Why some women don't identify with feminism

[happysmiley]

I aaw on another tread someone saying that the more they thought about it, the more they thought they weren't a feminist. Someone else on a different thread said that the Feminism topic has a "reputation" elsewhere. I know that if I were to ask most of my female friends if they were feminists, I'd probably just get a puzzled look, maybe a reluctant "yes" but not much enthusiasm.

So why is this? Why don't women identify with feminism?

And what can we do to get women on board? Because if women aren't willing to sign up, men hardly will.

I love OptimistS post. I think my feminism has deepened over time through life in much the same way. It's a feminist duty to be compassionate to other women although I often fail on these threads when someone gets my back up. We are discussing important things here, both socially and personally.

why is it anti-feminist to be as bothered by the way gender roles, societal expectations and the patriarchy damage men?

because of experiences, again, I worry a lot about the disenfranchisement of young men age 16-25 in terms of expressing their emotions, admitting "weakness" etc which contributes to their suicide risk?

if that concern makes me anti-feminist then that might explain why I do not describe myself as feminist

Mollybob it isn't that feminists don't care about men. For instance, I have a son that I would give my life for. I love and respect many men. But I will explain why the question 'what about the men?' irritates feminists.

1 feminism is about redressing the inequities faced by women and its focus is important. Saying whatabout the men is like saying 'what about the whites?' to a racial equality activist. It distracts from the central issue.

2 this is why many anti-feminists use the argument of men's rights deliberately to derail the discussion. Like the BNP claiming that White rights are being destroyed. They do this to undermine racial equality. It often works sadly.

3 we assume that men are able and equipped to fight for their own rights. So, if men wanted equal female representation in Parliament, as they are already in the majority, they would get it. Same applies to decent rape legislation, equal pay and so on.

4 we are conditioned to prioritise men's needs as a culture. Often the question what about men is just a symptom of that. I have seen women ranting that rape hurts men too. Well yes, but what about the 100,000 women a year?

Obviously a more balanced society would benefit men. And we will get a more balanced society by elevating the section that is currently unfairly treated. It's just a matter of focus.

I haven't read this whole thread so apologies if this has been said, but I think feminism needs to be rebranded somewhat so that people remember it includes men as well as women. The argument being that both men and women are trapped in certain established gender roles. That's got a lot to do with the nature of capitalism which has proved itself more resilient than feminism in some respects.

So I call myself a feminist, I am a feminist. But I also recognise a certain hypocrisy in my personal position, if that's the right word. I am married to a man who earns three times as much as me, in a stressful and hard job with long hours. This means that I get to enjoy his income, whilst also doing a good job that I love, for not that much money (not enough to support our family), whilst also managing to spend some time with our DD. My DH feels the need to be the 'breadwinner' very strongly, although I always remind him that if he didn't want to do this job, I wouldn't mind. But the fact is, my particular gender role gives me freedoms that in some respects, he doesn't have. In return, I do do more of the domestic work, although since we have a cleaner, that mainly means taking care of our DD.

It's hard to summarise what I am saying with this, other than that feminism should be about freeing people up from all established gender roles so that everyone, male or female, has more genuine choice about how they live their life (of course, there are class issues here though). Those women who want access to the top jobs should have them, and efforts should be made to enable them to get there, ie through flexible work etc where possible, and efforts to eradicate direct discrimination. BUT the fact that men do invariably fill these jobs does not necessarily mean that they are invariably liberated and that women are not - many men may feel equally trapped in my experience.

I can recognise and relate to mystro's version of feminism but not blinder's. If to be a feminist, I have to stop caring about issues that more uniquely affect men then I want no truck with it.

Our capitalist patriarchy does not make it easy for many men to effect change despite blinder's assertions - men are no more a homogenous group than women and it benefits the men at the top to keep anyone who is below them down, whether male or female.

In my life, and I recognise the fact that this is apparently fairly unique amongst mumsnetters - it has always been women who have judged me more for my appearance or who have bullied me. I have no particular sense of female solidarity.

I tried to be helpful mollybob by providing you with a bit of background. I wasn't really making assertions.

No one is saying men don't have rights or that we shouldn't care about them. No one on this thread or in any feminists texts I know of.

But the burden of being a breadwinner doesn't really equate to millennia of violent oppression which still exists in this country. 6% of rape cases result in conviction. That means that if you are raped you have a 94% likelihood of seeing your attacker exonerated by society. Think about that for a minute.

Why not attack Amnesty International for failing to fight your parking ticket.

Fwiw I worry as much for my son as my daughter. Porn for example will have a hugely negative effect on his beliefs about women and sex which will damage him despite all my efforts to minimise the harm. But you end porn by elevating women to a position where they cannot be exploited. That will help our sons and our daughters.

But women judge other women on their appearance because we are conditioned by patriarchal values to do so. In a similar way many men will judge other men on how much they earn or the type of car they drive.

Like blinder I am a feminist who has nice interesting men in my life who I love and who love me. I care about equality for all sorts of people and some of those people are men of course. However I don't think it is the job of feminism to fight for equal rights for men and women, surely that is the job of human rights movements?

Some aspects of the feminist movement will benefit men by challenging gender roles and stereotypes. That is well and good, but for men as a group to benefit from these changes, they will also have to give up some of their privilege. They cannot expect to have their cake, eat it and then have the plate washed up for them (all without lifting a finger). Women who think it is their job of feminists to achieve the above for men are deluded IMO.

Benefiting men is nonsensical as a main focus of a movement which is concerned with institutional oppression of women although it is of course (obviously) possible to be a feminist and care about disadvantaged people, some of whom will obviously be men.

Oh Blinder, I really disagree that saying what about the men is a distraction, I think it's absolutely central and certainly not anti-feminist. As I said I haven't read the whole thread (at work, should be working really!) but it looks like capitalism and patriarchy has come up. My view is that women and men are 'oppressed' by both and this is alliance is anti-feminist.

In this particular social and economic context, I think there are many things that women say and do that if a man said and did would raise eyebrows. For example, I will make this personal again, and admit that without having married my husband for his 'money', I very much hoped I would meet someone who might be able to support me financially. I don't think that makes me unusual, but I think if a man said the same about a wife, he might be considered a bit suspect! I think that it's only when we get equality in that respect that we will have made real progress. As I said, that's about equalising gender roles between men and women (including responsibility for domestic duties AND breadwinning), and moulding capitalism so that top jobs don't always entail massive sacrifice in work/life balance terms (I realise I am focusing on the workplace here). Achieving the latter will be very difficult but to some extent achieving the former relies on that latter change. We may have reached a slight impasse I think!

Mystro, I agree with you on saying "what about the men" always having to be a distraction. One of the gains that feminists have made, which has helped me a lot personally, is the move to introduce parental leave for men. The fact that men at my work have started to take this up has helped me hugely because there is less resentment towards the women.

Thoughts - I am genuinely interested in this discussion by the way, not trying to be awkward

I don't like the expressed view that when women are bullies or judgmental that they seem to be given the excuse of being victims of a patriarchy which negates the suffering of any woman bullied by another woman and yet when men are abusive they are somehow more personally responsible - as far as I am concerned - personal responsibility covers all.

I do find the rape and DV statistics shocking but I admit that having no personal impact on me, I worry more about other things - primarily the plight of people with mental illness. And the history over millenia and nowadays of those affected is pretty shocking. And being a man with a mental illness in a patriarchy is probably worse than being a woman with a mental illness. Certainly the suicide statistics suggest as much. I do not worry about my son's sexuality re whether he ever does use porn as much as whether the 50% chance of him inheriting his father's illness in this broken society will prevent him from reaching his potential and surviving his youth.

I want a fairer society for all, obviously, but phrases such as men want their cake and eat it and equating men's issues with parking tickets when women's issues relate to real abuse just puts me off feminism.

Happysmiley, Sorry, I have not finished to read the thread but I will I promise. I am just going to answer your OP because I am one of the people who have "opted out" feminism since reading more on it on here.

I think :

• rape is in no way the woman's "fault"

-I am totally opposed to pornography and cringe every time I see kitchen utensils, yogurt... that "need" a naked woman to sell better (some might argue it is not pornography , maybe it is not but it is objectification all the same IMHO).

• I do strongly believe that a woman who does the same job as a man should be recieve the very same amount of money.

• I desagree with women being forced to cover themselves.

• I am convinced that women are capable of doing absolutely anything they desire to do.

-I believe that a lot more could be done to protect women in abusive realtinships/domestic abuse

but

-I am a SAHM sharing a bank account with her DH. Both DH and I share and have a card for that account. I never ask permission to use the money but all major finacial decisions (from him as well as myself) are discussed and sometimes DH has the last word and sometimes I do. To me a perfectly reasonable couple relationship but apparently a definite No no to any self respecting feminist.

-I am a Muslim woman who has freely chosen to cover her hair.

• I will in the future, when all my Dcs are in full time education, be looking for a job but if I was to find voluntary work that is more intersting to me than some potentialy high wage job I would go for it.

Now in few thread about feminisme recently I have been told by several posters that my choices in life are not compatible with feminisme. In my mind feminisme was about giving choices to women to direct their life the way they intended to and give them more opportunities to be what they want to be but I have since understood there seems to be more to it.

For those reason I cannot say I am a feminist because even though I could definitely picture myself fighting for more rights for women, I technically do not fit the criteria.

Now I am off to finish reading the thread and I am in no doubt it will educate me much more on the subject.

Oh, and I should have added to the above, that secretly I don't know if I particularly want to relinquish my 'right' to choose the particular balance between work/family that I prefer. By which I mean, it is considered natural and acceptable that I have that 'right' as a woman, whereas (I think, on the whole) it is still considered less so for a man. For example, I know quite a few couples where there has been a negotiation on who should go part-time, and the mother has always been given priority, where there's a choice financially and otherwise, even where the father would have been happy with that option). I think that might be unfair. This is a human rights issue as well as a feminist issue, the two are not separate in my view.

Gorionine, I am and that you are getting the message that you don't 'qualify' to be a feminist. All the things on your list, about objectification and violence and equal pay: these are the issues feminists are concerned about. If you see these things as problems, then feminism is for you. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise!

The "what about the men" thing happens on lots of threads on here (or did before we had this section).

A conversation about women and domestic violence, where someone comes in and says "but men suffer from DV too. They suffer from it a lot. Here is a link to some statistics and articles. We need to talk about that instead.

Then with a conversation about rape where women were talking about their experiences and people were saying "men can be sexually assaulted by women too. and it is terrible. Why aren't you talking about that? why are you only talking about women? this is a terribe things happening to men and you won't discuss it that is terribly sexist"

and then everyone has to stop talking about what is happening to women and start trying to justify why they aren't talking about bad stuff happening to men.

it tends to upset people and send coversations totally off the rails.

I for one agree totally that strict gender roles are a bad thing for everyone. But I am a woman and I want to talk about issues that have affected me as a woman and think how to make things better. If men have things they feel strongly about then they can talk about them and I will happily listen. But i don't want to have to stop talking about what is bad for women, what has happened to me, and talk about men instead IYSWIM.

As people have pointed out - freeing women will free men anyway. The fact that it is happening so slowly maybe means that the majority of men are not as keen to be freed to change nappies and do childcare and not have to go to the pub and watch football all day on a saturday and not have all the high paying jobs as we might have thought?

Mollybob you might have been referring to what I said about conditioning when you made this comment;

"I don't like the expressed view that when women are bullies or judgmental that they seem to be given the excuse of being victims of a patriarchy which negates the suffering of any woman bullied by another woman and yet when men are abusive they are somehow more personally responsible - as far as I am concerned - personal responsibility covers all."

Just to be clear, this is NOT the point I am making. I simply said that women judge other women on appearance because we are conditioned to think that appearance is of great importance in positioning ourselves with regard to our peers. (I believe I made a similar comment about men). There is never an excuse for bullying or nastiness.

I have a neighbour who doesn't understand why I don't take more care with my appearance and she finds it difficult to believe it is simply because it doesn't matter much to me. She will often try to encourage me to go shopping with her and 'make more of myself'. She is being perfectly nice and friendly and means very well. I still think her behaviour is because we are conditioned to think that appearance and sexual appeal (as defined by the male gaze) should be an important part of a women's identity. She thinks my behaviour is because I somehow don't 'value' myself. I know that my behaviour is because there are many things I would rather do with my time and money than try to conform to an oppressive mould of how I should present my physical self in male dominated society (that and the fact that I really do not care, my self esteem is not tied to my wardrobe).

There is no bullying or nastiness but there is conditioning and judging.

Forgot to say Mollybob I see you have also commented on what I said about 'having cake and eating it'. I'm sorry if this sort of opinion puts you off feminism. Really I am.

I hope you feel that way because I haven't expressed my sentiments clearly and you think I'm saying something I'm not.

Really what I'm saying is what has been so well expressed by ImSoNotTelling in her post above.

I happen to think that the fact that feminists seem to spend so much energy on explaining why "what about the men" is not really relevant to feminism scarily indicative of how powerful, insidious and far reaching patriarchal values are.

For the record the male feminists I know never say "what about the men". They say that a non male dominated society (if we ever see such a thing) will benefit many men in many ways but will, by definition, mean the relinquishing of male privilege. Men as a group cannot benefit from feminism (which seeks to end oppression) without a change in privilege (which is a consequence of oppression). In other words politically aware men who support feminist values say that men as a group cannot have their cake and eat it.

What a great discussion! I think you/we are all perhaps both strong and a bit upagainst it - both insights seem to me feminist statements. I also agree so much that I've yet to hear anyone dissing an SAHM.

"Men as a group cannot benefit from feminism"

I think they can, there will of course be some who wont, but then they don't want a Patrichal system as such, just a system focused on benefitting them

I know that feminism would benefit my partner, my brother, and my father immensely. But I do find the word "feminism" in itself makes it harder for people to see how equality would benefit all, not just women.

This thread is fascinating and I'm glad that in many cases it is bringing out really important and interesting feminist issues.

I would call myself a feminist - very much along the model espoused by Xenia of equality both at home and at work, equal pay and equal rights under the law. Iam also conscious that I am very lucky to have generally not experienced derogatory treatment (or indeed, different treatment) as a result of my gender, except for example when heavily pregnant where the differences were all good.)

However, I have a nearly 3yo daughter who is just starting to work out that there is a difference between the genders - partly from sharing a bath with her baby brother and starting to investigate what those differences mean. This has made me much more interested in femnisim generally and much more willing to fight for more equality and better parental leave/ pay rights which would benefit me personally at the moment and to end violence against women.

I would also like to add that at best I was a bit of a hazy feminist - i.e. equality is good n'all but the rape stats aren't as bad as they seem etc BUT having read this topic and starting to read blogs/ books etc the horrible truth of violence against women is becoming much clearer. So what do we do about it?

Another reason that many feminists don't like to hear "what about the men" is because they hear this phrase so much from a group of people known as MRAs or male rights activists. MRAs are anti feminism and very keen to mispresent and misinterpret feminism as the female desire to oppress men.

Thankfully many men have intelligent and insightful things to say about men/women/feminism. I find this chap pretty good on a male view of feminism.

He doesn't say "what about the men" he says things like this;

"One of the ways that men can help deconstruct patriarchical systems is by having empathy for women's experiences, and by recognizing that sometimes it's important to shut up on women's spaces. In a world that consistently devalues the experiences of women, it's not so much to ask that women have a place where they're free to vent their frustrations. "

I am definitely a feminist who says "what about the men".

This is because I think that, these days and in this country, the main thing that reduces women's equality is that men are not expected to take on childcare and housework to the same degree as women.

that is reflected in men not being given the same (eg) paternity rights as women have maternity rights... which in turn gives men another reason not to take on the main childcare role.

So I say "what about the men... why aren't they doing the jobs that women have historically taken on... once they do, women will get further towards equality".

Kaloki I fear I'm being misunderstood again.

I am NOT saying that men cannot benefit from feminism.

I'm sure you do not mean to be misleading but you have only quoted half of what I say.

No problem, it was just a phrase that jumped out at me. No offense intended.

No probs.

minipie, I agree with that, when it comes to workplace equality, "what about the men?" is the most valid question. As soon as men start to get access to flexible working rights, parental leave etc, they start to want to take them. And that allows women to take the rights they may have had in law but never really had in practice.

But "what about men" doesn't work so well on a lot of the issues, especially rape/violence, so agree, it's not always valid.