What's your approach to learning about feminism?

[vesuvia]

I am curious about how we cultivate our ideas about feminism.

Perhaps you could consider any or all of the following in your response.

Has your exposure to feminism been

• Mostly through books?
• Mostly via the web?
• Television, radio or newspapers?
• Discussions with friends or family?
• Trade union meetings?
• Women's groups?
• Political debates?
• Serious academic study or bedside reading?
• Other? If so, what?

Does your partner actively encourage your feminist research and reading, and debate your feminism findings with you, including threads from this forum?

Do you discuss what you read or hear with other family and friends?

Do you have a particular friend or group of friends who you discuss feminist issues with? What issues do you agree or disagree on?

Has your approach changed over time?

"i'm really surprised i'm not gay"

YOu know I think the majority of men are gay because all women are so beautiful, all of them, and yet men don't realise it. They expect women to be in make up and heels and shit, but any woman with a nice personality grows on you and ends up looking beautiful (and vice versa). I always wonder why men believe women need to be improved in some way.
Am I gay?
I do rather fancy men, though. So obviously not.

Sakura, I notice we both got Arthur Golden's name wrong . I'm sticking to my excuse is that G is next to H on the keyboard and my finger slipped!

tabouleh wrote - "he is interested as long as every conversation is not about Feminism".

Same here, which suits us. I wonder if that is the norm for the partners of feminists?

Do you think there are any women out there who have male partners more pro-feminist than themselves, who say things like "Don't bother with the housework after your hard day of childcare or other work. Please take yourself off to your feminist book club for the evening?"
Maybe not.

Ah, thank you!

I think along with my parent's hideous, dysfunctional marriage, going to a v. high achieving all girls school made me a feminist.

We had loads of discussions about feminism, sexism etc., without a load of boys shouting us down and telling us we were ugly because we were saying that.

Then at university, seeing how thick the boys were and yet they still had the temerity to hog the discussions with their commonplace observations.

Then at work where the mediocre men were paid more than the brilliant women and were more senior than them and then had the cheek to pontificate about meritocracy as they hadn't clocked the fact that they were nowhere near as good as most of the women.

Did a bit of reading (The Women's Room, Natasha Walter, Melissa Benn, Greer - not v. much). Then Mumsnet and Dittany.

HerBeatitude - Yes, "The Women's Room" is an influential work for so many women. I read it too and it certainly got me thinking and questioning.

Another of Marilyn French's books "The War Against Women" was a major influence on me when I was starting along the road to feminist enlightenment. I recommend both books.

"at university, seeing how thick the boys were and yet they still had the temerity to hog the discussions with their commonplace observations"

And "I KNOW!"

God, debates were a joke. And they wonder why more women don't get involved in politics: having to listen to more self-inflated tossbags opining about their oh-so-well-thought-out views (not) - enough of that in their day-to-day lives perhaps?