Faux Feminism or something else?

[QuestioningFeminism]

I've been a very strong supporter of feminism for years as the survivor of violence against women and girls. However something seems to have shifted in society recently and it really has me questioning if I fit into any kind of modern day feminism anymore.

I have seen the following general ideas pushed by women online claiming to be feminists recently that have led me to start questioning.

-Marriage has no value and only benefits men. Women who get married are stupid and oppresing themselves.

-Relationships that aren't LGBT+ are antifeminist.

-Stay at home mothers are oppresing themselves and should be mocked as "tradwives".

-The only relationships that have value are friendships.

-Having children is a laughable waste of time for women and should be avoided at all costs. Motherhood is the ultimate form of oppression against women and anyone who chooses Motherhood is setting herself up for failure.

-Romance and families in general are antifeminist

-Everyone is happier single and will always be that way. Casual sex is the only option that will lead to true happiness and sexual freedom.

-Heterosexual relationships are dangerous/problematic and therefore should be avoided. If a woman is stupid enough to sign herself onto one, anything bad that happens to her after she deserves because everyone knows that men are dangerous by default.

The people claiming these things honestly don't seem like trolls. They really seem to believe them. It seems we've pushed the idea that women are vulnerable and men are bad so hard that we've possibly given heterosexual/bisexual women the idea that life in the very general sense should be avoided.

The idea that friendship is the only valuable relationship worries me. Yes friendship is incredibly valuable but what happens when your friends get busy with their own lives? I myself went through a period of quiet when a few of my friend got married and had children. If it wasn't for my own family I probably would have been quite lost. I can only hope these users were very young and naive.

There also seems to be a notion that the only way to find true happiness is to be single for the rest of your life.

But I don't know. I feel quite saddened by these attitudes. I've seen quite a few mumsneters getting attacked by users with these ideas. Specifically the more "traditional" type women. Married, mothers, and stay at home mothers and housewives particularly seem to be targeted.

One thread I saw actually disturbed me as it was a woman who said she always wanted to be a stay at home mother. She was mocked viciously and one user even went so far as to tell her her husband works definitely divorce her if she did this and she would deserve it.

I thought the whole idea was giving women choices but now it seems we have simply changed what choices are socially acceptable rather than giving women more choices.

I don't know. It all kind of makes me want to stop calling myself a feminist if this is what feminism stands for. If falling in love getting married (even with the risks) and having children which is in my opinion very natural and a part of life, are all considered anti feminists then I don't really want to be a part of that.

In my personal view it feels a bit like escapism and an extreme fear of failure to me.

Maybe I'm becoming an old fashioned hag. But I can live with that I guess.

The Club Feminism is weird, and even stranger are the ones who insist they are the Only True Feminists who then proceed to slag off other women in the public realm for saying stuff they deem Un-Feministic.

Some of the things you mention has been around for a while. I remember when «all heterosexual sex is really rape» was a (small) thing. (If anyone knows who said this bullshit I’d be happy to be reminded.)

But, people can call themselves what they want and say all sorts. I will judge them on their actions.
If I am not a feminist because I am married to a man (even if I kept my own name) ok. Shrug.

If I am not a feminist because I think one of the most important things for society is to make sure women (mothers and women without children) are able to work and be financially independent - subsidised childcare and/or statutory salary for SAHM up until the child is 2-3 years?
Ok. Shrug. I still find this one of the most important things. It benefits men too, if they are having a family with a woman. I don’t think that makes it less feministic.

I have sons. I have daughters. I have lived in the UK where my options as a mother were extremely limited. That is political.
I now live in a country which is very clear on the importance of women being supported in the workplace. It was a cross-political major LIFT on the 1970-1980’s that we work on keeping because it offers a larger degree of financial freedom for both sexes.

If this political work is drowned by young eejits thinking feminism is who you have sex with then that is a sad thing. When I read about the situation for working mothers in the UK and the US I am very worried. That young «Feminists» choose infighting about ridiculous things as sexuality rather than fighting for political change that would benefit all people if society is - it shows that somethingvis wrong.

Yes yes! All of this right here! 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

It really would be useful if you could post some sources for the claims you make in your OP, instead of telling us to go look for them.

Broadly though - there's room in feminism for all sorts of views. It's quite broad these days.

I have seen feminists make the argument that marriage (as in the traditional model, i.e. having kids and women taking at least a career break to do some or all of the child rearing) benefits men more than it does women - under that model women lose earning potential, pension and financial independence, whereas men gain free childcare, housekeeping & cook, can continue to grow their income, career and pensions. Look at how many women you see on mumsnet who cannot afford to leave their husbands, it's depressing. Yes obviously that's looking through the lens of financials rather than soft life goals, but, well, money helps/hinders so much in our society.

OP "Also I disagree that child free women are treated badly. There was a time that was true but when I was child free I was treated well. It wasn't until I got married and became a mother that I started feeling the looks of disapproval."

I don't think you know what "childfree" means. May I ask your age when you got married?

And still no answer, where are you hearing all this?

Also I disagree that child free women are treated badly. There was a time that was true but when I was child free I was treated well. It wasn't until I got married and became a mother that I started feeling the looks of disapproval

Oh my sweet summer child 😉

Trust us, when a women goes through life choosing not to be in a long term relationship and not to have children, they are treated very much as “lesser” by society.

Not when you’re in your 20s or even 30s, necessarily - because there’s still time for you to conform to norms - but once you pass the conventional age to be having children, society can be very unkind and judgmental.

That doesn’t mean mothers aren’t judged. They are, endlessly, in thousands of ways, and pitted against each other. But nothing like the judgement women receive for Not Following The Set Path.

I must admit most of the things you claim are thought or said I have only heard from pontificating students, not actual adults.

Some of these sound like a more capitalist feminism. Personally, although I believe in choice and equal opportunity for all, my feminism is informed by ky childhood and the Global Women's Strike's work in gaining recognition that work seen as "women's work" (childcare, nurturing, caring, etc.) is essential and valuable for everyone.

I was brought up to believe in men equally sharing these roles: feminism is about how men are aversely affected also by stereotypical, constructed gender roles.

I want a society where everyone takes responsibility for childcare (whether that be through hands-on caring, teaching, etc., or taxes) and where fathers and mothers are both supported to spend as much time with their children as wanted or necessary as well as being supported with childcare so they can do other work.

I was shocked and frightened as a late teen in the 90s by the rise of "girl power," which I see as linked to some of the views you've listed. It was scarily anti-feminist. Added to that is the idea (prolific on Mumsnet) that mothers should go into paid work as soon as possible, leaving their children in the care of poorly-paid women (as if that helps advance feminism), in order to boost a very dangerous economy and so contribute to environmental collapse (the opposite of the feminist cause). Of course this makes sense as well-meant advice to an individual struggling in a system where she might lose out financially and lose security for herself and her children if she has to rely on a man or an even more unreliable and hostile state for survival, but it doesn't help solve the roots of the problems.

As for marriage, they've now made raping one's spouse illegal, so I am ok with it now. However, my parents never married because it was a horrific thing for a woman and morally unacceptable until that law came through at long last. We were bullied by teachers at school for being "illegitimate," but were sassy enough children to retort that we didn't approve of their god's attitude to girls!

Perhaps people are still thinking along those lines.

I didn't think of it this way. I'm sorry if I made anyone's life experience feel unheard. I always thought it was childfree women in general that were given trouble.

As for the end of your comment you may be right. It might be younger people saying these things. But it feels a bit like the voices are growing personally.

I agree with others that these so-called feminist views you mention in your OP are not, in any way, the views I see when engaging on feminist issues. Mostly, those sort of views seem to be to be directly anti-feminist and the kind of comments made by men and others who want women to feel bad for the choices they make.

As I've got older, my feminism has definitely evolved and changed though - there's no doubt that there's no one definition of feminism. I used to think it was all about women having choices. Now, I feel that feminism needs to be about removing barriers and protecting women in situations where a combination biology and cultural norms tend to penalise them. So I centre my feminism on those issues. In a rich western capitalism world, it's on women being given equal opportunities - whether that's in terms of finding ways to force businesses to see and value their women (and promote them/pay them accordingly), access to child care, not being the default parent etc etc. In other societies, it's more likely to start with education for women, independence, bodily autonomy etc etc.

As a happily married hetrosexual woman with a DS, I obviously love men and boys. But... I won't lie, I totally get why single women are more likely to live longer and healthier lives so the overall anti-men rhetoric which I do see sometimes, is something I can sometimes sympathise with though!

I didn't think of it this way. I'm sorry if I made anyone's life experience feel unheard. I always thought it was childfree women in general that were given trouble.

Yes, I agree with @GandhiDeclaredWarOnYou. I think you're being somewhat naive. Childfree women in their 20s and 30s are, arguably, still in a position where they can conform. Although they may well suffer when employers don't want to hire them because the might have babies etc.

Also, when you had a baby - how many people asked you about going g back to work/what you planned etc? How many asked your DH? Yeah, I bet the numbers aren't the same. Think about that for a second.

@Ovidnaso. That is a very interesting perspective I've never heard but explains why more children were born out of wedlock and sounds like a very good reason to avoid marriage. My parents were very heavily conservative (I myself never resonated with conservatism however) so I never got this side of the story. I can definitely understand why some people might reject marriage when it essentially legalizes rape.

Gandhi glad your explanation landed.

Ovid why was marriage "horrific" for women? I)ve never wanted marriage,just curious as it seems a strong word.

Feminism isn't just about 'choice'. That is an empty mantra. If feminism is just about choice then every woman could choose to do exactly what men want, and that would be 'feminism'. Feminism (at least the second wave) is about female liberation. It's about looking at often invisible power structures and things we take for granted in society and interrogating them. For example, Dworkin critically examined the very concept of sexual intercourse which is seen as so benign and natural that years later she is still falsely accused of saying that all intercourse is rape.

I do think if you read feminist texts they are difficult in that they critique things we all hold dear. This makes us feel threatened. Mary Wollstonecraft right back in the 18th century criticised marriage. The Feminine Mystique criticised housewifery. The Beauty Myth criticised beauty rituals. The Female Eunuch criticised everything.

I think a feminism which blithely accepted marriage, stay at home mothering etc as nothing but fantastic and wonderful choices would be very strange ...because what is it actually changing? Mary Wollstonecraft didn't just rant about marriage and its damaging effects on women - she conceived of a way to make relationships and marriage better for women. Some of her stuff seems very quaint by today's standards - letting women age a bit and get an education first, letting women keep their assets going into the marriage, allowing women to divorce abusive men etc. But the point is what made her feminist was she didn't just write 'marriage is brill, you do you, choose your choice'. There were thousands of books like that already out there for women. What made her different was she revealed the ways marriage served men and didn't help women very much, and tried to make the institution better.

Trust us, when a women goes through life choosing not to be in a long term relationship and not to have children, they are treated very much as “lesser” by society.

Not when you’re in your 20s or even 30s, necessarily - because there’s still time for you to conform to norms - but once you pass the conventional age to be having children, society can be very unkind and judgmental.

Yes to this!
But I’d also say that even in your 20’ and 30’s there is so much fear mongering (you’ll die alone, selfish, who will take care of you, you’re not a woman until you give birth, cold, you’ll never know love).
There is still so much stigma of being a childfree woman.
And single. Nevermind celibate.

The push for women to conform is so strong that it does amaze me if when other women (or anyone for that matter) try and claim it’s not real. Or that anyone is oit there to get straight women in relationships/kids.
It’s just so laughable.
Society wants women to marry, have sex with and kids woth men, no one is oit to get these women.

And that is why it would good if at least someone (since op wants us just to blindly to believe them so they won’t be ’upset’) would show some evidence of this happening.
And like I said: these feminsit want to destroy heteropatriarchy are usually just propaganda from woman hating groups.

While I agree with this I think that intentionally or unintentionally there has been an anti marriage message pushed and that's the message a lot of young people are getting. Even though marriage has vastly improved for women in the modern age and many of the issues have been improved now when are giving up marriage for the wrong reasons. Marital rape was a good reason to refuse back in the day. But that is not our reality anymore. Now many are giving it up because it is trendy.

Like I said a lot of wealthy women are encouraging this and women who are not well off are paying the price now which is not helpful.

"Yes to this!
But I’d also say that even in your 20’ and 30’s there is so much fear mongering (you’ll die alone, selfish, who will take care of you, you’re not a woman until you give birth, cold, you’ll never know love).
There is still so much stigma of being a childfree woman.
And single. Nevermind celibate."

yep. All of this.

OP, what are some of the “wrong reasons” women are giving up marriage? Isn’t that just their choice?

While I agree with this I think that intentionally or unintentionally there has been an anti marriage message pushed and that's the message a lot of young people are getting. Even though marriage has vastly improved for women in the modern age and many of the issues have been improved now when are giving up marriage for the wrong reasons. Marital rape was a good reason to refuse back in the day. But that is not our reality anymore. Now many are giving it up because it is trendy.

All the feminists I know are strident in saying that women should get married before agreeing to have children because that protects them as, inevitably, the bulk of the childcare and work-sacrifices fall to them and they're then screwed when the relationship ends. So this is 100% NOT my experience of feminism.

Many of the same feminists continue to decry how patriarchal core family structures are - with women doing the childcare, making the work sacrifices, taking on the mental load etc. That's true, yes. But few seem to think refusing marriage is the answer.

I do understand why marriage was deemed problematic. And was not married to the father of my children.
To marry later in life was a different choice to me, of course, than what it would be to a young woman fresh into adult life.

In the UK However, it seems that women’s rights after a relationship with children has ended are worse if not married. Because they are vulnerable and it is very difficult financially - which brings me back to the political problem of childcare being extremely expensive in the UK. And very often it seems to be the Mum who must pay it out of her wages, rather than a family cost which is what it actually is.

I have sympathy for women being treated differently when they don’t have children. Though of the women I know, those who have stayed child free (out of choice or otherwise) have a greater degree of personal and financial freedom. Maybe they feel this comes at a price, even if it was an actual choice and not something they could not control.

There’s always something though. Trying to pit mothers vs childfree women, those who gave birth vaginally vs those who had ceacaerians, those who breastfeed vs those who bottlefeed.
Those who work vs those who stay at home.

But it is inconsequential. All those things are fine (I don’t write choices here, as they are not always a choice anyway).

What is important is the actual, real possibility to live free independent lives - regardless of marital status, maternal status, sexuality and politics.
That is utopian of course, politics are shaped by feelings, religion and money.
But we must still be working with that aim in mind:
Education and ability to earn enough money to live independently if need be.
That childcare (or any kind of care) recognised as the vital work that it is and rewarded by us as society is imperative.

Thank you to the person who answered that the «all heterosex is rape» is a mangled understanding of Andrea Dworkin. I will try to read to see if I can understand what she actually means. Am currently working my way through Wollstonecraft with some difficulty

I am a broad church feminist, in that I consider everyone to be a feminist who believes in the social, economic and political equality of the sexes. Obviously we can disagree about what that is and how it should be achieved (for example, whether marriage promotes or undermines it) but to me we are then two feminists having a disagreement. In a world in which there are plenty of people who do not believe in the social, economic and political equality of the sexes, it's worth remembering who's on your side.

Geez, you lot are making me feel wise - we can’t be having that! 😂

Because it usually involved an oath to obey one's husband and because it legitimised rape by the husband. Also changing one's name to show one belonged to the husband.

Re Andrea Dworkin, she was writing at a time and in a country where there is less progression towards women's rights and equality than there is in the U.K. and her view was along the lines of it being impossible to have a truly mutual, equal sexual relationship within that context, i.e. when the man controlled the finances, had rights and resources the woman did not, and of course in the context of how women were and are seen as sexual objects or baby-bearing handmaidens.
She had terrible life experiences, too, which make her rage and pain and strong language understandable.