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#64390 - 02/02/04 04:44 AM
Re: Feminism
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Member
Registered: 09/08/03
Posts: 55
Loc: Baytown, Tx
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I agree...I remember when I married my first husband...he insisted that I work. No if's no buts ...He wanted me to work. I didn't really mind at the time cause we weren't planning our children anytime soon so it kept me really busy.
Then the child came....He still expected me to work, clean house, cook supper and take care of a child to boot. Funny now that i think about he never once helped out. I litterally went nuts. But I figured I was super woman and I did everythiing. I saw to it that everything got done. Repairs, bills, full time job clean house...cook a full meal every night. My carreer increased and his decreased. My salary went up and heis went down. I remember he and I got to where we competed at the end of year to see who brought home the most money. Finally I got smart...I said "why do I need this man he never hslpa me and now i make enough money to support my son and I without him." So i divorced him...not just for that but other reasons too. My career took off...Now I'm a partner of an Insurance Agency, second in sales and I'm doing great. But i'm afraid my domestic self went totally in hiding. Now my husband now does most of that...funny how my roll changed.
Feminism....? Hmmmm....I think is a word men drummed up so they can get more out of us...hehehe...I don't know. I do kow one thing, Women do a much better job....
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#64392 - 02/02/04 02:34 PM
Re: Feminism
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Member
Registered: 11/22/02
Posts: 1149
Loc: Ohio
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I think that's a great definition, Meredithbead. It's so important too that we remember the history, so that our rights aren't taken away. Feminism was far from being a male invention -- there's been so much resistance to women having equal rights an opportunities and we should never forget that. Women started in the 1840s trying to get equal rights of citizenship (the earliest part of the First Wave of feminism, with Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton). In most states when these women addressed the public, even that was illegal for women to do. Many early feminists worked to abolish slavery, and black males got the right to vote 50 years before any woman did. In the 19th century, women couldn't even own property and had no right to custody of their children. The only jobs open to respectable women were as governesses, and eventually as school teachers (if they weren't married). Then when waves of immigrants came, they could work as factory laborers. It was even illegal for women to wear pants! We couldn't vote until 1923. As I see it, men have been unwilling to share power. They probably think that women will enslave them as they've done to us for centuries, all over the world. Think about it. In many of the poorest countries, women do ALL the work (haul water, grind the flour, tend the children, farm in the fields), while men (the big game hunters? ha!) go to town and go to the bar, and play dice, etc. At the 1995 UN conference on women in Beijing, China, women got together and compared notes. This situation was pretty widespread. That your husband, smilingthrulife, insisted that you work only indicates how weak the women's movement has been in the last 30 years. There's been a tremendous backlash, and lots of loud male voices bashing feminism. Rush Limbaugh uses the term "femi-Nazi" and he and many loudmouths say that any female interested in feminism (i.e., equal rights) is probably really fat and ugly and can't get a man or is a lesbian. Apparently such tactics have made it so that many women are afraid to be labeled "feminist." I was involved in some of the earliest "Consciousnes Raising" groups ( a term coined by the feminists) in 1970 in Boston when I was in college. It was an exciting time. My mother was appalled at what I was doing, and said what you said, that "women's lib" was a male plot to get women out of the house. (She later ate her words, I might add, and went on to have an exciting career of her own, after the kids were out of the house.) When most boomers were kids in the 50s, what occupations were open to women? nursing, teaching, secretary, model, sales clerk...? that's certainly changed.
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#64394 - 02/02/04 07:07 PM
Re: Feminism
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Member
Registered: 11/22/02
Posts: 1149
Loc: Ohio
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You've certainly accomplished a lot and are justifed in being proud. I wonder, though in what ways do you think you've been superior to men? I think the big mistake that American women have made is to think that having equality means being the same! Competing with men in the work place at the same jobs is different from claiming respect for what women traditionally have done or want to do. I lived in Italy during the early 70s, and over there, women demanded pensions for housewives. A smart notion that we STILL haven't accomplished. Over here was the "dress for success" baloney, where women felt they had to look and act like men to achieve economic equality. Seems like women in developing countries aren't making this mistake.
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#64395 - 02/03/04 08:12 AM
Re: Feminism
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Member
Registered: 11/08/03
Posts: 3512
Loc: outer space
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DJ, I am proud of what I acheived as a liberated woman, but I'm envious of those who never had to do those things. I wish I had been able to reign like the queen I was born to be. I would have loved to focus only on raising my children and being a wife instead of always being torn between the two. Married women face a constant struggle between making a home for their families and working outside the home. I hear so many younger women struggling with those issues today. Before feminism, Smilinthrulife's husband wouldn't have dared insist she take a paid job. It would have been socially unacceptable. He would have been considered less of a man. After feminism, he could feel not only socially accepted, but righetous, even 'manly' for 'liberating' his wife to not only raise kids and make a home, but to be employed outside the home as well. As a housewife I was a queen, not necessarily superior. Just royal. I was the mate and mother that I was born to be. From a purely division of labor point of view it was probably quite equal. My husband worked to provide economic support and I worked to provide a home, both necessary parts of a successful family. I achieved in business, but it was not natural to me. The successes were wonderful, but I resented being forced to endure the failures leading to success and I hated competing with men or anyone else. I thought as a woman I was above all that. As a wife and mother, there was no competition. I was the only queen in the family. (thank heaven ) I never felt the noose that Meredith described nor was I ever holding my breath. I became a nurse then a business woman then an artist. In order to survive, I succeeded in male dominated fields, not of my own choice. There seems to be a lot of ways to view feminism and each is probably equally valid. It's certainly an issue that continues to affect us on many levels. smile [ February 02, 2004, 10:44 PM: Message edited by: smilinize ]
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#64396 - 02/02/04 09:26 PM
Re: Feminism
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Member
Registered: 11/22/02
Posts: 1149
Loc: Ohio
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Smile, In your first post you say you don't know what feminism really is, how it started, etc. I think I gave a pretty good thumbnail history of that. Feminism is mostly about consciousness raising, of both women and men. My radical view is that women are just beginning to understand what it means to be a woman, because we've been defined by men for centuries. Look at the language and media images for evidence of this. To me, the liberation of women is one of the greatest achievements of the 20th century. I disagree that feminism is just what anyone wants to say that it is. The notion of competing with men is anti-feminist. Your husband compelling you to go to work is also anti-feminist. Both of those things come from the male dominant perspective. Try to imagine a world in which women had actual equality politically, economically, socially, educationally. Compare that with what we now have. Though we've made a little progress, women in no way have equal decision-making power anywhere in the world, including the US. Women can't achieve this equality without the assistance and support of men.
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#64398 - 02/03/04 12:53 AM
Re: Feminism
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Member
Registered: 11/22/02
Posts: 1149
Loc: Ohio
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I hesitate to reply, but what the heck. Did I say what my experience is? No. Nor have I said that I've ever felt powerless as a human individual. In fact, my experiences may be quite similar to yours. That's not the point. No matter how you or I feel as individuals, certain historical events have definitely occurred, just like WWI and WWII occurred at specific times. We can read about these events. You can still talk to people about them. The struggle for Woman Suggrage, for example, affected women who lived before, like my grandmother. Similar struggles still affect women alive today. Lucky for you and me, whether or not we care to admit it, the gains they fought for have made our lives freer.
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