Feminism - where are the threads?

[mojo pixy]

I am not the poster you are looking for

this is true, what I wrote referred chiefly to posters who had been banned up till that point, with an abstract kind of nod to those still to be banned down the line.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

True. And I'm not saying this publishing is the whole answer.

A friend of mine is a female engineer in a well known engineering company. Somebody accidently emailed everyone's pay in a spreadsheet some years ago. Because the company was shamed with this my friend and all other females in the company got an immediate pay rise and it was back dated to when she started working for them. She managed to buy a decent car from her windfall

Only example I can give from personal experience was from a place I was freelancing and three of us were getting more than the fourth. She found out in casual conversation, thought this was because she was a woman, and complained (one of the three on more than her was also a woman but she didn't know that). End result: we all got put down to her wage. Not sure how these anecdotes help.

 

[Supine]

Only example I can give from personal experience was from a place I was freelancing and three of us were getting more than the fourth. She found out in casual conversation, thought this was because she was a woman, and complained (one of the three on more than her was also a woman but she didn't know that). End result: we all got put down to her wage. Not sure how these anecdotes help.

Gutted! TBF my example was a more positive one

 

[JudithB]

Only example I can give from personal experience was from a place I was freelancing and three of us were getting more than the fourth. She found out in casual conversation, thought this was because she was a woman, and complained (one of the three on more than her was also a woman but she didn't know that). End result: we all got put down to her wage. Not sure how these anecdotes help.

Do you mean to tell women they should put up with lower rates because men might suffer if they question it?

 

[JudithB]

Gutted! TBF my example was a more positive one

And why shouldn't the outcome be positive? If men are being paid more than women and are then told that they are worth "only" the amount the woman is, that is not the woman's fault.
But if the woman is being paid less because she is a woman she should have the opportunity to ask to be paid the same as the men

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Do you mean to tell women they should put up with lower rates because men might suffer if they question it?

Nope. I meant little more than that individual anecdotes mean little. And as ever we are back to power relations and people's status and position of leverage. Among a bunch of pretty low-paid, non-unionised freelancers, management just decided to fuck everyone over equally in reaction to a complaint.

 

[campanula]

I have found the discontents of capitalism to be profoundly debilitating and inextricably linked to oppression as a parent...in particularly a specific few months either side of the 3 births I have experienced. It was also easier to find the sort of casualised, lowly paid and often menial work which fitted around childcare while my male partner never had a job which didn't entail a 7.30am start and a finish far later than school pick-up times. The enforced segregation of parenting based on biology, for this woeful and often reluctant mother was particularly insidious...as it reinforced an already deeply ingrained sense of duty, denial of self and failure of confidence to ever attempt to regain my relatively egalitarian position pre-parenting.
I have nothing remotely objective to say about this thread's earlier pre-occupation with sex-workers since I am so wholly fucked up on that score that my views are basically worthless.
Came late to feminism in the 70s and generally despaired of later iterations with weasel omissions of class (see the general approval given to 'burlesque' as opposed to mere stripping...) I guess i have some terfy tendencies since I definitely think women should have the right to a penis-free space.

 

[kabbes]

True. And I'm not saying this publishing is the whole answer.

A friend of mine is a female engineer in a well known engineering company. Somebody accidently emailed everyone's pay in a spreadsheet some years ago. Because the company was shamed with this my friend and all other females in the company got an immediate pay rise and it was back dated to when she started working for them. She managed to buy a decent car from her windfall

And then they started paying new women (“females” ) equal amounts and giving equal pay rises forever after, as did their rivals who worried that the same thing would happen to them.

No they didn’t, I’m guessing. They acted to prevent their highly trained workers going to rivals now that those workers and rivals were all in possession of powerful personal information. It was nothing to do with shame.

Knowing about generic pay gap statistics will not achieve the same thing at all.

 

[JudithB]

Knowing about generic pay gap statistics will not achieve the same thing at all.

Hi Kabbes, I'd be interested in your thoughts on what would achieve equal pay from offer to leaving? My excitable-self adores the idea of direct action and naming and shaming, if done properly. But would like to know more about why you think it wouldn't work and what you think would.

 

[JudithB]

I have found the discontents of capitalism to be profoundly debilitating and inextricably linked to oppression as a parent...in particularly a specific few months either side of the 3 births I have experienced. It was also easier to find the sort of casualised, lowly paid and often menial work which fitted around childcare while my male partner never had a job which didn't entail a 7.30am start and a finish far later than school pick-up times. The enforced segregation of parenting based on biology, for this woeful and often reluctant mother was particularly insidious...as it reinforced an already deeply ingrained sense of duty, denial of self and failure of confidence to ever attempt to regain my relatively egalitarian position pre-parenting.
I have nothing remotely objective to say about this thread's earlier pre-occupation with sex-workers since I am so wholly fucked up on that score that my views are basically worthless.
Came late to feminism in the 70s and generally despaired of later iterations with weasel omissions of class (see the general approval given to 'burlesque' as opposed to mere stripping...) I guess i have some terfy tendencies since I definitely think women should have the right to a penis-free space.

Yes let's keep sex work out of it if we can. For while we can all sit here pontificating, unless we have real life experience we may have a tendency to sound patronising. When I read what you said about Burlesque it brought back memories of having the same uncomfortable feeling I think you did. This is just middle class stripping. I even went on a very nice day course to learn how to spin nipple tassles among other skills I have never used again. All very lovely and very far removed from real life experience of sex work. I also don't think there is anything wrong with being a bit terfy. Debate needs to happen and the more no debate is shouted I'm afraid more women are going to turn terf-wards. I am determined this thread is not going to turn into a trans v terf thread. We are here to talk about women and women's issues.

It is so disappointing that intelligent women are being forced into low paid work to accommodate child care. I did find a good website for women seeking freelance opportunities using the skills and knowledge they had gained through working in high level positions which allowed for some control of hours. I went self-employed after being made redundant during my first round of maternity leave.

 

[weltweit]

When I was doing the school run, the only work I could do was self employment. It worked after a fashion, I could at least choose my hours, but it wasn't well paid.

 

[JudithB]

When I was doing the school run, the only work I could do was self employment. It worked after a fashion, I could at least choose my hours, but it wasn't well paid.

Yes I now lose out on sick and holiday pay. With Brexit looming I may look to find a part-time job to receive company benefits. I think I will lose some clients due to supply chain issues. This also means there may be fewer jobs too.

This is a question to anyone on the thread - we know austerity affected women's jobs to a greater degree than men's. Do we think Brexit will have the same affect? If not, why not? If yes, which industries and why?

 

[smokedout]

Why is a banker paid more than a foster carer. That’s what we’ve got to ask ourselves. Cos let me tell you, sat there in your air conditioned office with your spreadsheet and your Pret A Manger sandwich doing numbers and negotiation, is that REALLY more difficult than a 24/7 role managing minute to minute the emotional, physical, and developmental needs of an emotionally damaged child? Is it more difficult, let alone more important. Is it fuck, and that’s the rub.

I'd recommend this for a discussion of work, gender and class, and how we might get out of it: https://libcom.org/files/the-problem-with-work_-feminism-marxism-kathi-weeks.pdf

 

[kabbes]

Hi Kabbes, I'd be interested in your thoughts on what would achieve equal pay from offer to leaving? My excitable-self adores the idea of direct action and naming and shaming, if done properly. But would like to know more about why you think it wouldn't work and what you think would.

Oh God, it requires huge structural changes from top to bottom. Most of the causes of things like pay inequality is not because somebody directly sets out to oppress women. The people who set pay probably think of themselves as fair-minded types that treat everyone the same. But it happens anyway because capital fundamentally sets out to oppress/exploit *everyone*. And those with the biggest gap between themselves and the means of production get screwed the hardest. When you have to take whatever job is going, the people doing the hiring can afford to pay you the least. When your job doesn’t produce scalable profit, you’re going to continue to be viewed as a cost centre to be rationalised rather than an asset to be retained. It’s only 50 years since women even started to gain a measure of power, which is a blink of an eye, and we lived with half-changed minds in a world that is structurally slanted to create barriers for them.

Let me put it another way: why is there still such a massive pay gap between the average wage of a Briton and the average wage of an Afghani or a Ugandan? Is it because you are unaware that the difference exists? Is it because we collectively think Britons are superior? Or are there deep structural issues to do with ownership and power that don’t go away just because we all decide we’re going to be nice from now on?

 

[JudithB]

I'd recommend this for a discussion of work, gender and class, and how we might get out of it: https://libcom.org/files/the-problem-with-work_-feminism-marxism-kathi-weeks.pdf

Fabulous - thank you.

Are there certain parts of the text you would recommend we look at first?

 

[JudithB]

It’s only 50 years since women even started to gain a measure of power, which is a blink of an eye, and we lived with half-changed minds in a world that is structurally slanted to create barriers for them.

I do not think that people realise how recently in historical terms women actually gained as you say a measure of power. Within my mother's lifetime, loans and mortgages were not afforded to women without the signature of a husband or father.

And let's not get on to rape within marriage and how difficult it remains for a woman to get heard and believed to the extent that ‘the law’ (or its representatives) intervene in ways that prevent, protect or even punish perpetrators.

Let me put it another way: why is there still such a massive pay gap between the average wage of a Briton and the average wage of an Afghani or a Ugandan? Is it because you are unaware that the difference exists? Is it because we collectively think Britons are superior? Or are there deep structural issues to do with ownership and power that don’t go away just because we all decide we’re going to be nice from now on?

Do you mean an Afghani and Ugandan living in the UK or within their own countries. I require a little more of your insight on this either way.

 

[wayward bob]

I can't think of any of my friends who follow the traditional nuclear family layout with women doing the home stuff and the man going out working. Tbh I find that an old attitude - although I do know it still exists in some places.

*raises hand* he's better at putting up with workplace bullshit in a lucrative field. i'm better at being my own boss and doing repetitive manual/dirty stuff

 

[JudithB]

*raises hand* he's better at putting up with workplace bullshit in a lucrative field. i'm better at being my own boss and doing repetitive manual/dirty stuff

Are you both men or am I assuming your gender Bob ?

 

[kabbes]

Do you mean an Afghani and Ugandan living in the UK or within their own countries. I require a little more of your insight on this either way.

In their own countries. I’m asking (semi-rhetorically) why such wealth disparity perpetuates across people generally? You don’t need to view male/female disparity as existing as somehow distinct from that process.

 

[kabbes]

Are you both men or am I assuming your gender Bob ?

Bobs a woman. And for transparency: I’m a man.

 

[wayward bob]

Are you both men or am I assuming your gender Bob ?

a millennial me might be gender fluid, perhaps, but i'm born female

 

[JudithB]

a millennial me might be gender fluid, perhaps, but i'm born female

An old bird like me tries to always be as gender free as I can

 

[JudithB]

In their own countries. I’m asking (semi-rhetorically) why such wealth disparity perpetuates across people generally? You don’t need to view male/female disparity as existing as somehow distinct from that process.

But in terms of the feminist perspective we will examine the male/female disparity

 

[wayward bob]

An old bird like me tries to always be as gender free as I can

i approach the world that way but it doesn't pan out as often as i'd like.

 

[kabbes]

But in terms of the feminist perspective we will examine the male/female disparity

And rightly so. But don’t be fooled into thinking it will be fixed if we just persuade everyone to try to be fairer. It’s a structural problem that needs structural solutions.

 

[JudithB]

And rightly so. But don’t be fooled into thinking it will be fixed if we just persuade everyone to try to be fairer. It’s a structural problem that needs structural solutions.

We're women we're used to being told we must be kinder and the world will be fairer. No one is fooling us.

I really appreciate your input on this thread and hope you will continue to contribute

 

[wayward bob]

...as it reinforced an already deeply ingrained sense of duty, denial of self and failure of confidence to ever attempt to regain my relatively egalitarian position pre-parenting...

i took an absolutely voluntary choice, given my/our circumstances, our current situation is my best-possible-outcome, and i'm genuinely content with it.

the fact that i'm most content with it right now at this moment when my beloved and offspring are 100 miles away is pure coincidence

 

[Wilf]

Gromit posts regularly to try and expose hypocrisy from feminists. He’s not very clever though, and it never works, so he’s probably the most derided poster on urban. He’s pretty much the closest thing we have to an incel.

 

[friendofdorothy]

In their own countries. I’m asking (semi-rhetorically) why such wealth disparity perpetuates across people generally? You don’t need to view male/female disparity as existing as somehow distinct from that process.

And rightly so. But don’t be fooled into thinking it will be fixed if we just persuade everyone to try to be fairer. It’s a structural problem that needs structural solutions.

But there is still male/female inbalance in this country and most others that needs a 'structural' solution too. How do you suggest we address that?

 

[weltweit]

Wasn't there recently a thread about a country, I think a Scandinavian one, in which all tax returns were publicly viewable. I would have thought it might be that sort of action which could go a long way to redressing salary imbalances.