saturnR wrote:

silverblaze wrote:

If feminism simply means that you believe that men and women should have equal rights then of course I'm a feminist. But to the actual schools of feminism, I agree with some more than others. 

That's quite a distinction there. I know that feminism can sometimes cause reverse prejudice among girls where some feminists find it hard believe that some women may not want some of the things promoted by feminism. Sometimes when given a choice, a woman may not want a career which can often delay the start of family life or they might choose not to go to university.

I think the distinction here is the circumstances behind that choice.  If it's what the woman wants, no one can say otherwise but if she makes those choices due to pressure from culture or society (usually pressure from other women to be honest) then it's not really a free choice that she's making and it's something that needs to be addressed.

I find that no one can be harder on women than other women. Some of the stereotypes that women have been fighting against are being propogated by other women (not by men) so it's not just sexism or male dominance that feminism needs to be fighting, it's female culture that can sometimes promote unhealthy self esteem, especially in young women.

 

Exactly.  Like being a victim, or wanting a guy to take care of you, or pressure to look a certain way from other females you see?  I certainly know that my self-esteem with how I looked as a teen had more to do with fitting in with the other girls, and not whether a guy would find me cute.  I know what Silver means too, if views are similar.  Not really on board with the 'us versus them' gender attitude, for one example… it's an equality thing for all of us.

A true Feminist does not hate men.  That's a whole other issue.

I am a Feminist.  I believe that woman should receive the same pay as men when doing the same jobs.  I believe that a woman's body and health choices are no one's business but her own.

I believe that a women (and men) should be judged on their actions, knowledge and opinions, not their LOOKS!

I believe that no victim of rape or sexual assault in the history of human kind has ever ASKED FOR IT.

I believe that one of the most important things in a woman's life is choice.  She should have the choice to work, go to school, get married,  have kids, not get married, not have kids, wear makeup or don't, basically do what ever the hell she wants with her life without being judge as less of a person no matter what she chooses.

Ok.  Down off the soapbox now.  Getting a little light headed up here. 

tonnaree wrote:

What parts of Feminism do you not agree with?

Depends on the school and the paradigm. I'm talking about the academic discipline, rather than the colloquial sense of the word, the things you just listed I agree with, bit of a no brainer. Obviously the field is very diverse with many different opinions. As in every discipline, people are constantly disagreeing. 

To be honest, I'm not an expert on academic feminism, but I had to read some articles, most of them from the field of sociology and I can't say I was immensely impressed. I can't really remember the details but I remember one author taking emergent social phenomena and (without any arguments) assumed an agency behind it, like the Patriarchy or whatnot. That's just lazy thinking.

Another thing that some scholars do is taking a position on the nature versus nurture debate, without actually knowing anything about the debate. As you might expect, these so called experts err on the side of nurture, a position that was very fashionable in the sixties, again, usually without much arguments. It seems that they haven't given it much thought at all, they just believe it because it feels good, but in reality it's very outdated. My background is in psychology and neuroscience and from my perspective, the idea that everything is nurture just seems bizarre. 

So my objections are more on an academic level, and only at a subset of feminists. Not really about what you talk about in the everyday conversation. Though if you like to talk about the body mind problem, trait versus token identity, Descartes error and the Turing test, no problem at all. 

Happy to be your agent!

silverblaze wrote:

My background is in psychology and neuroscience and from my perspective, the idea that everything is nurture just seems bizarre.

If feminism was an individual trait then you would be correct but it is more of an attitude and a collective attitude at that so nurture (especially culture, which is a bloody curse but inescapable as a mammalian trait) does play a big part in it.

It depends on what kind of differences you're talking about. Guys and girls are different. It affects our dietary choices and activity choices because we have different stamina.

Other things like colour preferences and toy preferences are completely arbitrary. If you offer a toy car or a toy barbie to a baby girl, there's no reason why she should go for the toy barbie and not the toy car. Same as if you put a pink or blue baby blanket in front of a male infant, he is more likely to choose the blanket based on touch than on colour but parents will get very worried if he chooses the pink blanket.

It's these kinds of perceived differences which affect the paths that children can take which later affects them as adults that we sometimes point the finger at nurture for.

Last edited by saturnR (October 8, 2014 9:11 pm)

That's so true, Schmiezi.   I like to think that the blue and pink colours for boys and girls are just to make it easier for people to use pronouns (because it really is difficult to tell the sex of a clothed baby).   But people do treat boys and girls differently (and it's the first thing people want to know about a newborn baby!).  I wonder if it makes any difference now that people often know the sex of the baby before it's born - do treat it differently even in the womb?  I tried to bring my son up in a mostly gender neutral way, but obviously I always thought of him as a boy and I've no idea how much that affected how I brought him up, without me knowing it. 

besleybean wrote:

Something I was always hyper aware of and an issue I feel strongly about.
Just dress kids in practical clothes and let them be and do what they want.
Dresses and pink and ribbons for girls...just drives me nuts.

Me too.. when I see them struggle to climb with their dresses on the playground..

On the other hand my friend has twin girls (age 4) who just luuuurve to dress up, paint their nails and wear a different elaborate hairstyle every day.. then why not. (My girl is quite the contrary..)

For people interested in the nature-part of the story I can recommend two books I just finished: "The female brain" and "The male brain" by Louann Brizendine. From the amazon book description:

"Neuropsychiatrist Brizendine acknowledges she may be going out on a lonely limb by asserting that males and females have distinctly different brains. She says that, in addition to certain hard-wired dissimilarities, male and female brain chemistries differ in being powered by hormones so potent they can reshape each gender's conception of reality (which in no way is related to ability). Thanks to advances in noninvasive imaging technology, such as positron-emission tomography (PET) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans, scientists have been able to quantify the effects of hormones on brain receptors. They have also been able to study how and when surges of specific hormones "marinate" the brain, affecting everything from gender education to sexual responsiveness to aggression. Brizendine doesn't rule out socialization as a factor in gender identification, but she insists that biology must take at least half the credit. What with nearly 70 pages of references to the research upon which she constructs her argument, out on a limb Brizendine may be, but who's left to hand her a saw?"  

Last edited by Zatoichi (October 9, 2014 7:09 am)

besleybean wrote:

I think I am hyper-sensitive wirh working in a primary school.
I fail to see why it's socially acceptable for little girls to be in dresses, skirts, pinafores that show their knickers,
Get a pair of leggings or footless tights on them at least.

 
Something that really gets my dander up.  Many many high schools in America have started banning leggings!  Along with tank tops and shorts on girls.  Their best answer when ask why is "it's distracting."  DISTRACTING?  To who? 
You know who.  Well I'm sorry.  Why should girls be punished for how they dress because some hormonal teenage boy is distracted by their bare shoulders??????  And what does this teach girls?  In some ways it tells girls that they are really not in control of their own bodies.  While at the same time implying that they must police their bodies at all times to make sure it's not causeing any trouble to any males that may be around it.

This my fiends is messed up.

Schmiezi wrote:

At that point I must admit that my school has very strict rules about pupils' clothes. Shorts that are too shorts are banned just as tank tops that show more of the bra than they hide. BUT for boys there are equal rules, for example they are not allowed to show up in a vest (undershirt) or with jeans that hang so low that everybody knows the colour of your pants.

The reason is not that someone would get distracted, but because we want to teach our pupils that for different parts of your life there are different dress codes.

When they complain I usually tell them that we teachers also dress differently in school and at home.
 

 
Agreed.
Sadly, a lot of schools do not enforce equal rules for boys.

And I honestly don't understand the problem with leggings.  I could live in leggings.  As long as you're wearing a top that comes down below your bottom leggings should be fine.