Meltedchocolate, I was interested to read your response to my original post. Thanks for taking the time to outline your opinions.
I hope you will stick around to explore the many issues in feminism, by building on the basis that clearly women and men do not have equality.
I too think men and women are different, but not as different as opponents of feminism have insisted over the centuries. For example, most work, sport, financial independence, fertility control, voting rights, education and so on that women now have are solely or largely the result of feminists winning the argument that women are capable. Even the history of medicalisation of pregnancy and chilbirth by male doctors is partly linked to doubts about women's ability to handle these natural female processes.
I struggle to see where any improvements to make the sexes equal can come from other than feminism. If there is another social or political way of improving the lot of women worldwide, then I am very keen to hear about it.
The forces that keep women down are the "Establishment", that set of priviliged powerful people and their structures which happens to be male-dominated, which is usually referred to by feminists as the "Patriarchy". They keep women down because it threatens their advantage. Ordinary men, our fathers, brothers, partners, husbands and sons are also kept down by the establishment, but that doesn't involve the sex issues. Men who are not at the top of the social heap tend be have a hard time at the hands of the ruling men through other means. It's a class struggle rather than a sex struggle. Disempowered men fight for improved conditions too. I say good luck to them. In contrast to the "trying to turn women into men" jibe that is constantly thrown at feminists, I haven't heard anyone with power accusing men of wanting to be like women because they want a pay rise or paternity leave or to be stay-at-home house-husbands? (Having said that, a man told me recently "There's only one thing more unwelcome in business than a woman asking for time off to look after her sick children, and that's a man asking for time off in those circumstances.") Rather than say "poor men, I won't fight against the establishment for women's rights, because I feel sympathy with men who have a hard time with the current setup", I say "men fight your battle, and I shall support you". Hey, I'm a woman, so I can multi-task! We are ALL being messed about! I'm NOT paranoid, the Patriarchy ARE out to get me! As some posts earlier in this thread mentioned, feminism is more anti-men-in-power than anti-men, but propaganda of the opponents of feminism is very effective. "Feminist" has been wrongly equated with "man-hater" for at least 40 years and counting.
Have any feminists personally criticised your own specific choice to stay at home? I am aware that feminist activists have criticised the decision of stay-at-home mums as a group to stay at home, but I have seen that in general society-wide terms not as an attack on individual women. The reasons for the criticism by feminists include factors like SAHM work not being valued or recognised by the patriarchy as significant a contribution to society as paid work outside the home. Where did your choice to either stay at home or work come from? Until about 1970, there was no choice for many women e.g. pregnat teachers were forced to give up their teaching career. Feminists campained successfully to make sure there was the choice that exists today.
Four of the aims of feminism are:
- reproductive choice
- access to childcare
- equal pay
- freedom from sexual violence
The list of objectives of mainstream feminism does NOT include turning women into men, turning women into man-haters, emasculating men for the fun of it, or making men superfluous to requirements. (Men are vital for the survival of the human race, forseeable future, because without them, with artificial sperm etc, we would die out as a species due to the severely reduced gene pool that situation would entail). There is so much anti-feminist propaganda out there!
Any person who works towards these goals is a feminist in my opinion, whether a woman or man. That actually links back to the last paragraph in my original post.
"I have respect for some women who are against specific "policy details" of feminism - it's a fair political/operational difference of opinion. Perhaps these women are not actually anti-feminist, merely unwilling to call themselves feminists."
If you can spare some time, I do recommend that you take a closer look at this and other similar threads in the forum because they might put more "flesh on the bones" of the issues for you.