questions for feminists and those who study

This is a discussion for people who identify with feminist ideas and/or have taken time to study the movement and its waves. If you have not, please make your own thread if you wish to discuss feminism since this is not the place for you. eace:

Lots of questions just to spark some type of discussion here, as this is an important topic to me and I enjoy talking to people who can discuss it intelligently.


What do you think are the defining qualities of the feminist movement(s)? Greatest moments or achievements? Any that you are especially thankful for?

Do you feel progress is slowing or surging? Is there still progress to be made? What will progress look like?

Have efforts gotten "off course" with the development of sub-movements, or is there value in having a great variety of perspectives? Do you identify with any sub-movements personally?

How do you deal with people who have either distorted perceptions of feminism or negative attitudes towards the movement?

 

Good questions! To me, the main thing is the law. Without the force of law, we have nothing to stand on. You used to hear people say things like "the world isn't ready for this yet" ... or "you can't legislate people's attitudes".

Well, ready or not, here it is. And I don't really worry too much about people's "attitudes" ... revolutionary attitudes always take a generation or two before they become accepted, anyway. What I want, as I said, is a legal leg to stand on.

We've made great progress just in my lifetime. My mother couldn't buy a house herself. In her day, husbands were legally able to abuse their wives. If you were raped the assumption was that it must have been your own fault. Those days are thankfully gone, for the most part.

And my great-grandmother couldn't even vote! Imagine that.

There's still a long way to go. The glass ceiling is being dented, but it's still there. Women are still paid around 60% of what men are paid for the same jobs, although it's getting better.

I'm happy that things will be better for my daughters.

 

"Do you feel progress is slowing or surging? Is there still progress to be made? What will progress look like?"

i feel that a great deal of progress has been made. i think that though there still is some bias in people's minds against women, overall we've climbed to our equal footing> I believe now the problem isn't men holding us down, or our rights being taken from us, but now women need to stand up and act!

 

1. Women being allowed to vote

2. Women working the factories during WWII put one heck of a big dent in the perception about what jobs women couldn't do.

This question surprises me.

The submovements have developed because it is universally (with minor exceptions) accepted that women are equal. With such a large pool of those who believe in what feminism is whether or not they actually ascribe to the title feminist, it is impossible to not have such a great variety of perspectives. Trimming the numbers of whose support would be accepted to a smaller range based upon beliefs would render the idea of feminism impotent due to the smaller base of power, IMO.

I don't see any way around it.

 

I think that feminism as a movement has by and large reached its epoch, and is now increasingly becoming more of a burden on society than anything...