Feminist Theory & "Women's Issues" Discussion Thread: All Gender Identities Are Encouraged To Participate

are you makin a joke mate

excited to click on autostraddle.com when i get home

They should call it a manfrontbottom.

manladybits

still so excited you guys

some good discussion in the comments posted to that autostraddle piece

um is this a trend now?

http://www.vice.com/read/gay-men-and-their-not-so-cute-misogyny-problem

― goole, Monday, May 20, 2013 2:02 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this has never not been a trend tbh

yeah, i just meant, articles about it!

the first example on that link surely accepting that "that's what gay people do" is kind of the homophobia?

xpost

mancunt

http://www.npr.org/blogs/monkeysee/2013/06/14/191568762/at-the-movies-the-women-are-gone

^^ this is old, old news that hasn't really changed in decades, but it is worth repeating at frequent intervals to remind people how fucked up this is.

Bechdel test, innit

(may not have used "innit" properly, idk, not british-ist)

I'm kind of annoyed at myself for never questioning the 'fertility drops off a cliff after 35!!!!' attitude but also glad I've never really done anything whatsoever about it whenever I've thought about the kids issue:
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/07/how-long-can-you-wait-to-have-a-baby/309374/?single_page=true

Chris Crass wrote a pretty badass book called Toward Collective Liberation: Anti-Racist Organizing, Feminist Praxis, and Movement Building Strategy, and he just posted a truncated version of one chapter on Feminist Wire. Great, great stuff for dudes concerned about patriarchy, imo.

http://thefeministwire.com/2013/06/against-patriarchy-tools-for-men-to-further-feminist-revolution/

Day-to-day patterns of domination, both institutional and interpersonal, are the glue that maintains systems of domination. While most of this list is focused on activist efforts, it is also important to bring our politics into our personal relationships. Far too often, activist men support feminism in their public life and retreat into male privilege at home. Going with the flow in personal relationships generally means going with the flow of domination; liberation requires consistent and conscious decisions to choose and create something different. Just like any other effort to win and create another world, set goals in your relationships to practice feminism. It will likely feel awkward, contrived, and uncomfortable at times to bring this level of attention to your personal life. When almost every aspect of society is based on and reinforces male supremacy, it should be expected that our steps towards feminist liberation will at times feel uncomfortable and awkward, and sometimes terrifying. Being clear on our goals, seeking help when we need it, and knowing that we can increase our capacity to live our values through practice, can help us also make feminist action a powerful and rewarding habit.

thanks for posting that, hoos

the book is really fantastic on the other subjects it covers too, dude is a real inspiration to me.

https://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn1/p480x480/994806_1876638518162_1156697043_n.jpg

trollin

http://ideas.time.com/2013/08/23/women-should-pay-more-for-health-care

lol independent women's forum

It’s not discussed as frequently, but sometimes men are the ones paying more for certain purchases, like car insurance. Would it be fair to charge women more for it just to give men a discount?

didn't gender discrimination re: insurance premiums get banned in the uk? a rumour?

I have no idea about health insurance, because we have the NHS, but for driving insurance they can no longer give women cheaper premiums. Everyone has to pay higher 'men' premiums now (instead of meeting in the middle)

http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2013/09/the_end_of_men_why_feminists_won_t_accept_that_things_are_looking_up_for.html

I understand that the big picture is not always reflected in women’s daily experience of life. Maybe a woman has an overbearing husband or a retrograde boss or just a lingering problem that has no name. But as a collective, it sometimes feels that women look too closely at the spot right in front of us. This is a moment, unprecedented in history—and also pretty confusing—when young women who work how they want and have sex how they want may also quilt and can fruits.

lol what

I loved quilting as a kid.

young women who work how they want and have sex how they want may also quilt and can fruits.
can fruits

Is that a question?

no, it's a verb!

that sentence is so weird but i do applaud the odd usage of quilt and can as verbs

whoever heard of quilting a fruit c'mon now

it just seems like rosin is arguing that feminists who speak out about gender inequality are just big irrational baby whiners who love to complain, and that any anger towards institutional sexism is overstated because... why?... because those bossy angry women on twitter have managed to get strident male chauvinists fired?

I was kidding! "Women may be able to quilt and have sex when they want, but can fruits?"

the patriarchy is dead, because more women are breadwinners working at jobs that can pay them less because they are women. qed.

the patriarchy is dead because more single mothers have to work more hours because they have to pay for childcare, which they need to have in order to work.

logic.

As a form of blogging or tweeting, pointing fingers is endlessly satisfying. But as a form of political expression, it’s pretty hollow and out of tune with reality.

hmmm.... this sounds sort of familiar, tho.... i wonder what mordy thinks about this

do you really wonder?

lmbo

lol in orbit

http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2013/09/13/rise_of_women_blame_the_patriarchy_for_your_juice_cleanse_and_miss_the_point.html

I am a rich white lady. So are the people responding to me. Rich white ladies are generally the ones who bother with feminist showdowns. We rich white ladies get very worked up about our own can-we-have-it-all type concerns: how hard it is to make it to the top, how much harder it is to do that and raise a family. These are real problems that affect real power dynamics. But they are only urgent to a small percentage of people.

hannah rosin is total garbage imho

"total garbage" sums that up pretty well, yeah.

http://mentakingup2muchspaceonthetrain.tumblr.com

the whole thing is empty trains, whats the point

^ dude who takes up too much space on a train

if there are empty seats you're gd right i am taking up two of them, taxpayer money paid for those seats and they will be used

ughh wide-stance sitting drives me insane

happens all the time to me at football games, assholes sitting with their legs splayed like they are waiting to be applauded for their huge dicks

i don't care abt empty seats but sitting right next to me & splaying yr legs is literally a dick move

^things that can only be said from the privileged position of not having a big dick xp

A very haughtily delivered 'close your legs' command takes them by such surprise that they actually close their fucking legs.

Late to this, but ...

it just seems like rosin is arguing that feminists who speak out about gender inequality are just big irrational baby whiners who love to complain, and that any anger towards institutional sexism is overstated

Am I just missing the thing that makes it seem this way? I mean, from what I've read, it's certainly not the literal text of her argument -- usually, the core of what she's saying is that there have been these large and under-recognized shifts in employment, education, and family structure (especially among working-class women) that really complicate our old models of how this stuff works. Which, in an of itself, seems pretty evidence-backed and uncontroversial and actually really useful to a feminist project, just as a way of saying that some of the challenges are shifting, some women's needs are changing.

So I always find myself wondering how she's wound up discussed in such a super-contentious way -- obviously Slate's contrarian framing and headlines are a big part of it, but is there stuff she's actually written or said that's as aggressive as what comes back? Is there some sense that she's purposefully baiting or needling feminists and then hiding behind an innocent "but I only said this simple thing" facade? It just seems like whether or not people agree with it, the core idea she's trying to introduce into the conversation -- that facts on the ground for the average American women she studied no longer entirely match the way some people would frame those women's struggles -- shouldn't be such a flamey eye-rolling Rosin-versus-feminism argument.

Anyway, I'm mostly asking, here -- am I missing some really galling element of what she's doing? I grant that it's a little bit of a pose to be like "I wanted to convey that the 'patriarchy' was not a fixed monolith we could never get around but something shifting and changing and open to analysis AND THEN IRRATIONAL NUANCE-PHOBIC IDEOLOGUES YELLED AT ME FOR SAYING SOMETHING INNOCUOUS," but it's kind of a role other people have handed her just as much as she's adopted herself...