how has feminism affected female identity and gender relations?

[Natasha]

how has feminism affected female identity and gender relations? women today seem to be all over the place when it comes to identity. we want to be taken care of, but we want to be independent. we want power, yet we sometimes avoid responsibility and the feminists amongst us certainly do not generally project responsible attitudes. we demand respect, but we are not respectful towards men. we often want a masculine man, but we don't want to be a feminine woman. crazy.

many dictionaries define feminism as sweetness and light and reasonableness. the feminism organization (now) defines itself similarly. (and all feminists have sweet gently-perfumed farts, no doubt. ha ha ha ) the feminism cult wears a human mask but peel it away and all you seem to find is naked hate and hypocrisy.

i highly recommend any of erin Pizzey's books about the way the feminista operates. erin was a caring and courageous woman who was victimized and had death threat directed against her and her family for standing up to them.

i dunno.  perhaps the answer lies in equalism. unlike feminism, equalism is neither gender-based nor gender-biased. thoughts?  opinions?  rants? >

[Keira]

Feminism in all my female friends in their 20's has a very bad resonnance.
They feel they are not talking for women anymore, but for some sort of deeply oppressed
and defenceless minority filled with resentment. 

Feminists often look down derisively at women in their 20's who want to be sexy, eventually be mother and have an enriching carreer, liked they are delusional and can't actually be happy with their lives.

Its as if they want us to be angry, at what? Things are moving slowly, but with the massive influx
of women in university and work, within 20 years, the workplace will be a very different place
than now, and certainly than 30 years ago.

There are battle to be won, but you don't change deeply ingrained attitudes in one night. It takes generations. The women's movement started 125 years ago and this is the home stretch. Feminists should let women at large take care of themselves; they lit the initial fire and were at the forefront. But, now they're mostly out of step and out of touch, and slightly reactionary.

They sound like unions losing their membership and saying the sky will fall in response to that. Guess what, the sky has not fallen and if people really needed unions, they'd ask for it! Also, ironically, globalisation, by enabling people all over the world to sell products here, have broken the union's back. Union's can lament that these people are being exploited, but in fact their real wages and standards of living in selling to us can increase considerably in a short amount of time. Its protectionism that made these people poor and made the unions strong by protecting their inflated wages.

The unions want to old protectinists days and often I feel feminists want men to be worse than they are. Like propagandists everywhere, they have to create an evil menace to rally against.

[Valentina]

Feminism could have been so much better for women (and men) but all it did was demonise men and give women a victim mentality. In other words it has soured gender relations.

[Wing Walker]

Your question is deceptively simple and as such it will have a most complex response.  I am not a sociologist nor can I say that I am a doctrinaire feminist.  I would be interested to know what Eleanor Smeal or Gloria Steinem might have to say about how feminism has affected female identity and gender relations.  The National Organization for Women has some ideas, too.

As for me, were it not for feminism I don't believe that I would realizing my full potential being two-spirited in this life.  It has invested me, a woman, with the belief that I equal to any man, and then some. 

Equality is not in being able to perform the same physical feats, but it is in receiving the same pay for the same work.  It also means that if I apply for a mortgage my gender is not legally considered. 

In the past a man could get a mortgage on a nice house in suburbia.  A single mom got a 10-year note at extortionate rates on a double-wide trailer in a park with mud streets.  Now we both have the same set of criteria in being considered for a mortgage or other regulated loan.

By the same token, not all women are great moms and frequently after a divorce the custody is awarded to the father.  Who says that men can't be nurturers?  Maybe they seldom come by it naturally, but they can do it.

The "glass ceiling" is alive and well.

What I have written so far deals only with that which is easy to see.  That which is not easy to see remains almost unchanged. 

Men and women see sex and love differently.  That is a physical, mental, and emotional thing that I believe is "hard wired" into us, thank God.  Unfortunately, men still see us as sex objects and a sufficient number of us fill that "need."  I don't believe that females like Paris Hilton and Pamela Anderson had their sexplay taped for enjoyment in their own homes, nor are porno stars forced into their line of work.

Sex sells and the magazines are loaded with it.  Feminism goes counter to that but it does not require that a woman must dress in the daily wear made popular by the late Chairman Mao Tse-Tung.  It allows for looking good but I believe that it seeks a balance.

I shall stop here because when all is said and done, more is said than done.  Feminism seeks to enhance our female identity beyond barefoot and pregnant, past being someone's property as in "man and wife" toward more like "husband and wife." 

Either feminism as I knew it in the 1960s and 1970s has not adapted to the new millennium or the women of the 21st century don't find it useful.  Only time will tell.

Wing Walker

[Keira]

I don't believe the glass ceiling exists at all.
Most of the difference in wages can be explained by systemic past discrimination
or cultural influences.  Women didn't go in science for example, but who
really stopped them in the last 20 years? Nobody? It was just not seen
as a "cool" thing to do. Engineering work is one of the most lucrative and yet
very little women chose it, well this impacts wages.

Women have a different view towards work which means they work less hours,
more part time, etc.

There's also the fact that current CEO's were educated and started to work
in the 60-70's when there were little women in business circles. Now,
with 60% of graduates of top schools in many fields being women, there will
be a unremitting pressure towards the top.

When most companies will have top executives, and this will happen within one generation,
mark my word, most systemic discrimination that remain at all level will stop.

I think women have been empowered and they are asserting this power like a rising tide.
It looks slow and seems it won't ever overrun the barriers until it spils over the barrier
and WOW. What changes has happened?

Like I said, in normal circles, feminists have ZERO resonnance, they seem to speak to
and for a very small minority. When I grew up in the 70-80's this was not the case.
I often heard discussions on what I would call feminist subjects at all levels, no so
anymore. I'm doing grad courses in PR where there's 70% female students in their late
20's and early 30's and the conversation never veers even close to those subject.

For them, everything seems resolved or on its way to be resolved.

I really think feminists have lost their ability to communicate with regular women.
Before launching into their rethoric, they should try to come down to earth to
reconnect with the base to see if they have any relevancy left.

[Valentina]

In my humble opinion, feminism seems to be a fraud masquerading as truth.  It promotes rigidity of mind and stunts the capacity for free independent thought. It is a club or clique which wants to be 'more equal' than everyone else and this strong streak of men-hate runs through its very backbone. Many of the 'moderate' feminists and the apologists for feminism try to play all this down, this is a fact clearly evident to all but the most blinkered of them.

The funny thing is that these moderate feminists are not really feminists at all. They are more like equalists and they ought to come out in their true colours and bin that feminism label.

[Wing Walker]

Thank you for a most reasoned reply, Keira.  It's a good thing that this is an essay question and not a research paper or a grander work.

I'm not sure that we as an entire gender have a different view of work than men and tend to work fewer hours and part time because it's a gender thing.  I was married to two workaholics and worked with many more women who went home after the guys did.  Many women work reduced hours because they have families and migh be single parents or earning an income to supplement her spouse's so they can afford a place in "cottage country."

Do you recall when "President" Bush gave Prime Minister Angela Merkel a shoulder rub?  Do you think that he would have done that with Tony Blair or Hugo Chavez?  How does that look, for your PM to get such treatment, in public, from another "head" of state?  Point:  the "good ol' boy club" is alive and well, thus the glass ceiling.

Maybe your projections are correct, that the numbers of women migrating through higher-paying jobs will change the stats in the future but I have my grave doubts because male superiority is far too ingrained into humanity.  We're only 300 years past "le droit de signeur" being the law of the land.  American women got the vote in 1920 and Canadian women got the vote in 1948.  That's not quite 60 years for us, eh?

Your analysis of the composition of the workforce based on university enrollments might be correct.  I don't think it is and in this case I would love to see that I was wrong.

Respectfully,

Wing Walker

[NicholeW.]

Hmmm, interesting set of posts.

I have worked with a large number of people of color. In USA in 1964 the Civil Rights Act became law. People my age and older can recall a Jim Crow world where 'separate' did not mean 'equal.' They recall when the 'n' word was not being 're-taken' by people of color from the racist and demeaning usages of it by white folk.

Now, a couple of generations later, many young black folk do not even think in those terms and the 'n' word is quite acceptable amongst them. They go to the mall and walk around whenever and wherever they wish. Civil Rights organizations have dwindled in membership and there is a skew toward people over 30. The days when a young Stokley Carmichael, Malcolm X, MK King, Jr,, Jesse Jackson rose to prominence in their 20s seems long gone. For chrissakes, Jesse is getting old!!

I think the same is true for feminism. Excepting Betty Friedan and Bella Abzug most of the
'second-wave' women were younger, under forty. Now they are a good deal older, those who remain alive.

Younger women have grown up without some of the negative aspects of 'life as a woman in the '50s and '60s. What changes were wrought are now simply assumed as birthright.

And some of the 'changes' were made by the patriarchy and have worked rather well. Umm, the whole 'sex-object' thingy has been recast to 'sexy is good.' But, anyone care to quote stats of eating disorders and when they begin? Like 8 y/o, etc.

Yes, more women are coming to universities and filling the seats in economics, business admin and physics and chemistry lecture halls and small classrooms. But, is there also an underside to those stats? One that might just tell a slightly different tale than what those stats seem to tell?

What are the stats on crimes of violence against women, for instance? How are those crimes used, and for what? How does advertising change and affect the social status of those affected? How seriously are 'female leaders' accepted by the general population? etc etc.

I think facile answers and suppositions about feminism are just that, facile. I think glass ceilings do matter, a lot. For instance, congressional representation? corporate leadership, especially among multi-nationals and Fortune 500s.

I don't know the answers to those things, but a too-reactionary reaction to 'feminism' may well be less than useful. Most words are fraught with implications and associations. This one seems to be one.

Nichole

[Sheila]

I didn't read all of the posts but have known some feminists, for one my grandma and for two my mom. Now, I know how my mom thinks about trans people as she is 100% behind me. I would think that my grandma would be also. For the ones who want to push limits on feminism, I would call them bigots. I believe in equality of every person on this earth. We are all equal as far as I can see. We may not be able to do or look  the same  as others, that is called diversity. Just my simple way of expressing myself.
Sheila

[Veronica Secret]

Yes, Nichole most of the responses here are directed toward a stereotype. I am a feminist and I assumed most trans women were. I guess I was wrong. The right loves to demonize feminists by stereotyping us as angry, ugly butch dykes.  I am surprised at the anti-feminist,and even misogynist attitudes here.

[Keira]

Nichole, the ceiling existed before, but I don't believe it does now.
Now, its just a question of time. If you've got 2 female applicants from
top schools and one male applicant from a lesser school, you'll be
dumb to hire the guy when every little advantage is needed
just to stay ahead of the competition.

In a competitive world, the old boys club goes against economics.
Prior to 1990, businesses had lots of slack in upper and middle
management where schlubs could collect a paycheck because
they knew someone, but no more. Middle management has
been gutted and it can no longer isolate talents at entry
level from top level attention. Often, even entry level staff works
with execs. One of the quickest way to rise is to have visibility,
and now everybody's got it, man or women.

Before, there was almost no metrics to measure the
performance of an employee or a business. This allowed a lot
subjective evaluations and pats on the back promotions
with little oversight. Now, most companies are heavily matrixed and
people are assigned to projects while only nominally being under
a department. The dictatorship of your immediate boss who
controlled your destiny is no longer there. You shine on your
own and collect a portfollio of successes in various project
where you were an essential cog to their success (since there
are little or no extra bodies anymore). With such visibility,
its very hard to deny a promotion to someone worthy, since
doing so will affect moral all over the company and may
even increase staff turnover.





teams where everyone's
an essential core to project success. Every success

[Jeannette]

Feminism is a very complex set of beliefs and it ranges very much on a wide scale, meaning different things to different people. It's possible to agree with parts of it, and not other parts. For example, some feminists are for equality, while others are for domination over men and elimination of men. So it's not something you can break down as easily as you have asked for.

But:

Q: "How has feminism affected female identity"

Women may pursue any career they choose; their "identity" has been broadened. A women can be a CEO, a mother, or BOTH.

Q: "and gender relations?"

A: Gender relations are better now than in the past. It is a known fact that even when women do hold down a fulltime outside job they still end up doing more housework and child-related work This is slowly starting to change: men are helping more in the home, and make an effort to spend one-on-one time with their children.