Feminism Redux

[Guest Raidne]

[yawn]

I don't mean taking some classes here since I tend to agree with HE, but has anyone inthread actually done anything except read and talk about it?

Yes. I've researched, drafted, and submitted complaints and briefs on behalf of victims of sex discrimination to state and federal courts.

You know, say you encounter sexism on the job [which you stated a few times that you have] how did you deal with it? A few comments, or did you throw down the guantlet and take the fight to the HR dept. or the boss, what?

What did you do, and what happened then?

I have, so far, not encountered actionable sexism at work, but if I did, I'd take it to HR because that's the first mandatory step for filing any actual lawsuit. I'm pretty sure HR would take care of it, these days. Also, I'd rest assured that I wouldn't be getting terminated for at least a year after that or I'd have a retaliation claim.

Personally, I don't really care about male/female privilege. I care about people being punished for failing to conform to outdated gender stereotypes. And I care equally when this happens to a person of either sex. Men are also pretty damn oppressed by gender expectations. Just try being a male nurse. Sure, you get reverse affirmative action, practically speaking, but you have to deal with all manner of bullshit comments from people.

I do think that, yes, women, in the end, suffer more under this system in objective, measurable ways, but it's the gender stereotyping I have a problem with, not just male privilege, whatever that means anyways.

Even using terms like male privilege/female privilege completely misses the larger point and needlessly turns everything into a big, stupid gender war, IMHO.

[Galactus]

I do think that, yes, women, in the end, suffer more under this system in objective, measurable ways, but it's the gender stereotyping I have a problem with, not just male privilege, whatever that means anyways.

Privilege is essentially the other side of stereotyping: Most stereotypes aren't *wholly* negative after all. And privilege is essentially the positive things you get because people believe in the stereotype.

The point about pressing about privilege though is to point out to men that it's not as if they aren't getting anything out of the system: It's not just that women are oppressed and that's bad for women, but it also directly benefits men. I *do* get an easier ride in some aspects of society because I am a man. And that's important to point out.

[Dinsdale!]

From where I'm standing, the biggest "privilege*" I have as a man is that I cannot get pregnant. If I want kids I don't have to go through a year of suck for each one. Professionally, that's an enormous advantage. The Lawyer/Doctor/Scientist career paths are not kind to taking time for childbirth/breastfeeding/PPD etc.

Do you all think that's right - that I have no privilege as a man that benefits me more?

* Not scare quotes. Just to denote the semantic ambiguity.

[Dinsdale!]

I figure I'll bring this back to it's original topic, second and third wave feminism.

I think second wave feminism had some failings that were inevitable. That is they were motivated by it's eternal logic.

1. Focus on Power. And particularly political power as the goal of feminism. This was natural enough as power makes freedom and was therefore necessary, and it was also something that women sorely lacked. But there is more to life than power, so the focus on it diminished the movement as soon as women had a modicum of it.

2. Gender and roles and the word, "women," which can be understood in two ways: as the plural of woman and as a political category, like Germans or Retired Persons. To say that gender roles should be completely abolished is to say that the Historical goal of feminism is to abolish "men" and "women" as political categories. But the means to do this was a political movement of Women. At the end of feminism, the movement of feminism must be ended. Second-wave Feminist logic therefore contains a contradiction.

[Dinsdale!]

You can't drink alcohol for a year. Menstrual cramps happens. La Maize classes. Back pain. Morning sickness. You can't go rock climbing either, which would make me sad. I mean worse things can happen to you, for sure.

I'd be pretty impressed with anybody working 80 hour weeks that bookend one week of birth and recovery.

P.S. Dammit I wanted semantic clarity on the word 'privilege.' What you have just said is that because I am a man I can say that pregnancy disadvantages are at root natural. I don't think that's what you meant to say.

Actually, that you mentioned that as a "privilege" is sexist privilege on your part :). There is no natural law stating that women are out of commission any longer than a week - at most - due to childbirth, breastfeeding, post-partum depression* (if existent in a particular case). Non-c-section childbirth takes about 3 days to recover from, physically - at most (as far as being up and around. My boob job and tummy tuck both had longer and more painful/restrictive recovery times). Any time off given customarily by employers is actually for parents and baby to bond.

I'm a CPA, and it is a demanding career path - as demanding as Lawyer/Doctor/Scientist. I didn't do things "traditionally" to screw myself over in my divorce, either. My ex said that he would bankrupt me in a custody battle, and I knew he would keep his word. Why fight, when he's asking for the "daddy track", career-wise?

Society is greater than biology when it comes to "children as disadvantage".

*PPD is awful - I had it - but it's no worse than being depressed in any other clinical sense, which anyone can have.

[Dinsdale!]

Your reading a lot into what I said, and I don't feel like your talking to me, but rather to an image you have projected on me, which gives me a sense of something like vertigo.

I respect that life for you hasn't always been easy, and I wish you the best. My anxiety problems will almost certainly keep me from reading this thread further, so if you want to talk further you should PM me.

Best wishes.

What I was saying is that to me, you said, "pregnancy disadvantages are 'natural'"... "natural" being what you consider natural.

You can so drink alcohol after birth - as soon as you damn well please, if you're bottle-feeding, within reason if you're breastfeeding. I never had any back pain, and I gained 60+% of my body weight, so I don't know what you're talking about. Sure, I had morning sickness - for all 9 months, but I just puked and kept on going - through college classes, at movie theaters, on airplane flights, driving, you name it (got some weird looks from other people - fuck 'em - find a bathroom if possible, if not, get the handy barf bag). I never gave a damn about rock climbing, but my doctor never gave me any advice on physical activity other than "don't do anything you didn't do before you were pregnant". Rock climbing would have been a-ok, had I done it pre-pregnancy. You don't need goddamn Lamaze classes. Fuck breathing exercises, give me painkillers.

I even drove myself to the hospital while in labor - and I'm not the toughest woman out there, I'm considered a "girly girl" by people who know me in person.

It's also interesting that you consider an 80 hour work week to be a "non-child workweek" only. I had less sleep in the first 4 months of my son's life, not working an outside job, than I ever had in public accounting, even working 20 hours a day. And I went to grad school when he was 8 months old (not due to any timing other than admissions timing), so had a lot on my plate - school, baby, housework demands of the Neanderthal ex. There were many late nights of studying, and early mornings, and all that.

You're putting your ideas of pregnancy and childbirth as fact, not the reality of it.

Like pregnant women are some delicate flowers or something. Sorry, we're not.

[Lyanna Stark]

ou can't drink alcohol for a year. Menstrual cramps happens. La Maize classes. Back pain. Morning sickness. You can't go rock climbing either, which would make me sad. I mean worse things can happen to you, for sure.

I'd be pretty impressed with anybody working 80 hour weeks that bookend one week of birth and recovery.

But doesn't this depends on what you want? Nobody would think it unnatural for a father to go back to a busy workweek one week after his child was born. I think it's annoying that there is this stereotype that mothers are Bad if they go back to work early. After all, the best thing for a child is a happy and content mother, and if getting on with work is what makes a woman so, she should be allowed to work or not according to preference. :)

Pregnancy is not a disease, it's a natural condition which most women deal with quite well and as a matter of course (of course, unless there are complications). I completely agree with Chataya here: pregnant women are not delicate little flowers at all. Maybe irritable flowers in my case. :P

My mornings sickness (all around sickness really) for the first 3 or so months was bad enough to rival my ulcer (constant nausea, tiredness, etc) but I still went to work as normal and tried my best to live a normal life. Sure, it made me a bit more irritiable, but frankly what I fear far more is the first weeks after birth. :lol:

Chats, I don't envy you your 9 months morning sickness, I don't want to think about how irritable I would have been with that going on all the time. Ouch. :stunned:

[Guest Raidne]

Privilege is essentially the other side of stereotyping: Most stereotypes aren't *wholly* negative after all. And privilege is essentially the positive things you get because people believe in the stereotype.

The point about pressing about privilege though is to point out to men that it's not as if they aren't getting anything out of the system: It's not just that women are oppressed and that's bad for women, but it also directly benefits men. I *do* get an easier ride in some aspects of society because I am a man. And that's important to point out.

Well, if privilege is the positive things I get because people believe in the stereotype, than I also have white privilege, and heterosexual privilege, because the negative stereotypes about minorities and gays must benefit directly white people and straight people.

That's ascribing a lot of contemporary intent to what is essentially the remnants of a long history of discrimination. And it's just not an accurate framework. Look at gay marriage - there's nothing to be gained for straight people by preventing gay marriage other than, well, preventing gay marriage. If we allowed gay marriage, there's no privilege that would be lost.

And, at any rate, it's all double-edged. Let's take one of the lasting stereotypes (and one that really pisses me off) - this idea what women are more emotional and (therefore, by some outmoded understanding of cognition) irrational. Certainly, there are benefits to being a man because of that stereotype. But, on the other hand, think about what happened to Edmund Muskie, who, by breaking down and crying in a speech defending himself against charges of prejudice, ended his chances at securing the Democratic Presidential nomination. That was in the 70s, but we're kidding ourselves if we don't think that would play out the same way today. OTOH, Hillary Clinton tears up, and her numbers ultimately go up. That made feminists uncomfortable because it was seen as a play on a gender stereotype that is, more often than not, harmful to women, but in that particular case it worked to her advantage.

I just don't feel any need to argue that the effects of the men must be rational and never emotional/women are emotional and irrational stereotype are ultimately more harmful to women, even if I personally believe that it's true. But....who cares? What's to be gained from that? If people stop adopting the stereotype because it becomes acceptable for men to be publicly emotional, will that somehow retard the progress of women's rights?

[Stego]

All you bitches are just rambling in this thread and no one has made me dinner! WTF?'

Get to it, Kalbear.

[TerraPrime]

Re: Dinsdale

While child-bearing can be an impediment to many career paths, there's at least some indications that it has more to do with the events following childbirth than with the actual pregnancy itself. As many people pointed out, during pregnancy, except in cases where there's a medical reason to mandate bed rests, women can and do still work full time hours, continuing to be productive at work. The adversarial effects of having a child on a woman's career comes more from the role of being the primary caregiver after childbirth. In a survey of female professors at research universities, we see that not every female pre-tenure professor who has a child suffers from delayed tenure progression. Rather, one of the more significant factors is whether there's co-parenting after child birth, i.e., does the female professor's life partner share equal or more of the child rearing duties? Female pre-tenure professors with co-parenting plans do not suffer measurable disadvantages as indicated by the rate of their attainment of tenures. So, if this observation can be generalized to other fields of careers, I'd say that women who do not want the event of having a child unnecessarily impede their careers should negotiate a fair and balanced schedule when it comes to taking care of the newborn.

Re: Raidne

Well, if privilege is the positive things I get because people believe in the stereotype, than I also have white privilege, and heterosexual privilege, because the negative stereotypes about minorities and gays must benefit directly white people and straight people.

But you do have white privileges and heterosexual privileges, whether you desire them or not, and whether you actively seek to exploit those advantages or not. Similarly, I have male privileges, whether I desire them or not, and whether I actively seek to exploit them or not.

That's ascribing a lot of contemporary intent to what is essentially the remnants of a long history of discrimination. And it's just not an accurate framework.

I really don't see how intent comes into play. I don't see why it is necessary for the concept of privileges derived from one's shared traits with the dominant social groups to be valid.

Look at gay marriage - there's nothing to be gained for straight people by preventing gay marriage other than, well, preventing gay marriage. If we allowed gay marriage, there's no privilege that would be lost.

I quite disagree.

On the specific case of gay marriage legalization, what is gained by the heterosexual majority is the ability to enforce the status of illegitimate relations on homosexual people. Many times, power, influence, and social status are gained by exclusion - whether it is an ethically justified exclusion, e.g. many professional fields like law and medicine only accept academically skilled people, thus making the respective graduates higher in social status, or if it is an ethically unjustified exclusion, e.g. a neighborhood ordinance designed to exclude lower-income families from moving in. A large part of the battle over legalizing gay marriage is precisely on the legitimacy, both in the context of legal recognition as well as social perception, of same-sex romantic relations. The hung-up here is in part, at least in my view, from the heterosexual majority's unwillingness to give up being the only group whose relations are accepted. It is at the heart of the objection of maintaining legal marriage for male-female pairings only because it is the "tradition."

And, at any rate, it's all double-edged. Let's take one of the lasting stereotypes (and one that really pisses me off) - this idea what women are more emotional and (therefore, by some outmoded understanding of cognition) irrational. Certainly, there are benefits to being a man because of that stereotype. But, on the other hand, think about what happened to Edmund Muskie, who, by breaking down and crying in a speech defending himself against charges of prejudice, ended his chances at securing the Democratic Presidential nomination. That was in the 70s, but we're kidding ourselves if we don't think that would play out the same way today. OTOH, Hillary Clinton tears up, and her numbers ultimately go up. That made feminists uncomfortable because it was seen as a play on a gender stereotype that is, more often than not, harmful to women, but in that particular case it worked to her advantage.

Others may disagree on this, but I don't believe that women don't have their own list of privileges, as well. What is important to distinguish, however, is the factor of power and authority. Just as the fact that the presence of racists among black Americans does not render racism in America an issue that equally affects whites and blacks, so too, does the existence of female privileges fail to equalize the gender imbalance between men and women. It is worthwhile to recognize female privileges where they exist, but to use that as a response to the criticism of our society's conveyance of male privileges makes as much sense as responding to criticism of white people use racial slurs against black people by pointing out that black people also use racial slurs against white people. In both cases, the responses are factually true, and yet, in both cases, it fails to really accomplish the goal of defusing or minimizing the first complaint.

[Galactus]

Well, if privilege is the positive things I get because people believe in the stereotype, than I also have white privilege, and heterosexual privilege, because the negative stereotypes about minorities and gays must benefit directly white people and straight people.

Yes. That's the point.

That's ascribing a lot of contemporary intent to what is essentially the remnants of a long history of discrimination.

Who did *ever* mention intent? Intent isn't really that relevant, or interesting, IMHO.

And it's just not an accurate framework. Look at gay marriage - there's nothing to be gained for straight people by preventing gay marriage other than, well, preventing gay marriage. If we allowed gay marriage, there's no privilege that would be lost.

As mentioned, there is the social valuation of marriage.

And, at any rate, it's all double-edged. Let's take one of the lasting stereotypes (and one that really pisses me off) - this idea what women are more emotional and (therefore, by some outmoded understanding of cognition) irrational. Certainly, there are benefits to being a man because of that stereotype. But, on the other hand, think about what happened to Edmund Muskie, who, by breaking down and crying in a speech defending himself against charges of prejudice, ended his chances at securing the Democratic Presidential nomination. That was in the 70s, but we're kidding ourselves if we don't think that would play out the same way today. OTOH, Hillary Clinton tears up, and her numbers ultimately go up. That made feminists uncomfortable because it was seen as a play on a gender stereotype that is, more often than not, harmful to women, but in that particular case it worked to her advantage.

Yes, that's my point. Privilege is often a double-edged sword, and women have their own sets of privilege. This does not alter the fundamental balance of power.