Do you think feminism has not gone far enough or far enough?

I think women should make the same money for the same job. Jobs should be assigned according to one’s ability to do the work, not the sex of the worker.

I think motherhood is a career and ideally the mother should stay home with the child until it is of school age. Then work part time but be home when the child gets out of school. Or if the father is so inclined he can take over that role and mom work full time. I don’t understand why women think that feminism means you must have a career outside of the home and send a baby to daycare for someone else to raise and impart their values. That doesn’t feel like liberation to me. It sounds like 2 full time jobs.

I personally have always wanted equal rights and the responsibilities that go with them
so yes to the last question.

Feminism is about basic human rights: equality between people, regardless of gender. (This equality doesn’t mean that all people are the same, rather that people should be valued the same.)

In this current world, in very few places a female person has the same chances to a happy, safe and healthy life as a male person has. Even in many ‘civilized’ countries women on average have poorer access to highly valued position, in society as well as in business.

As long as this situation is like it is, even insinuating that feminism or any other movement to promote equal rights and valuation of people is an insult to those still mistreated.

@rooeytoo I think that where you write motherhood, I would write parenthood and that shouldn’t necessarily mean the mother.

It is not about having to have a career outside the house as well as having the same opportunity as men when you choose to.

I agree with you both. To me, Feminism is about justice for everyone. I think most people are feminists in this way. Rejecting men, is not feminism. That’s just anger.

I think that feminism as an actually theory has not gone far enough because women still do not earn the same amount of money as a man would in the same position. However, I think the way that people advocate feminism has gone too far. Too many feminists proclaim, and in the college setting teach, that men are generally evil and are responsible for everything bad that ever happened. I think the focus of feminist advocates should be shifted from screaming at the top of their lungs that men overpower a woman’s rights to actually working out solutions to the problem.

As a society, should we strive for a time when on average, a woman can earn a dollar to ever dollar a man makes?

I think equal work merits equal pay.

As a society, should men and women share equal amount of domestic work and the raising of children?

I think that comes down to individual choice. There is no should or shouldn’t in this issue. If one parent decides to stay at home and bear most of the burden of raising the children, while the other works to pay the bills and bring home dinner, then that’s their choice. The cliche of the working dad and the stay-at-home mom no longer prevails in our culture (though many mothers choose to stay at home, it’s not expected of them to do so), and women have more options than being a mommy or a maid. I think we have the feminist movement to thank for that. @rooeytoo do you also think that fatherhood is a full time career?

On the other hand, I think that the gender roles of our parents’ and grandparents’ generations have carried over to our own and that, however subconsiously, we continue to honor them. Women are still generally regarded to be weaker than men, physically, emotionally, and mentally. Look at the way that person’s driving—she must be a woman. A woman could never lead this country, she’d be too given to emotional reaction. On the same token, we also have very stringent ideas of how a man should or shouldn’t act. Feminine men are ridiculed for being “pansies.” These stereotypes are damaging to both genders.

Should we strive to end all form of gender segregation, official or implicit?

Yes and no. In some cases it would be undesirable to assimilate men and women. In the armed forces, for example, complete integration of the genders is not practical and could create conflicts that would interfere with troop morale. (Imagine men and women living together on a submarine or operating a tank.) Where this is not an issue, however, I think we should continue to strive towards equalizing the role of the working woman with that of her male counterpart. Where are all the corporate businesswomen? Where are the woman scientists and engineers? Women are outnumbered one to two in my school’s engineering department. In this regard I think feminism has more to progress.

I have 2 degrees in Women’s Studies and not once did anyone claim men were evil.

Men and women live together in the world, but a submarine is the problem?

A few people here defending/advocating feminism have sexist beliefs themselves, which is best example as to how feminism has not yet prevailed and why it has not yet gone far enough.

@rooeytoo Interesting to see that you seem somewhat traditional in your views of gender roles in the household. I guess there is a cultural bias here.

The average Australian woman has a hard time finding a male partner that wants to take the parenting role as career, I understand.

Would you feel different on your stance when living in Sweden, you think?

@whitenoise rooeytoo is american, though she lives in australia. Ameristralian?

@tinyfaery I feel that most people have opinions that to some extent could be seen as sexist and racist. Feminism is a really fuzzy subject, isn’t it? I often see proclaimed feminists disagreeing.

In a world where female circumcision is still being performed, where women can be stoned to death for sitting in a car with a man not her husband, where women are forbidden to drive, where there is human trafficking, where women can be flogged for wearing pants, where women are set afire because the dowry was too small, where a sheikh can send a man a woman as a gift (I can think of many, many more) it seems troubling to me that such a question should even be asked. We’ve barely begun.

@whitenoise – I believe that when you bring children into the world, it is your job to raise them, not a day care center so both parents can pursue a different career. If the father wants to stay home instead of the mother, so be it. I realize that in the case of a divorce, single parents happen and then day care becomes a necessity.

@holden – I don’t think fatherhood is a full time career unless the father stays home and takes over the mother role.

@whitenoise again – my personal observation is that there is not much difference between aussie males or american, I have never lived in Sweden, so I don’t know about there. Both will “help” with the housework, help being the operative word. It is not their domain, they are merely helping out. This is true whether the mother has a job outside of the home or not.

I am traditional in that women bear the children and to me it is ideal that they stay home and raise them. Just my personal bias.

And everything @pdworkin says is true, most religions and cultures seem to be designed to keep men in the ascendency and women in a lesser position. In the USA I think birth control and tampons and to a lesser degree when it is readily available, abortion, have liberated women as much if not more than any theory of feminism.

@pdworkin lurve to you

I agree 100% with @pdworkin feminism hasn’t gone far enough in that sense at all.

I have come across so called “feminists” that try to teach other women that we don’t need men and @tinyfaery I have heard some claim that men are the root of all evil. Hopefully women like this are the exception and not the rule because, in my opinion, women like these are teaching nothing but hate which will never benefit anyone.

I’ve always thought feminism is humanism.

I’m in favor of feminism and feminist advocacy for that reason.

However, I’m also in favor of appropriate treatment of people, based on sexual traits. Especially in schools. Boys and girls have different learning styles, on average. But that’s not really relevant. What’s important is that schools should be teaching to kids based on learning style, not based on the convenience of teachers.

Girls know how to sit quietly and apparently attentively at a much younger age, on average, than boys do. As a result, boys are falling behind in learning, because teachers no longer teach to kids based on how they learn.

We see the results already, in the US. Women make up a significant majority of students in higher education, and their majority is rising. Project this into the future, and you’ll find that women will, perforce, make up a majority of intellectual jobs in this country. Businesses will have to turn to women for management, because there won’t be enough men, and because women will be doing a far better job.

The pay gap will even and then swing around the other way. It’s too late to stop that from happening. However, if we pay attention now, we might start providing more appropriate learning conditions for boys, and we might achieve some kind of balance after women eliminate and reverse the pay gap.

With economic power will come other forms of egalitarianism. Wives, making more than husbands, will work more often, while husbands become stay-at-home parents. Women will stop putting up with the double duty (work and running a family), and family responsibilities will even out. Businesses will probably become even more family-friendly, thus pissing off single people even more. We’ll see more flextime and work from home arrangements. We’ll see more cooperative policies from our legislators.

Slowly, these changes will spread around the world. However, in my opinion, the pendulum has gathered so much momentum, that it will swing far past the balancing point. Within our lifetimes, we are going to see a masculinist movement that seeks to redress anti-male discrimination.

No feminism is still imperitive, men will continue to debase women and given the slightest opportunity, feminism seeks to redress this perpetual slide toward chauvinism and objectification, it is a continual dialectic process, as for daloons comments about anti-male discrimination, well that is an absurd fear, one does not become emancipated in order to become the oppressor.

@mammal I do hope you are correct. However the trend is very strong. Fewer and fewer men are completing post-secondary education. My boss was just telling me some numbers—amongst 25 to 34 year olds, not only is the portion finishing post-secondary education lower than that of women; it is also much lower than that of men aged 45–54.

Women are already having problems finding men to marry. Or rather, fewer women are marrying and more are remaining single. One theory is that women need to marry a guy with equal or higher income, and there are just fewer of those around. Also, we expect to see an increase in the number of women marrying younger men. And, as I said above, more SAH Dads. These things sound contradictory, but men and women will have to adjust their expectations about who is marriageable if these trends continue as I think they will.

This is not an “absurd” fear. And I’m not suggesting that women want revenge or to become oppressors. I’m saying that these are societal trends that we should pay attention to and try to understand, and that it could be a result of unintentional discrimination against boys. Of course, male chauvinism wasn’t a conspiracy, either, was it? Just natural. Oppression doesn’t require intention on the part of the oppressor. I hope you’ll reconsider this. As I said, it is not nearly as absurd as you think.

I find feminism HOT!

I am proud to call myself a feminist even though some people take that to mean that I hate men, sleep with women, and don’t shave my armpits. My husband is also proud to call himself a feminist. There are definitely great men out there that support the equality of people.

When I say that I am a feminist that means that I believe in the equality of all people and that I shun discrimination based on gender, race, sexuality, age, ability/disability and religion. So, yeah I think that we have a really long way to go. In my country alone, I can work a job better than a man and get paid less because of what I haven’t got in between my legs. My best friend cannot marry his partner of six years because someone’s deemed him not worthy of stability. My sister gets questioned by our whole family about her choice to date black men, as if her preference is anyone’s business. We have racism, sexism, ageism, homophobia and out and out hatred spewing all around this planet. I hope some day we all decide that basic human equality is something worth fighting for.

@idleVOID I have taken feminist courses, am a feminist, and know of many feminists and believe you me no one shouts at the top of their lungs about how men are evil, we shout about injustice and want justice for all genders – the idea that feminists are man-haters is SO over

That was a tired canard in the 70s when I first encountered a really robust political feminism. I can’t believe it hasn’t died a natural death long ago. All my feminist women friends hated the patriarchy, but considered most men to be victims of it as well, as indeed they were, and still are. I was lucky to have known them – they socialized me to love women, to be able to open about my feelings, to be less competitive, to be less afraid of being vulnerable, and to love shopping for shoes. Oh, and to cook!

@daloon studies supporting these ‘different’ learning styles are very limited, applying to white children in a western world and have nothing to do with inherent differences…it’s just how girls and boys are raised and if we sex-segregate our schools (as is the pattern, which I am firmly against) we’re not addressing reality and we’re not de-conditioning our children…

this question was about feminism and has it gone far enough, somehow, as often happens, it has turned into a poor me whine about how males are being disadvantaged by women.

Where I live there is endless discussion as to why the culture is becoming a matriarchy. If you wade through all the intellectual blahblah, the real reason is because the men are drunk and ineffectual. Now the women are being made into the oppressors because they have had to go to work and take control in order to protect and feed the children thus emasculating the poor warriors.

I don’t hate men, I’ve been married to 2, but I sure get tired of the whining.

@Simone_De_Beauvoir – I completely agree, boys and girls are raised so differently and the expectations for them are so different. Now girls are no longer being told they don’t have to excel academically because they will probably become wives and mothers. They are being told to do their best and see the Madeline Albrights, Sandra Day O’Connor and Hillary Clintons as examples and are inspired. The ability was always there, it just was never encouraged before.

Why is this a worry, since the beginning of time males led in all these areas and it was not a matter for concern, now females are beginning to shine and there is great consternation?????????

I ain’t whining. I for one welcome our Y-chromosomed overladies.

@pdworkin what are ‘overladies’?

@pdworkin – nope you didn’t whine and I thank you. I agree with what you said above except I don’t have much sympathy that men are victims of patriarchy since they were pretty much responsible for creating it. Sure women assisted by their acquiescence but I don’t see where they had a lot of choice.

I have often wondered why more men don’t realize that equality makes their life easier as well. I came to the conclusion that men like having their cake and eating it too.

@rooeytoo it’s okay, world’s getting better, many men I know are feminists and I am raising all my children to be feminists

@Simone_De_Beauvoir it’s a pop-culture reference to an overused Internet meme about Overlords.

@pdworkin oh. no clue. thanks, though

It wasn’t really very funny the first time. But once in a while you’ll hear Rachel Maddow say it.

@Simone_De_Beauvoir – good for you. I see so many young women raising their children to fall into the old habits and patterns and it makes me sad. The dad in a nearby family gives his young sons those neoprene holders for a bottle and they have naked women on them. He wants to make sure they grow up to be heterosexual he says (not in those words), the oldest in the family is a girl, what lesson does she learn from that about her own worth, not to mention what it says to the boys about women. And the mom just allows it to happen. I just can’t imagine her silence?????

@rooeytoo people…well it’s hard for people to undo these things…

Depends on the country. Saudi-Arabia and Afghanistan need loads of feminism to progress.

As a society, should we strive for a time when on average, a woman can earn a dollar to ever dollar a man makes?

She should, if shes a good worker. When studies point out that women earn 72 cents for every dollar a man makes, they fail to mention all of the facts: Men, on average, work longer hours, work more dangerous jobs, are more willing to relocate, and take fewer sick days.

In some cases, I actually think feminism has gone too far – ever notice how its no longer socially acceptable for a man to say he only wants to date hot women, but its perfectly ok for a woman to say the same thing about men?

So women should earn a dollar to every dollar a man makes? And, create life too?

This is just not right. Then they also have the power of the poonani.

Eventually us men will just be groveling idiots. Wait, you women tend to find a way to make us do that any way.

@hookecho it doesn’t matter what men, as a gender, work ‘on average’ – what we are fighting for, as feminists, is same payment for same job, which means same everything…for women who work the exact same job, they don’t make the same money and that’s bullshit…

and it’s no longer socially acceptable for men to be sexist about women and their looks? what country do you live in? because it IS to socially acceptable…

@Simone_De_Beauvoir so basically, a woman should be paid the exact same as a man even if he works harder, works longer, and takes fewer sick days? sorry but thats bullshit. I can only imagine a feminist reaction if a man was paid more than a woman while being a worse worker.

It’s obviously talked about by men among themeselves, but in mainstream media, whats the general reaction to a man who only goes after women based on looks? thats right, a pig. And whats the general reaction to a woman who admits she goes after looks or money? “you go, girl!”

If you have the same job and same experience you should get same pay, same benefits, same amount of sick days and vacation time no matter your sex. Period!

@hookecho did you even read my comment? your question is answered in it, so please read it again – and in general, to me, a feminist, people of any gender that go after others for looks are pigs – but I suppose you have a well-formed idea of what feminists are like…so please don’t let me interrupt your assumptions

Fact from fiction, truth from diction. Feminism is has gone too far. I know this is more of an emotionally charged issue than a logical one, especially if you don’t have cajones. So many things are flung around as to say ”see? We are getting rooked at every turn while dudes get everything” Be it nature call it God men and women are different. That is why man and women have different functions, if the plan was to have man and women the same would it not be logical that everyone be hemorphidites able to be the carrier of the child or siring it? But that is not the case, the women carry and feed the child (naturally) before there was shelve made formula and refrigerators.

Certain talking points are always flung around ubiquitously the glass ceiling, equal pay, etc. But strange how that equality ends when it comes to birthing rights, then women want to have it all and be the sole choice maker, trying to hide behind biology at that point make all feminism basically a big fraud. If we are going to use biology then there are many jobs women should be kept out of because of their physical size and strength, but women would not give quarter on that and believe they should have the same right or access to it as men.

I hear many times (mostly here on Fluther) about how women get the short end because they are battered, assaulted and raped more. What I also got from Fluther here is that about a good 30% (if not more) who are raped don’t say or do anything about it. It almost seem that having to tell it to the authorities to get justice is worse than being thrown to the ground and having your clothes torn off and being forced to have sex when one didn’t care to, or repeating it would be way too embarrassing. Oprah Winfrey said no one can make you a door mat unless you are willing to lie down in the doorway (paraphrased). Maybe the reason why most women get assaulted is because many who have assaulted sexually or otherwise get away with it and thus show other guys they can too. It has little to do IMO on gender, just because they are women. If it were other men or group of people that can be handled like that they would be just as much at risk. If you don’t want to speak out against the person who raped you because you figure they will get ”wino time” and be out in 18 months or less and come back to bother you again, if left free they can certainly keep bothering you; where is the logic there?

I read a story about “open” women’s road races the women did not seem so joyful to have equality then. I would guess it exposed the logical fact which many don’t care to hear, there are places and things where guys just do it better; just as there are things women do better.

Men and women are not different carbon copies of the same thing. A Betamax may have been able to record your movies like a VHS player but they were not the same in spite of their similarities. Men and women share many traits and physical features but men and women are not 100% the same and trying to suggest such is pure folly.

@Hypocrisy_Central “Feminism is has gone too far. I know this is more of an emotionally charged issue than a logical one, especially if you don’t have cajones” -seems to me it’s the mostly the people with cajones that scream loudest about how feminism is bad. And I won’t even get into the rest of your statement – I must go dry my hysterical tears and control my uterine contractions.

@Simone_De_Beauvoir seems to me it’s the mostly the people with cajones that scream loudest about how feminism is bad. I am not screaming it is bad just quite fraudulent. A Sony Betamax and a VHS player can both record your movie and work on similar principals but they are not the same. When people try to reduce women to a softer form of men and say everything should be equal straight down the middle it is not very logical and a bit fake seated more in the way people feel about it and not the way nature, God or whatever actually presents it.

@Hypocrisy_Central You don’t actually understand what feminism is.

@Simone_De_Beauvoir Then what is your definition of it if not to promote sameness? Just asking.

@Hypocrisy_Central People aren’t the same but they should have equal rights. Feminism supports choices and fights against rigidity of gender roles. As a third-waver, I am the one fighting for men’s rights as well as women’s and primarily, for me, for those who are trans. I’m of the belief, as a feminist, that if women want to go work, fine, if men want to stay at home, fine but both things should be valued equally, if that makes any sense to you. Women aren’t ‘invading men’s domains’ as you say, there shouldn’t have been domains in the first place and when men do ‘womanly things’, their actions should be given just as much value as if it was reversed. I read a lot of feminist and queer theory and the running thought is that it is people who are anti-feminist that cause men more grief by boxing them in (and obviously cause women grief but that’s understood) and it’s the people who are feminist that fight for men to be considered more than one dimensional heartless drooling at every butt that walks by kind of animals. Because I am a feminist, I will raise men who are complex, strong and vulnerable, compassionate and visionary, not repressed, not cartoons of manhood.

@Simone_De_Beauvoir
I’m of the belief, as a feminist, that if women want to go work, fine, if men want to stay at home, fine but both things should be valued equally, if that makes any sense to you. I would be the last to devalue the contributions of a stay-at-home mom. Because she is not out building bridges her job is equally, if not more important. Neither would I say a job is less valuable because a woman does it, same as I would not devalue janitors because without them over priced executives would have a real hard time doing the job they do in the office.

Women aren’t ‘invading men’s domains’ as you say, there shouldn’t have been domains in the first place and when men do ‘womanly things’, their actions should be given just as much value as if it was reversed. History, nature, evolution, however you call it for centuries there has been domains for men and women. Before they had refrigerators and formula on store shelves the only way a baby was going to be fed was off his/her mother’s tit. Food was taken off the prairie, the hill side or the jungle. Hard to have nursing mothers as full time hunters. Factor in a lot of the game was heavy so men were physically more equip to not only get it back to the village or camp, but to keep others from poaching it, or other animals from attacking them and stealing it from them. That is even before you consider battle. They did not have light weight weapons, the armor, swards, battle axes, etc were heavy, and the battles could last hours. I know as a modern man I could not have done it so I doubt it would have been easier or manageable for many women. The sides were drawn up as a logical and unavoidable means of practicality.

There are clubs, groups, and such where men care to be with other men. We maybe all human but men and women are different, that is why we are men and women. The type of interaction one would do with their own gender is different when in mixed company. If there is a club that was predominately men and women wanted to join with out changing it I would say OK. But if they wanted certain club rituals or the bikini tool girl poster removed because they would be offended by it, then that is not cool. They know what the club is about so if they want to join they should take it as-is, or else why join? In certain ways men and women need their own space. Somehow that is a wrong thing to many people.

I am not against someone coming into the house just don’t come in put your feet on the coffee table, help yourself to the fridge with out asking, and complain about the décor. If women want to be apart of something that was made by men for themselves they accept it the way it is. If women can’t then they should stay out and have their own, not because they are women but because they won’t or can’t be happy being under the conditions or rules as they are. They would not go to a workplace and expect all the rules to change to suit them.

@Hypocrisy_Central The rules I want changed would suit everyone.

@Hypocrisy_Central – what if a man goes in and wants to change the decor or the rules as they are?

Just seems strange thing to say, you can join but you can’t say anything about anything that might hint at a change.

@rooeytoo If a guy don’t like the decor, the rules or the attitude of the other I am sure he will gripe and bitch about it. More times than not he may not get his way. And a woman is free to do just the same, but when you bring lawyers in to try and force your way over the majority that kicks it up into a whole new playing field.

@Hypocrisy_Central – I’ll tell you what always astounded me, before the Jaycees magnanimously decided to allow women to be real members they would nonetheless allow them (on an unpaid volunteer basis of course) to make phone calls soliciting donations for their projects. When a female would call my business looking for donations I would give them my little speech about why the hell are you doing their dirty work when they won’t even let you join.
I also found “lionesses” amusing, you can’t be a Lion but you can do the dirty work and be called a lioness. I think it was the same for Rotary and all of them.

Now however thanks to women campaigning for equal rights they are now accepted as real members of these “service” organizations. I think they still get stuck doing the dirty work but at least they are card carrying members.

If they had all followed your advice, no strides would be made, there would be no women vets, doctors, lawyers, etc. I say fight for what you want, go for it and all those little sayings. I am sick of the separate but equal placebo.