Why are so many women hellbent on acting against their own interest?

[thedankness]

From TWAW, pro "sex-work", "kinky sex" and porn, plastic surgery, accepting low standards in relationships with men, being anti-abortion to more trivial things such as wearing heels, and yes, shaving, and so much more, so many women will defend these things to the hilt. They refuse/are unable to see how these things are bad for themselves and/or women generally, even after presented with arguments. Obviously some people will disagree with points made in an argument, but I just don't see men subjugating themselves en masse like I do women.

I feel sad. Why can't we as women just love ourselves and look out for ourselves? I feel like we are groomed into self-hate. Is the notion of female self-acceptance and worth truly so radical that a significant number can't even fathom it as a possibility for themselves?

Why is it so common for women to act against their interest? And can or should we do anything about it?

This is a bit poorly-worded, have thoughts but am interested to hear others' opinions.

I can accept that whether a person changes their name has little impact on others.

But I can't accept the same for the change from Miss to Mrs where there is not the same for men.

Whatever the personal taste or meaning for the person doing it, it does impact other women to live in a society where a significant number of people think it is fine that a woman's marital status is broadcast automatically but a man's is not. It's true that the social status based on marriage is no longer what it was. But I still remember being told, probably in the 90s that "only two types of women use Ms, those who are divorced and feminists" and this was used disparagingly.

Is it a massive harm? No, I don't think so. For me it is symbolic of inequality both between the sexes and between women. But symbolism is something people can disagree about. Of course now we have the joy of Mx. Personally I think I'd do away with these titles altogether if it were up to me. But trying to control other people's language is a waste of time and I have enough to do already.

It is plain fact that naming and title decisions do not occur in a vacuum and that they affect other people. That's how those systems work. I would like to be equal to a man in that I want to be able to keep my own name and also give it to my children without any of those things being remarkable or commented on, without attracting criticism, confusion both genuine and faux or refusal to use the correct names for my DC and I. All of these things have happened to me.

Because I don't have this, I am not equal to a man in that respect. It's one more thing they get without having to worry about it, that I can't have. My inability to do those things is because of patriarchy. I can't have that, but I could have it if enough other women in our free society chose to do it, because it's existence depends on it being a norm.

My wish doesn't impose any obligation on other women, of course, and nor was it women who invented any of this. What it does mean is that the decisions other women make deny me equality in this area. Natuarally, it doesn't follow that equality in any one area solves inequality and patriarchy in others, but then that never stopped anyone strawmanning about it.

Social pressure can be subliminal. Part of the feminist movement is consciousness-raising to bring these pressures into our collective awareness to challenge them. I think this thread highlights there is resistance to that sometimes. Maybe it is too uncomfortable to realise we have less agency than we think? Or that it contradicts our worldview given that as women in the UK we enjoy far more freedoms than many other countries.

The housewife issue is complicated. People seem to forget that women wanted access to the workplace so that they could have financial independence from men. For those at the top, "careers" can offer great benefits such as a sense of personal fulfillment, social interaction, intellectual stimulation, influence in society etc. But for those at the bottom, simply having the means to earn your own money is a critical factor in being able to escape abuse and forced reproductive/domestic labour. In being able to have any agency about where to live and what activities you want to do. Being a SAHM is not anti-feminist at all, but it is riskier financially. For some women this works out fine but others end up trapped - Mnet can attest to this. This does not necessarily need to be addressed by forcing both partners to work full time and outsource childcare, which is arguably anti-feminist as it denies women's biological role in e.g. breastfeeding an infant. It can be addressed by greater state protections for women, of which there are some already, and through changing the culture of male entitlement to female labour.

When a man and a woman have a baby, there is the requirement for paid, domestic, nurturing, educational, administrative, mental, emotional (and probably other forms!) of labour which need to be split across both parties. It doesn't need to be 50-50 in each category, but ALL of the labour must be acknowledged and divided appropriately. Men and women should be able to have equal stakes in negotiating their parts.

I agree. There's a difference between what you do and what you deny.

Great way to phrase it.

I think the single thing most women do which damages them is have children outside of marriage, give the child a surname which is not theirs, and do the majority of the childcare and housework. If you are going to do this then make sure it isn’t you who’s career is taking second place. Women taking time off for things such as sick children whilst their oh does not. Always being the default parent so the man can relax etc. It’s bad news for women.
If you are going to have a child with someone who you are not legally connected to, then do not sacrifice your career. Make him take time off for childcare etc.

That makes absolute sense tome, @ArabellaScott. We need to change those societal pressures, and hopefully, in that context, every decision we make that does buck the patriarchal pressures will help drive that change.

@OchonAgusOchonOh - my reading of the OP and other posts on this thread, and other similar MN threads, have left me with the impression that every ‘wrong’ decision I have made, has made me a failure to the cause - but I am happy to be wrong about that.

It can be very painful to examine our own decisions and even who we are as people and realise both are inevitably influenced by our oppression. None of us can be sure we'd be like or how our lives would look if it weren't for patriarchy and sexism. Works for other isms too- for example, Barack Obama talked in his autobiography about questioning whether traits he'd presumed to be his true and authentic self were in fact a reaction to racism.

I guess it's different perspectives then. I know I have made "wrong" decisions but I don't feel it personally if there are threads discussing those decisions negatively. However, I can see how someone else might perceive these types of discussions differently.

I find the discussions helpful to see how my decisions have bigger implications than I thought. Sometimes it facilitates introspection on my part and helps me make better decisions in the future. Some decisions I would change if I could, others I would stick with even though they are the "wrong" decision but at least I now understand the full implications of my choices.

It can be very painful to examine our own decisions and even who we are as people and realise both are inevitably influenced by our oppression. None of us can be sure we'd be like or how our lives would look if it weren't for patriarchy and sexism.
I agree with you.

A central part of me embracing "real" feminism, as opposed to the wishy washy you do you girl liberal feminism of my student years, was being in a place where I genuinely felt I could examine my decision making and experiences without taking discussions of class based issues as a personal criticism of me.

On reflection whilst my time in liberal feminism circles appeared superficially empowering (with claims that any decision a woman makes is empowerment, you do you, if anyone mentions your decision making is affected by patriarchy they're just tearing women down etc) I realised a lot of it was grounded in two problematic ideas:

1. The idea that women as individuals are more important than discussion of class based oppression.
2. The idea that individuals also being are inherently very fragile, so any hint of critical reflection is viewed as a threat to an individual's sense of self

Once I realised that it's very convenient to have a version of feminism that rebrands patriarchy as empowerment, I couldn't stay in that place philosophically.

Some interesting points upthread. Especially those relating to: 'I took a decision at some point in my life, and someone else accused me of "bad" feminism'.

I'm quite sure we've all taken decisions - or been forced into positions - that have been in our own individual interests, or that of our families and children, but against the collective benefit of women, before today. Anyone who's been a woman in the face of parental illness, and who's had male siblings, will know the doctors and carers automatically come to you rather than your brothers and assume you'll take on the entirety of the responsibility of care. Many of us are hardly going to say 'no' in that predicament. All any of us wanted in that situation was what was best for our mother. Again - when others' needs come first, that is always assumed to be at women's expense.

Is this 'letting down the sisterhood?' No. There is no sisterhood. Feminisms are a pluralist set of movements, not a hive mentality, and they are often bitterly, vehemently opposed to one another. If you take the roots of the WOHM vs. SAHM debate that attracts such vitriol on these threads, we find its roots in first-wave feminism: the Woman Citizen position of the Old Feminists vs. the separate spheres (women owning the domestic) of the New feminists of the day. This morphed into the wages for housework campaign of the second wave, against angry opposition from those upholding the sex equality act and wanting equality of opportunity in the workplace, plus fair and equal pay for equal work.

None of this has ever sat together equally. As for the suffragettes and anti-suffragists, need I say more (and that, for one, is a position I cannot compute. How CAN you be a sentinent female and oppose not only your own right to the vote, but also that of half the population? Nowhere is there a law that you have to exercise that right).

Some of the hair-splitting as regards a slick of lipstick is pretty trivial stuff by comparison. I couldn't give a monkeys if someone dyes her roots or wears lipgloss. The name issue is important to me personally, and I'd get rid of all 'titles' tomorrow if I could: they're obsolete and serve no function I can see.

But I do think it's important to examine the conditions under which these 'choices' are made. In response to @LolaSmiles post above, the older I get, the more I tend to prefer the Rad Fems (the real rad fems, that is, not the bastardisation people talk about nowadays) to the liberal position. The issue we have to contend with is structural and systemic. Individual 'choice' and supposed freedom (which isn't freedom) seems pretty much aside from the point.

What some posters seem to forget is that other -isms can influence just as much as patriarchy, just in different ways.

Like the name situation for example. OH didn't particularly care one way or the other (it was my decision ) and no pressure from family or friends/outsiders .Yes DD's very English name would've sounded quite stupid with my very foreign name (and that's the reason I normally give when asked) , but that wasn't the main reason. The main reason is that I didn't want her to automatically be an other , have to explain herself, her existence or presence here. There are many negative connotations with the country I'm from and I didn't want her to carry that around with her like I do. Things might change by the time she's older but I didn't want her CV dismissed based on her last name, be met with distrust or suspicion here or abroad like I was and so on. Her dad's English name offered her an extra layer of protection because I know there's a lot of crap coming her way simply for being a girl. I didn't want to add any extra on that for being from X (even if she was born and raised here) . Her wellbeing came and always will come way ahead my principles. I realise that it's a bit robbing Peter to pay Paul ( perpetuating one harmful tradition to avoid other harm) but I had to "choose".

I think most people understand that we all sometimes make decisions that might not be the feminist one but it happens to be the best one for us in our current circumstances. That has been mentioned multiple times in the thread.

@OchonAgusOchonOh some posters though label those reasons as trivial and rather silly.

Maybe I missed it, but at no point in the conversation did I see how does it all mix with racism,xenophobia,xenophobia etc.

Yes we are women most and foremost, but that doesn't mean it's the only form of discrimination we face and that we have to navigate. I believe it's worth at least a mention if not a full discussion rather than laughing for example at the silly woman with the silly reasons thinking her husband's/partner's name sounds better.

I believe that in order to empower women to make more feminist /better choices we have to understand and listen where they're coming from and offer alternatives and reassurance. Rather than "you silly woman ,you're setting back the cause 50 years"(actual comments I've repeatedly seen on MN).

@PaperDoIIs Sorry, I wasn't clear. No, I don't think there was any mention of racism or xenophobia but there was mention of decisions being better at an individual level even if not the "correct feminist" decision. I hope it didn't come across as me trying to minimise your experience of racism. I certainly didn't mean to do that. Obviously experiences like that will hugely complicate things.

While not in any way comparable to racism experienced by BAME people, I did experience a lot of anti-Irish xenophobia when I worked in London in the 80's so I do know something of where you are coming from. I had moved back to Ireland before having dc so that didn't factor in my decision on naming. I simply sleep walked into giving the dc dh's surname without thinking. Having listened to feminist opinions on this since, I have realised the societal implications and do regret not using both names. Other decisions I made I knew were not optimal from a feminist perspective but they made sense given my circumstances at the time and I have no regrets.

Just to add - I agree with you re discussion and intersectional complications. However, I don't think we will progress of we're not willing to listen to the implications of our decisions. It is best to make a fully informed decision rather than just sleepwalking into it and then refusing to listen to anything suggesting our decisions are not perfect.

Some of that I think is larger than feminism. We like to imagine we are free thinkers, post Enlightenment, rational and individualist.

I think we've collectively somehow convinced ourselves we are much more uniquely individual than we actually are - due partly to capitalist and post modern ideas. We often have a resistance to or horror of being led or shaped or influenced.

Libfemmery told us if we were <really> daring individuals we'd liberate ourselves from societal shackles by ... shagging about and performing extreme acts self abuse 'like the lads'.

(I fell for that bollocks myself, lest anyone think I'm judging!)

@thedankness

ive not read the full thread but a few thoughts from me:

i think you are overlooking a couple of things:

• first that there are rewards in terms of social status and validation by adopting at least some of these things. Women’s relationship and married status still matters A LOT even if it’s less than it used to be. I married late and really felt this

• second that even if feminist and aware we may not want to fight every battle. I am married now (married late) didn’t change my name as I didn’t want to. Kids have DH surname, mine as a middle. Sometimes I regret not double barrelling but it wouldn’t have worked (prononciation). When people ask me why they have his surname not mine and shrug and say we live in a patriarchal society, which we do.

• third that some of these things do have genuine positive benefits. It’s helpful to be able to use make up to enhance. I have sensitive damaged skin and I’m happy I can both protect it from further damage and enhance my looks so I’m me on a good day much more often. You’re wrong if you think men never do this. Especially those on TV who mostly do have make up on. It’s on the rise among younger men too, more to enhance that change their looks although that is also on the increase among gay and gender bending men. Kinky sex also some women enjoy. Not me, but I do love good sex with a hot man. I feel strongly that female sexuality is hugely oppressed by the patriarchy some active feminists feed into this because they’ve had such bad sexual experiences themselves that they reject it all. Or they are just not very sexual themselves, which is fine, but doesn’t apply to all women. Reading MN makes clear many women have never had hot lust driven sex with a man they really really find physically attractive and that’s very sad. Personally I am very physically orientated when it comes to sexual relationships. I love dressing up and looking good in make up and heels occasionally. I’m also only interested in good looking and physically fit men that fit my type. Someone like Bradley Cooper is my type. It also means men are shocked by women that enjoy PIV (as I do) and I’ve been judged by some for that - but that’s other women conforming and ignoring / avoiding / being unaware of their own sexuality and sexual pleasure.

so of it is changing though. Heels are no longer a requirement for formal
work wear for women - I think we have the pandemic to thank for that

@thedankness there is also a factor of what matters most to people. I absolutely agree that being a SAHM is a massive risk - and way too heavy burden to place on your spouse when it comes to finances. However, some women want to lifestyle and actively seek out men with similar values who will provide them with the lifestyle they want.

Some people are fully aware of patriarchal values they take on and the risk these carry - and still are willingly taking on this risk.

Likewise a woman may want her husband's name for a whole host of reasons (some of which were listed here) and there are absolutely people who were born blessed with attractiveness and are happy ro both flaunt and use it.

@PaintedEgg yes agree some women actively want and seek to take on the SAH wife / mother the patriarchy can offer. I think both status and lifestyle are at play here

men are often pilloried if they seek similar.

and I think men and women are equally looks and attractiveness oriented deep down.

but a lot of women ignore / suppress their own drivers and feelings about attraction - ‘it’s the personality I find a attractive’ ‘he is just so kind / funny’ etc

both as having a successful relationship is a marker of success for women and his looks matter less in that societal judgement.

AND because choosing a kind and stable life partner is a way of managing the risks of motherhood. And women knowingly or unknowingly prioritise that over sexual attraction/ fulfilment

and that’s before we get to the negative risks for women of prioritising their own sexual satisfaction

@Fernsfernsferns while yes, there are risks / benefits at play here, women are also seriously socialised to prioritise "stability" over attraction. Even this thread heavily suggests women generally don't experience kinks or even strong sexual desire as such - and if we do its because of "media told us to!"

there is also another aspect that keeps getting sort of glossed over - that if something works for the majority of women then claiming its harmful neither makes it harmful nor will it change what these women do

for example: there was a thread about fathers not pulling their weight after a split, only seeing their kids every other weekend, not doing christmas etc...but it was women themselves who point-blank admitted they prefer that arrangement to actually sharing custody 50-50 and having their kids only 50% of time

Same with career - yes, it is woman's financial situation and career that generally takes a hit following childbirth and it would be great if men were widely socially expected to put equal amount of time and effort into having children...a lot of women would not care for it and they would not care if its not feminist enough

Unless you want to?

I like being the default parent. I like being the one they come to first in a crisis. I like it all, choose it all, and willingly reduced my hours at work to accommodate. I feel like it's their dad who has missed out.

I accept it means that DH earns more for the family pot, and that if we split he would be better off financially, but I don't resent our role split one bit.

In my family, income was the driver in the decision that I would stay at home with the children. Dh earned significantly more than me - and his future earning prospects were much better than mine too. Also, he loved his job and, at the point where I got pregnant with ds1, I hated the place I was working, and was miserable there. We were lucky that we could afford to run the household on just dh’s salary.

I did go back to work part time after having ds2, but when I got pregnant with ds3, my take home pay for 2.5 days a week (as a Theatre nurse) was £150, and the nursery costs for each child was £50 per week - so when we had two dc, I was contributing to the household finances, but when we decided to have ds3, I’d have basically been working for nothing - and whilst I wasn’t as unhappy as I’d been in the previous workplace, I didn’t love my job enough to want to do it for free, so I gave up work.

I do wonder whether, if my pay level had been better, I might have carried on working but I think I was trapped by the gender pay gap - nursing, being traditionally a female profession, clearly suffers from this - and then other factors added to that - childcare costs in particular, but also the fact that, as a part timer, I wasn’t given the chance for professional development or the possibility of promotion - I was a senior staff nurse, but could see no prospect of becoming a Sister.

Men have the power in our patriarchal society. Women as a subordinate class have to appease men in order to survive. (This is less the case now but the power imbalance is still there.) It's a common trauma response to actually learn to enjoy the outward signals of the subordinate status to trick ourselves into believing we have some power. It feels better than accepting that we do not. Hence ' I wear high heels for myself, it makes me feel good.' The reality is ' I like the reaction I get from men when I outwardly signal to them that I am accepting of my subordinate status and will suffer pain, discomfort, damage to my body and an inability to run if I need to in order to be liked more than the woman who isn't doing that. This happens subconsciously in most cases, but this is my belief ( I didn't come up with it myself but read it somewhere else and seems to make sense.)

can we be honest here - do any of you get any reaction to your footwear? like any at all?

can we be honest here - do any of you get any reaction to your footwear? like any at all?
In one workplace I had comments about my workwear/footwear Funnily enough it came from other, more senior, women who had a very narrow idea of what younger, ambitious women should be wearing. I did an experiment and found that I could wear the same outfit with different pairs of shoes and get a different response.

I'm sad to say I ended up bringing heels to work for years to make sure I was seen looking 'professional'.