Feminism and a world designed for men

[friendofdorothy]

Gramsci you seem to have said the same thing 3 times now, we heard you.

ETA I've just realised that some male posters still haven't twigged that this thread is about addressing problems of patriarchy over problems of capitalism

Are women more oppressed by patriachy or by capitalism - I'd say both. I'm don't want to be told there's nothing I can do about the oppression of women, without overturning the whole system of capitalism. Again.

Whether female bosses change anything isn't really the point - I don't like living in a world controlled by mega companies mostly run by men, ingrained with a culture that favours men, not giving women opportunity to work and progress, while usually paying them less. So often we can only survive by playing by male rules and acting in ways that men find acceptable.

I'm not sure there any political system anywhere that has ever been designed for the needs of women? I'm not keen on our capitalist system, but this is the world where we have to live and I only have this lifetime. I want to look at ways that the needs of 51% of the population can be addressed. Now. It's long overdue.

I don't think there is just one single way to approach the continuing oppression of women. We have to each do what we can in our ways with our own abilities - whether that's challenging gender stereotypes, raising children, challenging our law makers, challenging medical practice, shining a spotlight on the bad practice of big companies, working in whatever job we can get, fighting abuse, challenging the boys only clubs where ever we find them, etc, etc, etc.

 

[friendofdorothy]

Raising awareness of how the world is designed for men is just one way of being able to start changing things.

 

[Gramsci]

Gramsci you seem to have said the same thing 3 times now, we heard you.



Are women more oppressed by patriachy or by capitalism - I'd say both. I'm don't want to be told there's nothing I can do about the oppression of women, without overturning the whole system of capitalism. Again.

Whether female bosses change anything isn't really the point - I don't like living in a world controlled by mega companies mostly run by men, ingrained with a culture that favours men, not giving women opportunity to work and progress, while usually paying them less. So often we can only survive by playing by male rules and acting in ways that men find acceptable.

I'm not sure there any political system anywhere that has ever been designed for the needs of women? I'm not keen on our capitalist system, but this is the world where we have to live and I only have this lifetime. I want to look at ways that the needs of 51% of the population can be addressed. Now. It's long overdue.

I don't think there is just one single way to approach the continuing oppression of women. We have to each do what we can in our ways with our own abilities - whether that's challenging gender stereotypes, raising children, challenging our law makers, challenging medical practice, shining a spotlight on the bad practice of big companies, working in whatever job we can get, fighting abuse, challenging the boys only clubs where ever we find them, etc, etc, etc.

Because several posters commented on my posts. Bringing up interesting points. ive got a few more to make. If that's ok by you.

Btw:

In my old housing Coop one of the things I ( with a couple of other members) argued for, and got, was that we would aim for a gender balance in the Coop membership. Something we succeeded in doing. So unusually for a Coop had equal numbers of men and women houded. It did change the dynamic.

 

[mango5]

When recently where I work proposed major changes to the working environment including enlarging the toilets in the library I sent some suggestions in about that, including some of the points that have been made on the thread. So I've tried to make a difference about this in the real world: only to find out it's not a priority and won't receive funding. While I'd agree with you that engaging staff in changes to the design of their workplace shouldn't be controversial strangely architects don't like it. How have you fared trying to improve the facilities where you work?

This thread explicitly points out that there is nothing strange about deprioritising improvements and a systemic lack of enthusiasm for a world designed for women as much as for men
I’m more interested in reducing unsecure and fractional contracts and improving workforce engagement with the unions in the places I work. It sure beats writing meaningless memos about toilets.

 

[Pickman's model]

This thread explicitly points out that there is nothing strange about deprioritising improvements and a systemic lack of enthusiasm for a world designed for women as much as for men
I’m more interested in reducing unsecure and fractional contracts and improving workforce engagement with the unions in the places I work. It sure beats writing meaningless memos about toilets.

Yeh. I've served on union branch committees, including taking responsibility for liaison with cleaners, the most marginalised members of staff in the institution, so i've experience of that field. A long campaign to bring them back in-house is about to be crowned with success. However, being as this is a thread about design i have posted about design. It's not every day an opportunity appears to arise to do something to influence workplace design so when opinions were sought I submitted mine. I don't see an inconsistency between working to further and improve workers' contracts, their invisible working environment, and trying to make the physical workplace more suitable, and tbh it feels weird to have your non-design related priorities used as a put-down on a thread about design. While it may atm not be a priority for management their decisions elsewhere in the plans meant this will need to be revisited as the number of people needing to use the toilets is about to rise significantly. I think this will concentrate minds and see funds made available.

 

[mango5]

I don't care about your workplace organising activities. I'm not having this pissing contest with you.

Your myopic approach to the notion of ’a world designed for men’ is a good illustration of the problem. The overarching topic is about the effects on women lives, many of which require the kinds of ’non–design responses’ you find weird on this thread. For example I think it's weird in this context to overlook the specific requirements of women when advocating for suitable toilet and sanitation provision in favour of using ’user demand’ to focus minds.

 

[Artaxerxes]

I'm not sure why feminism threads always descend into blokes explaining feminism to women.

Actually I am but I'm not happy about it.

 

[Pickman's model]

I don't care about your workplace organising activities. I'm not having this pissing contest with you.

Your myopic approach to the notion of ’a world designed for men’ is a good illustration of the problem. The overarching topic is about the effects on women lives, many of which require the kinds of ’non–design responses’ you find weird on this thread. For example I think it's weird in this context to overlook the specific requirements of women when advocating for suitable toilet and sanitation provision in favour of using ’user demand’ to focus minds.

I don't want any sort of contest with you. I haven't used user demand to focus minds, that's just how things are ending up - it is a consequence of the decision that's been made that the current facilities inadequate in both design and capacity (I am thinking here specifically of the women's toilets) will remain inadequate in design and complaints resulting from the pressure on capacity is, I think, more likely to succeed where arguments I made failed. I fully appreciate that the design of toilets (for example) has an effect on users' lives which doesn't start or end with their use: and that greater female representation among decision-makers may improve matters. I don't find non-design responses weird on this thread, I find them weird in the specific context of being used as you have. I don't know the details of your union activity, but I wish you well with it.

 

[Pickman's model]

I'm not sure why feminism threads always descend into blokes explaining feminism to women.

Actually I am but I'm not happy about it.

I've by no means intended to explain feminism but only meant to dip my toe in and make a couple of points I felt worth making. I am sorry if it's come across as mansplaining.

 

[spanglechick]

Da Vinci and most artists of his time also often depicted children as bizarre creatures who had the proportions of adult men, just scaled down. It's a window into what strange lives these men - and their male customers - were leading, where women and babies were peripheral beings.

On a more positive point, there's a very persuasive argument that the Venus of Willdendorf, and probably some older African fertility statues, were sculpted by women, because they look like some women would see themselves while looking down at their own bodies, than like you'd sculpt an image of a woman from looking at them from the front (the legs and shoulders are especially tiny compared to the rest).

View attachment 171666



It's weird how influential that book is. I mean, it is an interesting book, but it's very odd. And it was on my university course years ago and was on Jay's too - I was able to lend her my copy.

Hmm. I dunno. Apart from the lack of arms that’s pretty much my body shape. No tricks of perspective needed.

 

[spanglechick]

It might be that some of the anti patriarchal effects of having 51% female management aren’t felt by men.

@gramsci’s womanboss might have been pretty good at dealing with support with menopause.

Which, as an aside:

I work in a traditionally somewhat better sector for representation (secondary education) - but increasingly (over the last thirty-ish years) there is a mystifying lack of post menopausal women. As schools have become run more as businesses, there seems to be no place for The Crone, unless she is Senior Management or an ancillary worker (LSA, Catering, Admin).

 

[Sue]

I work in a traditionally somewhat better sector for representation (secondary education) - but increasingly (over the last thirty-ish years) there is a mystifying lack of post menopausal women. As schools have become run more as businesses, there seems to be no place for The Crone, unless she is Senior Management or an ancillary worker (LSA, Catering, Admin).

A friend was saying exactly this last night. We're both in our mid/late 40s and admittedly work in very male environments (different software development companies). But there's a very notable lack of anyone older who's not senior management and in terms of women, well we're about it.

(I've a lot of female friends of a similar age in technical jobs. Must ask them their thoughts.)

 

[Red Cat]

Gramsci you seem to have said the same thing 3 times now, we heard you.



Are women more oppressed by patriachy or by capitalism - I'd say both. I'm don't want to be told there's nothing I can do about the oppression of women, without overturning the whole system of capitalism. Again.

It's not really about whether women are more oppressed by capitalism but that women are exploited by capitalism because that's how it works. There are arguments about to what extent women are further exploited due to unpaid labour and reproduction and to what extent patriarchy determines that. So it's not really an either/or - the oppression of women takes place in our society within a context of exploitation, so questions about whether that oppression can be minimised when it is so intimately entwined with our economic system seem reasonable to me. I don't know the answers.

I think we can be fairly certain that 'dismantling' capitalism (is this a very masculine way of thinking?) isn't really an option. How do we change things in ways that develop individual and collective agency in the here and now? These are longstanding political questions aren't they? How do we, whoever we are, link our understanding with our practice? I don't know the answer to that either.

 

[Pickman's model]

A friend was saying exactly this last night. We're both in our mid/late 40s and admittedly work in very male environments (different software development companies). But there's a very notable lack of anyone older who's not senior management and in terms of women, well we're about it.

(I've a lot of female friends of a similar age in technical jobs. Must ask them their thoughts.)

from observation a similar story in libraries even tho they're predominantly staffed by women

 

[izz]

A friend was saying exactly this last night. We're both in our mid/late 40s and admittedly work in very male environments (different software development companies). But there's a very notable lack of anyone older who's not senior management and in terms of women, well we're about it.

(I've a lot of female friends of a similar age in technical jobs. Must ask them their thoughts.)

<derail, apologies>
This "Oh we must have more women in IT but they just don't apply for jobs" hand-wringing that we hear from the industry is nothing more than hypocritical bleating. The IT industry just about tolerates women of child-bearing age so long as they don't, y'know bear children. I had lots of experience in various IT roles and wanted to get into games design/coding, sent the cv off to a chorus of silence. Cornered one recruiter and asked him why and he said it was nothing to do with my skills but I'd never work in that area of the industry.

I agree with you, Sue, when I was in IT I knew very few senior women, I was almost always the only woman as well. I left to get into project management, would have loved to do IT PM but the jobs just weren't there at the time.
</derail, apologies>

e2a I've often wondered what would happen if I sent two copies of my cv in for a job, one with my own name and the other with a male name .....

 

[weltweit]

..
e2a I've often wondered what would happen if I sent two copies of my cv in for a job, one with my own name and the other with a male name .....

I would give it a go, you could have a discrimination case and could win compensation. I know of an Arab engineer that did just that, (there was a newspaper article) numerous times and won compensation many times.

However, I also know a small business which a couple of years ago hired a woman for an important role and a couple of months later she declared she was pregnant. They coped, but I was told by one employee they doubted the business would employ another woman of child bearing age.

 

[mango5]

from observation a similar story in libraries even tho they're predominantly staffed by women

Yes we know women have internalised or accepted the price of patriarchy. No one is claiming that workplaces dominated by women are - or should be - any kind of feminist utopia; creating such worlpaces as default would be a useful but impossible experiment. Sue certainly wasn't.

What insidious point are you making with "even tho"?

 

[friendofdorothy]

Yeh. I've served on union branch committees, including taking responsibility for liaison with cleaners, the most marginalised members of staff in the institution, so i've experience of that field. A long campaign to bring them back in-house is about to be crowned with success. However, being as this is a thread about design i have posted about design.

I would say this is about how the world is designed. This thread isn't just about how products and buildings are designed - but how systems and policies shape our world too.

Conditions, pay and job security for vast numbers of low paid paid worker have dramatically declined since most firms and public services have out sourced those jobs. I suspect low paid women might be disproportionally affected by this process - anyone know where we can look up stats or more research on this?

 

[friendofdorothy]

<derail, apologies>
This "Oh we must have more women in IT but they just don't apply for jobs" hand-wringing that we hear from the industry is nothing more than hypocritical bleating. The IT industry just about tolerates women of child-bearing age so long as they don't, y'know bear children. I had lots of experience in various IT roles and wanted to get into games design/coding, sent the cv off to a chorus of silence. Cornered one recruiter and asked him why and he said it was nothing to do with my skills but I'd never work in that area of the industry.

I agree with you, Sue, when I was in IT I knew very few senior women, I was almost always the only woman as well. I left to get into project management, would have loved to do IT PM but the jobs just weren't there at the time.
</derail, apologies>

e2a I've often wondered what would happen if I sent two copies of my cv in for a job, one with my own name and the other with a male name .....

I would say this isn't a derail at all. There is all kinds of evidence of how women have been excluded in all sorts of ways from the IT industry - explicitly and 'unintentionally'. I'm sure its common in other trades/industries/professions too.

What you say about not employing women of childbearing age is spot on, this is traditionally why women were legally excluded historically, and illegally excluded now. Doen't matter if you have children or not - the idea is there in the employers mind.

I think its easier to see yourself working in an enviroment where people look like you - where you a not in a minority. I started my career in book publishing as so many women where employed in all depts. I wouldn't say it was a feminist paradise, most firms were owned/managed by men and a lot of the women in management tended to ape male styles of working.

I like to think the sheer numbers of women in the publishing industry was how feminist publishers were able to establish and grow in the 70s & 80s - which I think did change things for women, as they distributed fiction, history, ideas and theory which would never have been published otherwise. That challenged the patriachy and changed the world. Shame just about all of those small feminist publishing houses were taken over by the big four eg Virago became a small imprint of HarperCollins so ultimately owned by Murdoch's News international.

Does there ever come a point of over 50% female employees where culture changes?

 

[Pickman's model]

Yes we know women have internalised or accepted the price of patriarchy. No one is claiming that workplaces dominated by women are - or should be - any kind of feminist utopia; creating such worlpaces as default would be a useful but impossible experiment. Sue certainly wasn't.

I was not making the claim to the contrary

What insidious point are you making with "even tho"?

I am not making an insidious point

 

[purenarcotic]

I dunno what the beef is with PM tbf.

Anyway, I work at an exclusively female organisation. There are quite a few staff that left and returned on the basis that we are much more flexible in terms of working around people with kids and generally more understanding. We recently opened a housing advice hub and the whole look and feel of it is very different because the CEO remembered what it was like when she was homeless with small kids and how she felt when she walked into a council office. We have a kitchen for women to make tea / coffee / toast / microwave food, a crèche worker, the TV has a Netflix account, we have iPads coming for the older kids etc. I don’t know of any other facility in the city that provides crèche cover when people come for housing advice or to seek emergency accommodation. I don’t know how much these things would be considered by men - I mean Shelter doesn’t provide this (not remotely knocking the excellent advice they offer) and it was us that raised these issues with the council when discussing funding for it.

But ultimately, when she talks to me about redundancy (I’m the union rep) we both know that she’ll be okay and it’s frontline workers who will take the full force of it. It is better, but only to a limited extent.

 

[JuanTwoThree]

I would say this isn't a derail at all. There is all kinds of evidence of how women have been excluded in all sorts of ways from the IT industry - explicitly and 'unintentionally'. I'm sure its common in other trades/industries/professions too.

What you say about not employing women of childbearing age is spot on, this is traditionally why women were legally excluded historically, and illegally excluded now. Doen't matter if you have children or not - the idea is there in the employers mind.

I think its easier to see yourself working in an enviroment where people look like you - where you a not in a minority. I started my career in book publishing as so many women where employed in all depts. I wouldn't say it was a feminist paradise, most firms were owned/managed by men and a lot of the women in management tended to ape male styles of working.

I like to think the sheer numbers of women in the publishing industry was how feminist publishers were able to establish and grow in the 70s & 80s - which I think did change things for women, as they distributed fiction, history, ideas and theory which would never have been published otherwise. That challenged the patriachy and changed the world. Shame just about all of those small feminist publishing houses were taken over by the big four eg Virago became a small imprint of HarperCollins so ultimately owned by Murdoch's News international.

Does there ever come a point of over 50% female employees where culture changes?

I wonder about education, especially primary. You'd think that with well over half being women that there would be a change. About 75% of its teachers are women, but men are promoted faster and are disproportionally in senior positions.

 

[Winot]

IME (as a man in a male-dominated profession) senior managers do not understand the problems of juggling childcare responsibilities unless they have had those responsibilities themselves.

I’m guessing that is true elsewhere too, which given that childcare (and other caring responsibilities) fall mainly on women, would mean that organisations are only going to get better when there are more women in senior management.

It would be better for society imo if men took a more equal share of those responsibilities too but that can happen as well as greater female representation.

 

[mango5]

purenarcotic for me Pickman's model seems to be treating each issue as an individual 'design flaw' which only needs a technical response. In addition there's a sense that where women have for some reason been dominant in a workplace, they perhaps *could have* changed the things discussed here. But they didn't 'even tho' it seemed they were in a position to do so. Like Gramsci he's preoccupied with workplace power and the thought that womenbosses might have influenced things in ways that are invisible to men simply doesn't get considered (see spanglechick's post) The feminism bit of the thread title is conspicuous by its absence.

I'm pleased they're participating though. I'd never get the chance to engage like this in real life.

 

[Pickman's model]

purenarcotic for me Pickman's model seems to be treating each issue as an individual 'design flaw' which only needs a technical response. In addition there's a sense that where women have for some reason been dominant in a workplace, they perhaps *could have* changed the things discussed here. But they didn't 'even tho' it seemed they were in a position to do so. Like Gramsci he's preoccupied with workplace power and the thought that womenbosses might have influenced things in ways that are invisible to men simply doesn't get considered (see spanglechick's post) The feminism bit of the thread title is conspicuous by its absence.

I'm pleased they're participating though. I'd never get the chance to engage like this in real life.

that's a really good piece of misreading. I say libraries predominantly staffed by women and you think I've said something about them being dominant in a workplace. Er I didn't say that at all. I can't see how you get from 'more women than men work in libraries' to 'women are dominant'. I really can't. I'm no less perplexed by some of your other readings tbh. And surely you need to explore power in the workplace. Don't see how your influence point really trumps that, in fact it strengthens it.

E2A and as for the feminism bit being conspicuous by its absence, I've argued that women should be involved in the design of spaces which they use, in this instance toilets. It's not a vast step (or it certainly shouldn't be, tho architects seem not to have taken it on board) but I'd hope the empowerment of women, advocating the involvement of women in decisions which affect them - doesn't that at least smack of feminism?

 

[mango5]

The workplace may not be the key you think it is. Our case on the domestic, intimate issues is overwhelming. The workplace does not address the inconvience or fear - the iterally life limiting aspects of a world designed for men.
Don't tell women how to think about it or deal with it.

 

[Pickman's model]

The workplace may not be the key you think it is. Our case on the domestic, intimate issues is overwhelming. The workplace does not address the inconvient or fear - the iterally life limiting aspects of a world designed for men.
Don't tell women how to think about it or deal with it.

Yeh there's a huge great load of things I've not dealt with, relationships, sport, hobbies, loads of things. We've been discussing the workplace so I kept on that topic. It's strange, off the boards you've always been quite personable. Yet on the boards, and in particular on this thread over the past four or five days, you've sought out my posts - many of them utterly innocuous like the one where I added the man on the Clapham omnibus to a list of generic sayings - for no obvious reason and seem to be pursuing some beef against me. That's really what it feels like, and I don't know why. I thought maybe it was just me misreading you but I'm not so sure now, it seems no answer meets your exacting standards. It doesn't feel like you're interested in what I have to say, tbh, but you keep coming back and shifting the goalposts as you have here. I've had enough of it.

 

[Gramsci]

purenarcotic for me Pickman's model seems to be treating each issue as an individual 'design flaw' which only needs a technical response. In addition there's a sense that where women have for some reason been dominant in a workplace, they perhaps *could have* changed the things discussed here. But they didn't 'even tho' it seemed they were in a position to do so. Like Gramsci he's preoccupied with workplace power and the thought that womenbosses might have influenced things in ways that are invisible to men simply doesn't get considered (see spanglechick's post) The feminism bit of the thread title is conspicuous by its absence.

I'm pleased they're participating though. I'd never get the chance to engage like this in real life.

What?

I've posted up that I helped to argue for and got my old Housing Coop to have equal numbers of men and women.

Which was successful and did as I said change the dynamic.

So Im not "preoccupied" by the workplace.

 

[friendofdorothy]

purenarcotic for me Pickman's model seems to be treating each issue as an individual 'design flaw' which only needs a technical response. In addition there's a sense that where women have for some reason been dominant in a workplace, they perhaps *could have* changed the things discussed here. But they didn't 'even tho' it seemed they were in a position to do so. Like Gramsci he's preoccupied with workplace power and the thought that womenbosses might have influenced things in ways that are invisible to men simply doesn't get considered (see spanglechick's post) The feminism bit of the thread title is conspicuous by its absence.

I'm pleased they're participating though. I'd never get the chance to engage like this in real life.

I thought that too. Both posters seem to demand attention in a way that distracts form the femininism part of this discussion.

 

[Gramsci]

purenarcotic for me Pickman's model seems to be treating each issue as an individual 'design flaw' which only needs a technical response. In addition there's a sense that where women have for some reason been dominant in a workplace, they perhaps *could have* changed the things discussed here. But they didn't 'even tho' it seemed they were in a position to do so. Like Gramsci he's preoccupied with workplace power and the thought that womenbosses might have influenced things in ways that are invisible to men simply doesn't get considered (see spanglechick's post) The feminism bit of the thread title is conspicuous by its absence.

I'm pleased they're participating though. I'd never get the chance to engage like this in real life.

To make it clear. On basic equal rights level across society men and women should have equal pay for same job, CEOs , owners of business should be fifty fifty men and women.

This is straightforward equal rights.

What I take issue with is when this gets mixed in with idea that if women were properly represented in jobs with social power things would improve for women in general. spanglechick gave one example, Winot another.

Its the trickle down effect.

Another example from real life. I've been involved in trying to save an adventure playground. Council regeneration department says it no longer needed and can be sold off to developer. Lambeth council has high proportion of women in senior positions. Two key officers running Regen are women. This hasn't meant that Regen has been more sympathetic. I had a single mother , struggling, tell me that the adventure playground was invaluable. Gave her time for herself and her child a safe place to play.

So I don't believe getting underrepresented groups into senior positions will make that much difference beyond getting basic equality.