"i Need Feminism Because..." Cambridge University Students Sha

[CrossCuT]

I need feminism because a mans motivations for his educational or professional goals aren't given the third degree like a womans are. Example: see this thread. :|

Maybe we need feminism because people are talking about needing feminism?

[photosynthesis]

I've been studying feminism and hanging out with a bunch of radical feminists inspired by the women of the second-wave movement.

 

The radical feminist community is staunchly pro-breastfeeding and pro-midwifery. Motherhood is celebrated, but not in any sexist way - there is no shaming of childless women, or insinuations that a woman has to give birth to find fulfillment, or anything like that. And radical feminists, while they believe there is a need for contraception in society as it stands currently, don't treat it as liberation but rather as a way for men to secure sexual access to women in an exploitative way. There are several radical feminist critiques out there on contraception. Even many liberal feminists wouldn't view it as 'liberation', despite being a lot more positive about contraception generally. There seems to be a tendency amongst some people to label any woman who talks enthusiastically about birth control as a feminist, even if her overall politics are at odds with key aspects of feminist thinking. There are frictions between Catholicism and ideas carried by certain streams of feminist thought, but these are not necessarily the frictions that people would initially imagine or expect.

 

I would say that breastfeeding and natural birth activism (or 'lactivism') might be a branch of feminism, but there are also many feminists who think that breastfeeding should be de emphasized because of the conflicts that arise between the workplace and lactation.  For the most part, when it comes to women's health activism, feminist discourse tends to be centered around access to birth control, abortions on demand, and the woman's right to delay pregnancy so that she can focus on her career.  

 

I need feminism because a mans motivations for his educational or professional goals aren't given the third degree like a womans are. Example: see this thread. :|

 

Men don't have the burden and the privilege of carrying life.  They don't give birth, they don't breastfeed, etc.  Their careers can be more consistent because childbearing doesn't demand as much from them.  That's not to stay that men have a license to not be involved with their kids' lives, but being a father is inherently different from being a mother.

[Basilisa Marie]

I would say that breastfeeding and natural birth activism (or 'lactivism') might be a branch of feminism, but there are also many feminists who think that breastfeeding should be de emphasized because of the conflicts that arise between the workplace and lactation.  For the most part, when it comes to women's health activism, feminist discourse tends to be centered around access to birth control, abortions on demand, and the woman's right to delay pregnancy so that she can focus on her career.  

 

 

No, those are just the issues that get the most media when people want to talk about feminists.  Feminism is a wide and varied idea, so there's no such thing as "most feminists" unless it's "think women are important."  It's not fair to discount what some feminists are saying just because it doesn't provide great talking points to be bashed on TV.  

 

And sure, fatherhood is different than motherhood, but that's no excuse to hyper-question women when they decide to go to school or work.  Why don't we constantly hound men about spending time with their families and spending more time at the office to get that promotion?  We just assume that men can handle making the decisions on their own, and we trust those decisions are the best for his particular situation.  Why can't we trust women to make the same kinds of decisions without a barrage of questions and judgments and qualifications?  Why is our first thought that a woman is being selfish if we find out that she is a working mother?  

 

Or, on the flipside, why do so many people assume a woman is giving up her dreams if she chooses to be a stay at home mom? 

Edited June 21, 2013 by Basilisa Marie

[fides quarens intellectum]

No, I haven't, and it looks like a load of New Feminism packaged as anti-feminism. 

 

Everyone needs feminism!  I'd recommend checking out the links to difference feminism, new feminism, and such in this thread.  

 

  :hehe2: Everyone? 

 

 

I don't need feminism.

[CrossCuT]

Why

[Lil Red]

I need feminism because of what these young women faced when they set up a feminist society and decided to participate in the 'I Need Feminism Because...' project.

 

that just makes me so angry, for them, and angry that boys/men are growing up with those attitudes like in the article. 

[Era Might]

"Traditional" relationships between men and women are hardly romantic, just read the Wife of Bath's story in the Canterbury Tales. Some things have changed for the better, some things haven't. One thing I've learned since having my own family is you can throw your romantic picture out the window. Women and kids don't bend to your ideas...you have to (or I have to, rather, I'll speak for myself) rearrange things and try to make the best out of different personalities and out of the circumstances of the times you live in. I tend to look at life through the lens of experience rather than idealistic roles that have to be filled. I'm not out to emancipate women in Latin America or other areas of the world who live in different experiences of relationships, and neither am I out to tell Catholic women in the West to be homeschooling stay at home moms. I'm not out to Westernize the world or traditionalize the West. History is full of complex, tangled knots and we have to figure out the best we can how to deal with them, in the short time we have. Like everything else, the Gospel remains always not as a handbook for customs or civilization or roles, but a revelation of perfection. Feminism, like any other -ism, can only be an experiment in time, not The Way Things Are.

 

According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and another man is building upon it. Let each man take care how he builds upon it. For no other foundation can any one lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if any one builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw -- each man's work will become manifest; for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work which any man has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If any man's work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.

 

--1Corinthians 3:10-15

 

[ploomf]

I need feminism because of what these young women faced when they set up a feminist society and decided to participate in the 'I Need Feminism Because...' project.

 

That article did bad things to my blood pressure. :pinch: Seriously, nobody should have to put up with that.

[arfink]

I guess I don't specifically need/want feminism as such. I think I would much rather have a good humanism. Because that's what we all are, right? Male and female He created them, and such. 

 

Women are awesome. Also men. Yup. :)

[Basilisa Marie]

  :hehe2: Everyone? 

 

 

I don't need feminism.

 

Then I hope you don't mind if men harass you. :) 

[Basilisa Marie]

I guess I don't specifically need/want feminism as such. I think I would much rather have a good humanism. Because that's what we all are, right? Male and female He created them, and such. 

 

Women are amesome. Also men. Yup. :)

 

But that's what good feminism is.  :)

[fides quarens intellectum]

Why

 

 

I need Confession, I need Zoloft, and right now, I need a hard drink.  I don't, however, need feminism.

[Lil Red]

I need a drink too. Floopy floopy poo

[fides' Jack]

Then I hope you don't mind if men harass you. :)

 

As a man, I take issue with this.  I don't need feminism to tell me how to respect women.  I'm perfectly capable of doing that myself.

 

To contribute, I guess I'll chime in:

 

I need feminism because this website has a gray background.

I need feminism because my 4-month-old just peed himself.

I need feminism because water is a liquid.

I need feminism because rocking chairs rock both backward and forward.

 

Or the real issue here:

 

I need feminism because I need a cultural ideology (or semi-anti-cultural ideology, depending on which side of the coin you like) to tell me how to think and behave.
 

[Little Flower]

I think that the problem with feminism is that it is actually not liberating women, it is binding them. At least the feminism that I am familiar with. The feminism that says a women's worth is found in how much like a man she can be. In other words, her dignity is not in that as a women, she is given the wonderful ability to bear children, to have incredible emotional sensitivity, to have the capacity to love and care for children the way a man never could. Instead, feminists want women to be like men. They say that women aren't being properly respected unless women open doors for themselves (becuase obviously if we admit we aren't as strong as men then we have less worth) or that we need to be just like men and find dignity and worth in careers. Why would I want to find my dignity and worth sitting at a desk all day doing something that ultimately has NO MEANING instead of raising children with immortal souls and being probably one of the greatest factors in their lives as to whether they are eternally in heaven or hell? Me, I choose to find my dignity and worth in the UNIQUENESS of my femininity. 

 

There have been studies and stuff that show that when a mother works instead of being home with her children, the children suffer. Same with divorces, same-sex parents, etc. Is your career (which is really at the end of your life pretty meaningless) worth more to you than the harm caused to your children by having no mother home with them?

 

Now please don't misunderstand, I'm not judging women who do choose careers. Especially since I have no idea what their particular circumstances are, reasons why they are working, etc. Of course it is far better for a mother to work than for her children to starve! I think it is better all around for a mother to be at home though, and that a woman who chooses to be a mother will be more fulfilled. God created us to be mothers, if we are not fulfilling what we are created to do, we won't be as fulfilled.