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I would also like to point out that feminism has been pretty darn great for a lot of the men in my life. Case in point is one of my male relatives. He's a working class guy with a good trade career and wouldn't think of himself as a feminist. He married a lovely woman from a much higher socioeconomic bracket and a higher level of education - no one thinks she married down because she has her own successful career and doesn't need to be supported by any guy. He makes more than her now, but when they paired up he had no real prospects and she certainly wasn't looking for someone to provide her with a lifestyle. They split the parenting equally (in fact, he was more experienced caring for children because he had younger siblings), and the children don't see either parent as the nurturer or the disciplinarian exclusively. Both have warm and loving relationships with their children that are based on respect, rather than devolving into that poisonous "wait til your father gets home" dynamic.
She's no damsel in distress and he's no knight in shining armor - they are both protective of each other and they see each other as equal partners. Their children are thriving - some of the happiest and most well-behaved children I have ever encountered. I see their relationship as one that could not have happened without feminism.
I don't think it has been a failure as quite a bit of good has come from basic feminist principles. I think where feminism went wrong is in trying to fight nature. By this I mean things like claiming gender is a social construct and ostracizing of women that choose to forgo the workplace for the traditional mother/homemaker role. It was wrong when society told women they couldn't participate in life outside the home, but it is also wrong to tell women that they should disregard their natural instincts.
I'm sure this will be taken as sexist, but most women I know seem really torn by work and homelife. Men don't really seem to face this nearly as much. Maybe men are better at compartmentalizing or maybe society just expects less of men as far as child care is concerned. All I know is the men I work with typically spend MUCH less time thinking about their wives and kids then the women, many of whom seem to be constantly preoccupied with home/kids at the expense of work. This isn't a criticism of women by any means. I think the problem is that we have told women they can "have it all" (professional like and motherhood) but I have to wonder if many working women wouldn't rather just be stay-at-home moms.
Society not only told women they couldn't participate equally in life outside the home society enforced those constraints. I just don't see where society tells women they shouldn't be homemakers, wives and mothers. I think society as a whole, taking the radicals out of the equation, educates and encourages girls and young women to be all they can be and lets them know they don't have to limit themselves to be homemakers, wives and mothers. I grew up in the 60-70's second wave feminism when women were just trying on their new liberation. I still remember separate job listings for male and female, I remember some high school classes being off limits to females, I remember hope chests and home economics. Other than "I am woman, hear me roar" and "you can bring home the bacon and fry it up in a pan" I don't remember any feminist agendas suggesting we could have it all. Any one with a shred of common sense knows there are tradeoff when it comes to being a parent.
As far as many women feeling torn between work and home, especially mothers, I agree. Perhaps it is part instinctual to be nurturing and domestic and part that society does still expect those things from women. In the majority of couples I see the parenting and domestic still falls more heavily on the woman although this dynamic is ever changing. I still do not feel this is a failure of feminism at all. Society is still in an adjustment period and the division and of labor and expectations still have some catch up to do.
I have always worked and I raised two kids while married and as a single parent (widowed). As a younger woman I really wanted to complete my education and have a career. This in no way took away from my desire to be a mom. At this point in my life I want nothing more than to stay home and keep house and be there for my grandkids whom I am now raising. I don't know if that's being female, aging or just being human.
I think feminism eliminated many courtesies originally extended by men to women. Due to the actions of some women, all women have to deal with the consequences. I don't know if women gained more or lost more.
I think feminism eliminated many courtesies originally extended by men to women. Due to the actions of some women, all women have to deal with the consequences. I don't know if women gained more or lost more.
courtesies originally extended by men to women that were eliminated were never extended in the first place. many men still do open a door for a woman and the rest of the niceties that go along with being a kind person. BTW many women also hold the door for men and are just as kind. anyone needing an excuse to not be helpful never really was to start with. yes women have gained far more than we have lost.
Under 3% of Nobel laureates in science are women, and no women have so far received one of the top three awards in mathematics. This is at a time when women have surpassed men in in terms of overall college entry.
There are all kinds of other jaw-dropping statistics, but the bottom line is that no one is stopping women from studying math and science, they just aren't as good at it on the highest levels as men.
Right.
It can't possibly be social factors at play. It must be that having a penis makes one better at math, whereas having a vagina is just a mathematical hindrance.
The same goes for the United State Supreme Court, right? 112 Justices - a mere 3 of them female. Must be because people with vaginas are just no good at legal stuff. And they're downright awful at being President - but then, so are non-white people. Right?
Or... maybe... just maybe... there are social - as opposed to gender/racial - factors are play in these instances.
Gee... I wonder which it could possibly be?
Actually, a familiarity with the numbers - and the fact that the gap has been steadily narrowing for decades - should demonstrate to anyone who actually wants to see where the evidence leads that the gap is a social and not a biological phenomenon.
PS - You're absolutely wrong in claiming that no woman has received one of the top three awards in mathematics.
Quote:
It will go down in history as the moment one of the last bastions of male dominance fell. A woman has won the world's most prestigious mathematics prize for the first time since the award was established nearly 80 years ago.
I think there are very few people indeed who feel that there was anything wrong with some of the early gains attributed to feminism - things like women having the right to own property, establish their own credit rating, hold professional careers, that kind of thing.
But women entering the workforce en masse has caused problems in that there are simply not enough hours in the day. The reality is that women still do the lion's share of household chores and childrearing tasks, regardless of how many hours each spouse works. What happens then is you have a woman with a demanding, full-time career plus the full-time job of running a home and caring for young children.
You could argue that husbands need to step up to the plate more - but if Mom works 55 hours a week and Dad works 80, how is he supposed to do that? This transition has also coincided with a movement in parenting where societal pressures tell parents that their kids need constant and direct supervision until they're 16 years old, and that their toddlers need to be shuttled from organized activity to organized activity in order to get ahead. Parenting has gotten more demanding during the same few decades as large numbers of women have begun building careers for themselves, resulting in many women being pulled in two different directions on a daily basis.
These competing demands on a mother's time are why you see this barrage of articles and books on the whole "Can women have it all?" debate. Time is a limited resource.
I think the only failure in any movement is when people lose sight of its point or otherwise turn it into something that isn't what it should be. I don't support most feminist efforts because I consider there to only be one cause worth supporting - equality - and my interest is in equality is for everyone.
It's like the saying and all iterations thereof, repeated on a recent episode of Black Sails, that we're not safe until everyone is safe. We're not equal until everyone is equal.
While some groups are in considerably greater need of uplifting to achieve that balance than others, if you focus too much on that group only, you can easily forget about the needs of humanity as a whole and of those who are suffering inequalities outside of that group and you'll more often than not inadvertently tip the scale to the point where you're discriminating in the opposite direction.
Of course, this is all just my opinion, but the problems I've seen with feminism looking out at my environment have been few, though important...
1) Too many women are feminists for the wrong reasons.
You shouldn't be a feminist because you're gay or because you're resentful of men or because it's trendy. You should be a feminist, if at all, because you're tired of the consequences of being a woman in a markedly patriarchal system and want to do something to improve the lives of women living within that system as a whole.
A part of that means seeking to educate people, with reason, on issues of sexism and the male/female dynamic and how it shapes expectations and judgments and treatment and opportunities in a way that discriminates against women or places women at a disadvantage.
When 90% of the feminists anyone encounters are just a bunch of babbling spinsters who blame their failure at life on men and bitter lesbians who blow everything out of proportion just because a female is involved, it's difficult to see past that to take the movement they supposedly represent seriously.
People who use feminism as an outlet for their own bias or deep-seated issues that have little to do with gender are doing more harm than good. They're turning something significant and progressive into a PMS fest as far as others are concerned and it keeps their message from being heard.
2) Too many women are anti-feminism.
It seems that with every movement, there are those who push against it even though they're the group the movement aspires to help. Hell, there were slaves who clung to the status quo and weren't supportive of their fellow man's efforts to uplift blacks as a whole out of that station - the operative words being as a whole.
The sad fact is that some people would rather their group suffer as a whole just so their life can stay the way it is. Some people are even intent to deny the suffering of their group as a whole just because they're doing okay.
Feminism has been no different. There are women who hate the movement because it rocked their little boat. Women's rights be damned! Ever since you started this crap, guys won't hold the door open for me!
There'll always be someone happy enough with the way things are to reject change failing to realize that with change comes choice. Choice they wouldn't have if not for the women fighting for something more - an existence where we're all more than what's between our legs. Where being female should neither define nor limit us.
It's hard to make the case for that when there are so many women walking around who don't seem to mind because hey, they've got a good life, so who cares about all this male/female stuff, right? It's hard when you have women who joke about gladly giving up the right to work or hold office if it means going back to when things were "simpler" (what?).
It's hard for feminists to be seen as rational, non-vindictive women making valid points when they have women lining up behind them to tear them down. It makes it too easy for men to say that feminists are the oddballs. Otherwise, most women would complain and they don't hear their girlfriends/wives/sisters/mothers/friends b-tching, so it must just be you.
Too many women feel pressured not to be feminists.
Now - for this one, I mean "feminist" in the sense of standing up for yourself as a woman. I don't identify as a feminist. I'm just a person who knows I'm not inferior to men by virtue of being a woman. I don't care enough about that fact to label myself by it or to put any more effort toward it than me knowing I'm not inferior to whites or Christians or any other dominant group, but I do care enough not to cater to it.
Men by and large don't care about "women's issues" and gender equality. They just don't. Not because they're jerks, but because they don't have to. They care enough to think a guy should be put behind bars for assaulting a woman, sure. They care enough to not want their daughter to be used up like a rag or made to feel worthless just because she's a girl, sure.
But not enough to want to listen to you having a moan about "objectification" because he referred to a woman as a hot piece of a$$. Not enough to call you anything other than hypersensitive or paranoid when you try to explain the negative implications of being asked to smile by random men on the street.
Not enough to be anything other than dismissive and say err we got problems too when you point out the disproportionate standards of beauty females are expected to maintain compared to males and how their failure to measure up has a disproportionately adverse affect on their opportunities and their value as human beings.
It's the little things - these symptoms of the patriarchal "disease" - that are significant and paramount to aid in treatment and those are the very things the average guy doesn't want to hear you droning on about.
This leads a lot of women to feel that if they speak up when a guy says something sexist or does something that makes them feel inferior or weak or if they try to assert themselves or excel in a way that a guy may consider threatening to his manhood, they'll be labeled an uptight bore carrying serious baggage in their vagina, which is an emotional drain on a man's happiness and therefore unappealing as a mate.
In short, a lot of women accept male dominance over them for fear of being alone. They let things slide because they care just a bit more about having a boyfriend/husband/family than they do about how women are treated and viewed as a whole and they know that mouthing off all the time will decrease their odds of finding that happy ending.
When a woman's voice is silenced in search of approval from the very system she sought to speak out against, something is wrong.
This puts lesbians at an advantage, making them the best candidates for feminism. They don't give a sh-t if being vocal about their equality and their worth and women's issues makes a man not want them because they don't want men.
I recognize that I'm lucky. I've mostly made it through life with all of my principles intact without it being at the expense of friendships or relationships, but the same can't be said for everyone and I'm sympathetic to that. So I don't fault women who remain silent for the sake of being seen as more "agreeable", when they're afraid it might cost them love and the kind of future they've always wanted for themselves.
Not everyone is lucky enough to meet a guy who isn't the patriarchal system incarnate let alone one who feels as strongly about gender issues as they do (or, at least has a full and proper respect for their concerns).
But it still makes it difficult for the movement because the dominant group is rarely as motivated by morality and ethics as they are by what they stand to lose if they don't change. As long as men as a whole aren't pressed for pu$$y, so to speak, they have little incentive to pay attention to women who have a problem with the way they think and feel.
Where that changes is outside the bedroom. When women are the majority spenders and the majority vote, that's when they have influence over the design. That's when men know they either have to pay attention to what women are saying, how women feel, and adapt or risk losing their place at the head of the table.
So it should be noted, as a little food for thought, that women can't spend if they don't have their own money and women can't vote if they're not allowed. The fight for women's rights addressed the latter, but the former is still up in the air.
I could go on with other items, but I'm bored with this and there's really only one that I think stands out as the umbrella, the reason of all reasons why feminism isn't quite getting there...
Feminism cannot be more successful in a "patriarchy".
We're not just talking about a law or specific aspects of society like how much men and women get paid. We're talking about an entire species governed by a sociological, ideological reality built around the very simple and primitive concept of "male and female" infused with a presumption going all the way back to the tales of Adam and Eve - a presumption older than time itself - that female is second.
If you think you're gonna undo thousands upon thousands of years of that global dynamic by marching up and down the street or flashing your boobs or lobbying or just plain ol' speaking your mind, you're nuts. Our society as it is today is not conducive to that kind of progress.
Is it a failure? I'd say maybe if you limit feminism only to the modern day movement labeled feminist, but if you rightfully extend it to all of the sweeping efforts made toward bringing equality and empowerment to women in this society, it most certainly hasn't failed. It just isn't making the waves I personally think only a fool would have thought it would make in the first place.
But what do I know? I just like to ramble a lot on message boards when I have a free minute.
MODERATOR NOTE: Do NOT quote this post in it's entirety. Quote only the portion you are directly responding to. I will automatically delete any post that fails to do this regardless of what it says.
Obviously there are powerful female CEOs and ruthless leaders, but for the other 99% of women has feminism been a hindrance to happiness?
I'm seeing a number of single-childless-career-minded baby boomer women really terrified in the face of their waning years. They may have one elderly parent left, they may have a niece or nephew that pays attention to them every couple of years and that is about it. The corporation they were dedicated to no longer wants them, they have no family and men ignore them ... so they are kind of stuck in a very lonely purgatory. Meanwhile their peers are celebrating their grandchildren.
We all live by our choices. For every woman you cite, there is a woman who gave up her potential to devote herself to a husband who later divorced her, or to children who never call her. That's just the way life works. Life is a crap shoot.
As for whether or not feminism has been a hindrance to happiness? No, although feminism in the 60s was more about the self aggrandizement of a small group. I would guess that more capable women through the ages were stifled, than suffered from the affects of feminism.
Last edited by Oldhag1; 03-18-2015 at 05:27 AM..
Reason: Removed moderator note
It was still a good movement, because they at least have a choice now. But the "FemiNazis" ARE NOT feminists. They still want to pretend they are. It's sad how people like that stain the name of something that has improved the lives of so many. I JUST WANTED TO POINT OUT THAT FEMINISTS ARE ACTUALLY RATIONAL PEOPLE, AND THAT THERE ARE SOME PEOPLE WHO ARE RADICALS THAT MAKE FEMINISM LOOK BAD. THESE ARE TWO COMPLETELY DIFFERENT GROUPS, WITH DIFFERENT MINDSETS.
Excellent post. People who can't come up with real arguments against any movement that uplifts a group of people frequently try to characterize all of it by the words of a tiny radical minority of its supporters who had little actual influence.
Last edited by Oldhag1; 03-18-2015 at 05:32 AM..
Reason: Removed icon, edited quote
No it means that of all the available jobs in the market you just increased the supply of labor. This decreases the wage that employees must pay. It has nothing to do with your feelings.
NONSENSE. The problem is that too many men refuse to accept that the world has changed and that there are no longer a large supply of well paying jobs for unskilled, barely literate workers. They want the kind of mindless assembly line jobs that their fathers and grandfathers had. Meanwhile, a lot more women apparently recognize the handwriting on the wall and get their butts into classrooms to improve their job skills.
Women outnumber men by 161 million to 156.1, making up 50.8 percent of the population. If men were attending colleges or trade schools at the same rate as women, their numbers would be close to the same. In fact, though, they aren't. In 2012, there were 10 million (56.5%) women enrolled in degree granting post-secondary institutions compared to only 7.7 million men. More women have been attending post secondary institutions than men since 1990, and the gap has widened since 2000. Linky
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