Don't blame feminism if you're unhappy in the autumn of your years

[IwantToRetire]

I have previously said that the misrepresentation of feminism by women journalists that male editors choose to give a voice too, has been one of the most negative impacts on actual feminism.

But on the other hand, these women that men choose create an idea about feminism to the public, in the same way as they do about many other issues.

So here is another article in response to Petronella Wyatt saying feminism had left her unhappy, childless and sad. https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5062678-feminism-has-left-middle-aged-women-like-me-single-childless-and-depressed

Alison Pearson responded https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5065860-allison-pearson-response-to-petronella-wyatt-who-show-that-the-biggest-cause-of-feminism-being-misrepresented-is-the-women-who-men-choose-to-write-about-it

Does anyone feel the "feminism" that the media feeds us has anything to do with how you feel or have experienced feminism?

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-13461519/childless-single-life-love-feminism-autumn-years.html

(Interesting that yet again it is the right wing press hosting these points of view. Anyone seen as interesting series of articles on feminism in the Guardian for instance?!!)

Article can also be read at https://archive.ph/A49b3

That Petronella Wyatt article is actually, properly hilarious. I'm exactly the same age she is and don't recognise the world she speaks of growing up at all. That article is the actual definition of white women tears an all.

Thatcher was a de facto feminist in her hole.

Wyatt's blue stocking school sounds brilliant. At my school I was leading protests about being made to do sewing as a compulsory subject. We were the first women to go to uni, generally, and few of us did.

But then that's the intersection of class and being female, I suppose.

I suppose to take it back to your OP, I would argue that just because women say their life choices and the success or otherwise of their lives is down to feminism, doesn't actually make it so. In the same way that an incel feels his life is shite 'cos feminists', it doesn't make that the truth.

In the same way that an incel feels his life is shite 'cos feminists', it doesn't make that the truth.

Absolutely.

The problem is the way the media can feed one narrative at the expense of another - or even real life.

Just think how varied an article on feminism would be if written by those who post on FWR!

Love that final sentence, maybe a new book is in order….

I'm a year older than Petronella. We were raised to Thatcherite independence too and I don't recognise her description. I was taught to be independent and to think for myself. To manage my own finances. To not expect to rely on a man or be a 'little woman' to a husband.

It meant I didn't settle. I have a career. I bought my own home. I chose when to have a child. managed my fertility.

Now I'm middle aged, but I'm a happy, independent mum of one, with a career and a nice social life.

I don't take much notice of the 'media'. I know how to manage my life and how I want to live. What anyone outside my family thinks, doesn't really matter