True Feminism

[severus68]

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.

I have found that terms like “feminism” and “feminists” instill fear in many men and sadly, in some women too. Excesses have been have been held out as a banner to denounce feminism as an evil.

 

[severus68]

I have read the posts on this thread with interest and would like to make a few points.

1. The empowerment of women is a good thing and as a Christian, I am obliged to support it.Feminism is about that empowerment, giving an equality which was what Christ taught.
2. I acknowledge the Catholic Church’s position on contraception and I wont go into it. However I have an issue with tying a woman’s femaleness to her fertility. No one ties men to their uniquely male fertility. What about women who can’t have children?
3. One poster has suggested that more and more women have regretted their "feminist’.’ a decision to have a career as it has meant not having children. Interesting, are there statistics on this? What about all the women who have a husband, have children and have a career? Come on. Women too have the right to make choices.
4. Shave your head, burn your bra, what does it matter. Why on earth are such self expressions of any importance in the grand scheme of things?

 

[Kaninchen]

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.

Yet the ‘free love’ era pre-dated 2nd Wave Feminism.

 

[Kaninchen]

1. Shave your head, burn your bra, what does it matter. Why on earth are such self expressions of any importance in the grand scheme of things?

Because it wouldn’t have happened in a ‘Golden Age’ sitcom.

 

[Elijah_Baley]

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.

Not what I’m saying at all. NFP may of course be used in cases where it is not financially acceptable to have another child within a marriage, but it differs fundamentally in being open to life, &c.

Ask a cross-section of 35 year old married woman whether they would rather give up sex with their husbands or risk having another child through unprotected sex when safe and easy contraception is available. See what answer you get from these so-called “pigs.”

Are you around 35 and married? Maybe your reaction makes sense to you from where you’re standing, but it doesn’t for me. I just got out of college; I haven’t seen any friends conspicuously on the pill and married and with several kids already and unable to support any more. I’ve only seen friends conspicuously on the pill and not married, who have frequent liaisons with a variety of men and whose use of the pill is not for the unitive purpose of sex with a committed spouse, but only for unitive purpose of sex with their man of the moment.

This is when sexuality is piggish. I didn’t say piggishness was a universal trait; I said that sexual piggishness results from ready availability from “the pill.”

You say sexual piggishness doesn’t exist. I know you’re wrong, if that is what you say. You say I’m wrong, but because of something I didn’t say.

Why react so angrily?

Yet the ‘free love’ era pre-dated 2nd Wave Feminism.

Yes. I said that earlier, I think. I’m not sure where you’re going with that, so let me lay out the chronology as I remember it.

1. 
   *]The Pill. Hotly debated, hardly available.
   *]Free Love.
   *]Second Wave Feminism, as a reaction to Free Love.
   *]Availability of the pill increases dramatically.
   
   Nos. 3 and 4 may be switched, but they did happen around the same time. I don’t remember which is true: Either No. 3 caused No. 4 — with the increased demand for the “liberating” effect of the pill — or No. 3 took advantage of the already-extant effects of No. 4 and claimed the pill as its own. Either way, some feminists identified the pill as essential, if only temporarily, as a means to achieve greater sexual parity in the workplace.
   
   Really, people, I don’t see how this critique of one aspect of feminism is so controversial. Never have I conflated this issue into being the most important aspect of feminism, or the sole aspect, &c. I have only ever said that this is the only thing which bothers me about any strain of feminism. In fact, I don’t at all disagree with larkin’s definition:
   
   Feminists argue that women (and men) should be free to pursue their interests and livelihoods and behaviors in mostly the same arenas as men, with the same freedom as men, with the same legitimate results as men, in a level playingfield with men, where the biological differences between men and women have an effect not from prejudice or static cultural perceptions of the genders, but rather only as a result of clear empirical difference in performance.
   
   Feminism is a pursuit of equal freedom to become who/what one actually is, and to realize one’s full potential free from genderized cultural inhibitions.
   
   I only disagree with his preamble:
   
   No one denies the biological and morphological differences between males and females. And your summary of “differences” limited to “meaningless plumbing differences” in today’s culture is also an exaggeration of the position of most feminists.
   
   I defy you to read the article I linked earlier without coming to the conclusion that, for prominent feminists who were hardly on the fringe, “the pill” was or became necessary for their particular strains of feminism to succeed. That “the pill” was the only way where any little girl could chart her destiny, because it was the only way to control her fertility.
   
   These ideas were and are very much in the mainstream.

 

[Kaninchen]

Are you around 35 and married? Maybe your reaction makes sense to you from where you’re standing, but it doesn’t for me. I just got out of college; I haven’t seen any friends conspicuously on the pill and married and with several kids already and unable to support any more. I’ve only seen friends conspicuously on the pill and not married, who have frequent liaisons with a variety of men and whose use of the pill is not for the unitive purpose of sex with a committed spouse, but only for unitive purpose of sex with their man of the moment.

Actually, I’m just over 40 and married.

Some of your dating is a bit US-centric, by the way, and there’s a lot of post hoc ergo propter hoc in the whole argument (not just yours). There were a lot more things than feminism going on (and a lot of things I expect you don’t like were things that 2nd Wave Feminists certainly wouldn’t have liked) and you might as well have blamed it all on Rock 'n Roll.

Certainly, the pill was a central factor in creating a situation where a lot of new choices could be made - but so were washing machines, vacuum cleaners etc - and the birth rate had been falling for most of the century before the post-Second World War boom - by the mid-60’s it was back to where it had been in the mid-30’s.

 

[larkin31]

Not what I’m saying at all. NFP may of course be used in cases where it is not financially acceptable to have another child within a marriage, but it differs fundamentally in being open to life, &c.

NFP differs only in the use of an artificial device from ABC. It offers “birth control” to parents.

Are you around 35 and married? Maybe your reaction makes sense to you from where you’re standing, but it doesn’t for me. I just got out of college; I haven’t seen any friends conspicuously on the pill and married and with several kids already and unable to support any more. I’ve only seen friends conspicuously on the pill and not married, who have frequent liaisons with a variety of men and whose use of the pill is not for the unitive purpose of sex with a committed spouse, but only for unitive purpose of sex with their man of the moment.

I am fifty, married 22 years, two children. I knew pigs and prudes, in equal numbers, of all ages. And I knew better and knew better now, than to generalize from only my window of experience. And, in discussing birth control, we have to of course remember–and YOU can too–how many married women rely on it. Feminists have been prominently led and organized by married women over the last 150 years. You just need to learn your history and to see more of the world.

This is when sexuality is piggish. I didn’t say piggishness was a universal trait; I said that sexual piggishness results from ready availability from “the pill.”

sexual proclivity predates the pill. Check out the OldTestament for early commentary from Judea.

You say sexual piggishness doesn’t exist

I NEVER said such a thing.

Why react so angrily?

I am irked by false generalizations and smears made against large groups based only on narrow experience and prejudice. Your post smacked of both.

 

[larkin31]

I defy you to read the article I linked earlier without coming to the conclusion that, for prominent feminists who were hardly on the fringe, “the pill” was or became necessary for their particular strains of feminism to succeed. That “the pill” was the only way where any little girl could chart her destiny, because it was the only way to control her fertility.

I read the first page of the article linked above.

Which of the women quoted are you citing as leaders of feminism? On the first page I did not see a single citation from anyone except those in the health industry (promoting the Pill) or tv celebrities. None of them, in my opinion, represents feminism today in any formal way, nor did they factor in the history of feminism before the 70s–and I have repeatedly argued that generalizations about feminism must include the history of the married women seeking equality and justice long long before the Pill was offered to the general public.

If you merely wish to state that you wish that feminists would not promote artificial birth control, then just say so, instead of making overly generalized smears of the entire movement. PART of feminism TODAY is an effort to maintain control over the reproductive process. Women have been concerned about this for hundreds of years. Even traditional Catholics are concerned about this, and the RCC offers a method of gaining control and staying within their ethics. There are good Catholics on these threads suggesting that control of reproduction DOES matter, both to women and to men.

 

[Elijah_Baley]

Actually, I’m just over 40 and married.

Some of your dating is a bit US-centric, by the way, and there’s a lot of post hoc ergo propter hoc in the whole argument (not just yours). There were a lot more things than feminism going on (and a lot of things I expect you don’t like were things that 2nd Wave Feminists certainly wouldn’t have liked) and you might as well have blamed it all on Rock 'n Roll.

If you’d really like, I’ll dig up the stories I read from earlier this year about the birthday of the pill. I don’t blindly assert these things. I just can’t remember whether or not the facts were one way or another because the assertion of these articles was that feminists — one way or another — embraced the pill as the only practical way to control fertility.

Again, again, again: I don’t argue with feminism except insofar as “the pill” is required.

Certainly, the pill was a central factor in creating a situation where a lot of new choices could be made - but so were washing machines, vacuum cleaners etc - and the birth rate had been falling for most of the century before the post-Second World War boom - by the mid-60’s it was back to where it had been in the mid-30’s.

That would be more valuable information if the statistics removed wealth/economic growth as a factor, especially considering the up-and-down-and-up-and-very-down fortunes of the world between the First World War and the Second.

 

[Elijah_Baley]

NFP differs only in the use of an artificial device from ABC. It offers “birth control” to parents.

Right. Not abortofacients. Not carcinogens. And to parents. And, noted by the devout, it does not actively hamper God’s plan. At the very least, it involves a temporary sacrifice.

That’s a great deal more than “only.”

I am fifty, married 22 years, two children. I knew pigs and prudes, in equal numbers, of all ages. And I knew better and knew better now, than to generalize from only my window of experience. And, in discussing birth control, we have to of course remember–and YOU can too–how many married women rely on it. Feminists have been prominently led and organized by married women over the last 150 years. You just need to learn your history and to see more of the world.

You still generalize from your window of experience by completely disregarding my own, you know. Isn’t it possible that myself, a member of the generation which has never known anything other than the pill and which takes it for granted, sees what happens when the pill is taken for granted? Female sexual piggshness as bad as the old and still-extant demon of male sexual piggishness.

Are all of these married women unfailingly supportive of a woman who decides to have as many kids as she can?

sexual proclivity predates the pill. Check out the OldTestament for early commentary from Judea.

If you’re bringing in the Old Testament as authoritative — I don’t know why you would — read the Ten Commandments.

Slavery isn’t new. Is that right?

If you’d read the whole of the article, you’d see that pro-contraception advocates are becoming aware that the pill can very easily create a dependence such that people forget pregnancy is an option. When you practice for ten years not knowing

Given this discussion, and my uncontroversial claim that any identity which requires the pill is an artificial identity, consider the following:

“I feel like I’ve gotten a message over the years that the less I have to do with the nitty-gritty biological stuff of being a woman, the better, and that’s a weird message,” says Sophia, 35, who was on the Pill for fourteen years. “In my ninth-grade health class, I remember the teacher saying, ‘You can get pregnant any day of the month, so always use protection,’ and I kind of knew that wasn’t true, but because I was on the Pill, I never really cared about finding out the right answer. The Pill takes a certain knowledge away from you, and that knowledge is empowering.”

From who would a 33-year-old woman get these messages? Who else, a generation ago, was most concerned about sending this sort of message?

I NEVER said such a thing.

Did I misinterpret? Very well, let me look at what you wrote:

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 am not calling all women whores or pigs. I am calling some women whores and pigs, enabled specifically because of the embrace of the pill a generation ago:

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.

If I am saying that female sexual piggishness is universal, then I am also saying that male sexual piggishness is even more universal. I use stronger language to describe male sexual piggishness.

You made the charge that I think all women are pigs for using the pill. I made the claim, instead, that the pill has enabled sexual piggishness for women, too. I did not say all women choose that route. You imply I did.

I am irked by false generalizations and smears made against large groups based only on narrow experience and prejudice. Your post smacked of both.

Do you deny your own prejudices in this regard? Or the smears made to me, that I seem to have a need to call all women pigs?

I do not and have not made false generalizations here. Again and again I qualify that I am only opposed to the pill’s importance, if any, to feminism and I carefully note the great goods that feminism has allowed. It is not slander to say that some feminists embrace it without reservation, and that, whenever feminist talk about “controlling fertility” they mean the pill. And that a great many feminists consider “controlling fertility” quite important.

In fact, that article I linked makes a stronger case: It says something like old-school feminism [Second Wave] can’t wrap their minds around that the pill comes at a cost. Now, it doesn’t quote anyone specific, but it does use much stronger language than I did.

 

[Elijah_Baley]

I read the first page of the article linked above.

Which of the women quoted are you citing as leaders of feminism? On the first page I did not see a single citation from anyone except those in the health industry (promoting the Pill) or tv celebrities.

Only a few quotes, taken without much digging:

It’s magic, a trick of science that managed in one fell swoop to wipe away centuries of female oppression, overly exhausting baby-making, and just marrying the wrong guy way too early. …]

Regarding claim that “wiping away female oppression” — feminism in its purest form — is tied to controlling fertility. Do we disagree on this?

And ironically, this most basic of women’s issues is one that traditional feminism has a very hard time processing—the notion that this freedom might have a cost is thought to be so dangerous it shouldn’t be mentioned. Earlier this decade, there was an outcry when the American Society for Reproductive Medicine commissioned an ad campaign on New York City buses featuring a baby bottle fashioned as an upside-down hourglass (around the same time, Sylvia Ann Hewlett, an economist, made headlines with a suggestion that women would be better off having their kids in their twenties and entering the workforce a half-dozen or so years later). The National Organization for Women called the city bus ads a “scare campaign.” NOW’s president even wrote an editorial claiming that “women are, once again, made to feel anxious about their bodies and guilty about their choices.” …]

“I feel like I’ve gotten a message over the years that the less I have to do with the nitty-gritty biological stuff of being a woman, the better, and that’s a weird message,” says Sophia, 35, who was on the Pill for fourteen years. “In my ninth-grade health class, I remember the teacher saying, ‘You can get pregnant any day of the month, so always use protection,’ and I kind of knew that wasn’t true, but because I was on the Pill, I never really cared about finding out the right answer. The Pill takes a certain knowledge away from you, and that knowledge is empowering.”

None of them, in my opinion, represents feminism today in any formal way, nor did they factor in the history of feminism before the 70s–and I have repeatedly argued that generalizations about feminism must include the history of the married women seeking equality and justice long long before the Pill was offered to the general public.

I specified Second Wave feminism, you know. Another poster was kind enough to note it as “Second Wave” first, but it was clear I was talking about the revival of the '70s. Feminism between Prohibition and the pill was largely dormant, you know, and I don’t think you want to go around digging too deeply in the 19th century.

The Women’s Christian Temperance Union, continuously extant for 140 years, opposes gay marriage, abortion, drugs. Any claim by Second Wave feminism — allied closely with gay rights activists and abortion advocates, indifferent on drugs — to the First Wave feminism is entirely superficial.

If you merely wish to state that you wish that feminists would not promote artificial birth control, then just say so, instead of making overly generalized smears of the entire movement. PART of feminism TODAY is an effort to maintain control over the reproductive process.

I’ve said that several times. Nearly every time I reply to your posts I say again and again that I am only opposed the parts of feminism which embrace the pill. Specifically, read my post preceding your last.

From the way you were hatefully responding, you’d think I was attacking you, and I most certainly am not.

 

[Kaninchen]

Again, again, again: I don’t argue with feminism except insofar as “the pill” is required.

The pill is not “required”. Control over one’s own fertility is another matter.

That would be more valuable information if the statistics removed wealth/economic growth as a factor, especially considering the up-and-down-and-up-and-very-down fortunes of the world between the First World War and the Second.

And thereby hangs a tale/tail. Fertility levels are a feature of the position of women in any society, the level of education and so on (this is true of Muslim societies as well, by the way). For women, control over the number and spacing of children is a key feature of a full life - whether one wants several or none.

Having a large number of children was, actually, a relatively recent phenomenon if one adds the word ‘alive’ - family size grew as a product of things like improved public health in the 19th century which drastically reduced infant mortality. One might argue that the reduction in family size and contraception was very much a response to this.

You would probably attribute seeking to reduce potential family size as wanting to avoid the consequences of ‘piggishness’. Most of us wouldn’t.

 

[Elijah_Baley]

Side note: I think it’s clear that advances made by women were only practical due to the advances in public health. I’d say that explains the dearth of unambiguous matriarchies throughout history.

The pill is not “required”. Control over one’s own fertility is another matter.

How do you have control over your fertility without contraception? I say the pill by way of synecdoche, representing all contraception. Surely after 10,000 words exchanged that much is clear.

You would probably attribute seeking to reduce potential family size as wanting to avoid the consequences of ‘piggishness’. Most of us wouldn’t.

I don’t understand this at all, so I hope it’s the post-midnight talking.

Sex outside marriage, especially done while specifically thwarting the biological purpose of sex, is sexual piggishness. In the original context and every subsequent time I use this phrase, that is my perfectly clear meaning. If you have a different understanding of my use of “piggishness” your comment is barking up the wrong dog.

 

[Kaninchen]

How do you have control over your fertility without contraception? I say the pill by way of synecdoche, representing all contraception. Surely after 10,000 words exchanged that much is clear.

NFP isn’t control over fertility?

I don’t understand this at all, so I hope it’s the post-midnight talking.

Starting work in the morning time for me.

Sex outside marriage, especially done while specifically thwarting the biological purpose of sex, is sexual piggishness. In the original context and every subsequent time I use this phrase, that is my perfectly clear meaning. If you have a different understanding of my use of “piggishness” your comment is barking up the wrong dog.

You don’t get to define everybody else’s language.

 

[larkin31]

…In fact, that article I linked makes a stronger case: It says something like old-school feminism [Second Wave] can’t wrap their minds around that the pill comes at a cost. Now, it doesn’t quote anyone specific, but it does use much stronger language than I did.

The Pills comes at a cost. Yes it does. All freedom and justice and progress does. (The world–later–gets Jesus, but they had to Fall to get their savior). If this is all you meant to say, then I grant you your position fully and am moving on.

 

[Pug]

I hoped to mean that by “bearing.” I do agree with you.

Indeed, I think we mean the same thing by bearing, then. I mentioned what I mentioned, though, because you seemed somehow to be focusing on regulation of births, not on carrying a child. Perhaps I misread the emphasis on that.

I can’t see regulation of births as a feminist issue. That is, maybe they like to talk about it and care about it, but I see no reason to give it over as as solely theirs. Other people are interested in that issue.

Just to be clear, though, in case someone wonders, I do not support the (contraceptive) pill. Abstinence is the only way to go if one’s plan is to avoid conception. Sometimes I wonder, would there have been much excitement if the pill had never come along and the first thing to show up had been reliable NFP?

 

[benedictus2]

What is true feminism?

List 10 characteristics of true feminism.

IYHO

D.

What is true feminism? I think you can deduce it from the term itself - an ism that upholds what is truly feminine.

The so called feminism we have now is masculinism, as women try to be like men instead of valuing what is integral to their being, their femininity.

But it is no wonder that it is heading this way since most of those on the forefront of feminism are lesbians.

When women start demanding that what are naturally feminine is given equal value to what are naturally masculine, then you can say that feminism has indeed advanced.

 

[Timothy17]

What you don’t seem to understand is that women were all really terribly happy until a few naughty women came along and magically and quite inexplicably convinced us to go against our true natures.

Assumption : The men were terribly happy (fallacy 1), at the expense of women (fallacy 2). Today, women are happier (fallacy 3), and there have been no negative consequences for men or society (fallacy 4).

Assumption 2 : Those “naughty women” magically self-granted themselves every license or liberty without any male support or approval (a laughable proposition, but feminists like to imagine it).

Fancy imagining that getting a Phd and a profession would be more fulfilling than having Mr Kaninchen’s martini just right when he walked through the door and concerning myself with just which miracle cleaner would leave my kitchen most sparkling.

Fancy imagining that it ends up not being that fulfilling after all.

The thing is that we’re all different,

So if you/we are all different, how can anyone possess a singular, “true nature” ? Because your original thesis was that woman’s “true nature” was being suppressed by the evil patriarchy until at some point a group of heroines gathered together and cast-off their chains while the patriarchy stood by helpless to prevent it. But if “we’re all different,” then how can anyone assert there exists a singular, “true nature” in anyone ?

I’ve done the SAHM thing, the part-time thing and so on. It’s all very fulfilling and so on but for many women, even for those of us who could have just relied on our husband’s earning power, it’s not a life lived in its entirety.

Christ is life living in its entirety and fullness. You cannot treat acedia with materialism. It is a one way street to misery.

Now what’s remarkable is how overlooked the fact is that up until a generation or two ago, our society was capable of supporting one-earner households. One income sufficed to support a wife and children, so a large chunk of society could afford to live without having to work. Now such things can only be found in civilized societies : in all others such conditions always result in starvation and depravation. Fancy that ! Civilized societies are also more prosperous. Now imagine the women from those societies that survived on a day to day basis witnessing their counter-parts in the industrialized worlds lamenting that state of affairs where they neither had to work to eat nor did they have to worry about their children’s having to eat ; in fact, odds were, the children would receive good educations and even plenty of toys and trappings despite the fact that mom isn’t working. Today, mom not working means welfare or food stamps - and this is progress ? Feminism is the most anti-idealstic ideology I have ever encountered.

For some women it is and good for them.

The final and most brazen evil of feminism : it entirely disregards the welfare of the other 50% of the adult population. It doesn’t consider the welfare and happiness of children AT ALL : it’s as selfish as Scrooge on Christmas Eve. It fails to recognize that society is a composition of male and female, and both have a place in it, with each one’s welfare and well-being being intrinsically connected to the overall well-being of society as a whole.

Final thoughts :

1. Whenever we talk about feminism we often talk about culture and civilization. Culture arises from cult. And civilization arises in which societies ? Find one civilization that isn’t founded upon patriarchal principles.
2. Now I shouldn’t have to point out to Christians the fact that feminism has a problem with fatherhood. Not a few feminists have advocated that women possess multiple partners, abstain from marriage until whenever, and conceal the paternity of their children. It is entirely logical for non-Christian societies to be threatened or terrified by fatherhood - even understandable - for they do not possess a worthy model of and for fatherhood. But Christians have God as Father, who is Himself the model and “source of all fatherhood,” as St Paul instructs. We have the revelation of the Father and the Son. We aso have Mary as mother to boot : we’re rich beyond all imagination, because our foundation is strong, perfect and pure. Feminism is nothing but a cheap, man-made susbstitute.

Pax,
Tim

 

[larkin31]

…The final and most brazen evil of feminism : it entirely disregards the welfare of the other 50% of the population. It fails to recognize that society is a **composition of male and female, and both have a place in it, **with each one’s welfare and well-being being intrinsically connected to the overall well-being of society as a whole.

This thinking (in bold) is exactly the kind of rigid cultural presumption that feminism was born in opposition to. Were you purposely trying to reveal cultural gender bias?

 

[benedictus2]

The final and most brazen evil of feminism : it entirely disregards the welfare of the other 50% of the adult population.Pax,
Tim

I think the worst thing about so called feminism is the way they masculinize women and hope to feminize men and turn nature upside down.