The Irony of the Feminist Liberation Movement

[Ryan Rudolph]

Female Radical Feminists suggest that women have been shortchanged by men throughout history through an ‘evil patriarchic system’. They suggest that traditionally men have occupied the most powerful positions in society, while women have been excluded as a means to keep them imprisoned and enslaved, as poor housewives.

Although much of this is true.

I would like to explore as a means to discover just how rough these women had it compared to these ‘powerful men’. I’m suggesting that in many scenarios women actually had more leisure and more power than the men who worked in these powerful positions.

How is this possible? First of all, Historically, women were actually in control of much of what happened within the household. They decided what to buy for the children, and what to buy for their home. Many times the husbands were ones who were feebly subordinate to the wife’s desires. Moreover, housewives finished their chores well before the average 9-5 workday of a man and therefore she had loads of leisure time to read books, converse with her girlfriends, write, contemplate and so forth.

One could even suggest that the traditional housewife was actually the master, and the husband was the slave because she didn’t labor and toil to the extent that he did and she still reaped all the benefits of his income.

Moreover, housewives finished their chores well before the average 9-5 workday of a man and therefore she had loads of leisure time to read books, converse with her girlfriends, write, contemplate and so forth. Geese, with all this female freedom, it’s a wonder there wasn’t oodles of female geniuses popping out of the woodwork everywhere.

Furthermore, housework and feeding children is actually much more tolerable than many of the industrial-construction jobs men unwittingly sacrificed their autonomy for during these period.

it is ironic if you think about it because the women rebelled against the ‘powerful’ men demanding freedom because they were envious of the men’s misery. So they lost their leisure and ‘master status’ of housewife, so that they could join their fellow men and feel equal to him, by working along side him doing the same miserable soul crushing jobs.

[Rory]

Moreover, housewives finished their chores well before the average 9-5 workday of a man and therefore she had loads of leisure time to read books, converse with her girlfriends, write, contemplate and so forth. Geese, with all this female freedom, it’s a wonder there wasn’t oodles of female geniuses popping out of the woodwork everywhere.

Well, no. This is ridiculous just on the face of it. Because she was expected to have dinner ready when he came home and then expected to clean up after dinner. Obviously, this cleaning is taking place after his work hours are over. Furthermore, many households had several servants. If there was little enough work that one woman could handle it and have ample free time, why would anyone hire multiple maids?

Of course, for those people who did hire maids, your basic statement holds true - plenty of leasure time, very little thinking.

Furthermore, housework and feeding children is actually much more tolerable than many of the industrial-construction jobs men unwittingly sacrificed their autonomy for during these period.

Well, yes. Definitly true.

Actually, the problem wasn't so much in trying to force women to work, or open up jobs so that women would have to take them. The problem was actually men that were physically abusive towards women, but women didn't have either the legal right or the financial means to leave him. Sure, we're talking about a minority of the population but aren't social welfare programs usually for the minority of the population?

At any rate, gaining the legal right to be equal was important to fix what were real problems - abused women and children, widows, and desperate poverty that really couldn't be avoided without women chipping in financially...

At any rate, your story might hold true amongst the upper classes, but for the lower it is painfully broken.

[Steven Coyle]

I actually applaud some of the radical feminists (albeit I know little about the actual movement). And, surely, they'd feign interest in my opinion, just for labeling them "some of the radical feminists" - translating to "cute and admirable ladies." The idea of rebellion in a feminine garb, is at first glance a little ticklish. Mostly because women have a predisposition for reacting to opposition emotionally, rather than rationally. It may take a man a lifetime to ween himself from the staunch emotional coddling that mother's milk instilled: A women beating a stick for a cause, only encourages a man to reply with either complete disbelief, or utter disgust - because he desires his milk sweet, not sour. The primordial image of mother in her place, is too satisfying to his sense of self, that any mold breaking, only produces a natural chagrin. A women who can't understand this type of reaction, only backs herself into a corner, where her emotions endow her with the power to wield an advantage - but ultimately no further advance. Because where she finds her power, he finds his repose.

[Elizabeth Isabelle]

The idea of rebellion in a feminine garb, is at first glance a little ticklish. Mostly because women have a predisposition for reacting to opposition emotionally, rather than rationally.

an example
.

[Eternal_Tom]

I think feminists are opposed to the fact that most of the systems in place (for example the Justice and Politics) are inherently masculine, and so only they are losing out on being hired for jobs because they aren't as good at being men (whereas the more manly ones succeed)

They disagree that these systems should be as heavily polarised as they are, and that they need to be replaced with a more equal structure


Of course the more radical ones think the old systems should be entirely destroyed and replaced with feminine versions, ironically the ones calling for that are the most masculine!

[Ryan Rudolph]

I'm not disagreeing with many of you who point to the positive aspects of the feminist rebellion, of course there are beneficial points, however I am simply pointing out that a housewife is much more desirable than many of the jobs that women have liberated themselves as a means to 'enjoy'.

I speak from my own experience, my mother is a traditional housewife and my father works for a company under salary and she lives a dog's life compared to my father.

And many other women from the neighborhood have the same leisure, while their husbands go increasingly insane in a irrational civilization.

but of course there are a myraid women that suffered countless injustices, and I'm not denying these historic misfortunes, however the irony is that managing a household is much less stressful and enslaving than trying to manage a company.

The power imbalances that female intellectuals have fought to abolish are simply allowing women to work in the same spirit crushing professions as the men.

The feminist's critiques are laughable because they fail to critcize the horrific nature of working in the present civilization, especially in positions of power.

[Iolaus]

EI-

an example.

Kind of reminds me of the 'niggardly' debacle we had here a few years ago.

But I'm not so disappointed in the poor vocabulary as the fact that so many of these girls were ready to sign an outright silly petition, to "end the suffering of women."

Maybe they only showed the few who readily signed, and deleted the many who questioned it?

[Elizabeth Isabelle]

But I'm not so disappointed in the poor vocabulary as the fact that so many of these girls were ready to sign an outright silly petition, to "end the suffering of women."

Well, he did frequently repeat the phrase "women's suffrage" and even corrected one girl that it was spelled suffrage, not sufferage - and he could hardly keep himself from laughing when he was getting them to sign the petition.

Yeah, it is sadder about how they were willing to sign something, not knowing what they were signing (and that was my purpose of bringing it to this thread) - but the video does highlight a problem with the education system more than anything else.

[Rory]

Maybe they only showed the few who readily signed, and deleted the many who questioned it?

Well, some of the psychology students at my school did an experiment a while back where they came up with some nonsense (that they were spraying the quad with raw sewage) and then stood in the student union trying to see how many people they could get to sign their petition to stop this.

They didn't divide anything out by gender but they did say that over 80% of the people they talked to were willing to sign the petition without anyone knowing anything else (aside from the "do not drink. Nonpotable water" signs posted around campus)

[Kevin Solway]

Historically, being a housewife was a fairly draining occupation, especially if the woman had several children and no hired help. Doing the laundry without the help of modern automatic washers and dryers could take several days.

If we see women's liberation in a positive light it is more about having the right of choice rather than the right to do a soul-destroying job.

That is, while men's work is often soul destroying, women should have a right to do such work if they are able.

[Dan Rowden]

The so-called "First Wave" of feminism made some much needed advances in terms of female independence and self-determination. Unfortunately it's been downhill ever since. Second wave feminism was mostly naval gazing, self indulgent anti-male bullshit and third wave feminism is just pure femininity - aimless, fashion driven dross. Modern feminism isn't anything in particular, which makes it nothing at all.

[Ryan Rudolph]

Solway wrote:

Historically, being a housewife was a fairly draining occupation, especially if the woman had several children and no hired help. Doing the laundry without the help of modern automatic washers and dryers could take several days.

You have a point, modern housewives have it much easier than historic housewives did. However, one could still make an argument that washing clothes by hand and feeding children is more desirable than lets say selling vaccum cleaners door to door, or managing a bank, or working on a factory line, or working as a construction crew on an apartment building.

Solway wrote:

If we see women's liberation in a positive light it is more about having the right of choice rather than the right to do a soul-destroying job.

Yes, I suppose the right for females to choose is worth something even if the choices chosen are psyche-crippling.

Dan wrote:

The so-called "First Wave" of feminism made some much needed advances in terms of female independence and self-determination.

Yes, I agree, it was a necessary evolution of in term of women’s autonomy, however it is just a little odd when a radical feminist claims that a call center manager is more liberated than a housewife. I see the call center manager in a worse predicament. The housewife has less people to answer to, less people to monitor and keep controlled, less stress on the mind, etc…

[Shardrol]

Housewives don't get paid, see. Traditionally the man of the house is in control of the finances so the housewife was more like a servant or child than an independent adult. At least that is the feminist argument.

But I agree with you that we are now seeing a ridiculous situation where people pay other people to raise their children so they can have the joy of sitting in some office all day answering phones.

However a lot of women who work outside the home just plain need the money.
.

[Dan Rowden]

I think the deep and serious question (that society will probably never ask itself outside the cloisters of University Halls and thereby leak into political attitudes) is: what is parenting?

[sue hindmarsh]

Dan,

What’s your thinking on “parenting”?

_
Sue

[DHodges]

However a lot of women who work outside the home just plain need the money.

Looking at it in an economic sense, of supply and demand curves for labor...

When you have mostly men working and few women working, you are at a certain point on the curve. If you then add a large number of potential workers (women), you have shifted the supply curve - labor in general can demand less per unit (hour of labor).

Depending on the shapes of the curves, you can end up in a situation where families have to have two wage-earners where they previously needed one.

That's a pretty simplistic argument, but labor markets overall work like markets for other commodities - particularly if you are talking about relatively unskilled labor, where a worker is easily replaceable with another worker.

[Ryan Rudolph]

Dan wrote:

What is parenting?

I would define parenting as the act of not doing, just as much as doing. One needs to know what not to do to the child, just as much as what to do for the child.

For instance: One thing parents should not do is use their child as frequent entertainment for drunk party guests by making him to clown tricks and what not.

(Ryan shakes his fist at his parents through the wall)

Dhodges wrote:

Depending on the shapes of the curves, you can end up in a situation where families have to have two wage-earners where they previously needed one.

Couldn’t you apply this same logic in overpopulated places in Asia where nine to twelve people live in one dwelling just to be able to survive?

[sue hindmarsh]

Dan wrote:

...and third wave feminism is just pure femininity - aimless, fashion driven dross. Modern feminism isn't anything in particular, which makes it nothing at all.

Yes, this “third wave of feminism” is further evidence of the sheer disinterest felt by both men and women towards women’s individual and social development. If earlier female proponents of women’s rights, people like Wollstonecraft and Pankhurst, saw the superficial and crassly egotistical way women and men continue to treat women’s rights and development, they’d turn in their graves.

Men and women, who have the wealth and freedom to ensure their own health, security and rights, mostly turn a blind-eye to the horrendous state of affairs that millions of women endure daily. Around the world, women continue to die from preventable diseases, starvation, poverty, over work, complications during pregnancy, complications caused by too many pregnancies, infections caused by circumcision, domestic violence, unsafe abortions, sexually transmitted diseases, illnesses caused by pollution, and as civilian casualties of civil disputes and wars. In developed, and undeveloped countries alike – these events take place on a daily bases.

Even though there are a number of feminist and religious organizations, humanitarian groups, as well as government and UN programs all trying to address many of the above issues - they are impotent at even creating a dint in this chaos. It isn’t that they aren’t trying their hardest to do their best to ensure that every individual on the planet lives a life free from pain and suffering – it’s just that they don’t understand the deeper causes of this suffering, and are therefore incapable of addressing them.

If they understood that the many problems females face daily: such as, sexism, hostility, violence and disinterest in their development, comes directly from the deeply felt egotistical pleasure 99.99% of the world’s population gain from living mindlessly in the Feminine – they would then be able to assist women’s development by educating those billions of people away from the Feminine. Only when the majority of the world’s population is sufficiently masculine, and therefore conscious, will women receive the help they so desperately require.

-
Sue

[Dan Rowden]

Dan,

What’s your thinking on “parenting”?

_
Sue

"Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrhwhhwhwhhhhwhhhhhhhhre you asking philosophically?

[sue hindmarsh]

Dan,

Yep! You said it was a "deep and serious question" - but I'm not sure where you're taking it.

-
Sue

[Elizabeth Isabelle]

One thing parents should not do is use their child as frequent entertainment for drunk party guests by making him to clown tricks and what not.

(Ryan shakes his fist at his parents through the wall)

There are plenty of worse things that parents expect their children to do to entertain drunken party guests. I agree that there are plenty of "not doing" that parents ought to heed as well as "doing" and I find it troubling that becoming a parent has the most mis-matched set of qualifications to importance of doing the job right. All you have to do is be a fertile person who had unprotected sex with another fertile person - by force if necessary. I can't imagine a worse predictor of who would be a good parent.

[DHodges]

Couldn’t you apply this same logic in overpopulated places in Asia where nine to twelve people live in one dwelling just to be able to survive?

Yup.
In third world countries, labor is very cheap.

[Ryan Rudolph]

Elizabeth wrote:

All you have to do is be a fertile person who had unprotected sex with another fertile person - by force if necessary. I can't imagine a worse predictor of who would be a good parent.

I agree, I propose that advanced western countries should start implementing mandatory parenting licenses for all. If you're a bad driver, the government doesnt allow you to drive a car, and I think the same should apply to parenting. Initially, the program could catch the extreme offenders like alcoholics, angry and violent people, molesters, rapists, extreme neurotics etc. and the government could give these people financial incentives to be permanently neutered.

And as humanity becomes collectively wiser, the parenting licences would become increasingly refined and advanced allowing child raising to only be done by the elite in the society. This would lower the populations over time as well.

The problem is that you need to convince people that it is in the collective's best interest if their free choice of parenting is taken away. Many ignorant people like Liberitarians argue that it is a god given right for all citizens to be able to have children, but I disagree.

Moreover, your typical ignorant feminine person puts an enormous value on child raising. It becomes a source of meaning for people with empty lives. I think the Liberalism political model is a great one, if the social programs and regulations become increasingly intelligent and wise.

[Elizabeth Isabelle]

The problem is that you need to convince people that it is in the collective's best interest if their free choice of parenting is taken away.

I disagree that this is a problem.

your typical ignorant feminine person puts an enormous value on child raising. It becomes a source of meaning for people with empty lives.

Now there's the problem - and resolving that will resolve the part about so-called "convincing people."

I think that a lot (although not all) of the problem of really atrocious parenting comes from people who don't really want kids anyway, but have an egotistical attachment to having them.

It is argued that people were meant to have kids or they would not have the biology they do. I don't really think that's the way it was set up in the cave-man days. I think the people who were procreating were too busy doing the stuff that leads to procreation to want to actually raise the kids they made. Look at teenagers over the last 20 years for back-up on that thought. Lots of unwed mothers still want to go out and party, and although they may love their kids, they love them more if they don't have to be bothered with them very often. I think the members of the clan who were inclined to be good parents just took care of whatever children there were there - regardless of who the kid came from.

Also, I think that people find it more enjoyable to be parents in "shifts." Even the ones that love their kids often also love it when summer vacation is over and they can send their kids back to school. All people get tired, and very young children can need attention ever 20 minutes around the clock. That's just too much for anybody to do and be at their best - but it pushes some people right over the edge. I remember working in the ER at one point when some young parents brought their baby in at about 2 or 3 a.m. There was a triangle from between the kid's ribcage to about the kids waist that was not bruised. The kid had pretty obviously been beaten to death, but the parents claimed that they were just feeding the kid a cookie and he choked on it.

Both of the parents were there, and they were acting very calmly, yet they acted like they cared. If they didn't care, they could have hidden the body like some other parents do, and they either could have gotten away with it or gotten away with it for a long time. Some people just can't take the 'round-the-clock pressure of raising an infant - and if we lifted the societal pressures demanding that they raise their own children (even if they find out later that this is not the job for them) then there would not be such a problem.

A lot of people realize after they have kids that this was not right for them, but they are pressured into keeping their kids. There is also the argument that children really want to be with their biological parents (which is a strong bond). I believe with some societal tweaking, it would be okay to only have qualified people raise kids. My mother never wanted me (and my father didn't particularly care that I was born), and growing up, I wished that they had stood up to my grandmothers enough to put me up for adoption (when I wasn't praying to die). I knew adopted kids and had many arguments with them about whether or not it is okay for parents to give their kids up for adoption, and I saw their pain, but I couldn't convince them of how much better off they were.

If the majority of kids were sent to institutions to be cared for from the time of their birth by people who were really qualified and caring, maybe it would be better - and biological parents wouldn't have to "give them up for adoption" as they could just visit when they actually felt like it. If everybosy's parents just visited sometimes, none of the kids would feel "different."

I bet a lot of the parents would like that, too - and as long as it was "normal" then there would not be a stigma. Although hospitals are expensive for all but the indigent, that is one place people "put" their kids sometimes. Sometimes parents would jsut drop off their sick kids and not be seen nor heard from until the kid was well enough to go home. I believe that it was only because there was no cost to the indigent that we saw more often that the indigent could be difficult to get hold of and arrange a pick-up time for the kids... but there is no stigma to your kid being in the hospital, so it wasn't like they had a problem with just leaving their kid there and going about their business.

It should be really okay that only the people who really want their kids spend much - or even any - time with them. Quit shaming people into spending time with kids - the kids (and society) end up paying for it as much as the disgruntled parents.

[Rory]

I agree, I propose that advanced western countries should start implementing mandatory parenting licenses for all. If you're a bad driver, the government doesnt allow you to drive a car, and I think the same should apply to parenting. Initially, the program could catch the extreme offenders like alcoholics, angry and violent people, molesters, rapists, extreme neurotics etc. and the government could give these people financial incentives to be permanently neutered.

Actually, the government doesn't do this, but non-profits already do. http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0244,basu,39531,5.html