Feminism - Your thoughts on it.

Nevyn

farohar wrote: »

I think maybe feminists need to come up with a new term for themselves, leave the ignorant girls who don't want equality, just their soapbox to stand on and a constant sense of the world owes them so they have a right to be angry with everyone who doesn't agree with them, to continue calling themselves feminists

No.

The term has been misused and misconstrued and schockingly many are ignorant of what it truly means, the history and how women and men have fougth for the changes it has brought about and I certainly refuse to dishonour those people some of whom died by abandoning the term rather then taking the time to inform people.

We don't teach about such issues in our school, we should.

Sleepy

ali.c, I'm not going to get into the details of specific acts of legislation for the simple reason that I don't know them. There is, however, marked differences in maternity and paternity leave rights, a total inequality in the Irish court system's treatment of custody/access cases, the reference to the woman's place in the home enshrined in our constitution etc. IMHO, no piece of law whether it be legislation, case law or our constitution should refer to gender. A crime commited against a woman is the same crime as if it were commited against a man, likewise it is the same crime whether it was perpetrated by a man or a woman.

It's on this point that I made the somewhat off-topic comment that were all the groups seeking equality should band together. Is an assault against a gay man because of his sexuality any worse than an assault against a straight woman because she 'looked funny' at someone reeally any different? Both acts are unacceptable in a civilised society and when both result in the same level of harm to the victim, both should be punished equally without the need for two sets of law (and therefore two sets of loopholes).

Thaedydal, if what's being sought is equality, should it really be approached on a unilateral basis? "Feminism" covers such a broad spectrum of philosophies that it's a rather irrelevant label for any of them. Whilst it includes reasonable people who seek gender equality it also includes the misandrists who consider any act of heterosexual sex to be rape. Whilst these people are included under that banner, it will always be tarred by that. (a pretty apt analogy would be that of the 'Republican' banner in Ireland whereby those who peacefully seek the unification of the island are lumped together with those who see no problem in murdering innocents to achieve that same goal).

Nevyn

So what you are saying is sleepy that a sovereign state should disbar it's own citcens going against it's own law and constitution from being it's leader to keep another country happy with the gender of who they have to deal with ?

As much as I hate to have to say this as I disgreed with a lot of the policies made under her Maggie Thatcher :P

Sleepy

I'm not saying that in the least Thaed, I just reckon it's a valid issue for the American voters to consider.

Mikel

I don't know the definition of feminism, and i'd be all for equal opportunities regardless of gender, race etc. But I don't think that's what the feminist movement( if that's what it is) of the various 'women's groups' are about. Rather than equality they pursue the strongest advocacy of their own preferred outcome. No different from any other pressure group, but nobody else gets a free pass as a result of 'women's' in their title.

eg, girls outperfom boys consistently at LC level by 10% or so. An obvious inequality of opportunity. If this position was reversed there would be an outcry over our 'sexist' education system, sexist teachers, sexist curriculum.
Consider also the acceptance rate of boys into medicine, pharmacy etc.

Something like 80% of suicides are male, again picture the task forces and reports that would be produced if it was women.

The family courts are another obvious one. It should be clear to anyone that it is not optimal, but equality doesn't come into it because women come out on top.
I think that speaks to the true agenda.

As for this statistic:
Quote:
Originally Posted by womens aid website
Almost 1 in 5 Irish Women have experienced Domestic Violence by a current or former intimate partner or husband (Making the Links, 1995). And that's just the reported cases. It is likely that we all know someone who has suffered this cruel treatment. It's also likely that she hasn't felt able to tell us.

It never fails to amaze me how WA deliberately disort statistics like this.
The devil is always in the detail. From what I remember they broadened the definition to include all sorts of behaviour to swell the numbers. It does nothing but trivialises the experiences of genuine victims and allows people to dismiss the problem as a product of someone's imagination. See another 'report' in the UK which announced that multitudes of women had been raped without realising it.

As for the pay gap statistic, wasn't there a report on recent graduates which debunked this myth? Still gets trotted out regularly.

Macha

Mikel wrote: »

eg, girls outperfom boys consistently at LC level by 10% or so. An obvious inequality of opportunity. If this position was reversed there would be an outcry over our 'sexist' education system, sexist teachers, sexist curriculum.
Consider also the acceptance rate of boys into medicine, pharmacy etc.

.....
As for the pay gap statistic, wasn't there a report on recent graduates which debunked this myth? Still gets trotted out regularly.

Um no the pay gap is not a myth:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6904434.stm

TBH, there is a lot of research going into understanding why girls do better than boys in the LC. I would hope the same would happen in the reverse scenario.

What I find striking is despite doing better at the LC and even representing greater numbers at university women still get paid less than men.

As the article points out:
"Yet women make up 60% of the EU's university graduates."

Macha

Mikel wrote: »

As for this statistic:
Quote:
Originally Posted by womens aid website
Almost 1 in 5 Irish Women have experienced Domestic Violence by a current or former intimate partner or husband (Making the Links, 1995). And that's just the reported cases. It is likely that we all know someone who has suffered this cruel treatment. It's also likely that she hasn't felt able to tell us.

It never fails to amaze me how WA deliberately disort statistics like this.
The devil is always in the detail. From what I remember they broadened the definition to include all sorts of behaviour to swell the numbers. It does nothing but trivialises the experiences of genuine victims and allows people to dismiss the problem as a product of someone's imagination. See another 'report' in the UK which announced that multitudes of women had been raped without realising it.

Can you back this up with a reference?

Remember: the violence discussed previously only refers to violence perpetrated against women who are alive. Another whole area that hasn't been discussed is foeticide, in particular against female foetuses in China and India (among other places). In these countries, a daughter is inferior to a son and often parents decide to abort on discovery that their child will be female. The result?

The Indian goverment has banned ultrasound scans on pregnant women(putting her life in danger) and the ratio of men to women has been severly disturbed. Some estimate that 10 MILLION women are missing in Inda through foeticide.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6754073.stm

Dragan

taconnol wrote: »

TBH, there is a lot of research going into understanding why girls do better than boys in the LC. I would hope the same would happen in the reverse scenario.

It's a system, in any system if you run enough random variables you are always going to find patterns. Thats the way the world works. It could be as simple as the LC system being slightly more suited to process by the female mind over the male, or it could be something massively complicated.

I'm betting on the first one but await any proper results with interest!

Reku

taconnol wrote: »

Um no the pay gap is not a myth:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6904434.stm

What I find striking is despite doing better at the LC and even representing greater numbers at university women still get paid less than men.

As the article points out:
"Yet women make up 60% of the EU's university graduates."

I have no doubt that the pay gap is real, but at the same time, is it still really due to male influences or are women themselves partly* to blame for it's perpetuation:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independent_Women%27s_Forum

IWF members have challenged radical feminist positions in opinion/commentary pieces and also through research projects and academic papers. One such paper, by Judith Kleinfeld, a professor of psychology at the University of Alaska Fairbanks,[18] notably criticized an MIT study [19] on discrimination against women in MIT's science department, calling their findings "junk science."


[edit] Disputing the "gender gap"
On a broader scale, IWF-affiliated writers have assailed the assertion that an income "gender gap" exists because of institutional misogyny. Instead, they argue that any disparity that exists between the wages earned by men and women can be accounted for by women's demand for flexibility, fewer hours, and less travel in their careers. In an article for the Dallas Morning News, IWF Vice-President for Policy and Economics and work-from-home mother[20] Carrie Lukas argues that,

In truth, I'm the cause of the wage gap – I and hundreds of thousands of women like me. I have a good education and have worked full time for 10 years. Yet throughout my career, I've made things other than money a priority. ...[W]omen tend to place a higher priority on flexibility and personal fulfillment than do men, who focus more on pay. Women tend to avoid jobs that require travel or relocation, and they take more time off and spend fewer hours in the office than men do. Men disproportionately take on the most dirty, dangerous and depressing jobs.[21]
Linda Chavez credits Women's Figures: An Illustrated Guide to the Economic Progress of Women in America, a 1999 book published in part by the IWF, with "debunk[ing] much of the feminists' voodoo economics."[22] John Stossel has cited Michelle Bernard's 2007 book Women's Progress as evidence that "American women have never enjoyed more options or such a high quality of life."[23]

[edit] Politically incorrect book
Carrie Lukas authored the 2006 book The Politically Incorrect Guide to Women, Sex, and Feminism, the seventh book in the Politically Incorrect Guide series from Regnery Press. In the book, Lukas argues that modern-day feminism seeks to aggrandize government programs in ways that would actually reduce women's autonomy. In an interview about the book, Lukas asserts that,

[T]he feminist movement, instead of appreciating the success it has had and the fact that women now do have all these opportunities, keeps pushing for more. They want bigger government programs–they see the government as something that should really replace the role that families use to play in women's lives. They want Uncle Sam to be our new provider, take care of us, and provide health care, free day care, and welfare. They also see government as the solution for all of women's problems. I think that is one of the ways in which they have betrayed the idea of individuals making their own decisions, and living with the consequences of those decisions. Now they want taxpayers to bear the costs of women's decisions.[24]

I'm a male but I regularly get people horried at my salary as the general oppinion is that for my abilities, skills, training and knowledge I should be earning a fair bit more, I accept my current salary as lets face it:
1. Tax will eat a large chunk of any extra income anyway
2. Money, or even anything that can be aquired with money, does not make you happy.

Many males still seem to hold to the concept of "first you get the money, then you get the power, then you get the women", trying to use flash cars & flash clothes to impress girls, as such they have the motivation to try earn as much as possible regardless how much they hate the job or how bad the stress, females at least seem content with earning enough to live their lives as they see fit.

Lockstep

Rush Limbaugh: "Feminism was established so as to allow unattractive women easier access to the mainstream of society." [The Rush Limbaugh Show, 8/12/05]



:rolleyes:

Mikel

taconnol wrote: »

Um no the pay gap is not a myth:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6904434.stm

Vey scientific..add up all the women and all the men and take the average.
Apples and oranges. Who are more likely to work part time, or take lower paid jobs? The fact that there are more female cleaners and more male doctors is not indicative of a gender pay gap imo. If an equally qualified and experienced woman is paid less than a man for the same job, that is a pay gap.

Mikel

Dragan wrote: »

It's a system, in any system if you run enough random variables you are always going to find patterns. Thats the way the world works. It could be as simple as the LC system being slightly more suited to process by the female mind over the male, or it could be something massively complicated.

I'm betting on the first one but await any proper results with interest!

You may be right, but it's a pretty consistent pattern. I just think the reponse is contingent on which gender is percieved to be losing out

cuckoo

kickoutthejams wrote: »

Rush Limbaugh: "Feminism was established so as to allow unattractive women easier access to the mainstream of society." [The Rush Limbaugh Show, 8/12/05]

:rolleyes:

Rebecca West: "I myself have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is: I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat."

Mikel

Apologies, I'm thinking of the wrong report, I can't find that one anywhere
This is the one I was thinking of

http://www.ivorcatt.com/2022.htm

Recently read Jackie Haydens book on the Rape crisis Centre. Sobering

Nevyn

cuckoo wrote: »

Rebecca West: "I myself have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is: I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat."

Nice quote.

Macha

Mikel wrote: »

Vey scientific..add up all the women and all the men and take the average.
Apples and oranges. Who are more likely to work part time, or take lower paid jobs? The fact that there are more female cleaners and more male doctors is not indicative of a gender pay gap imo. If an equally qualified and experienced woman is paid less than a man for the same job, that is a pay gap.

That is a crazily simplistic way of looking at it. Even taking into consideration the fact that many women take time off to look after their family and choose to take a pay-cut for more flexible jobs you still can't explain it away. Also, while I'm sure many women choose to take time off for the sake of the family (good for them), many more don't have a choice because of this country's crap child care facilities.

The gender gap is alive and well. Even straight out of college men are earning more - try and explain that away.

Macha

Mikel wrote: »

Apologies, I'm thinking of the wrong report, I can't find that one anywhere
This is the one I was thinking of

http://www.ivorcatt.com/2022.htm

Recently read Jackie Haydens book on the Rape crisis Centre. Sobering

sorry that is an opinion piece - it is emotive and biased. Actually that piece really angers me as it belittles the idea of violence against men and women within a couple. Most rape/violence against women happens within a relationship and the last thing we need is an article like that making a mockery of it.

JC 2K3

Thaedydal wrote: »

We don't teach about such issues in our school, we should.

I certainly was taught about the history of women's rights and feminism in school. Covered it in 5th or 6th class in primary school, it was definitely part of the JC history course and it was covered, from various angles, to a certain extent in LC history.

In any case, it'd hardly be dishonouring feminists of the past to abandon the term and come up with a term more suited to the 21st century. You've said yourself, the term is widely misused, and it's actual meaning is not universally agreed upon. I'm sure those who died for feminism would be proud that people had taken progressive and practical steps towards furthering the cause of equality rather than turning in their graves over the use of a word.

Mikel

It doesn't make a mockery of violence against women at all. It makes a mockery of a biased research methodology used to arrive at a predetermined outcome which is then parrotted at every opportunity.
Anyone who questions the veracity of the data is then accused of trivialising an issue. the ones who trivialise are those who extend the definition to include things which don't qualify as violence. They are the ones who diminish the regard for women in serious jeopardy.

That is a crazily simplistic way of looking at it. Even taking into consideration the fact that many women take time off to look after their family and choose to take a pay-cut for more flexible jobs you still can't explain it away. Also, while I'm sure many women choose to take time off for the sake of the family (good for them), many more don't have a choice because of this country's crap child care facilities.

Eh? the link you posted was to a report which was crazily simplistic, treating women as an homogeneous (sp?) group who earn less than another group.
If teachers and doctors etc earn the same regardless of gender then the 'pay gap' is a myth. Basic education in statistics is lacking these days.
Does that study adjust for the number of hours worked?

The gender gap is alive and well. Even straight out of college men are earning more - try and explain that away.

Are they? What data do you have to support this?
Do employers of graduates have one starting salary for men and another for women, or is this the kind of urban myth that is repeated so often it is accepted as true?
How often have you heard it said that women earn 15% (or similar) less for doing the same job?
Ever hear about this study, wasn't too widely publicised for some reason...

http://www.justice.ie/en/JELR/DegreesofEquality.pdf/Files/DegreesofEquality.pdf

Across the labour market as a whole there is no overall hourly wage difference between male and female graduates three years after graduation.

However, there is a significant gap among graduates who enter the private sector. Among this group, women earn 8.2 per cent less than men per hour on average. This sector accounts for the majority of graduates: 74 per cent of male graduates and 59 per cent of female graduates.
� There is no significant hourly gender pay gap among graduates who enter the public sector.
􀂃 Graduates in the public sector earn significantly more per hour (and per week) than those in the private sector. Therefore, the over-representation of female graduates in the public sector counteracts their disadvantage in the private sector, leading to equality in the economy-wide hourly wage.

But wait:

Examination of weekly wages shows that female graduates earn 11 per cent less per week than male graduates. A significant weekly gap is present in both the public and private sector.

Explain it away you said....

This weekly pay gap emerges, not because a high proportion of female graduates are working part-time but because the weekly hours of female full-timers are significantly lower than those of male full-timers.

More hours = more pay. Seems fair to me

Reku

Mikel wrote: »

Apologies, I'm thinking of the wrong report, I can't find that one anywhere
This is the one I was thinking of

http://www.ivorcatt.com/2022.htm

Recently read Jackie Haydens book on the Rape crisis Centre. Sobering

If true that's an extremely biased manipulation of data by them. Shame such groups (as in those who don't care about the data, only how it can support their desired message) can't be sued for false advertising, get them to stop trying to manipulate data to their own ends like this.

Mikel wrote: »

Ever hear about this study, wasn't too widely publicised for some reason...

http://www.justice.ie/en/JELR/DegreesofEquality.pdf/Files/DegreesofEquality.pdf

Hmm... if the quotes you posted are accurate (I don't currently have time to read a 90 page report:() then I think what really needs to be looked into is:
1. Why do the males entering the private sector earn more than the females per hour? Do they aim for significantly different jobs?
2. Why do women work fewer hours? Is it due to availability of hours or personal choice?

Lockstep

cuckoo wrote: »

Rebecca West: "I myself have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is: I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat."

Oh but you gotta love Rush Limbaugh!


Claims to be family values but drops divroce papers on his wifes hospital bed when she had cancer.


Legend:p

I'm a firm supporter of Bill Bryson for president as he would make it a criminal offence to be Rush Limbaugh:cool:

tallaght01

There's certainly an income disparity between men and women worldwide.

I have no knowledge of whether it's the case in Ireland, though.

It's debatable whether more women live in *actual* poverty than men. They probably do. They definitely live in more extreme poverty than men (the cutoff for extreme poverty being less than a US dollar a day I think).Most people in this category are women. But their husbands/father/brothers are unlikely to be on 100k per annum.

I think the pay issue is less important than society's attitude to women (and I do appreciate that the 2 are interlinked).

The attitude to women worldwide is thought to be responsible for a huge portion of the HIV epidemic, as well as most STDs. Sexual violence, promiscuos partners, forced prostitution are all issues that affect millions upon millions of women daily, and puts them at risk of infection.

Violence against women is a difficult statistic to dissect, because as someone has already said, it's based on live women. So, in many countries where extreme violence is prevalent the women are raped (and I mean they are raped all the time, regardless of age...to me sexual violence is one of the biggest unreported crimes against humanity of the modern age) while the men get killed or taken into army (where they are likely to get killed-forcibly conscripted soldiers are sent into the front line first).

I wold argue that gender inequality is probably the greatest issue facing humanity (on a worldwide basis) currently.

I don't know a lot about feminism, but I think true feminists shold focus their energies on the daily struggle for women around the world. Compared to being a 14 year old taken from your familyi nto a givernment army camp (probably by the same people who killed your male relatives, and raped your mum in front of you) to be the "wife" for several HIV riddled soldiers makes being wolf-whistled at while walking past a buiding site seem truly trivial.

Macha

Just an interesting talk by Isabel Allende on feminism:

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/204

Quote: "Although women do two third's of the world's labour, they own less than 1% of the world's assets"

The website has loads of great talks about loads of different topics - great dossing material

tallaght01

taconnol wrote: »

Just an interesting talk by Isabel Allende on feminism:

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/204

Quote: "Although women do two third's of the world's labour, they own less than 1% of the world's assets"

The website has loads of great talks about loads of different topics - great dossing material

I'm not saying the above quote is wrong, as I don't know the proper figures.

But I'd be really interested in knowing A) where she got those figures from and how they were obtained/measured etc.

Macha

tallaght01 wrote: »

I'm not saying the above quote is wrong, as I don't know the proper figures.

But I'd be really interested in knowing A) where she got those figures from and how they were obtained/measured etc.

This is what I found:

http://www.unesco.org/most/asia1.htm

"The ILO statistics show that only 1 percent of the world's assets are in the name of women".

And then the ILO website is here:

www.ilo.org


(And another interesting talk: http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/16)

Macha

tallaght01 wrote: »

I don't know a lot about feminism, but I think true feminists shold focus their energies on the daily struggle for women around the world. Compared to being a 14 year old taken from your familyi nto a givernment army camp (probably by the same people who killed your male relatives, and raped your mum in front of you) to be the "wife" for several HIV riddled soldiers makes being wolf-whistled at while walking past a buiding site seem truly trivial.

I agree, but you have to be wary of falling into a trap of the 'sure you're not being raped/discriminated against to the same degree as in other countries/etc, what's your problem?' attitude that can prevale in countries were there is more gender equality.

Zulu

taconnol wrote: »

The gender gap is alive and well. Even straight out of college men are earning more - try and explain that away.

That certainly wasn't true when I left college 7 years ago. Graduates has a set salary.
I might point out though, that of the group of graduates that started with me, the men are earning slightly more.
I might also point out, that through 7 pay reviews, the men fought harder for pay increases. In my industry I've found that the ladies tend to avoid conflict more than the men. I've personally concluded that the reason I get more from pay reviews than some of my close friends is because I'm more assertive and don't fear conflict.
I will also add that until recently (last pay review) I wasn't in the room to know how everyone fought there corner - so why they say they capitulated quickly and accepted the first offer - they may have been yanking my chain.

I often wonder if this is ever calculated when they examine the "pay gap"? Food for taught.

tallaght01

taconnol wrote: »

I agree, but you have to be wary of falling into a trap of the 'sure you're not being raped/discriminated against to the same degree as in other countries/etc, what's your problem?' attitude that can prevale in countries were there is more gender equality.

I'm not.

BUt where is the outcry over, for example Dharfur?

This is killing, rape, torture and mutilation on a huge scale. Feminists are not doing a very good job of getting this issue brought into the limelight.

Not that anyone is. The UN, in particular, have had me jumping up and down with rage whil watching them procrastinate and sending in AU troops (human rights disaster that they are themselves)But, I would expect true feminists to be marching in the streets about the sheer horrors being perpetuated there.

I would expect true feminists to be hitting us with never-ending pressure regarding the Africa situation. I would expect true feminism to gibe the wolf whistling and the private sector pay gaps much less time than these women who are living ina hell. Sadly, it seems that often the reverse is true.

Same could be said about a lot of groups (including my own professions....but that was a seperate thread over on the bioogy/medicine forum a few months ago).

I just think that (and I'm not trying to over-dramatise things here) this is as close to a "feminist emergency" as you're ever going to get.

taconnol wrote: »

This is what I found:

http://www.unesco.org/most/asia1.htm

"The ILO statistics show that only 1 percent of the world's assets are in the name of women".

And then the ILO website is here:

www.ilo.org


(And another interesting talk: http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/16)

There's no reference to the original data on the first website you linked. And there's no mention of it that I could find on the ILO site.

The only reason I ask is that I've never come across this statistic before.

The ILO, I would imagine, are too small to get funding for what would be a monumental piece of research.

Also, the stance of those interested in the gender assets gap has traditionally been that one of their biggest problems is lack of complete data on this issue (some ICRW study came to that conclusion a few years ago i think). There are some studies looking at land (as opposed to all "assets") in Cameroon and Pakistan but I'm not aware of a huge global study ever being caried out.

I could be wrong though.

Macha

True. I suppose it's human nature to be more interested in the humans closer to you and to associate with them.

As Freud said, the Christian commandment to 'love thy neighbour as thyself" is completely impossible for humans becuase it goes against our very nature. Human beings are designed to care more about people here, rather than people over there.

The ILO is a sub-department of the UN and I would say they have a considerable budget but you're right - the main issue is lack of data.

tallaght01

taconnol wrote: »

True. I suppose it's human nature to be more interested in the humans closer to you and to associate with them.

As Freud said, the Christian commandment to 'love thy neighbour as thyself" is completely impossible for humans becuase it goes against our very nature. Human beings are designed to care more about people here, rather than people over there.

The ILO is a sub-department of the UN and I would say they have a considerable budget but you're right - the main issue is lack of data.

I'm not sure the UN give them (or any of there subsections) huge budgets for original research. I could be wrong though.

I won;t get onto the UN's failings in terms of women and kids in Africa or I really will be here all days.

But suffice to say I don't think the UN helps further the cause of feminism.