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How do we view feminism?

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  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    jamelia wrote: »
    So what else have you got?

    Oh there are areas where there is inequality in the other direction. But it's a fallacy to suggest that anyone who calls themselves a feminist is any more in favour of these inequalities as inequalities against women. No, they just tend to focus their energies on inequalities against women, because there are more of them.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    stargalaxy wrote: »

    Sigmund Freud, when he famously queried "What do women want?" was really onto something...

    Have you read any Freud? If so, what do you think his writings said about his attitude towards women? Freud has been widely criticised for being sexist.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    If a woman impregnates herself without the man's consent, does he have the right to have the woman undergo a termination?
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Nope, we don't do eye for an eye 'justice'.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I'm thinking in the sense of not consenting to intercourse, rather than being deceived about fertility.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    It doesn't matter, we don't have any corporal punishments so, no it wouldn't be acceptable to invade a woman's body in response to a crime, even if that crime were invading someone else's body.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Big Gay wrote: »
    If a woman impregnates herself without the man's consent, does he have the right to have the woman undergo a termination?

    In my opinion - unfortunately not. Because the right to bodily integrity has to be safeguarded, as it is of such fundamental importance, that even in cases like these, once a woman is pregnant, no one can force her to terminate it.

    Ideally speaking however, we might want to argue that she owes him some form of compensation. There is a definite wrong that has occurred, she has done something wrong to him and there is a need for some sort of rectification, however inadequate it is.

    But forcing someone to have a termination would be equivalent to cutting the hand of a thief or capital punishment. Even if you think the outcome would be the best one, the means by which you get there are inexcusable.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    katralla wrote: »
    Have you read any Freud? If so, what do you think his writings said about his attitude towards women? Freud has been widely criticised for being sexist.

    I've never read Freud, but I've heard that the first thing you learn on any psychology degree is that everything he ever said was bullshit.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    katralla wrote: »
    Nope, we don't do eye for an eye 'justice'.

    Hmmm I hadn't considered it being used for revenge.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    katralla wrote: »
    Have you read any Freud? If so, what do you think his writings said about his attitude towards women? Freud has been widely criticised for being sexist.
    I haven't read much about his attitudes towards women, no. Surprise me.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    You don't need to read ABOUT his attitudes towards women, the idea is to read what Freud actually wrote and notice the attitudes towards women for yourself, critical reading.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I like his "beast", "I" and "over-I" model, of consciousness, but I think his reduction of everything else to the OEdipus complex is bad enough even when you're only looking at male patients.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    People have also criticised Freud for heteronormativity.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    jamelia wrote: »
    First, MoK, I don't think recognising the awesomeness of my care team - and they were all amazing, midwives, doctors, care assistants - means there is less room to recognise the awesomeness of my achievement too. It's not a zero-sum game. We all did a great job.

    Don't ever think I was belittling what a woman goes through during pregnancy. Having watched my wife go through it, to term, three times shows me the pressure that the female physology and emotions suffer as a consequence. I'm under no illusions about that.
    And as Big Gay rightly points out, when I say I think I did amazingly, part of what I mean by that is, isn't my body amazing? Isn't the human body incredible? I'm not necessarily claiming I had any major will or volition over the whole thing, and perhaps biology does 'take over' - but still, that in itself is incredible, and I don't see 'me' as somehow separate from my body. I am my body, and my body did an incredible job.

    Which is more my point. It's not you that's wonderful, per se, but nature. It is my deign of nature that's it's the woman that goes through that, not by choice of individual.
    I carried the babies for nine months. During that time I suffered morning sickness, all manner of aches, pains and other general fatigue, and then serious discomfort towards the end when the baby was overdue. Then I went through a marathon of a labour. Then I breastfed for six months.

    The part my partner's biology played in all that was ejaculating inside me at the start of all that. While I agree that it kicked off a rather wonderful and magical process, I don't think it was too much of a challenge for him! I don't think there is any great symbolic injustice being done if we marvel at the immense feat being carried out by women's bodies every day, while not extending the same reverence to men's role in it all! It may indeed take two genders to bring a baby into the world, but one of those fulfils his role rather quickly and pleasurably at the start of the process.

    So the hours of sleeplessness, the fact that I took over most of the tasks around the house, dealt with the emotions of a wife who, at times, had difficulties as well as my own (for example) are irrelevant?

    The fact that when we had the one miscarriage there was great support for her, but I was left to sob my heart out alone - after all I'm just the father so it wasn't happening to me, is fine?

    I don't think so.

    As a father I don't go through the changes to my body in the same way that a mother does. I knwo that, I did biology at school. However, that doesn't mean that a pregnancy doesn't also have a significant impact on the father too. To suggest otherwise is, frankly, insulting.

    My point really, given the issue of this thread, is that we all have a role to play in pretty much every situation. It is beholden upon us not to badge something purely as a "women's issue" because that is discriminatory too.
    It involves a woman's right to decide what happens to her own body - how is that not a woman's issue? Of course it affects fathers too - but given that the right of the woman in question is her right to bodily integrity, then it's hard to see how any interest of the father's could ever trump that.

    I feel that I need to repeat myself because the mists seem to have fallen over my previous comments.

    I would never argue that a father should have the right of veto when it comes to abortion. Never.

    But abortion isn't a women's issue. An abortion affects both partners. To deny that is to deny nature. At the moment males have no rights when it comes to abortion. None. Zip. Nada. Yet they are directly affected by whatever decision is made.

    Some feminists think that men shouldn't even have opinions on the subject, let alone be able to vote on laws about them. Personally that appalls me.

    Now, surely that's enough about abortion specifically? It one tiny part of equality in the eyes of the law and I suspect that we detract from a thread which is very important. We still live in a country where women's rights aren't being upheld. I would repeat what I say about abortion, and why I mentioned it at all. Piss poor rights for women doesn't make those "women's issues", they are actually a scar on us all.
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