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.

bronze: yeah, it's on my mind a lot too (pregnant!) at the moment. DH LOVES kids, he's wanted them for years (heh, yonks before I was ready) and is absolutely sweet and patient with them, which I'm not, always . He's going to do a lot more hands-on-stuff with the LO than I am, at least after the first six months, because of the way our jobs work (and the fact that I get NO maternity leave. NONE) - and yet he will be a saint for it, and I will be some demon-fiend for leaving her PFB. If it was the other way around, he'd not be evil for not being the main caregiver, it would be what's expected. . . he's the first to say that the system's a crock of shit.

Hah, so perhaps it boils down to "I'm a feminist because I don't want anyone giving a man a medal for a job I'm expected to do without any praise at all." It's insulting to women AND men, this patriarchy nonsense.

MillyR aww c'mon, you can still be a feminist and not agree with any of us! I mean, I know people who say they're catholics but use contraception and think this present pope is FULL OF IT. . . . surely if they can do that (the naughty things) we can accept that maybe feminism has a wide, wide remit, too?

Blackcurrants bloody brilliant post.

for the first time reading this thread I smiled ""I'm a feminist because I don't want anyone giving a man a medal for a job I'm expected to do without any praise at all." It's insulting to women AND men, this patriarchy nonsense. "

I like to think that instead of dragging others down I want to pull myself up.

Sofor example instead of dh not being praised for childcare I want to be praised for it too

"I'm confused as to why one or two feminists are taken as representation of a whole movement, when that NEVER, EVER happens to anyone else. Doesn't that make anyone else suspicious?"

Actually this happens on the religion based threads all the time...

Because when the only conversations you come across about feminism are on mn and there are a few voices that shout louder than others on every thread. (thats not a slating, good for them for shouting about what they believe in)

I just came to this thread from this one www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/951272-Proponents-of-39-equality-feminism-39-convince-me-that-men ?pg=11 where the debate was really about whether the home sphere should be kept male free so women can be good at it whilst men go out and ern big bucks. I argued the opposite - that the more men wield mops and colelct children from school the better so women can take their rightful place in the world of work whilst sharing things at home. I am 100% sure my position is right.

I don't use the word femininst about myself because it's become sullied. What I saw are things that most men and women agree with - that all it really means is equality under the law something we just about have in the UK but not on much of the planet yet and fairness at home (the main battleground). That's all. I always worked full time and enjoyed a large family and the key to that for most of us is fairness at home. I like men. Most men aren't sexist and plenty are really good fathers.

The other thread did also give good space to my view though that roman women with slaves, women in the 15900s in the UK with wet nurses, rich indians in Africa and most housewives and working wives today who have money will and always have outsourced dull stuff like toilet cleaning and hours and hours of childcare because it is ... wait for it...deadly dull. I certainly stand by taht and anyone who thinks cleaning my loos is fun work or changing the twin babies for the 12th time that day is a great way to spend their time must have had a lobotomy. of course if the only career they'd ever had would have been as chicken plucker may be it's more fun dealing with the babies' rear ends but plenty of us are beyond the chicken plucking career end of things. All good fun.

I also said on the other side have fun. Life is fun. Don't be fed up and whinge. If you don't like things change them. There's pleasure in all sorts of things... perhaps even chicken plucking and nappy changing... may be.. in small doses.

Also, MillyR, as perhaps a better example than my catholic friends, and as an example of why no one feminist or group of feminists are representative of all feminists: I suspect dittany and I would probably disagree on some stuff, and yet we'd both fully accept-and-defend each other's self-definition as feminists.

(for the record, I suspect that I'm a bit more wishy-washy, next-generation, handwring-y about sex work and porn than she might be. Not certain, but .. it's probable. Maybe one day we'll have a thread where we go at it hammer and tongs and she demonstrates that I don't really know what I'm talking about cos I haven't thought it through yet.) And yet, I'm sure neither of us would say the other one isn't a feminist. Neither of us would say the other one "shouldn't" call themselves a feminist.

After all, We're working for the same goal, against the same problems. And gosh, do we ever realise that one of the patriarchy's best and brightest moments has been persuading women to fight amongst themselves for scraps, and to reinforce patriarchal teachings through shame and mockery, rather than, y'know, fight the oppression.

Pogleswood: good point. I think you see people similarly frustrated at that conflation of one-and-all in those threads, too.

And yet if people feel like they belong but some of the rules need changing (eg my contraception-using catholic friends) they don't say "Catholicism doesn't have anything for me, I can't call myself a Catholic" - they tend to say "I'm a Catholic but I don't follow all church teaching" or something along those lines. But that's because the faiths (even the ones who aren't traditionally large powerbases in the UK or the west) have a LOT more power than a scrappy little underdog movement like feminism.

I think it's because women already have a picture of what feminists look like, and it's a stereotype, so if they stick their toes into the water, and along comes a big scary feminist, well, there goes your proof that feminism is scary [fill in preconceived idea]

yes - that seems right to me. The moment women start talking about women's rights, there's a man somewhere not being taken! care! of! and goshheavensabove, we can't have that.

It IS amazing any of actually get this far. But thank heavens we have done. It really wasn't fun being female before we were recognised as people rather than chattel.

"Yes there are some unfair inequalities remaining but I do think women who want to succeed seem to have no problem climbing to the top of the career totem pole or making their presence felt in political circles, and that has been true for years already."

That is empirically NOT true. Representation at board-room level, at the partnership level of major professional service providers, in the judiciary, the clergy, the forces, academia (almost every walk of life you can think of) is extremely limited at senior levels. Less than 10% of the boardroom population are women and that number is mostly made up by non-execs.

It's not that women don't want to get there. Many can and do and just give up trying. We simply don't have gender equality in economic terms. And this is one of the most liberal environments for women.

It's interesting why women don't like to identify themselves as feminists. A lot of it is to do with living in a patriarchal society, a lot of it is to do with feeling threatened. Feminism gets a bad press.

and why nurses/child care/respite carers is so low paid (high proportions of women) Because women are supposed to take care of others.

BelleDameSansMerci, regarding your post "...I have zero patience with that attitude (in case that wasn't obvious) and think it's an abdication of responsiblity ie I won't fight for my rights because I know someone else will do it for me...", what rights are you fighting for, pray tell?
Personally, I have all the rights that I want, i.e. I am equal to anyone and can do whatever I please, whenever I please.
So what should I be fighting for?

Great posts blackcurrants (and lots of other great posts too but I really enjoyed the one I got a jaffa cake for at the end )

Completely agree with your point, dittany, about opinionated women. Robust debating gets characterised as 'fighting', as if women shouldn't or aren't capable of holding a rational political debate.

This 'sterile academic debate' accusation is annoying as well. I'm not saying these don't exist, but on this thread the only bit that strikes me as 'sterile academic debate' is the quibbling about whether absolutely all rapists/sexual abusers are men. As if the tiny, tiny percentage who are women nullifies the whole debate about violence against women.

FFS

It's actually OK to be fucking pissed off about this stuff. I don't understand how anyone can not be angry about the 6% rape conviction rate. That's 94% of cases reported to the police never leading to a conviction. That makes my blood BOIL.

Last night we had some friends round for dinner. We unusually ended up discussing men and women and one of our friends (male) firmly stated he believed that women were equal to men, until it comes to decisions in politics and global issue. He believes that only men should make those decisions as women are incapable of being logical due to their lack of emotional control.

Needless to say myself and his partner spent the rest of the night putting him right!

Sorry, dashing in and out this afternoon, didn't mean for this to go so totally ballistic.

blackcurrent, thank you for your fantastic post.