Feminism - where are the threads?

[littlebabyjesus]

It feels like a patchwork of some things getting better, and some things getting worse.

In terms of gendered marketing, it's definitely getting worse, though. That's part of a wider ramping up of marketing in general, but it's definitely strongly there. ffs gendered plasters.

 

[8ball]

In terms of gendered marketing, it's definitely getting worse, though. That's part of a wider ramping up of marketing in general, but it's definitely strongly there. ffs gendered plasters.

The main time I notice these things is the run-up to Christmas. That sea of pink in the toy shops with the iron-clad boundary..

 

[Winot]

In relation to gender stereotyping and capitalism, I wonder if one of the issues is that capitalism seeks to maximise profit from the world as it is, and therefore marketing tends to support the status quo?

I am thinking for example about the Iceland advertising campaign "because Mums are heroes!" which was clearly pitched at persuading mums to shop at Iceland but equally reinforced societal expectations that men don't do the shopping.

 

[FabricLiveBaby!]

It feels like a patchwork of some things getting better, and some things getting worse.

I don't mean to sound flippant (I'm not, I just don't know how else to write it), but perhaps you should ask the women about this issue? We might be seeing something you're not.

I'll shut up now, and see what the other women of urban have to say about it.

 

[8ball]

What is unconvincing about it?

From looking at at the pack design, the logo (which has been updated and shows substantial differences in the case of the pink pack(, even the compression artefacts, these are different products made at different times, probably for different territories, and for different market segments. Though tbf they may be on sale concurrently, since plasters have a massive shelf life.

It's not like the case with the cereal where it really does appear to be a "his and hers" version of the same product (on the same shelf, same basic product description and pack size etc.). It seems to be more of a generic "look, gendered plasters!" pic.

 

[8ball]

I don't mean to sound flippant (I'm not, I just don't know how else to write it), but perhaps you should ask the women about this issue?

It wasn't a question.
And oddly enough, I have regular contact with a range of women who aren't even on this site!

Not meaning to sound flippant.

edit: to explain further, that comment *was* my impression of what women on this thread have said so far, though I may be accidentally incorporating a few impressions from another thread that is ongoing.

 

[cheesethief]

I saw someone suggest recently that the essence of being a man (as a gender expectation) is being entitled to control or own anything he desires. So capitalism (and before if feudalism) is the natural consequence of that.

it's not really tho is it. the great majority of men under feudalism or capitalism haven't and don't really get much chance to control or own what they want. yeh i'll grant you that of the beneficiaries of capitalism the majority are men. but i think it a superficial and facile comment to say 'the essence of being a man (as a gender expectation) is being entitled to control of own anything he desires'. gender expectations differ in time and place - not to mention in terms of power. it's like the nonsense that there's one unchanging human nature, on the surface attractive and plausible but it's like smoke as you try to grasp it, it slips away in a hundred different directions.

That's not really what Santino's post said, if I understood it correctly - the fact that most men throughout history have been effectively powerless doesn't detract from the asserted expectation. The implication being that men consider themselves entitled to power, whether they achieve it or not. The question I would raise is "whose expectation is this?". Is it innate to the male of the species (in which case it might as well be immutable) or is an expectation imposed by society itself. Do men want this power because that's what men want, or do they want it because they're a product of a world that inculcates them to believe that to be so?

 

[littlebabyjesus]

the fact that most men throughout history have been effectively powerless doesn't detract from the asserted expectation. The implication being that men consider themselves entitled to power, whether they achieve it or not.

I think it rather does, tbh. In feudalism, a lower-ranked man had basically to do what he was told in the public sphere (at home it may have been different), and there was absolutely no expectation of anything else.

This is rather a sidetrack, but certainly some kind of innate male will to power sounds very much like nonsense on stilts to me. Looking in the wrong place for answers. To see the roots of feudalism and so capitalism, you need to look at the changes that happened with settlement and agriculture, in particular the invention of 'property'.

 

[Pickman's model]

That's not really what Santino's post said, if I understood it correctly - the fact that most men throughout history have been effectively powerless doesn't detract from the asserted expectation. The implication being that men consider themselves entitled to power, whether they achieve it or not. The question I would raise is "whose expectation is this?". Is it innate to the male of the species (in which case it might as well be immutable) or is an expectation imposed by society itself. Do men want this power because that's what men want, or do they want it because they're a product of a world that inculcates them to believe that to be so?

if capitalism and feudalism are natural consequences of the gender expectation of being a man as santino suggests, then it is perplexing that such systems have evolved in which so few men have the wherewithal to compel other men, and indeed women too, to their bidding. yeh, the question you raise is a good one - where does this expectation come from? i don't believe it is innate but rather culturally constructed. this doesn't mean that it is necessarily transient - it may be what the annales historians might have seen as a longue duree phenomenon, something which came into effect a very long time ago and has developed since then, perhaps emerging around the time people in the middle east stopped being nomads (this is just a suggestion and not an actual argument i'm proposing).

 

[8ball]

This is rather a sidetrack, but certainly some kind of innate male will to power sounds very much like nonsense on stilts to me.

You mean as in innately biological and different in quality to any kind of female will to power?

 

[littlebabyjesus]

You mean as in innately biological and different in quality to any kind of female will to power?

Yes, that is what I mean. It is what I took cheesethief to mean by 'innate to the male of the species'.

 

[8ball]

Yes, that is what I mean. It is what I took cheesethief to mean.

Fair enough.

Spoiler

I dunno.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Fair enough.

Spoiler

I dunno.

At very best, all you can say is that the evidence is mixed. There are lots of examples of hunter-gatherer societies with a wide mix of organisation and structure, not all of which are male-dominated. We're highly plastic and can produce widely differing societies, which is why I said that more fruitful explanations are likely to be found elsewhere - in this case, I suggest in the invention of property.

 

[8ball]

At very best, all you can say is that the evidence is mixed. There are lots of examples of hunter-gatherer societies with a wide mix of organisation and structure, not all of which are male-dominated. We're highly plastic and can produce widely differing societies, which is why I said that more fruitful explanations are likely to be found elsewhere - in this case, I suggest in the invention of property.

"Will to power" always struck me as a very masculine* concept.

* - not male

 

[Poot]

My mum taught us all to cook and bake from a very early age. She never made us breakfast or cups of tea after we were able to fend for ourselves. Glad she did that a s it made us all more independent and not entitled about whose 'job' it was to feed and water you - it was a case of if you want something, make or fetch it for yourself. So we did. Same wirh things like laundry. Didn't realise til i went to university that some offspring treat their mums like skivvies.
The one downside to this is that i am a terrible host who rarely offers guests refreshments
ETA oops must be going senile. I must have been thinking of another thread, or I'm thinking of another exchange earlier in tje thread

I realised last night that I am a terrible feminist.

I watched something on television with my daughter last night, where the woman came home from work and her husband had made dinner. So far so normal, right? And my daughter said 'she didn't say thank you' and I said 'what?' and she said 'he made dinner for her and she didn't say thank you'. And I did think that perhaps she meant on a normal, human, gratitude level, she should have said thank you. But no. In our house if Mr P ever cooks (Mother's Day and perhaps another 3 times a year) I make such a fuss that it became apparent (after a bit of probing) that my daughter thinks that men are not supposed - on what I can only assume to be some weird genetic level - to have to cook. It is in some way beneath them.

Obviously I put her straight, and explained that I am simply a better cook. (I am!) But I was very disappointed. And I don't think Youtube's helping much, either. I'm going to spend most of this weekend trying to unpick whatever patriarchal tangle has made its way into the heads of BOTH of my children.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

"Will to power" always struck me as a very masculine* concept.

* - not male

It strikes me as a highly culturally conditioned concept. Status-striving is a common feature in social primates (among both males and females). I definitely see status-striving as a typically human attribute, but it is one that applies to both men and women. The masculinisation of particular forms of it, if that is what is happening, seems to me to be culturally shaped.

/end derail.

 

[8ball]

It strikes me as a highly culturally conditioned concept.

Well, yeah, it's gender, innit. It all relates to qualities found in both sexes.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Well, yeah, it's gender, innit. It all relates to qualities found in both sexes.

Yes, that's the basic point.

 

[8ball]

Yes, that's the basic point.

Maybe cheesethief will clarify what was meant...

I'm a bit dozy this afternoon - took a while to see your point.

 

[scifisam]

From looking at at the pack design, the logo (which has been updated and shows substantial differences in the case of the pink pack(, even the compression artefacts, these are different products made at different times, probably for different territories, and for different market segments. Though tbf they may be on sale concurrently, since plasters have a massive shelf life.

It's not like the case with the cereal where it really does appear to be a "his and hers" version of the same product (on the same shelf, same basic product description and pack size etc.). It seems to be more of a generic "look, gendered plasters!" pic.

No, they are sold together side by side in chemists', at big supermarkets and in pound shops.

They are not simply different pack designs and it's a bit weird you trying to claim they are.

 

[8ball]

No, they are sold together side by side in chemists', at big supermarkets and in pound shops.
They are not simply different pack designs and it's a bit weird you trying to claim they are.

That sounds like a lot of places carrying those two product lines side by side.
Was that picture one of yours, and where did you take it (I mean of them being sold side by side)?

 

[Orang Utan]

I realised last night that I am a terrible feminist.

I watched something on television with my daughter last night, where the woman came home from work and her husband had made dinner. So far so normal, right? And my daughter said 'she didn't say thank you' and I said 'what?' and she said 'he made dinner for her and she didn't say thank you'. And I did think that perhaps she meant on a normal, human, gratitude level, she should have said thank you. But no. In our house if Mr P ever cooks (Mother's Day and perhaps another 3 times a year) I make such a fuss that it became apparent (after a bit of probing) that my daughter thinks that men are not supposed - on what I can only assume to be some weird genetic level - to have to cook. It is in some way beneath them.

Obviously I put her straight, and explained that I am simply a better cook. (I am!) But I was very disappointed. And I don't think Youtube's helping much, either. I'm going to spend most of this weekend trying to unpick whatever patriarchal tangle has made its way into the heads of BOTH of my children.

My mum was a feminist for sure, but a lot of her actions to make her offspring less entitled and more independent were purely practical ones, as she had been diagnosed with MS when we were still quite young and she knew she couldn't be some kind of Shirley Conran Superwoman. We would need to step up for necessity's sake.
She never managed to persuade us to darn socks and shirts though, so we were quite scruffy kids.

 

[Santino]

Of course, those could just be film promo packs for those recently-released films Frozen and Star Wars.

 

[8ball]

Of course, those could just be film promo packs for those recently-released films Frozen and Star Wars.

 

[Santino]

Apology accepted.

 

[8ball]

Apology accepted.

I think you misconstrued my post there. But I find it quite inspiring that you have learned how to use a computer.

 

[Santino]

I think you misconstrued my post there. But I find it quite inspiring that you have learned how to use a computer.

No, I understood it perfectly.

 

[8ball]

No, I understood it perfectly.

Well done, dear.

 

[Thora]

It's pretty frustrating that even on threads about feminism their are men arguing about how it's really not that bad. Same as on the threads about gender pay gap and male design - lots of men saying it's not that bad/men have it bad too/my boss is a woman.

 

[8ball]

It's pretty frustrating that even on threads about feminism their are men arguing about how it's really not that bad.

It's unlikely to happen on threads about football tbf.