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Feminism - where are the threads?

To be fair, I never said it wasn’t jargon. Of course it’s jargon. I was just disagreeing within the claim that it wasn’t sociological.

So what do you actually have to say to Edie, Red Cat, rather than to my response to Edie? Edie made a statement that feminism is trying to pretend men and women are the same, and blames it for not caring about true equality of experience rather than pseudo-opportunity. I am attempting to show that feminism as an academic discipline is not the guilty party here. My evidence is actual writings from an actual feminist academic, which, yes, includes jargon. Do you have an alternative way of engaging in respect of this subject? Do you agree with Edie? If not, how would you best proceed to present why not, short of just stating it?
 
kabbes said:
I’m surprised you use “Interpellation” as an example of non-sociological terminology. Interpellation is a key part of a lot of sociocultural theory, whose origins go back to the early 70s. It’s a fundamental part of Butler’s writings about performativity, for example. By responding to a system as if your allotted role is valid, you internalise the rules of that system.

And McRobbie is introducing “feminist masquerade” and “phallic girl” as her own terminology so yes, that’s non-standard. But pretty obvious from context.

The paper is a neat encapsulation of the process by which governments have subverted and diverted feminist ideals in order to neatly achieve both a more compliant, willing workforce and also head off the risk of genuine political change. It talks about the messaging around womanhood that is provided to girls and young women, positioning them as the privileged rather than the subjugated. Women do better at education! Women have protective rights! More women are employed than men in this industry! It talks about the way messaging has moved away from women as reproducers and towards women as agentic workers. To use McRobbie’s own words, “as a result of equal opportunities policies in the education system and with all of this feminist influence somehow behind her, she is now pushed firmly in the direction of independence and self reliance. This entails self-monitoring, the setting up of personal plans and the search for individual solutions.”

The paper then looks at the consequence of this interpellation of the role of “one with capacity“ on feminist critique throughout the late 90s and 00s. How it subverted concerns about things like equal status for different types of role into a push to the “lean in” politics of competing with men. In other words, it became a masquerade. But as McRobbie examines, the structural basis was not put in place to truly allow for equality even on this basis. The dream had been sold to girls but there was no interest in creating a level playing field for women. The difference now was that women couldn’t complain because, after all, governments had given them every opportunity.

What I like about the paper is that it doesn‘t take an ahistorical perspective. I recall her even talking about her own failings in the 90s/00s to engage with and tackle the shift of focus from equality of experience to equality of opportunity, just so long as that opportunity is to do what men do. (I can’t remember if that was in this specific paper or in the wider book of which this is one chapter, though). It tackles the political context head-on, looking at how governments embraced the “girl-power“ attitude and puncturing just what a problem this came to be.

Not sure what more you want me to say without writing up an essay about it. I’m very surprised that you didn’t like it, frankly.
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kabbes I mean this kindly but you have no idea what the level of other non experts understanding is. None whatsoever. You do a far better job at explaining the ideas than the paper does. (I’m not deriding the paper- I have no idea, I literally cannot understand it).

I’m not trying to be difficult. I guess you could stick a nature reviews genetics paper up and hit the same problem (although science is a shit load easier to read even if you have to look up individual words, what it’s describing is usually straightforward whereas this doesn’t feel like that).

How does this all fit in with my argument? Should a goal of feminism be to eliminate differences between the genders with respect to social roles, or is this self defeating in some ways for women?
 
kabbes said:
To be fair, I never said it wasn’t jargon. Of course it’s jargon. I was just disagreeing within the claim that it wasn’t sociological.

So what do you actually have to say to Edie, Red Cat, rather than to my response to Edie? Edie made a statement that feminism is trying to pretend men and women are the same, and blames it for not caring about true equality of experience rather than pseudo-opportunity. I am attempting to show that feminism as an academic discipline is not the guilty party here. My evidence is actual writings from an actual feminist academic, which, yes, includes jargon. Do you have an alternative way of engaging in respect of this subject? Do you agree with Edie? If not, how would you best proceed to present why not, short of just stating it?
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Thank you for understanding what I was saying!
 
kabbes said:
To be fair, I never said it wasn’t jargon. Of course it’s jargon. I was just disagreeing within the claim that it wasn’t sociological.

So what do you actually have to say to Edie, Red Cat, rather than to my response to Edie? Edie made a statement that feminism is trying to pretend men and women are the same, and blames it for not caring about true equality of experience rather than pseudo-opportunity. I am attempting to show that feminism as an academic discipline is not the guilty party here. My evidence is actual writings from an actual feminist academic, which, yes, includes jargon. Do you have an alternative way of engaging in respect of this subject? Do you agree with Edie? If not, how would you best proceed to present why not, short of just stating it?
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Phallic, the Symbolique etc. are terms from Lacanian psychoanalysis and are not specifically sociological terms.

I will try to respond to the rest later.
 
Red Cat said:
Phallic, the Symbolique etc. are terms from Lacanian psychoanalysis and are not specifically sociological terms.

I will try to respond to the rest later.
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Right. But (a) I never said that feminism (and cultural studies, for that matter) are sociology; and (b) I never said that Phallic or the Symbolique are sociological terms. I did say that McRobbie introduces “the phallic girl”, which is not the same term as “Phallic”. But I shouldn’t have said that in retrospect, because I don’t actually know it is true. I do know that when other writers post-2008 refer to “phallic girl”, they reference this McRobbie paper. But maybe it wasn’t originally her phrase.
 
kabbes said:
What do you understand by the statement “feminism says that...”?
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Feminism isn't restricted to or encompassed by people with degrees, was my point. Most women's experience of feminism is more likely to be from face to face interactions with our peers and maybe from reading columnists in the paper or online. Most women I know who would describe themselves as feminist got that way from being radicalised (for want of a better word) by our elder female relatives or friends, and/or by our own life experiences.
 
weepiper said:
Feminism isn't restricted to or encompassed by people with degrees, was my point. Most women's experience of feminism is more likely to be from face to face interactions with our peers and maybe from reading columnists in the paper or online. Most women I know who would describe themselves as feminist got that way from being radicalised (for want of a better word) by our elder female relatives or friends, and/or by our own life experiences.
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I don’t disagree with that. It isn’t the context within which I was responding, though. You aren’t claiming anything about what “feminism says” based on that radicalisation.
 
weepiper said:
Feminism isn't restricted to or encompassed by people with degrees, was my point. Most women's experience of feminism is more likely to be from face to face interactions with our peers and maybe from reading columnists in the paper or online. Most women I know who would describe themselves as feminist got that way from being radicalised (for want of a better word) by our elder female relatives or friends, and/or by our own life experiences.
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I've watched this recently. I may not agree with all mumsnetters (I'm not even a mum), but I found it really interesting in terms of women organising and becoming/doubling down on being politically active, as it were. It's long, at about 1h 20...). Trigger warnings for discussion of/debate around transphobia etc)
Edie theres a fairly big chunk about women becoming politically active after the impact of motherhood, I'll see if I can find the timing fir it.




Is this the "bitter place" you meant, Pickman's model ? ;)
 
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weepiper said:
Feminism isn't restricted to or encompassed by people with degrees, was my point. Most women's experience of feminism is more likely to be from face to face interactions with our peers and maybe from reading columnists in the paper or online. Most women I know who would describe themselves as feminist got that way from being radicalised (for want of a better word) by our elder female relatives or friends, and/or by our own life experiences.
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I think I’m at fault here not kabbes because when I say ‘feminists think’ I’m not clear who I mean (because I don’t know). So he’s just pointing out that it’s not (all) academic feminists, and has offered this argument that in fact women were ‘given the opportunity’ to compete with men, but not given a level playing field, but that’s okay cos women ‘had a chance’.

I’m not sure what I think about that idea. I wonder if the truth is that a lot of women (as a generalisation), when they have babies and small children want to stay at home and raise them for those important pre school years at least, and often part time after that. The biological pull is real, and given a choice, well that’s the choice. Income inequality will inevitably follow, and if the goal of feminism is for men and women to earn the same over a lifetime it’ll never be met like that.

Personally I don’t think the sex bias in occupation, at least in the West, is all down to social conditioning or culture. It’s laughable really, to think that when I think of all of our experiences even here on urban. It’s inconsistent with what women actually tell you they want!
 
Edie said:
I think I’m at fault here not kabbes because when I say ‘feminists think’ I’m not clear who I mean (because I don’t know). So he’s just pointing out that it’s not (all) academic feminists, and has offered this argument that in fact women were ‘given the opportunity’ to compete with men, but not given a level playing field, but that’s okay cos women ‘had a chance’.

I’m not sure what I think about that idea. I wonder if the truth is that a lot of women (as a generalisation), when they have babies and small children want to stay at home and raise them for those important pre school years at least, and often part time after that. The biological pull is real, and given a choice, well that’s the choice. Income inequality will inevitably follow, and if the goal of feminism is for men and women to earn the same over a lifetime it’ll never be met like that.
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Fay Weldon has spoken about this and considers it to have been a mistake made by her and others in the 1970s where the focus of many activists was too much on women like them (ie educated, middle class, with career aspirations). One of the unintended consequences of the rise of double-income households has been the rise in housing costs to the point where there have to be two incomes in a household for people to pay the mortgage. That, in turn, has narrowed the possibilities for women who don't want to work and have a family. Often these are women in low-paid, low-status, low-skill jobs who would be more than happy to have a few years off work to bring up the kids. People who don't have 'careers', just jobs.

I don't have great answers to that, other than that, indirectly, greater social justice and provision helps. Expanding social housing would help. Making education free again would help. Expanding social services would help. Raising child benefit would help. All things that open up possibilities rather than closing them off.
 
On another very specific tangent, I'm only just trying to read up on British feminist history etc. I found out that sheila Rowbotham moved into a house in whitby with other women as part of her womens liberation writing/work in the 70s.. does anyone know anything further about that tiny bit of information? I love the idea of a hotbed of feminists in the middle of a pretty fishing town - I believe the beardy bloke-heavy hippy/alternative scene was thriving in the area at the time.

I'm a bit on a bit of whitby feminist thing - st hilda being a bit of a star and an early female leader and all that. I might go on a womans history pilgrimage for my next hols...

Tbh I'd love to lock myself in the local archives- I think they're in Pannett park, and there's a literary and philosophy society IIRC.
 
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tufty79 said:
I did try to join an offline feminist conversation group a couple of years ago, but the meetings were at a misogyny baked in venue, and I was told it was understandable if I stayed away because I was uncomfortable going there :facepalm:

Again, thank you for this thread being here. I've really missed posting on here.
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THere were loads of feminism threads for a while

For instance

www.urban75.net

Feminism and a world designed for men

Following on from JudithB 's thread again. Thanks to Poot for bringing up the subject of how the world is designed for men and and Winot for linking to this book Invisible Women Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men by Caroline Criado Perez – Invisible Women It’s a smart strategy...
www.urban75.net www.urban75.net
 
I also just checked my recent orders from the Bad Place - this is from when I decided to knit something for the mary wollstonecraft statue debacle. I will make sure it contains pockets (seditious ones) if I ever finish whatever it is.

Screenshot_20201208-172357_Chrome.jpg

The magnesium ribbon is for a completely different project :hmm:
 
kabbes said:
Right. But (a) I never said that feminism (and cultural studies, for that matter) are sociology; and (b) I never said that Phallic or the Symbolique are sociological terms. I did say that McRobbie introduces “the phallic girl”, which is not the same term as “Phallic”. But I shouldn’t have said that in retrospect, because I don’t actually know it is true. I do know that when other writers post-2008 refer to “phallic girl”, they reference this McRobbie paper. But maybe it wasn’t originally her phrase.
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You mentioned 'Sociological studies'.

I think its a complex paper that involves concepts from cultural studies (broadly speaking) that have a history and use that isn't obvious to the lay person. Sexual contract, for example, appears to be a feminist critique of social contract theory ( a course module in itself). Feminist masquerade has a history in the feminine masquerade which was a (pre-Lacanian) psychoanalytic paper in which it's hypothesised that envy and rivalry with men and fear of retribution are defended against by being 'feminine'. The phallic girl seems to be building on that use of the paper in Lacanian influenced feminist academia. The idea of the fall of public woman refers to the book the Fall of Public Man, again, another subject of its own.

It's actually an interesting paper because it combines all those threads but it's not accessible. I read it more than once (struggling) and had to research to check out the meaning of some of the terms being used., so I didn't dismiss it at all. But it certainly wasn't an aha! piece of writing that clarified the political issues.
 
tufty79 said:
I also just checked my recent orders from the Bad Place - this is from when I decided to knit something for the mary wollstonecraft statue debacle. I will make sure it contains pockets (seditious ones) if I ever finish whatever it is.

View attachment 242386

The magnesium ribbon is for a completely different project :hmm:
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Seditious Pockets were a Soviet era punk band from Lithuania
 
I've got a beginners guide to lacan somewhere from when I attempted sociology...


My most recent encounter with him has been a picture of this (sorry for the blurry).
its from somewhere very "radical feminist" for context ; anyone know what on earth it means?

20201208_191742.jpg
 
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Watched the Patriarchy Paradox by Will Knowland and read the McRobbie article posted by kabbes. Im an amateur as far as theory goes but did find it readable. Kabbes has explained article well.

www.theguardian.com

Teacher's dismissal exposes fissures over Eton college modernisation

Head trying to fight off revolt from those who say school is heading in ‘aggressively woke’ direction
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com

Knowland has split Eton between those who support the modernising headmaster against those who oppose moves to a slightly more progressive education.

Watching the video and struck me that Knowland is expressing the view of masculinity of a previous generation of Public school teachers The kind of values inculcated when I was at school. He is not saying that biology is everything. He is advocating an education system where boys learn to "man up". This is through learning cultural codes of chivalry which he contrasts with machismo. Sport is presented as one route for this. Learning from the Classics is another one.

Its straight out of the old public school way of educating boys.

Its also right wing and reactionary.
 
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Sorry, Kabbes, but you're making me feel like a right thicko. I do feminism by being a woman who tries to fight for her rights, where I can. An academic article that's aimed at other sociologists and not phrased in a way that outsiders are expected to understand is more interesting for sociologists than it is for people just living their lives.

You asked Edie how she'd expect an abstract from someone outside her academic discipline to sound, like there's an assumption that everyone on here is an academic. Many people on here have degrees, but they are not academics and do not read academic abstracts very often.

Edie said:
I think I’m at fault here not kabbes because when I say ‘feminists think’ I’m not clear who I mean (because I don’t know). So he’s just pointing out that it’s not (all) academic feminists, and has offered this argument that in fact women were ‘given the opportunity’ to compete with men, but not given a level playing field, but that’s okay cos women ‘had a chance’.

I’m not sure what I think about that idea. I wonder if the truth is that a lot of women (as a generalisation), when they have babies and small children want to stay at home and raise them for those important pre school years at least, and often part time after that. The biological pull is real, and given a choice, well that’s the choice. Income inequality will inevitably follow, and if the goal of feminism is for men and women to earn the same over a lifetime it’ll never be met like that.

Personally I don’t think the sex bias in occupation, at least in the West, is all down to social conditioning or culture. It’s laughable really, to think that when I think of all of our experiences even here on urban. It’s inconsistent with what women actually tell you they want!
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I think some of it, a non-negligible amount of it, is biology, specifically that it's women who give birth.

That means women who give birth have to take some time off work. There are extremely rare examples of women not doing that in rich countries, usually high-powered office-based jobs. Then there are low-paid farm jobs in the poorest countries, where the maternal mortality rate also tends to be extremely high.

If women want to breastfeed, then it's only them that can do it.

So it means a few months minimum off work, and often that can mean it's the woman who ends up being the primary caregiver by default. Being the primary caregiver means less time for work.

There are huge, enormous reasons beyond that, of course, but being the person who gives birth can't just be discounted.

It's only a few months to a few, but it's at a prime working period, and it can and often does happen more than once.
 
It’s not my intention to make anybody feel bad, my apologies. I made the mistake of specifically addressing Edie because she was the one I was engaging with. That wasn’t helpful on a public board, though — maybe I should have gone to PM. Edie has a very high degree of academic training in a complex discipline that would similarly not be easy for me to just pick up and read. That was the experience I wanted to draw on as an analogy.
 
I liked the McRobbie article, although it doesn't touch at all on Edie's main argument of sexual dimorphism and essential feminine characteristics (though I cba to read back over the thread to remind myself what the article was actually responding to, so I'm sure it's still relevant).

But it is interesting and useful with a word of warning - if any government or company (that you work for or buy from) wants you to think that equality has been achieved and presents you with their policies to prove it, and especially where those policies put the onus of good choices and opportunity on you, chances are it's just another way to protect patriarchy from the threat of having to seriously reconsider gender relations. Could have done with a few more examples to back up her argument but what can you do.

And personally I would say if you need any cultural theory to get the most out of the article, start with Foucault's biopolitics and governmentality.
 
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