Yes, absolutely. That said I think there are many problems within the feminist movement as far as inclusion of issues that affect a wide variety of women and also with generalizations both within the movement itself and by the general public.
I also don't know. Do I agree that a woman doing the exact same job as a man deserves the same pay? yes of course. Do I think women should have all the educational and professional opportunities presented to them that men do? Yes.
Does it bother me when a man holds a door open for me or lets me out of the elevator first? no.
Do I think my son should not hit a girl, and do I plan to let him know that hitting a girl is wrong? Yes I do.
Do I plan to have my daughter help with chores and not put such a burden on my son? no, of course not.
Men and women are not the same and never will be. I don't believe the same rules should always apply. We are different, physically, emotionally, mentally.
I guess I would say yes I am a feminist, but I'm truly not 100% sure. I don't know what it means to be a feminist. It keeps changing and becoming more strict and complex and sometimes I feel like I can't keep up and I find it hard to form an opinion, or I can't muster the outrage at some things that are apparently "anti feminist"
I honestly don't know. It's become such a loaded word, and I don't want to be lumped in with things I don't agree with or support. But at the end of the day, I don't really care how other people want to classify me.
I want my daughters, and women everywhere, to have choices. To have opportunities to accomplish their goals. Call that what you want.
I agree with you, but the fact that it is a loaded word proves exactly how important it is. Why should expecting and desiring equality for girls and women be viewed in anything but a positive light?
For example. Hardly any of you ladies commented or even acknowledged the "twice as good thread" some of the women who did loosely equated it with being poor or female.
So I read the post this morning (because work sucked yesterday) and the whole time I was saddened and TBH embarrassed by the system. But please don't think that just because people don't reply to posts that means that we aren't reading them and agreeing with them. I just don't know what else to say that hasn't already been said by either the post itself or the previous posters.
On the topic, the older I get, the more I consider myself a feminist and the more aware I have become of how much sexism pervades our society.
you said it.. had dinner out with old college friends - one has turned 50 - we are all turning 50 next year- asked her what she liked about it
She basically said she no longer gives any fucks what people think. Which is interestingly a very positive aspect IMHO of a healthy emotional maturity (and what a lot of men grow up learning naturally - I realize there are MANY exceptions and they have other unique sexist pressures as men)
I am glad she made it there, but it's sad as hell that her life is likely more than half over before that happened.
I honestly don't know. It's become such a loaded word, and I don't want to be lumped in with things I don't agree with or support. But at the end of the day, I don't really care how other people want to classify me.
I want my daughters, and women everywhere, to have choices. To have opportunities to accomplish their goals. Call that what you want.
I agree with you, but the fact that it is a loaded word proves exactly how important it is. Why should expecting and desiring equality for girls and women be viewed in anything but a positive light?
What I mean by loaded word is that it doesn't have one specific meaning. For some, it's anti SAHM. For some, it's equality for all. As we saw from the previous post, it can mean chivalry=oppression. And I'm not here for all of that. Only one of those statements fit me, hence my hesitation to use the label.
you said it.. had dinner out with old college friends - one has turned 50 - we are all turning 50 next year- asked her what she liked about it
She basically said she no longer gives any fucks what people think. Which is interestingly a very positive aspect IMHO of a healthy emotional maturity (and what a lot of men grow up learning naturally - I realize there are MANY exceptions and they have other unique sexist pressures as men)
I am glad she made it there, but it's sad as hell that her life is likely more than half over before that happened.
But is that strictly a female thing? I don't think so. I think that's an adult thing. The older we get, the more we know ourselves, and stop putting up with bullshit. Stop hanging out with people we don't like. Cull our friends down to the people that really matter. Become more confident in our abilities.
Post by secretlyevil on Oct 15, 2015 8:47:57 GMT -5
As long as I can remember I have thought of myself as a feminist. It wasn't until this board that I saw feminism meant different things to different people and that others might look at how OP described, just for white women. I have never thought that I was fighting for just women who look like me. I was fighting for all women. I look back and see I was incredibly naive when I was younger. Women of different races all prioritize issues differently and that's fine. At the end of the day, I don't want people to be treated differently because of their gender, skin color, gender-identification or sexual orientation. I just feel a little bit stronger about men trying to tell me or any woman what we can or cannot do.
I don't give a fuck what other people think feminism is or what the "right" way to be a feminist is. I consider myself a feminist and if people think some of my positions/beliefs or life choices aren't feminist, they can take a flying leap. I decided I was tired of people defining something by their own metric and telling me that I'm not a feminist. Who made them the final arbiter of that? Fuck off.
ETA: People shouldn't be treat differently because of anything that differentiates them from others.
I feel like black feminism of necessity is different from white feminism.
White feminists have shown that they aren't here for us. Why should we stand with them?
In general, I agree with you. I do think there are overall matters that overlap. I can see why you would feel abandoned by mainstream feminism, though.
I don't think identifying first with your black community and trying to work and advocate there to make things better automatically disqualifies you as a feminist (although, you identify how you identify and I'm not here to tell anyone how they should identify). I think there are some feminists out there that work and advocate for those overlap matters, white women, too. Again, though, I realize that is not part of where mainstream feminism has put their focus.
I think you can be black and be feminist and still advocate for and identify more with your black community. You don't have to be in the trenches of the war to consider yourself, or be considered a feminist.
I realize that I am a white woman saying these things and this could be my privilege talking. Again, I am not here to say how people should identify.
Am I even making sense? I have not had enough coffee this morning.
"Not gonna lie; I kind of keep expecting you to post one day that you threw down on someone who clearly had no idea that today was NOT THEIR DAY." ~dontcallmeshirley
I honestly can't think of a single woman on this board who is not a feminist whether you identify as one or not. AW has chosen how to wear her hair. She has chosen what religion she wants to follow. She has chosen how to raise her children. Sure, her husband probably had input too, but I don't doubt that if she didn't want something to happen, it would not happen.
That, to me, is feminism. Holding the power to have autonomy over your own choices.
Now I'll wait for someone to tell me that I'm wrong.
On the topic, the older I get, the more I consider myself a feminist and the more aware I have become of how much sexism pervades our society.
YES! However, at the same time, it has made me more aware, in large part because of the women here, that racism pervades our society, probably even more.
"Not gonna lie; I kind of keep expecting you to post one day that you threw down on someone who clearly had no idea that today was NOT THEIR DAY." ~dontcallmeshirley
For example. Hardly any of you ladies commented or even acknowledged the "twice as good thread" some of the women who did loosely equated it with being poor or female.
You're probably referring to me, and I absolutely apologize if my poor choice of words led you to believe that I was trying to equate the two. I was trying (rather inarticulately) to point out that it was surprising for me to learn later in life that it had been co-opted and where it originally came from, since my initial exposure to the "twice as good" speech was in reference to being a girl.
you said it.. had dinner out with old college friends - one has turned 50 - we are all turning 50 next year- asked her what she liked about it
She basically said she no longer gives any fucks what people think. Which is interestingly a very positive aspect IMHO of a healthy emotional maturity (and what a lot of men grow up learning naturally - I realize there are MANY exceptions and they have other unique sexist pressures as men)
I am glad she made it there, but it's sad as hell that her life is likely more than half over before that happened.
you are so right.. so so right. I see this with my 4 older sisters a lot. It is so hard for some of them to understand life is too damn short to live it by someone else's terms.
I should clarify that my beliefs coincide with the "I realized yesterday that, no matter how much folks here talk to me about feminism etc., I do not and will not ever feel vested in that movement. It isn't for me, despite the core issue supposedly being equality between men and women." part of 1234FIF!!'s.
In addition to that, I also think men and women are biologically and psychologically different. I like when I am treated with chivalry, and it's a quality I look for in men. I also (and this is the part that is going to get me flamed) don't agree with the extended, paid maternity leaves.
Really?
I'm not even going to go there with the extended, paid maternity leaves. I can't address the simpleness of it all.
So you can't understand why some of us think that extended, paid, maternity leave could actually be harmful to women's careers? How if a company has 2 candidates, one male and one female, and they know one isn't going to leave for a year and still get paid, they're going to go with the male candidate?
Yes. I believe that women everywhere are deserving of equal respect and positive treatment and to me those are the core principles of feminism.
The feminist movement has problems. Inclusion is plainly one of them. But that doesn't cause me not to want to label myself a feminist. Basically, I have a philosophy of "change from within."
Post by lyssbobiss, Command, B613 on Oct 15, 2015 8:59:35 GMT -5
Yes, I have even at my most conservative, even during my most religious phases. The fact that people have loaded it culturally as a negative thing infuriates me, as though I should somehow be ashamed of the fact that I call bullshit on how we are treated. I loathe that people can just condescend to me by calling me sweetheart and honey, and I'm supposed to keep sweet and keep covered up and adhere to some expectation of quitting my job to deal with kids or if I keep my job, be the only one to take off work for doctors appointments, all the while making less than men and being given fewer opportunities than men. Fuck that. I eschew all of this. Society puts this shit on me and I'm the one who should be ashamed? Check your values, yo. I disdain this the way I disdain being called a liberal like its a bad word. It isn't. And fuck the "compassionate conservatives" who spit those words at me as though they are somehow wrong.
"This prick is asking for someone here to bring him to task Somebody give me some dirt on this vacuous mass so we can at last unmask him I'll pull the trigger on it, someone load the gun and cock it While we were all watching, he got Washington in his pocket."
I don't think that a company can determine, from an interview that a candidate plans on taking an extended leave. I don't want to be so simplistic but if most other countries can figure it out, why can't we?
I think on paper they've figured it out. In reality, do we know what those impacts really are? (I'm asking a real question, I don't know.)
The thing is, I don't truly care whether other people think I'm a feminist or not because I SAHM. However, what irritates me is the disingeniousness some people display about it. Not necessarily on here but in general. The innocent wondering of why so many people refuse to align themselves with such a natural, sensible cause. Well, you can't intentionally exclude people or their issues and then wonder why they're not jumping on your bandwagon and proudly wearing your label. It doesn't work like that. You see this kind of thing a lot on sites like Jezebel.
They are the vocal minority. MOST of the feminist movement are not all "SAHM are bad for women!!!!" MOST feminists believe women should have the CHOICE. I think if you WANT to stay home, DO IT! If you stay at home because that's what everyone in your family did, maybe let's sit down and talk. Make sure that's what YOU want.
It's why I AM so vocal about being a feminist. I want people to see that not every feminist is like a Jezebel commenter. Not every feminist is going to punch a dude for holding a door. There are more feminists like ME, than that, but they don't want the label because it's tainted. Let's take the label back! It's about equality. It's about inclusion. It's about CHOICE!
I agree, but I'm also not sure all leaders of the Amercan feminist movement are really on the same page as me here...
Sometimes I think I spend too little time in the U.S. and it keeps me from really understanding some things about this country. I mean I talk about feminism all the time with female colleagues in Ethiopia or Mozambique, but the issues we're talking about seem to be from another planet--they feel that as white collar, university educated women in their countries they basically won the feminism lottery and need to help the 99% of women who never had anywhere near the opportunity to make it there. Feminism in most of the world isn't about helping relatively privileged women in white collar jobs--but in the U.S. it sometimes seems like the driving focus is improving things for that subset of women. Like, yeah I want equal pay, but I'm more concerned about the woman picking tomatoes in Florida who is kept locked in a work camp and paid by the bushel.
I don't think I'm making any sense. I need more coffee.
I guess I see those issues as more basic human rights issues as opposed to specifically women's issues. Nobody, male or female, should be subjected to slave labor and I never really associated that with feminism. For feminism outside of the US, I tend to think of issues like access to education, access to the workforce, suffrage, etc.
Post by orriskitten on Oct 15, 2015 9:11:13 GMT -5
I don't identify as a feminist. I'm sure some of my actions/thoughts would align with the feminist movement, but I feel like it has to be foremost in your life's mission to be identifiable as such. Yes, equality is important, but my being a female is not the only struggle I face, nor is it the one many of my friends face.
I try to identify and live as an ally. From my experience, everyone faces a situation in which they are "lesser than," and the way I think these gaps will be bridged is by forming allies who are "more than." It can be from the standard feminist disparity of a woman is less than a man, but on more basic levels, too. I did a lot of work revolving around this idea in high school, where younger people were the "less than" and needed to empower themselves to find a "more than" for themselves. Finding a way to be empowered allowed for greater empathy in forming allies. A "more than" could be as simple as being better at math than a classmate and working to be an ally to a struggling classmate.
Because of thinking of things in terms of forging allies for so long, I have a hard time of identifying as a feminist. It is too narrow and isn't where I feel like I fit all the time.
This is more rambling than I intended so the TL;DR bit: I don't like the strictness of feminism and feel like it has to be your ONLY cause to fit the mainstream model of it, from what I've been exposed to.
Yes, I do. For me, it's not about the holding the door or being chivalrous crap, though. I honestly don't give a damn about that stuff either way. If someone, male or female, holds a door for me, I walk through it without a second thought. I hold the door for others, again, male or female. If I see a guy not holding a door for a woman, I think he's a douche. Not because it's a woman, but because I think anyone who doesn't hold the door for any other PERSON is a douche. Nobody is keeping me in my place or putting me on a pedestal by acting with common courtesy towards me. They are conforming with, what should be, societal norms, IMO.
It's important to me that my home life be on equal footing with my partner. I'll admit to focusing on the anecdotes and stereotyping, but I've never encountered a man that focuses on typical chivalrous things that also is willing to share equally in tasks that typically fall to a female. My POV is honestly that I don't need help opening my own car door, but I do need help keeping the house clean. And that's way more important.
This is the literal definition of feminism: "the advocacy of women's rights on the grounds of political, social, and economic equality to men." That's it. The definition does not say anti-SAHM. The definition does not say anti-men. Those who use the word do not get to choose it's definition. You can have different understandings on how to advocate, or what equality looks like, but you don't get to tell me that feminism means anything other than it's literal definition. I advocate for women's rights. I am a feminist.
So you can't understand why some of us think that extended, paid, maternity leave could actually be harmful to women's careers? How if a company has 2 candidates, one male and one female, and they know one isn't going to leave for a year and still get paid, they're going to go with the male candidate?
So you think that is ok for them to choose a male candidate because a woman might take an extended leave? And who decided it had to be a year? Hell, most women can barely get 6-12 weeks paid without having to deplete their personal and sick leave banks.
I don't think that a company can determine, from an interview that a candidate plans on taking an extended leave. I don't want to be so simplistic but if most other countries can figure it out, why can't we?
Nope, I don't think it's ok. Nowhere did I say that. But I do think it happens, and I don't think you can regulate it out of existence.
Post by orriskitten on Oct 15, 2015 9:15:30 GMT -5
To the not choosing a woman because she may take extended leave, can we then apply that to sickly looking people? I mean, if a guy is looking gaunt and unhealthy, maybe something is wrong and he shouldn't get the job.
That is a slippery slope and total BS in terms of hiring practices.
As for the impact in countries that have extended leave, well, take a look at the countries rated happiest in the world and their maternity/paternity leave policies.
Post by laurenpetro on Oct 15, 2015 9:18:17 GMT -5
i do identify as a feminist but i don't think there's anything wrong with identifying as the part of you that is most maligned by society. i'm sure it's unity horse here that being a woman is easier than being black and that the rights of black people need more work than the whites of women to bring them up to equal standing.
but yes, i do identify as a feminist and i hope my children will as well.
This isn't totally fair though. Threads get buried all the time depending on the hot thread of the moment. I saw it, but never got around to it because I am in and out and sometimes get distracted by shiny things. I'm happy to read it later today.
I don't know I've noticed it with other threads outside of BLM and police and black folks. It seems to me that a lot of threads that are about just trying to navigate institutionalize racism are the ones that get buried or only black women comment on them.
It's great if you are there to read and earn but the silence makes it feel lonely. It's ok to post that you'd never realized something happened or even just wow that is hard. But silence feels like the only people who care about these issues is us.
If you're in it with us you have to say so because I can't see you nodding behind your screen.
i always feel like when i post that it comes off as condescending. if that's not the case then thank you for saying so. i'll change my hesitation to post in the future.
I agree with you, but the fact that it is a loaded word proves exactly how important it is. Why should expecting and desiring equality for girls and women be viewed in anything but a positive light?
What I mean by loaded word is that it doesn't have one specific meaning. For some, it's anti SAHM. For some, it's equality for all. As we saw from the previous post, it can mean chivalry=oppression. And I'm not here for all of that. Only one of those statements fit me, hence my hesitation to use the label.
Yes, I know what you meant. People have distorted and misinterpreted the meaning and that's exactly my point.
I am glad she made it there, but it's sad as hell that her life is likely more than half over before that happened.
But is that strictly a female thing? I don't think so. I think that's an adult thing. The older we get, the more we know ourselves, and stop putting up with bullshit. Stop hanging out with people we don't like. Cull our friends down to the people that really matter. Become more confident in our abilities.
No, and I didn't say that it was. Just that it was sad.
I feel like black feminism of necessity is different from white feminism.
White feminists have shown that they aren't here for us. Why should we stand with them?
In general, I agree with you. I do think there are overall matters that overlap. I can see why you would feel abandoned by mainstream feminism, though.
I don't think identifying first with your black community and trying to work and advocate there to make things better automatically disqualifies you as a feminist (although, you identify how you identify and I'm not here to tell anyone how they should identify). I think there are some feminists out there that work and advocate for those overlap matters, white women, too. Again, though, I realize that is not part of where mainstream feminism has put their focus.
I think you can be black and be feminist and still advocate for and identify more with your black community. You don't have to be in the trenches of the war to consider yourself, or be considered a feminist.
I realize that I am a white woman saying these things and this could be my privilege talking. Again, I am not here to say how people should identify.
Am I even making sense? I have not had enough coffee this morning.
Lol I think you should get the coffee because you're responding to her as if she said she wasn't a feminist or that she wasn't in the trenches and those things were never said. They may not be the trenches that white feminists want her in, but that doesn't make her any less a feminist. Different, not less than.
I honestly can't think of a single woman on this board who is not a feminist whether you identify as one or not. AW has chosen how to wear her hair. She has chosen what religion she wants to follow. She has chosen how to raise her children. Sure, her husband probably had input too, but I don't doubt that if she didn't want something to happen, it would not happen.
That, to me, is feminism. Holding the power to have autonomy over your own choices.
Now I'll wait for someone to tell me that I'm wrong.
Yes, but the problem lies in other women telling me I am wrong for making those choices. Someone in a thread yesterday told me my thinking was flawed. Feminists don't get to tell me how I should view gender or chivalry or submission or reproductive issues. I am a woman, too.