Feminism (male input welcomed)

[Breukelen advocaat]

I would love to have this discussion in person becasue i speak much better then I type but...
I graduated HS in 1978 so I know of radical feminisim. I lost a quarter to my radical cousin on the Billy Jean/Bobby Rigs tennis match. Billionfold opened an interesting point but didn't follow through....
Pre-Feminisim a man could support his family on one income but, along came feminisim and the liberal wife next door got a part time job and they could suddenly afford a nicer vacation/car/education for the kids ect.. Well, if she can I can...suddenly all the women are working and you're living in an upscale neighborhood and two incomes is the norm....then, suddenly....it is a necessity.
I hate to be the devils advocate (Ok - not really true) but I think America started it's great decline the day they gave women the vote. I am not a neaderthal, this is simply my informed opinion.
PS.
I heard a story about a woman yelling at a guy for holding the door for her:
"You don't have to hold the door for me because I'm a woman!" she said.
"I'm not. I'm holding the door for you because I'm a gentelman." He repied.
Things that make you go Hmmm.
- Slow -

I'd like to add that as far as the voting, I began to notice as a small child that many women, including schoolteachers, even my own relatives, do not understand the nature and psyche of men and boys, and are often very bad judges of their character. The problem is worsened when they deny this. The politicians in of today, male or female, are a pretty bad bunch, so I don't know what to say - but I'd say that the blame lies with both men and women voters.

Iâ??d be the first to admit that I do not understand women - and never will. I love 'em all, but they are very different in many ways. The men that most women admire are not people that I have much admiration for, I know that - but I don't know if the opposite is true, ie whether women that I admire are disliked by most women.

[Polymirize]

I'd like to add that as far as the voting, I began to notice as a small child that many women, including schoolteachers, even my own relatives, do not understand the nature and psyche of men and boys, and are often very bad judges of their character. The problem is worsened when they deny this. The politicians in of today, male or female, are a pretty bad bunch, so I don't know what to say - but I'd say that the blame lies with both men and women voters.

I don't really understand why you said this, as you seem to throw out a disclaimer at the end.
But with regards to voters being poor judges of politicians, some of it probably comes down to what you consider to be a priority. Although priorities might be different between men and women, surely you wouldn't ask society to deny representation to 51% of the population? That would be completely ridiculous...


And ridiculous might be (unfairly) another example of masculine bias in language... hmmmm. nah, probably not.

[slowlickitysplit]

Ok...First off, I am one of the most liberated men you are likely to ever meet. I think Margret Thatcher was an excellent leader and so was the woman from India whose name I can't remember. I may even vote for Clinton.
Second...I was playing devils advocate and I was playing to the crowd a bit but I also can't stand any kind of radicalisim; weather it is feminisim, religious or bigotry.
Third... You women seem to be equating the vote with equal rights. I don't feel we should go back to the time when women were considered mens chattle. I do, however, feel we should go back to a place where women's place was in the home.. WAIT! Try to listen with an open mind.
If women went back to being the guardians of hearth and home how much better off would we all be? It may take a town to raise a child but it takes a full time mother and father to raise a secure child. When the childs first words are tinged with the accent of the nanny then there is something wrong.
Have any of you noticed the rise in heart problems in women that have a direct correlation to the numbers of women working full time?
The industialized nations of the world are pulling away from the home based society and plunging in to a cold cold future in my mind. I see the day where a couple goes to the clinic, orders there child and comes back the next week to pick up a 12 year old child ready for assimilation into the household.
I will probably vote for Hillary this election but I want to point out that she did her mommy thing. Her kid is grown and now it's her time and I applaud that (I know, not a great example but...).
To be honest I can't point to the right to vote and todays problems and make a clear connection to the two but I do see America's slide starting at the same time.
BTW This is my oppinion. If you don't care for it then fine, disagree and lets have an open discussion but, please, I am sensative and don't care to be called names or to have you wishing me harm.
Thank you.

- Slow -

[harris7]

im on the wrong computer....

[dutch.lover]

Slow, I see where you are coming from, and I do not agree, but I do thank you for being a little more in depth and logical this time around....it's a lot easier to see where you stand on this issue.

If we could, I would like to move past this, because I was quite enjoying the friendly banter that was going on previously....

[dutch.lover]

In the same respect that civil rights and prejudice is still an issue, even through minorities are now aquited all the legal rights of citizens, feminism still has some valid points to make.
But I'll also agree with some of the previous posters, and BG especially, that the end goal should of course be a humanism. Samwhore had this beautiful utopian vision of a world where such -isms are unnecessary because nobody holds prejudices. Sign me up!
But realistically, we usually never recognize our unconcious prejudices until we're slapped in the face with them. Which is precisely why feminism is such a useful critique.
I think feminism, for all its failings, does a remarkable job of pointing out masculine centered reasoning, in place we might never expect. Ethics for example. And when you realise certain reasonings have a gender to them, it might give you a reason to examine them more closely, for the purposes of a humanitarian viewpoint.

I really like what you brought up about the goals, or 'jobs' of feminism. That's the reason I like it so much- it slaps us in the face with our prejudices! I identify myself as a feminist, but my view of it comes pretty close to being the definition of humanist as well...I am not a 'feminist' just because I want male/female equality- I want it for everybody. The gender point is really valid too, I have learned a lot so far about how gender influences aspects of life that I would never have noticed.

[Purple Banana]

It doesn't take a village to raise a child, it takes teamwork from the father and the mother. It's not about 'duty' of raising a kid, it's about the equal bonding you feel between each other. I would have gone nuts if my mom stayed at home all day. And for what? To make her dear and devoted husband dinner every night? Rub his feet and fill his scotch back up? Listen to him complain about work, while she's expected to do all of the housework for free?

Those archaic ideals belong back in the 1950s. In order to support a family these days, it's almost necessary to have a dual income. Why not stay at home dads? What's so different? I have a stronger bond with my father, but I certainly wish he wouldn't waste his intelligence and effort to stay at home.

Now I can see why women in the 1960s were so pissed off.

[birdgirl73]

Thanks for your further explanation, Slowlickity. That sounded much more reasonable than your first statement even though I have to disagree with parts of the further amplification, too. At least I understand you were being in large part a "contrarian" in your first post. I am convinced that in ideal situations, it takes two married parents to raise a child plus the supporting village. And don't underestimate the importance of fathers. I know without a doubt that fathers need to be very actively involved in the lives of both their sons and daughters, and I applaud families who're able to work out a way for one parent, male or female, to be in attendance during the child's growing-up years. That's certainly why I stayed in a part-time job that allowed me to work at home--so I could be the primary caregiver.
The sad truth, however, is that fewer and fewer families, especially those without enough education to get really good jobs, can truly do that, and I suspect more of the societal degradation you alluded to is a result of high divorce rates and single-parent situations than working moms. I've seen an awful lot of very traditional home-and-hearth guardian, stay-at-home mothers who've done a woeful injustice to their homes, marriage and kids alike, and so I'm not sure that's the central answer to societal stability.

We'd make more headway with society as a whole if we were somehow better able to qualify parents of both genders, frankly, and keep them together through the raising of their children. We could also make lots of of headway if we truly valued children and working families and were able to encourage more employers to provide alternate working arrangements for parents. When those options aren't available, we need to better certify and qualify non-parental care providers. I'm glad you're likely to vote in the Hillary or other Democratic-leaning direction because, despite all the lip service the right pays to family values, its real values are bottom line business, tax-relief for the wealthy, and, at least currently, misguided defense, not families at all.

The rise in heart disease in women is believed to be in equal parts due to the increasing obesity rate/increasing sedentary lifestyle, still appalling numbers of female cigarette smokers, and stress, which is seen in equal numbers in both work-at-home and work-at-outside-job women. No one should assume for even a tenth of a second that work-at-home moms don't experience alarming stress levels, too. They do. This is becoming increasingly evident in higher and higher rates of substance abuse among stay-at-home moms.

[slowlickitysplit]

OK. I'm aware that some of you would like to drop this but I feel I need to respond but I will keep it short.
Purplebanana - Why is two incomes now necissary but one generation ago it wasn't?
Birdgirl - When my wife fell into a major post partum depression that included hitting my kids, I became a stay at home dad for my three young kids. I am proud of the job I did and it was a difficult but very rewarding time for me. I also worked full time nights to provide for them. It was something that needed to be done and I did it. Where did I learn these values? My parents. Mom was a stay at home mom untill the youngest went off to elementry school. I believe that the family unity and it's decline is at the root of most of societies problems now. i feel the crises in families today is due to economic issues that is a direct result of women entering the work force. I believe they entered the work force as a direct result of feminisim which began with the fight for voting rights.
I appologize to anyone I have offended and I am quite cognisant of the fact that the barn door will never be closed again. Thank you all for listening with open minds.
Peace.

- Slow -

[Dave Byrd]

Birdie didn't mention that the vast majority of women heart disease patients, at least for coronary artery disease, are women who are 50 and older. The numbers don't peak and become equal to men's risk until ladies are 65 or older. The studies and textbooks all say 1. obesity/diabetes/high lipids/low exercise, 2. stress, and 3. smoking play a three-way role like Bird said (she's still in the book phase of her education). But in my own patients it certainly appears that the #1 part of that equation far outweighs the job and/or home stresses. The female patient population that's reflecting higher and higher heart disease is largely through raising its children and finished with the hardest work years, too.