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Whatever happened to the Feminist movement?

Bob George

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Is it just me, or is feminism fading out? It just seems that all the work done for women's right and anti-discrimination against women has sort of gone backwards in the last few years. Discriminatory comments towards women are more acceptable these days than they were in the 90s. Women even think less of themselves. Oh, I forgot, they aren't women anymore, they're "girls". What's up with that? I thought teenage girls in the 90s were into women's rights and they wouldn't be called a "b!tch" or a "whore" by anyone or it'd be the last thing that person ever did. Now teenage girls call each other "bitches" and "whores". They aren't into women's rights anymore. They're into getting their boobs done so they can boys want to sleep with them. And this is 14/15/16 year old girls I'm talking about. It just seems like we are going backwards. Anti-racism is on the rise, feminism is on the decline. You can't call Barack Obama articulate or you are being racist, but you can call Hillary Clinton a b!tch. I don't want to make this about the US election, but it's just an example. Thoughts?.....
 
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This is such a messed up time to be living in. Material items are more important than values. People make it OK to discriminate against them because they don't have much respect for themselves anyway. It's just messed up. We've gone backwards. Very sad.
 
I think the world need a woman to run for US president to show us just how bad we still are and how backwards we've become.
 
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what happend to them? I happend to them :yes:



WOMEN, KNOW YOUR PLACE :angry:



*runs far away from thread*
 
it is still around ... the Gays simply took it over ;)

Run faster chaos, cuz we coming for ya **SNAP**
 
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I have to agree with you here.

I'm all for feminism, but recently its almost as if people don't care anymore, or we've lost sight of the ultimate goal somewhere along the way... :(
 
images


^_^
 
It's still around. Not moving that much forward, sadly. Feminism is my religion. :)
 
The situation of women and girls: facts and figures

Gender and HIV/AIDS
  • Nearly a third of all adults living with HIV/AIDS are under the age of 25 and two thirds of them are women.
  • In Sub-Saharan Africa, girls are getting infected faster and earlier than boys. In the 15 to 24 age group, two girls are infected for every boy.
  • Surveys indicate that compared to women who have some post primary schooling, women with no education are five times more likely to lack basic information about HIV/AIDS.
  • In 2002, an estimated 800,000 children under the age of l5 were infected with HIV, the vast majority (90 per cent) as a result of parent-to-infant transmission.
  • By 2001, UNICEF and its UN Agency partners were supporting 80 programmes in 16 countries to help mothers avoid passing on the virus to their infants. Between l999-200l these programmes reached 300,000 new clients.
    See the HIV/AIDS module for more information
Gender and girls’ education
  • Over 110 million of the world’s children, two thirds of them girls, are not in school.
  • Of the world’s 875 million illiterate adults, two thirds are women.
  • During the 1990s, gender parity in primary school enrolment improved in all regions world-wide and in nearly two thirds of the countries with available data. UNICEF is supporting 25 countries to accelerate progress towards achieving gender parity in primary school enrolment by 2005.
  • Half of the girls who live in developing countries (excluding China) will be married by their 20th birthday. Increasing girls’ time in school is one of the best ways to foster later, chosen marriage.
    See the Girl’s education module for more information
Gender and violence against women and girls and child protection issues
  • Data shows that at least one in every three woman is a survivor of some form of gender-based violence, most often by some one in her own family. [1999 Johns Hopkins global report]
  • Girls between 13 and 18 years of age constitute the largest group in the sex industry. It is estimated that around 500,000 girls below 18 are victims of trafficking each year.
  • Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) affects l30 million girls and women globally and places 2 million at risk annually. The prevalence of FGM remained stable at levels above 90 per cent in many countries during the last decade, with little improvement over the years.
  • UNICEF supports strengthening knowledge and understanding of gender violence and abuse in many countries and addresses the need for reform of legal systems and policies.
  • In some cultures the preference for boy children results in pre-natal sex selection and infanticide of girls. In India, for example, there are 933 Indian women for every l,000 men, resulting in 40 million ‘missing’ women.
    See the Child protection module for more information
Gender and the Maternal Mortality Rate (MMR) and other health issues
1,400 women die every day from pregnancy-related causes, 99 per cent of them in developing countries.
  • In Sub-Saharan Africa, a woman has a one in three chance of dying in child birth. In industrialized countries, the risk is 1 in 4,085.
  • Direct obstetric deaths account for about 75 per cent of all maternal deaths in developing countries.
  • UNICEF currently supports emergency obstetric care in the 12 countries with the highest MMR.
    See the Early childhood module for more information
Emergencies
  • More than 80 per cent of the world’s 35 million refugees and displaced people are women and children.
  • Emergencies puts women at risk of extreme sexual violence and abuse. In Rwanda, for example, 2,000 women, many of whom were survivors of rape, tested positive for HIV during the five years following the 1994 genocide.
 
The Global Economy and Women

Whether working in a factory in Thailand sewing athletic shoes for less than $4 a day or in a Mexican factory making parts for U.S. cars at $10 a day, women are among the hardest hit by the global economy. According to the U.N. Development Fund for Women, most women throughout the world work in low-skilled, low-wage jobs. They are paid less than men in nearly every country in the world and they work longer hours.
Women account for 70 percent of the world’s population living in poverty—even though they make up 45 percent of the world’s workforce. Even in developed countries, such as the United States, women are working longer hours and making less than men, according to the 2004 AFL-CIO Ask a Working Woman survey.



A national poll in Ireland showed that a shocking (well, I guess not) number of people think that rape survivors are totally or partially responsible for being attacked.
More than 30% think a victim is some way responsible if she flirts with a man or fails to say no clearly. 10% of people think the victim is entirely at fault if she has had a number of sexual partners.
37% think a woman who flirts extensively is at least complicit, if not completely in the wrong, if she is the victim of a sex crime.
One in three think a woman is either partly or fully to blame if she wears revealing clothes.
38% believe a woman must share some of the blame if she walks through a deserted area.
​
 
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I`ll leave for now with this quote that seem fitting in view of the coming election in US:


I will feel equality has arrived when we can elect to office women who are as incompetent as some of the men who are already there.

:lol:
 
Some great facts there MC :)


I personally think that for every billboard I see like this:

4295_1_230.jpeg


that we as a society just keep on reinforcing the stereotype that women should be seen as objects of beauty. We don't need to have brains... we all just have to look beautiful to be part of society. -_-
 
Well, I think that a lot of things happened...

I think some of the women behind the Feminist movement died or got caught up in other things, I think a group of Women emerged that wanted a middle ground between the feminist movement and the status quo, and I think that the media became more and more powerful. And I think other things became more important to the general public.

In the west it is not longer as large of a problem with women having no freedom, no choice and no power. Most of us can chose our own careers, can chose our own husband, and can chose whether or not we want to have children. So probably we lost sight of the millions of people that to this day do NOT have a choice. I think at some point the feminist movement became about the women being better than men, and not equal, and it sorta lost it's momentum, I guess.
 
I am a strong woman and I support all the other women who want more equality! Because incomes are still not equal between men and women in this society. I don't think the media are to blame for the inequality between men and women. And I see a lot of series on tv now with female lead characters who are not all about sex and even are the main providers for their families, such as Medium. I agree that we should be wary that all the things women have fought for, aren't turned back or diminished. I will always vote for the political party in my country that has women's interests as their main concern. And I try to set a good example. Let's all do that! :) If others don't do it, we can best start with ourselves.
 
Minnie said:
Well, I think that a lot of things happened...

I think some of the women behind the Feminist movement died or got caught up in other things, I think a group of Women emerged that wanted a middle ground between the feminist movement and the status quo, and I think that the media became more and more powerful. And I think other things became more important to the general public.

In the west it is not longer as large of a problem with women having no freedom, no choice and no power. Most of us can chose our own careers, can chose our own husband, and can chose whether or not we want to have children. So probably we lost sight of the millions of people that to this day do NOT have a choice. I think at some point the feminist movement became about the women being better than men, and not equal, and it sorta lost it's momentum, I guess.
Click to expand...

I think that is one of the major misconceptions that we have been fed by people who wants to portray feminists as bitter, man hating and arrogant.
Thing is, we have not come as far as we like to think. And its not that hard to prove it. Depends on how we define freedom too, because when we take a closer look its not mutch to brag about.
I do call myself a feminist, however I do like men and find that the situation is interfering with both men and womens freedom to shoose their way of life.
How gender influence on women and men in the western world, is more subtle and we are at a different stage then parts of this world where being a woman means having almost no freedom, at all. Change takes a long time, and as women in the western world has had right to vote, and a right to handle their own economy about a 100 years time- its logical that most of the change is superficial.
If it was not, why is it still so that most women are aware that how they dress, how they act and what they do will be subject that will influence a court in a rape case? Why is it that most women know that having children may influence their carrier, while for a man this is not a factor that anyone asks him about if he applies on a job?
I can name a lot of other examples, but its seems to me that in the last years, its not nessecarily men who disagree on discussing this- but its women that rather want to change the subject, and doesn`t want to deal with it? Makes people uncomfortable, it seems?
Some times I find it amazing how easily we can be silenced, and how scary it is for so many women to be identified as feminists.
In reagards to this, the attacks that Hillary has experienced is very interesting. It does seem that it far more allowance to discriminate a woman for being a woman- and the attacks are very different from how they would attack a man.

As you say Minnie; there are many women all over the world that lives without freedom, and who should have our solidarity- even if western women are happy with their current situation.
 
In regards to feminism and Hillary, I found this very interesting. If you go through the examples given, its kind of alarming.........:

http://shakespearessister.blogspot.com/2008/02/hillary-sexism-watch.html


I found this one particularily interesting, because it sums up mutch of the problems not only for Hillary, but for women in general, its the damned if you do, and damned if you dont ( they will get at you at something, no matter what tactic you use)

MelissaMcEwan.png
Damned if You Do…

| posted by Melissa McEwan | Wednesday, February 06, 2008





In comments (to the post OMG) earlier today, Tom Watson asked: "Why aren't women more formally organized for Hillary—I honestly don't know."

Maybe, just maybe, it has something to do with the fact that a lot of women who support Hillary see the depth and scope of the organized institutional misogyny being levied against her and feel, somewhere in their guts, that a massive "women for Hillary" movement would actually be used against her and undermine her campaign.

Every time she mentions being a woman, mentions being a mother, mentions being a daughter, mentions being a wife, or even makes any oblique reference to running a historical campaign or being the first woman to do something (like win a presidential primary), she is accused of playing the gender card. She is diminished, ridiculed, criticized, and dismissed using dog whistles, slurs, graphics, and bluntly misogynist commentary. When her womanness is the weapon most used against her, is it any wonder that women who support her may be hesitant to scream it from the rooftops, reluctant to stand behind her in large numbers, lest we undermine her? When womanness is hated, it will inevitably make women feel like a liability.

I don't even think this is a conscious feeling in many women. It certainly has taken me a long time to reach the point where I found this hesitation within myself, that I could bluntly engage the grim realization that I had internalized the expressions of contempt for a strong woman and let them manifest as a disinclination to speak too loudly of any admiration I had for Hillary, lest the contempt for me, for this strong woman here and her strong opinions, add to the weight of disdain Hillary carries already on her shoulders.

I have read several agonizing posts today, written by women who either voted for Obama and feel torn about not voting for a woman, or voted for Hillary and feel bad that they voted for her at least in part because she is a woman. So many of us are plagued by the despondent, sickening thought that if we fail to vociferously support Hillary, despite her being a woman, it somehow hurts her—but if we do vociferously support Hillary in part because she is a woman, that, too, somehow hurts her.

None of us, including those, I suspect, who have come to the decision to support Obama, want to feel like our votes and our support are a condemnation of Hillary's womanhood. Never was I so unhappy as when my very public support of John Edwards was framed by others as "a feminist who supports Edwards instead of Hillary," which implicitly reproved Hillary. Not just her feminist credentials, of course, but her. It was unfair to both of us.

So because women's support and lack of support for Hillary can be used against her, in a way none of us would like, perhaps it has caused many of us to keep silent altogether. Score another one for the patriarchy.

And maybe, just maybe, women have been afraid that being proved right—that seeing their unapologetic, unabashed support in large numbers (outside the polls) actually be used against Hillary, actually hurt her campaign—would undermine our most closely-held survival mechanisms. Maybe seeing that horrible fear realized, facing the incontrovertible evidence of the hatred of womannness so close-up that we can feel its hot, putrid breath on our cheeks, would no longer allow us to deny in an act of self-preservation the profundity of acceptable misogyny. Maybe it would deliver a fatal blow to the carefully constructed internal framework of selective blindness upon which we all depend, and tear the tissue-thin bulwark against self-loathing, which are necessary accoutrements for any sentient woman to get through the fucking day in this country.

Maybe we're afraid to undermine something within us, too. Once built, we are not eager to let fall the load-bearing fortifications that keep us steady against the reverberating onslaught of institutional misogyny.

That doesn't mean not supporting Hillary. It means possibly supporting her in a different way. The people who won't vote for Hillary aren't going to be swayed by millions of women supporting her loudly, anyway. But if millions of women just turn up at the voting booth and strike a silent blow, it won't matter. Their support will be evident.

And can't be used against her.
 
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movingcoolcat said:
I think that is one of the major misconceptions that we have been fed by people who wants to portray feminists as bitter, man hating and arrogant.
Thing is, we have not come as far as we like to think. And its not that hard to prove it. Depends on how we define freedom too, because when we take a closer look its not mutch to brag about.
I do call myself a feminist, however I do like men and find that the situation is interfering with both men and womens freedom to shoose their way of life.
How gender influence on women and men in the western world, is more subtle and we are at a different stage then parts of this world where being a woman means having almost no freedom, at all. Change takes a long time, and as women in the western world has had right to vote, and a right to handle their own economy about a 100 years time- its logical that most of the change is superficial.
If it was not, why is it still so that most women are aware that how they dress, how they act and what they do will be subject that will influence a court in a rape case? Why is it that most women know that having children may influence their carrier, while for a man this is not a factor that anyone asks him about if he applies on a job?
I can name a lot of other examples, but its seems to me that in the last years, its not nessecarily men who disagree on discussing this- but its women that rather want to change the subject, and doesn`t want to deal with it? Makes people uncomfortable, it seems?
Some times I find it amazing how easily we can be silenced, and how scary it is for so many women to be identified as feminists.
In reagards to this, the attacks that Hillary has experienced is very interesting. It does seem that it far more allowance to discriminate a woman for being a woman- and the attacks are very different from how they would attack a man.

As you say Minnie; there are many women all over the world that lives without freedom, and who should have our solidarity- even if western women are happy with their current situation.
Click to expand...


Great post, and I find myself agreeing, after all I was watching during our own election here down in Australia last year, where a lot of people were trying to discredit Julia Gillard (our now Deputy PM) because she was saying that she will fight for families... and people were arguing how could she do that when she is not married, and doesn't have children.
People were questioning her ability to be a deputy PM because she wasn't a stereotypical woman. That stunned me. I kept thinking that people were missing the point. I couldn't care whether she had children or not, whether she was married or not, whether she was really a drag queen on her weekends or an alien from out of space.
My only concern about her was whether she had what it took to run the country and to address the issues that she said she would fight for. Thankfully most people polled that they felt the same way in opinion polls... but it still stunned me.
We're still a very long way away from men and women being equals in the work place. My pay slip reads: Fem/Casual Rate:
Why am I listed as a Female - causal?
Shouldn't it just be Casual?
I wonder what the difference is in rate?

We only have to look at the difference in ratios of men vs women in high paying jobs... or jobs of power.
We only have to look at the conciousness placed on dressing approriately for our work place. Sometimes I wish I was a bloke just so I could buy a wardrobe of suits and then my finances would be much easier. Suits for work, suits for going out to functions, suits for funerals and weddings. As opposed to outfit after outfit for different occasion, and god forbid I'm caught wearing the same thing twice! :mello:


It's truly fascinating :wacko:
 
I feel you on the clothes issue, L.J:lol:
Problem with feminism today, is that yes things has changed- but when we reaaaaly start to talk about it its easy to see how fragile it all are.
We have a discussion about a new law here in Norway:

At the moment we have a very good arraignment when it comes to maternity leave. Women has the right to one year with full pay, and you can apply to be on leave for a longer time, with less pay.
The discussion now is to share that time between mom and dad, and let both have equal rights.

Island has had this arraignment for a while, and most fathers interviewed are very positive.

I think this is one of those things that will realy influence society, as it means that employers has to look at a male employee the same way as a women- he too must be expected to having to take leave due to family obligations. And most importantly; the men I know who has shosen to stay at home have a very different relationship with their children then those who don`t have the experience of being "alone" in caring for a child( some do, as they have the right to and if they can do it in regards to economy there are quite a few nice men out there who have managed to BOTH be " real" men and be caring and involved fathers and husbands- so mutch for "poor men not being able to cope with all those new challenges...................").

I have seen a real change in men that has had the experience of being "home alone", while the mom is off working. And its a very different relationship between the parents too.

I think its also time for women to let men have the responsebility for children, as many men are quite as capable of being the one to take care of the home, and of children. Its not a matter of becoming the same gender ( as some think that feminism is women becoming men, and men becoming women)- its more a question of very practical, economical and down to earth changes.
Its not a matter of holding the door, or being polite, or having respect- or eaven what people wear ( even if that IS a exhausting thing sometimes). Its a matter of having equal opportunities to live your life, and in a way that benefits society as a whole.

I never understood the conclusion that due to feminism, being polite was not needed anymore. I am used to men being the one to be able to fix everything from a car to building a house- due to having three very practical brothers. But when it came to me and my husband, he didn`t have a clue when it came to practical stuff and I had been following closely on what my brothers were doing - so I knew a lot. But people automaticly assumed that all the tools belonged to him.........
I was working as a teatcher in arts and crafts at the time, and I remember a fellow teatcher finding it amusing that I was wearing lipstic, while teatching the kids to do woodturning.:lol:

The thing is, I want to both have the right to wear high heals, know how to use heavy machinery, know how to build a house, shoose to be dressed in rags while working, and be a real "girl" whenever I feel like it. And I would expect that a man in my life would allow me to be me, as I would do the same for him.
Its about being a "real" person. Not a stereotype.
 
I honestly don't know. Society's ideals have gone out the window long ago, it's really sad to see. :no:
 
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