Feminism

[Gina B]

Originally posted by Aaron:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Gina L:
Aaron, what is feminism? (in your definition)

Feminism is a broad term. By and large it is a political movement that began in the late 19th Century that pushes for the elimination of gender roles in society. </font>[/QUOTE]I didn't want to hi-jack Aaron's thread on feminism/homosexuality, but wanted to reply and then focus on feminism, so here goes.

I do agree that to a degree, homosexuality has, to a small degree, become more acceptable due to radical feminism.
On the other hand, I'm all for equal social and political rights. For example, the right to vote, to hold political office, equal pay for equal work, etc..
Gender roles...I don't think they're all that existant, except for the basic and natural common sense that women are the ones who carry and nurse children. Staying at home after nursing doesn't seem a gender role...how are the men to teach the children and raise them properly (homeschooling, a man's job, right?) if the woman stays home?

PS: What I'm saying in this post is not necessarily what I believe, and if this discussion continues, please don't take what I may say to be an exact reflection of what I believe. I'd simply like to explore the topic more, as I don't have all my thoughts on it solidified.

 

[Helen]

From what I have understood about feminism, it is the denial of any differences (except biological) between men and women to start with, but ends up including the emasculation of men. Shortly after the movement got started in the seventies, I started seeing in both sit-coms and ads that the men were starting to be portrayed as chronically stupid compared to their smart and competant wives/girlfriends/daughters/lovers/female partners.

It don't see that that has changed much in the entertainment industry.

In addition, it has, under the guise of political correctness or whatever, become the bane of our armed forces. Women are not built with the muscle mass of men, period. I have a retarded son who is about as strong as I am. He is 21 and spends his days rocking and thumbing through old magazines. I clean stalls, the horses, the house, and him. I haul 50# sacks of dog feed and horse feed. I dig and hoe and rake.

He has muscle mass without trying. I am still half flab!

But now we have men who are being forced to depend on women as 'equals' in law enforcement, fire protection, the armed services, etc. They must squelch any training and instincts they have to protect these women and instead treat them like men.

THAT is what feminism has done. We are no longer females, officially. We are androgenous but simply have the equipment to bear babies, if we choose not to abort them. That is feminism.

And so many are finally rebelling against that nonsense. It's about time.

We are different. Complimentary, but definitely different. From birth.

Watch tiny babies. The little girl babies will generally concentrate on the faces of those near them. The little boy babies will generally concentrate on moving and/or colored objects. I think they are born wanting to take them apart!

Feminists say it is all social construct. I guess that's because they have aborted all their babies and never had a chance to see them as newborns...

 

[donnA]

Feminism started out being for equal rights for education, pay, employment, and voting for women. And theres nothing wrong with that. Modern feminism is the problem. But the original basics should be freedoms for anyone.

 

[Frenchy]

Very good post Helen

 

[Karen]

Originally posted by donnA:
Feminism started out being for equal rights for education, pay, employment, and voting for women. And theres nothing wrong with that. Modern feminism is the problem. But the original basics should be freedoms for anyone.

Very well-stated, donnA.
I would be considered a feminist in the old-fashioned sense.
Many of us would be shocked at how restrictive laws used to be against women.
Old-fashioned feminism helped change that.
I am in favor of women voting, women owning property, women being admitted to college and to various professions. All of which was once not allowed.

And the reason they were not allowed was culture and interpreting the Bible incorrectly.
Complementary roles do not equate to subservience and men having domination, and all men having domination over all women.
Too many have confused Biblical submission with all women being ruled by all men.

The fact that modern feminism has veered down a wrong path does not, in my opinion, mean the goals of 150 years ago were wrong.

Karen

 

[Helen]

Donna and Karen, I think we would all agree with you both. I think -- I may be wrong -- that the implications in the first post were concerning feminism in the past fifty years or so.

 

[Frenchy]

thats the way i took it

 

[samarelda]

Oh, Helen, I do so agree with you. I am SO tired of women now days. They don't want to be equal with men, they want to be better. I have no problem with equal pay for equal work, but face it, there are many things a man can do better just because he is a man. I get so tired of these women who want to work road construction. The men are doing the back breaking work while the woman stands there holding her little stop sign with a GREAT BIG ATTITUDE. Makes me want to run over her!! I know I shouldn't say that, but I just get so tired of it. If you want to work road construction woman, get down there with the rest of the men and a shovel!

I keep telling my girls that they need to be tough and feminine. You can't faint over every little thing. I have no time for helpless women either. Be tough, be feminine, but know your place. Be able to clean a chicken coop or horse stall, but be a lady. Let your man be a man. He is big, he is loud, he fills the house when he is home. He is messy, he snores--he is just being a man. Don't compete with him, complete him!

 

[Gina B]

Originally posted by samarelda:
He is big, he is loud, he fills the house when he is home. He is messy, he snores--he is just being a man.

Excuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuusssssssssseee me?!

Big - check
Loud- check
Messy-check
Snores-Check
Man - *check* Nope.

 

[Scarlett O.]

Originally posted by samarelda:
Be tough, be feminine, but know your place.

Place? A place? We have a place?????

Why, nobody ever told me!

Why am I always the last to know anything around here!

 

[Petrel]

Originally posted by Gina L:
Big - check
Loud- check
Messy-check
Snores-Check
Man - *check* Nope.

Gina, are you trying to compete?

 

[Aaron]

I wish you would have responded in the thread I started, because this is heading a direction I wanted it to go. I don't make every point I want to make in an OP. That would make for an interminable post. I like to let a discussion evolve.

Originally posted by donnA:
Feminism started out being for equal rights for education, pay, employment, and voting for women. And theres nothing wrong with that. Modern feminism is the problem. But the original basics should be freedoms for anyone.

Don't forget "reproductive rights," e.g. abortion. But let's not perpetuate a charicature of a woman's status prior to the 19th Amendment. Most places of employment were privately owned. Even the large companies like Ford. There was no law forbidding Ford from hiring a woman, or paying a woman equal to or more than he paid a man.

What Feminism seeks to do is to coerce an employer to hire women and dictate the pay. If we were having this discussion in 1900, we would probably see it the same way we see the "domestic partner" issue.

Originally posted by Karen:
...women voting, women owning property, women being admitted to college and to various professions. All of which was once not allowed.

That's not wholly true. It was never illegal for women to own property or to go to school. Voting was forbidden to women simply because it was not seen as a woman's place to rule.

 

[donnA]

Originally posted by Scarlett O.:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by samarelda:
Be tough, be feminine, but know your place.

Place? A place? We have a place?????

Why, nobody ever told me!

Why am I always the last to know anything around here!

</font>[/QUOTE]

 

[Scarlett O.]

Originally posted by Aaron:
But let's not perpetuate a charicature of a woman's status prior to the 19th Amendment. Most places of employment were privately owned. Even the large companies like Ford. There was no law forbidding Ford from hiring a woman, or paying a woman equal to or more than he paid a man.

Then why did it take a law in 1963 (Equal Pay Act) to rectify the inequity of pay?

Here's something else you may not know. Business owners, both large and small, found the great loophole of all loopholes in that new law.

They simply gave women, who were performing the same job as a man, a different job title...therefore, they could pay them less.

It took another decade and another law to solidify fairness.

It was never illegal for women to own property or to go to school. Voting was forbidden to women simply because it was not seen as a woman's place to rule.

Aaron, you need to take an American history course.

In some rare instances, unmarried women could own property and even sue someone. But largely, it wasn't until after the Civil War that married women could own property of their own outside their husbands' name.

Even widowed women at one time could not own property.

At one time, when a women married, not only did she lose her name, but she lost any property owned by her as a single woman or given to her by her father, any money, any prior children that she might have had and basically, anything she had became property of her husband.

She had ownership rights to nothing. Even if it were in her name prior to the marriage.

That's just a fact of history.

And women were forbidden to go to many schools. Not only did the American Medical Association bar women from membership for over 35 years, but women were also barred from attending "male" colleges.

I attended Texas A&M University in the late 1980's. They had only been allowing women to attend for about 20 years.

 

[Gina B]

Sorry Aaron, I typed the reply in your thread, then changed it to say "if you want me to start another thread...", and finally I just decided to start this one just to be safe.

Samarelda, why waste all that guy muscle holding up a stop sign, when a woman is perfectly capable of holding it up?

Some women are as capable, or more capable, than men at traditional male jobs, and vice versa. I see no reason to stop a male or female from such, although an employer should be able to discriminate all he wants and say no males, or no females.

 

[Gina B]

Originally posted by Petrel:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Gina L:
Big - check
Loud- check
Messy-check
Snores-Check
Man - *check* Nope.

Gina, are you trying to compete?

</font>[/QUOTE]Not at all Petrel, not at all. LOL

I have on occasion wondered if I'd make a better guy than girl though. I never had a burning desire to have children, clean house, or the urge to stay quiet during elections.
BUT! I attribute it more to being born at the wrong time. I'd love to be able to just be an airhead and run around wearing those dresses like they wore in "Gone With The Wind", and have people wait on me to boot. Who were the idiot women who thought we were getting the raw end of the deal during THAT time period and had to change things?!

 

[Jimmy C]

Scarlett

My daughter is the proudest member of the fighting texas aggie class of 2008 Whoop! (and a fish camp counselor I might add)

As a dad, and the husband of a wife who works outside the home (and as a man that works in an industry that has many high powered women) I am thankful for the sacrifices that the womens movement made. I want my daughters to be as educated as possible, and have working skills that will enable them to earn good livings for themselves if thier husbands turn out to be jerks or worse.

Unfortunately I think they went to far with abortion rights, and attached the movement to the homosexual movement - and I am happy the the equal rights ammendment failed. But I am 1005 behind equal pay for equal work - either in the office, on the construction site - or as a road crew!

 

[Aaron]

Originally posted by Scarlett O.:
Aaron, you need to take an American history course.

My assertion was that it was not illegal for women to own property, get an education or to receive equal wages. In order to counter that, you need to present a statute of some kind, not point to the policies of this institution or that one and then leap to the conclusion that it was a matter of law.

 

[Scarlett O.]

Originally posted by Aaron:
My assertion was that it was not illegal for women to own property, get an education or to receive equal wages. In order to counter that, you need to present a statute of some kind, not point to the policies of this institution or that one and then leap to the conclusion that it was a matter of law.

The law, or the statute, that created the public policies that governed married women before the Married Women's Property Acts in the mid-19th century were based on the "common laws" of marriage from England.

While the 13 colonies were still just colonies, they were under British rule and obeyed British law.

And the law said, "By marriage, the husband and the wife are one person in law; that is, the very being or legal existence of the woman is suspended during her marriage, or at least is incorportated or consolidated into that of her husband, under whose wing, protection and cover, she performs everything." Sir William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England

Once married, her "very legal existence was suspended."

After the formation of the United States, the spirit of that same law prevailed. It may not have been inserted into the Constitution, but it was assumed....it was the "common law" of the land.

So, no Aaron, I cannot quote you an early American statute that says what you want to hear it say.

But by sheer virtue of the fact that it took several enacting of laws across the country to give the legal rights of wives to "exist" in areas of property, children, having legal representation, and more should tell you that the power of the "common law" was overwhelmingly rigid and cruel.

Peace-
Scarlett O.
&lt;&gt;&lt;

 

[rsr]

"Genuine control of property required the right to make contracts, and in this respect Texas law remained discriminatory for many years. In 1840 the Texas Congress adopted the common-law practice of barring a married woman from making contracts, and afterward the legislature enacted statutes to define specific conditions within which she could do so. In general terms, the law allowed a married man to make any contract except those expressly forbidden, while a married woman could make only those expressly allowed."

"Despite the law's obvious benefits, the courts interpreted the 1911 statute in ways that left married female merchants with several problems. Allowed to invest only her separate money in her business, a wife had to be able to prove that whatever funds she put into the firm were indeed hers and neither her husband's nor community property. In addition, at all times she must avoid mingling her goods with those purchased with her husband's credit or with community property. The joint holdings of her marriage could not go into her venture, though as manager of the community property, her husband could draw upon them at will. More problematical to her prospects for expanding her business was the fact that Texas laws defined her profits as community property, automatically subject to her husband's control and management."

HANDBOOK OF TEXAS

"In June 1869, after graduating as valedictorian from Iowa Wesleyan and studying law in her brother's office, Arabella Mansfield was admitted to the Iowa bar without objection, the first licensed woman lawyer in the United States. Two months later, Myra Bradwell - the founder and editor of the Chicago Legal News - was denied admission to the Illinois bar on the grounds that she was a woman. The court initially sent Bradwell a letter stating that she could not be a lawyer because she was a married woman. Bradwell published the missive in her paper along with a legal brief challenging the ruling. The court then issued a formal opinion that married or not, Bradwell was denied admission because she was a woman. The court ruled that because the statute controlling bar admissions used the male pronoun "he," women were to be excluded.

In 1870 Bradwell appealed her case to the United States Supreme Court. While her case was pending, two other women sought admission to the Illinois bar, Alta Hulett from Rockford and Ada Kepley from Effingham. Both were refused because of their sex. In 1873, the Supreme Court finally ruled in Bradwell's case upholding the denial of her license, reasoning that the standards for admission to the bar were for each state to decide. In a concurring opinion Justice Bradley agreed with the decision that denied Bradwell her license but argued that divine law (rather than the fourteenth amendment) supported the ruling. He wrote that women by their nature were to be wives and mothers and were unfit to practice in the professions. Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase, appointed to the court by President Abraham Lincoln, was the sole dissenting justice."

CHICAGO BAR ASSOCIATION