourse is really taking place between two equals

Oh my god, I've basically been booted out of radical feminism for basically not being extreme enough.
"Man hater" I can deal with, that's just another word for feminist isn't it. Misandrist also basically means feminist. According to my brother feminist also means lesbian. Unhinged is one that pops up on here for uppity women I've noticed, nice reference to locking up women.

No, feminism does not equal man hater. There’s an actual difference between feminism, and making the kind of blanket statements as facts, that you do. You’re not ‘uppity’ or ‘radical’, I’ve been called those things. You have already given up, based on previous comments, and you think rape is a guarantee. There’s nothing about your overall contributions that remotely looks like any brand of actual feminism I’m familiar with. You’re also new as far as I can see, so I’m more than a little suspicious as to your agenda here.

"Man hater" I can deal with, that's just another word for feminist isn't it.

The only people who say this are MRAs and, er, yourself.

From Right Wing Women, copied from the pdf on the other thread -- about why men though the pill would be a good idea, and why the pill benefited men

Especially difficult to sway were the women who had had illegal abortions already. Whatever they thought of fucking, however they experienced it, however much they loved or tolerated it, they knew that for them it had consequences in blood and pain and they knew that it cost the men nothing, except sometimes money. Pregnancy was a material real­ ity, and it could not be argued away. One tactic used to counter­ balance the high anxiety caused by the possibility of pregnancy was the esteem in which “natural” women were held—women who were “natural” in all respects, who wanted organic fucking (no birth control, whatever children resulted) and organic vegetables too. Another tactic was to stress the communal raising of chil­ dren, to promise it. Women were not punished in the conventional ways for bearing the children—they were not labeled “bad” or shunned—but they were frequently abandoned. A woman and her child—poor and relatively outcast—wandering within the counter­ culture changed the quality of the hedonism in the communities in which they intruded: the mother-and-child pair embodied a dif­ ferent strain of reality, not a welcome one for the most part. There were lone women struggling to raise children “freely” and they got in the way of the males who saw freedom as the fuck—and the fuck ended for the males when the fuck ended. These women with children made the other women a little somber, a little concerned, a little careful. Pregnancy, the fact of it, was antiaphrodisiacal. Pregnancy, the burden of it, made it harder for the flower boys to fuck the flower girls, who did not want to have to claw out their own insides or pay someone else to do it; they also did not want to die.