New feminist... ?

[lollyhop2girls]

Hi There,

I stumbled across this board today and I need some advice.. info.. about feminism.

I really have never considered that I am a feminist. I dont really know anything about it at all, I am not uneducated or ignorant, just dont happen to have had the issue raised around me before. Ive never been inclined to research it either until recently.

I saw a series on TV the other day called 'Women' it was looking at a different subject each week. First I think was Women's lib, then motherhood. I think the next part is on tonight actually if anyone's interested.

I found it fascinating, particularly the motherhood episode. It looked at the way different families work and the different roles that women play in the home.

I am a full time working mum of a 4 year old girl. I live with my boyfriend and for half of the week his 10 year old daughter.

I have always had strong views on how I am often judged for working full time. I get angry at articles in newspapers about how because I work my children arent having the right start in life, I am selfish, I dont feed my kids properly, they watch too much TV blah blah blah. (none of that is true in my case actually and if I think of all the mothers I have known over the last few years; the ones who stay at home with their kids actually are more likely to turn to frozen ready meals, day time TV and hours on the computer - not wanting to generalise, just speaking from my own observations)

I also have strong views on women who infantilize themselves be it financially, independance etc

I also hate when people say to my daughter 'when you grow up and get married' or when they constantly comment on how pretty she is rather than how clever.

Also, my step daughter is obsessed with dieting at only 10 years old. Her mother very openly diets and agonises over her apperance with her daughter. I mean, christ does she WANT her to grow up thinking she can only be succesful and happy if shes thin? (Her mother also tells her that school isnt really important because shes so pretty she'll probably just marry someone rich and not have to worry... arghhhhhhh)

In fact I think I may be an out and out feminist but still not really sure what that would mean..

Anyone got any advice.. comments..?

Sorry, I must sound a be naive. I would just like to know more because most of the time in the world we live in I feel quite alone sometimes.. if there was a group that had the same ideas etc as myself I would feel less so.

Thnaks.

Lollyhop - I too would find the being financially dependent part very difficult. I couldn't do it either. A few of my friends who are (or who have been in the past) have found themselves in some very sticky messes.

This is what is confusing me slightly about feminism and I suppose has made my initial question clearer.

It seems some celebrate the differences between men and women - Sakura

And some celebrate (or rather fight for) equality.

Then there are those who think women are better than men.

Are all ways feminism??

I am the second type most definitely.

Feminists disagree with each other and have different beliefs though, it is all feminism but perhaps being like a different church while all believing the same basic principles.

Good analogy!!

we all want an end to the patriarchy though!

That sounds familiar MGN, I used to live with three men in a similarly filthy shared house. It was a real battle not to tidy up, but I decided I preferred to live in a midden than have them all think that cleaning was "my job". In the end I compromised by cleaning the bathroom (i just couldn't not, it was vile) but leaving the other communal spaces for them to do. All three of them used to come to me asking for needles and thread, an iron etc - I don't have these things, I don't wear shirts so no need to iron and can't stand sewing. It used to make me fume!

I agree with you to a certain extent Sakura. I've often thought that traditional "women's work" could be renamed "essential tasks" - finding food and cooking it, keeping the home clean, looking after those too young or old to care for themselves, teaching the children to become useful and kind adults. These things are what make a society function. "Men's work" is often extra, strictly unnecessary things (what you call "made-up work" - exactly) that somehow have become glorified into being oh so superior to the essential tasks.

Yes maybe not many people do have the expertise to run a hedge fund (no aspersions on anyone's jobs here), but then not many people have the expertise to unicycle over the Alps carrying a giant blancmange either - both are useless and there's no need to reward someone so massively for doing either one.

What about accepting that people are people rather than constraining them into gender roles

And then fight for a society where a woman can rise to be top bod at super-duper law firm without having to be "twice as good as the men"

And a couple where the woman loves working and the man loves childcare can play to their strengths through truly flexible working conditions

And as men take on the childcare and home roles more frequently society will shift to see that all work is work, it all counts, traditional "womens" work ie children and home are impoartant.

To allow for different people being different - I don't want to be the CEO of superduper inc. and nor does my DH. We would prefer to share the work out of the home and in the home more fairly. But the way things are at the moment, with his job being inflexibe about part-time and so on, we have slotted into the "traditional" way ie he works full time and I take full mat leave then go part time. This does not really suit our personalities but there you have it.

I do think that things are gradually changing with employment, i am pretty hopeful.

However this stuff, despite the above, is not as much of a concern for me as other stuff. I am quite a bossy strong person, and a feminist (in the sense that it would never occur to me not to split the housework) and so I have chosen a husband who fits with that. As I'm sure xenia has. I would never end up with the sort of bloke who expects little wifey to always look nice and dinner on the table and not question his opinions, so it is hard for me to understand when I see on here some of the things that people put up with. Like when the man controls all the money and the woman has to get everything out of the child benefit while the man squirrels piles of savings away and has expensive hobbies, then qeustions how much a new pair of socks was. That sort of stuff leave me flabbergasted, i honestly didn't realise it still went on, and so much.

The side that really gets me riled though is the naked women everywhere/objectification/men in the pub thinking they can feel you up stuff.

That's another thread though!

Sorry that was a bit of a ramble...

@ redefining men's work as 'made-up stuff'!

I'm not sure anyone thinks women are better than men. Even the kind of women who say things like "What can you expect, he's only a man haha" are usually using that as an excuse for coddling one like a giant baby, because the poor lambkin can't work out where the spoons are. IME they are the last people to declare themselves feminists.

Have you seen my other thread in this section lollyhop? Regarding whether or not there are any differences between men and women.

My jobs have always been made up stuff. Don't know about anyone elses

I moved into something more "worthy" after my first child, wanting something nearer to home and part time

Of course it was a terrible mistake, and as i was saying to DH the other night, I don't feel tremendously wonderful for doing this worthy stuff, it all boils down to teh same thing. Waving bits of paper around and pressing buttons on a computer. My last job I did some sums as well...

However plenty of "mens work" would need to be classified as essential as well. It's just the office stuff which is made up isn't it.

Heehee maybe we should create a new thread for each topic...

Objectification
Infantilizing (sp?)
SAHM Vs Career woman
Domestic violence

ARGHHHHHHH

So much to discuss, maybe we should all meet up... I'd pity the poor coffee shop owners!!

I was only speaking from (very limited) experience about thinking women are better than men from the woman I knew who I mentioned before. She really did call herself a feminist and spouted that men were useless, good for nothing, brains in their pants blah blah.

Im sure this is a very small minority... hopes..!

Sorry yes I forgot about her. TBH she just sounds very stupid, or maybe very upset - still stupid to extrapolate "i have met some nasty men" to "Men = nasty" though.

We should def have a MN feminist meetup - pretty sure we are all over the country though sadly. Feel sorry for the cafe owners? Only if they're the type to have naked lady pics up on the staff noticeboard - we'd lead a revolt!

I think Sakura and Imsonottelling are sort of on to the same thing. If the nurturing and 'essential' work was valued and paid, then there would be lots of men doing it too. It is not valued or paid of course. I am between jobs at the moment and frankly feel like I'm viewed as a servant in many ways. I would never voluntarily leave working life for exactly that reason. I can see that this is rather narrow - my career is made-up stuff too

You only have to scan through threads in relationships to see that there are huge numbers of women who are just letting themselves be massively discrimated against and doing nothing about it except moan on the internet. It is quite mystifying. Many women are very short on self-esteem.

Lots of women don't really like men and lots of men don't really like women.

Shame that some of the women who don't really like men describe themselves as feminists to justify it as that is an unfair representation of what feminism is about.

Personally I have always been quite keen on men

"Some would argue (not me at this point, at least not vehemently as I havent formed all of my opinions on the matter yet) that you have chosen this path because you have been socially conditioned to beleive it is what you 'want' to do..."

Ah, but there's a very strong argument though that the subset of women that are university educated and/or in well paid or managerial jobs are equally strongly socially conditioned to believe that returning to work full-time is what we will 'want' to do after we become parents.

Certainly my experience was that I just knew I'd go back to work full time as soon as my maternity leave ended, because that's what everyone else similar to me did, that's what nursery was for and so on.

The idea that not returning to full time work might be a legitimite choice - that it wasn't just about copping out of independence, and being financially dependent and choosing to do housework - definitely came along later for me. (I didn't do it, though - I went back to work, although only part-time.)

I have all sorts of niggles with a system that makes everything so black and white - where the expectation is that you're either at work for 40+ hours a week or you might as well not be at work at all. A system that places no expectations of time away from work onto fathers, where it's assumed that becoming a father shouldn't stop any man from working a normal full time week.

I also have niggles with nursery care and the possible psychological effects on infants, despite the fact that I used it. I know I made the best decision I could at the time, but with hindsight I feel it was a decision forced on me by the expectation that I would of course return to work full time, because that's just what people like me did. I was shocked to read around the issue later on and find that there might be scientific reasons why nursery care for a young infant isn't the best option - at which point I became quite angry about the unquestioned assumption that people like me just always returned to work full time outside the home. I don't blame feminism for that assumption though as I don't see it as a feminist thing really - it's something driven by our economic system and work structures, but they're not set in stone - they could change.

I have been calling myself a feminist for a long time. For me feminism would be no good if as soon as I became a parent it forced me into a black and white choice of work full-time or be called 'oppressed'. One of the things I think feminists should be fighting for is social and economic systems that enable us to be good, biological (not sure how else to put it) parents, and not base our decisions on how to parent on what fits a rigid 'work full time or not at all' economic system.

I think not having the means to be financially independent is worrying for any woman - I think all women, including mothers, should ideally be able to be financially independent at the drop of a hat. There ought to be more ways to achieve that than by simply saying 'right, everyone back to work and all babies in nursery or other childcare by six months', though. There have to be better ways of arranging things through better working arrangements, for all parents, not just mothers. Men and women should be able to make the best parenting decisions they can without always having to seriously compromise career choices, and vice versa.

My work is made-up stuff too - delightfully so

Women do seem to have a massive problem with self-esteem, in general (not everyone Xenia, I know )

Ooh, there's a fascinating post about the culture of the "race to the bottom" (not the Friday night thread...) here: tigerbeatdown.com/?p=731 which is basically about how groups of female friends often bond by essentially slagging themselves off. "God, your hair looks lovely, mine is just like a load of old string" etc etc.

greenandsilverstars

yes we are all products of our backgrounds aren't we, and subconsciously model on what our parents did (unless they were awful)

Thus I take some time out to "bring up the children". Because that's what you do.

I now realise that in the dynamic of our relationship it would be far better if DH took some time out to bring up the children, and I worked full time. For so many reasons.

But of course society isn't structured to make that easy - his work won't allow it, he has a final salary pension, I have already dropped down to a lesser paid role and now earn less than him whereas before I always earnt more etc etc

The first step is to make it parental leave rather than maternity leave, and see what happens. I suspect that many employers will "frown on" men actually taking it though. What do people think - are employers dragging their feet with this stuff? Or does it depend on the specific company /sector (I suspect this is the case).

Yes, a class of MBA students... every woman's first job was worse on pay that the men's . They studied it. Every man had asked for more pay than initially offered. Every woman had thought how lucky she was a firm would hire her. So is that conditioning or hormones or genes? I have no problems negotiating fees and I think I'm the best in the UK at what I do and a pretty good mother too. What makes one person of whatever gender feel confident or not? It may be simply that I am , high IQ, high earnings, slim, look good, children turned out great... so may be I feel like that because it's just the truth whereas if I had an IQ of 80, abused my children, couldnt' hold down a job and weighed 30 stone I might well have a self esteem issue.

So making women ditch their guilt and feel self confident is may be a good aim but I never felt pushed to full time work. I just knew I didn't want to be home with small children all day and that I liked the work and a daily nanny at home (which with 3 children is cheaper than 3 nursery places and you avoid the nursery issues if you think there are problems with nurseries which not everyone does) and equal relationship worked fine.

I do think my daughter's friends (23) who expect despite their superlative education expect to become housewives and want to find a prosperous man tend to be the girls with housewife mothers and those who are keen to earn their own keep tend to follow their parents. In fact as I've 3 children at university career choice stage I'm amazed at how many children even choose the job their parents do - baker has a son who is a baker, actor mother, actor daughter. It is our example that counts and it is of much broader influence than we think. What we do not what we say that matters.

It starts earlier than that though xenia, before people have had time to have great kids or abusive husbands or whathaveyou.

It starts with the first jobs fresh out of school/uni.

I have never asked anyone for more money even though i know I am an excellent employee. Well apart from once, when I was asked to go and work for a competitor, and i didn't really want to, so I asked them for what I thought was a ridiculous amount of money. They said yes

That is when it occured to me that that is how men play it all the time which is part of the reason they are paid more.

But in a job in which negotiation skills are not pivotal why should it be that people who negotiate harder get more cash? Because that is the way men do it?

Either women need to be taught how to do it in school, or employers need to be more equitable paying people what they are worth rather than this idea that the cocky incompetant gets a pile of cash.

Imsonot because the firm wants to pay you as little as poss to keep you and motivate you, and not more than they think they could pay to get someone else just as good. What you are 'worth' is only what you can get in the market. It's not an absolute concept. So if you're good you tell them that the threshold to keep you is higher. That's negotiating. There's masses of negotiating in everyday life. I'm teaching my children to negotiate and I think you'd do yours a favour by doing the same. You don't have to be cocky to persuade other people to agree with you.

yes I understand that romanarama.

But many people are not natural negotiators. I have always done "technicians" roles ie being a technical expert. I have been one of the best at what I do but I don't go around asking people for money. it's just not what I do.

This difference means that IME cocky twats who can't do their jobs end up being paid shitloads and quiet people who are excellent end up being paid peanuts.

In my last role of course i eventually found out they were paying the men more and of course because of that i left. At the time I had no bargaining power because I was pregnant.

In the public sector many roles have a pay level and that's the end of it. While I can see an argument that this demotivates good people, surely there must be a balance.

How can people who do not have this skill possibly teach it to their children? And how to teach them that the world will value them based on "talking the talk" more than their actual skills?

And how / where are boys learning to do this that girls aren't?

At the time I had no bargaining power because I was pregnant

That alone makes me want to scream!!!!!! Not at you ImSoNotTelling just at the whole ridiculous state of affairs. It's not our fault we got given the reproductive genes!! We never asked for 'em!

I know lollyhop.

You can imagine how I felt about it

[bitter emoticon] + [angry woman with axe emoticon] + [sisterly hug emoticon]