Oh dear. A split.

[Redlake]

Kellie Jay ranting against feminists.

@ArabellaScott

ErMaGAWD someone inform the chief Big Feminist! Women are disagreeing with each other! Argh! Halp! Halp! I'm meeeeeeeeeeeeeelting .....

😂😂😂

@Shedmistress

My observation is that many blue tick feminists are very very upset with Posie because she says in 4 words what took them years of academia to point out, and in one PR campaign she got to the root of the issue and made 'the other side's' argument completely nonsensical and showed the absurdity of the whole thing.

If you've been a feminist for 20 years banging on about it and someone walks into the bar and gets all the attention [and makes your point] in 2 minutes, you're gonna be really pissed off about it.

That and the fact that she obviously bleaches her hair and wears lipstick.

I think you will find that Feminists don’t threaten to kill and rape eachother when they disagree

She may be happy with her all consuming workaholic lifestyle high flying career but the children will suffer.
Uh huh. But that’s not most women who work is it? Most women have jobs not high flying careers. Most men too. Women just need to be able to have jobs without working much harder than men outside of these jobs. And without maternity fucking them over for years to come. That to me is the thing we haven’t sorted and one of the key aspects that will help to bring women to where we need to be.
Having a mother who is able to earn, able to care for children without the stress of poverty and able to share the load will make families more stable and children safer and happier.
The system is stacked against single mothers, which is why I just will not accept their vilification. When I had a boyfriend who didn’t live with me and my children I was in danger of getting into trouble, simply for being in a couple, because I claimed tax credits and if you are in a couple, even when your finances are completely separate, they can decide that you are no longer single and can cut off your money. If that happens, women can be effectively forced to cohabit with men they are not ready to cohabit with, and that puts children in danger.
The realities of most women lives have nothing to do with the reality of the lives of the top 5% or whatever.
But yes, interesting discussion.

My observation is that many blue tick feminists are very very upset with Posie because she says in 4 words what took them years of academia to point out
🤣🤣🤣
Very true.

As a single mother who works full time I am Shocked SHOCKED at some of the views on this thread which threaten my lived reality and very existence
But seriously, I agree that the issues around motherhood need to be discussed more, but I think maybe part of the reason is it is such an emotive subject (precisely because it is so important) and because there's normally a complicated mix of choice and circumstances affecting what people do. Its very easy to go on the defensive. I have to admit there have been times when I've read/heard someone saying that they are glad they stayed home/that they felt not going back to work was the right choice for their child, and felt personally attacked even though it wasn't actually aimed at me at all. Plus, I think there is a fear that if we discuss the challenges/downsides of combining motherhood and working, that it plays into the hands of a certain type of person (man) who basically think women belong in the kitchen in a wierd version of the 1950s that never actually existed except for a tiny few. Which I won't (and can't) do.
But that doesn't mean that we shouldn't discuss it - having children (or choosing not to have them, or not being able to have them) are really important to most women's lives. And therefore any version of feminism that ignores it isn't going to be much use to most women's lives. Although, I think even if we did figure out what the perfect balance would be on paper - in reality people are messy and complicated and lead complicated lives. So it is never going to be "fixed" once and for all.

Personally I think the idea of universal fixed income could help to allow women who WANTED to to take more time of work to spend with their children, without leaving their family vulnerable to poverty/the sole earner losing their job/their partner leaving etc etc but I don't think many would go for that.

I also think the pandemic has thrown some of these issues into relief - in many couples where both parents work the issue around childcare is partially solved by school/out of school care. Nothing wrong with that at all. But I think a lot of women felt they were in equal partnerships/had managed to strike the perfect balance. Then during lockdown found that it was just assumed they would be the ones to balance the impossible job of looking after the children and working while the husband was less affected*

*Obviously not all men etc etc. But I think it was very easy for SOME men and women to believe themselves to be in an equal relationship until the normal support structures were removed

That and the fact that she obviously bleaches her hair and wears lipstick.

Have you outed PP as not a natural blonde?

@CharlieParley

Feminism as a whole seems to have an uneasy relationship with motherhood and domesticity. It doesn't matter whether you look at radical feminism or liberal feminism or whichever branch of feminism you care to examine. In my view it's a major shortcoming and failure, because 80% of us give birth, and a large majority of mothers take time out to be SAHMs for at least the first important months of their children's lives. And the overwhelming majority are dealing with the bulk of domestic work.

Liberation, again no matter which version, seems to be viewed only through one lens, that of freeing us from domestic work and being SAHMs. A shortsighted aim that would result in harm for many children (in case they're unaware, that's been done before. Including in the communist country I grew up in. I was one of those children. It was absolutely undeniably unequivocally harmful to the children who suffered through it.)

But even today feminists devalue women's domestic work and Ruth and Sarah are not the only and certainly not the first feminists to look down on SAHMs as domesticated zombies.

I've come to the conclusion that true liberation necessitates that we resolve this conflict because it doesn't just arrise from patriarchal oppression. There's the simple fact that it benefits the child to have its mother provide this vital care in the first stage of its psycho-social development.

(Ignoring for the sake of argument here that there's a small percentage of mothers whose children would benefit more from being almost in anyone else's care than theirs.)

But in thinking of us like that, Ruth and Sarah do nothing more than follow their programming (or female socialisation if you will). It's a very patriarchal opinion to hold and it serves a specific purpose in driving a wedge between feminists and ordinary women.

Great post. I completely agree. Always a bit baffled by any kind of movement for women that doesn't wholeheartedly include mothers and mothering.

Maybe worth another thread to discuss?

I'd be interested in another thread (although I don't have much time to join in this weekend). There's so much to unpack and talk about here and the choice of thread title a) might be putting some posters off from even reading and b) doesn't do justice to the discussion.

@namitynamechange

I also think the pandemic has thrown some of these issues into relief - in many couples where both parents work the issue around childcare is partially solved by school/out of school care. Nothing wrong with that at all. But I think a lot of women felt they were in equal partnerships/had managed to strike the perfect balance. Then during lockdown found that it was just assumed they would be the ones to balance the impossible job of looking after the children and working while the husband was less affected*

*Obviously not all men etc etc. But I think it was very easy for SOME men and women to believe themselves to be in an equal relationship until the normal support structures were removed

This x100

Feminism has talked about motherhood and children for decades, written about it and campaigned on it.

Ladies and non-Ladies!!

Check out Twitter
#domesticatedzombie

😀😀

This thread is way more interesting than I thought it would be! So much to think about. Thanks Charlieparley, your posts always resonate.

@Floisme

I'd be interested in another thread (although I don't have much time to join in this weekend). There's so much to unpack and talk about here and the choice of thread title a) might be putting some posters off from even reading and b) doesn't do justice to the discussion.

Yep same here

Feminism tends to take entirely too much credit for the "advances" women have made whether it be voting rights, women's shelters, or women's participation in the work force. Academic feminists mostly just advanced their own careers on the backs of selling a narrative that women are weak, vulnerable and oppressed.

I think Posie upsets some feminists because she demonstrates that feminism is not central to the fight for women's rights.

The OP mentioned the "split" as if it were a bad thing for the fight for women's rights. In fact it indicates entirely the opposite: the vast majority of women (those that don't call themselves feminists) are waking up to the threat to women's rights and children's safety.

@namitynamechange

Personally I think the idea of universal fixed income could help to allow women who WANTED to to take more time of work to spend with their children, without leaving their family vulnerable to poverty/the sole earner losing their job/their partner leaving etc etc but I don't think many would go for that.

I certainly wouldn't.

I wouldn't be happy at having always worked full time to pay taxes to allow some other woman to stay at home and tell herself she's a better mother than me.

Didn't you previously vote Labour Kimikos ?

@MiladyBerserko

Didn't you previously vote Labour Kimikos ?

Yes- and even then I would not have been happy paying tax to allow some other woman to choose to stay at home and declare that she's a better mother than me.

@toomanytrees who are academic feminists? A lot of the women KJ talks about are not academics. So what is the criteria to be considered an academic feminist?

I wouldn't be happy at having always worked full time to pay taxes to allow some other woman to stay at home and tell herself she's a better mother than me

How utterly sad. I remember, when Ireland was going to vote on permitting divorce, meeting an elderly lady who was totally opposed to the idea and that was because she herself had had to put up with a bastard of a husband for over fifty years.

I think the subject of motherhood and women's and children's rights could bear quite a few threads, actually.

And I don't think we should limit ourselves to just thinking about minor tweeks to the status quo.

What's sad about it? I wanted to work ; if women don't want to, that's their decision but I don't see why tax payers should be expected to subsidise stay at home mothers.

'It needed posting because it is just as relevant as any other post on here. I am of independent mind and not easily persuaded by anyone telling me what I should think.'

Lol what a twonk

No one tells me what to think! I can think for myself!

When that extends to knowing a woman is a feminist when SHE has said for years and years. That she is NOT a feminist.
(And she was on MN for ages, posted on fwr often, often resulting in huge Argy bargy because her comments were often, this is why this feminist view is bollocks..)...

Even then OP will not be told what to think!!

Striving to consider lots of different arguments, try to consider without bias, look into veracity of points. Put it all together and accept this discard that. Put it own considerations (valid own views try to spot if your thinking is biased and put to one side).

That's admirable.
Really really difficult.
An effort. And can mean conclusions that you are uncomfy with.

Yes that's really great OP.

What was the independent thought and data etc that led you to conclude PP is a feminist?
Given that... She isn't. And has never been shy about saying so.

Read thread. Blimey.

This stuff is not complicated imo.

1. I think issue op has, imo is not internet as a pp said, but more basic and very very common. Especially in one group of people.

The problem being a total failure to understand at any level. That women are in fact capable of thinking for themselves. That we are all different, and have many different thoughts, that we think in our individual brains. Rather than having them told to us by someone else. Additionally, we can have opinions on different things that aren't all from our One True Source Of Truth! So hard to believe that an awful lot of people who all have something in common. Just ignore it....

1. Women and girls, 30 million ish in UK. Unsurprisingly (to those not on twitter with a huge blocklist), the vast majority think male people in women's prisons, male people in women's sport, male people bimbling in while they are down to undies in gym communal changing. Is just totally unacceptable.

And prepare for a shock. So do the vast majority of men! Those who think this is just not true. Trying going around your local pubs, cafes etc. Ask men and women if males in those things is ok or not.... Might get a shock.

....