I have many conflicting reactions to this post. The most negative involves refuting “bra burning,” a practice which I’m under good authority to say never existed; the most positive is restricted to the last sentence. The rest of the reactions I have run the gamut.
If that were the actual operative definition in play in the general culture when one said the word “feminist” I’d have no quarrel with it, nor would (I suspect) most others here. But it bears little resemblence to the face of feminism I (and more importantly my wife) have encountered out there in the world (especially the collegiate world).
Your experience of feminism is narrow. I accurately summed up its core purpose and cause. Feminism seeks freedom and equality for women (put even more broadly).
The bra burning occurred. I watched it on the six o’ clock news. My mother asked me at the time, “What do these women want?”
Would you mind explaining the freedom aspect? Freedom from what or to do or be what?
Yeah, well Marxism sounds pretty good in classroom instruction too!
In actual application, however, not so nice. So far, It appears to me that a similar disconnect inevitably occurs between classroom explanation and real life application of feminism. Marxism cannot achieve its goals because it fails to account for fallen human nature (selfishness and greed). I assert that feminism will likewise fail to achieve its goals as long as it continues to pretend that mean and women are functionally the same (which is rather different than being of equal dignity and worth). And there are an increasing number of women out there who’ve achieved their career dreams, hit menopause and recognized that what they’ve devoted their lives to was straw compared to what they gave up to get it. (a rather familiar pain to many men as well, I’m afraid. Welcome to our world 
).I can’t figure out what you mean here. You discuss men and women being functionally different and then mention women who are unhappy with their career. I want to think you are connecting those concepts, perhaps by saying that this different functionality from men makes women (and not men) unlikely to be happy with a career. But then you say men are not happy with careers either.Yeah, well Marxism sounds pretty good in classroom instruction too!
You are being vague and not summing up mainstream feminism appropriately. No one claims, simply, that “men and women are funtionally the same.” That is a vague overstatement of what is said (which I provided more specific detail in describing. Again, feminism seeks equality and freedom.Yeah, well Marxism sounds pretty good in classroom instruction too!
So what? Why are you leaving the specific regrets of men off this list? And who claims that feminism is AGAINST raising children? It IS NOT. Feminism, in only one small area, is about the cultural, legal, and personal freedom to be free to choose to bear and raise children or not without unwarranted social strictures or consequences. Feminism is not an attempt to be free from regret, but rather to be more free to make the choice whether regret results or not. It is about the* freedom of the choice.*And there are an increasing number of women out there who’ve achieved their career dreams, hit menopause and recognized that what they’ve devoted their lives to was straw compared to what they gave up to get it. (a rather familiar pain to many men as well, I’m afraid. Welcome to our world
Very good, very clear. Very true, too:Well, I was just thinking…that feminism evolved because of pre-existing problems within society… So, can you blame feminism, when it was responding to already present social injustices? No. Because if everything had been ideal in the first place, there would have been no need for feminism to arise!
Now, that’s not to say feminism was perfect or doesn’t have any flaws…no, that’s not what I’m saying at all. However, to blame feminism for all the “ills” of society is rather short-sighted…for if you looked further back in time, you could blame society as it existed before feminism as the problem. There have and always will be change…and some things change for the better…and some for the worse. …]
One thing is certain, the last 100 years have seen immense changes among social structures…but I would argue that’s not due to feminism, but rather the industrial revolution and the advent of technology. But I won’t derail this thread any further.
I think there’s a profound truth in this, whether you intended it or not. Despite our subjective opinions when we impose a new universal standard, any new universal standard must be objectively worse for someone. Natural development in the Tao is not a “new” Tao, and anything which claims to uproot the new Tao does it admirably, but leaves only a grossly distorted stick out of the ground rather than a fruitiful tree.
Agreed. I would add, modestly, that what I’ve said does not at all conflict with what this poster said. In fact, I fit quite snugly in the point where the poster notes that there have been flaws; I list one such flaw.
Which year? I’m trying to figure out if it was inspired by previous news reports or was the Ur-report. Was it 1968 at the Miss America Pageant?
Feminism does not “prescribe away fertility”–which, by the way, is just as “male” as it is “female”.Agreed. I would add, modestly, that what I’ve said does not at all conflict with what this poster said. In fact, I fit quite snugly in the point where the poster notes that there have been flaws; I list one such flaw.
There is a lot which is laudable about feminism, but what cannot be laudable is when anyone prescribes away a uniquely female fertility in the name of feminism.
Read it again: I specify the uniquely female fertility insofar as I condemn the aspect of feminism which denies that. That is to say: Bearing children. How is this male?
Contraception and the pill pre-dated 2nd Wave Feminism and is/was a feature of the life of many non-feminist and even anti-feminist women. It would be a feature of women’s lives whether 2nd Wave Feminism had happened or not.
Quite right. Women are so privileged to have men to teach them about everything.feminism predates 1961, and is about much more than reproduction. A PART of feminist theory is reproductive control. Even NFP is a form of reproductive control. Most sexual behavior on this planet is non-fertile. Always has been. Always will be. You seem to be over-focusing on just one aspect of feminist theory and holding it to an extreme standard (total infertility) that it does not actually promulgate. Feminism is against neither fertility nor children.
Both men and women cause children to come into being as a result of sex. This part is not unique to women. I think many people who practice contraception or periodic abstinence for the purpose of not having children are interested in this aspect, which both share.
I hoped to mean that by “bearing.” I do agree with you.
I’m glad it looks that way, because that’s the only part of feminist theory I address, and the only part I believe has intrinsic fault.
According to New York Magazine, an effect of the pill is to forget about conception as an end of sex. Women who later want kids have to re-learn how to have kids.
For the first decade of the pill, it was hotly debated and hard to come by. In fact, in the first few years of debate, it was commonly assumed that the pill would be used only within married life to control when kids came along within a marriage. Also objectionable, I think, but for a very different reason out of the scope of a thread about feminism.
I don’t see the unitive aspect of loving sex between spouses as “piggish.” NFP touts itself as effective as ABC in regulating pregnancy. I’d be careful how you sling that pejorative term around. If you are going to call all women whores or pigs who at one time or another have used (either themselves or allowed their partner to use) use birth control, you will be slandering most of the women of modern history. And I find that a curious need on your part to do so.I hoped to mean that by “bearing.” I do agree with you.
I’m glad it looks that way, because that’s the only part of feminist theory I address, and the only part I believe has intrinsic fault.
To the extent that feminism promulgates “the pill” and contraception as an equalizer is as far as I oppose it. Whenever feminism does not promulgate either, I do not oppose it. (At least, knowing what I know now.)
According to New York Magazine, an effect of the pill is to forget about conception as an end of sex. Women who later want kids have to re-learn how to have kids.
Suddenly, one anxiety—Am I pregnant?—is replaced by another: Can I get pregnant? The days of gobbling down the Pill and running out to CVS at 3 a.m. for a pregnancy test recede in the distance, replaced by a new set of obsessions. The Pill didn’t create the field of infertility medicine, but it turned it into an enormous industry. Inadvertently, indirectly, infertility has become the Pill’s primary side effect.
If it changes your reaction, note that the article itself is ludicrously pro-contraception.
For the first decade of the pill, it was hotly debated and hard to come by. In fact, in the first few years of debate, it was commonly assumed that the pill would be used only within married life to control when kids came along within a marriage. Also objectionable, I think, but for a very different reason out of the scope of a thread about feminism.
When second wave feminism hit some years later, the debate changed drastically. The pill was usurped as a practical counter to male sexual piggishness of the sixties — “free love” being a public realization of the secret charades of the Victorians — but it did not change male sexual piggishness. “The Pill” was the great equalizer.
Unequivocally. Now we have female sexual piggishness.
Well said. You have set out succintly what feminism is about.
Thanks. Although I did work on the phrasing in order to cover as much as I could, I thought that I was stating the obvious. It irks me no end when I see feminism being portrayed narrowly with a sullen prejudice that only makes clearer the need for more work for their cause.