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Should men describe themselves as feminists, if they are supportive of feminism?

Santino said:
I didn't say everyone agrees with the meaning, or that anyone should agree with anything. I am deliberately making no value claims at all.
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Well if there isn't at least widespread general agreement, then you really can't talk about it having a particular meaning in our society, merely about it having a particular meaning for some people, which is far less impressive. And you still haven't said what you think this particular meaning which it has in our society is.

You're making no claims of any substance at all, then complaining when people don't accept your assertions.
 
Johnny Vodka said:
To go off possibly on another controversial tangent ( :D ), I would put it that a woman selling sex, generally speaking, has more value than a man selling sex. Supply and demand.
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But there are more women selling sex than men. It is not an occupation dominated by men.

And don't you think there would be fewer assaults, rapes and murders committed on women sex workers if that were really true? That when murders are committed the police don't write it off as 'just another prostitute'?

You have to be trolling with this particular angle.
 
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Santino said:
And yet human society stubbornly refuses to see it your way.
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Again, this claim implies very strongly that the rest of human society all sees it in some particular and special way, but again you fail to substantiate this claim or expand on what this special way is...
 
equationgirl said:
But there are more women selling sexual than men. It is not an occupation dominated by men.

And don't you think there would be fewer assaults, rapes and murders committed on women sex workers if that were really true? That when murders are committed the police don't write it off as 'just another prostitute'?

You have to be trolling with this particular angle.
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Funnily enough my cousin's posted this on his facebook and the comments are full of people coming out with such delightful gems as 'Seems a sorry thing to be done for raping a prostitute.'

yeah, they're really highly valued. Johnny you do come out with some fucking bollocks sometimes.
 
Johnny Vodka said:
What you need to remember is sex isn't necessarily just about sex - this becomes more and more obvious the longer you go without. :hmm: I've read a few really interesting and moving articles about sex workers and disabled people. It can read more like a form of sex counselling - teaching someone about how to use their body, etc... There is a lot of nuance. Even with the cliched 'baddie' male, what that person might be seeking is more physical contact, human warmth rather than sex, in a society where people feel increasingly isolated.
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I find it offensive that you think you know what it's like for disabled people from reading a few articles.
 
weepiper said:
Funnily enough my cousin's posted this on his facebook and the comments are full of people coming out with such delightful gems as 'Seems a sorry thing to be done for raping a prostitute.'

yeah, they're really highly valued. Johnny you do come out with some fucking bollocks sometimes.
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Read my posts again. Some punters might well want to practically abuse a sex worker - others might be more looking for human contact. And all sorts off stuff in between. BDSM scene - some people will pay a sex worker just so as the sex worker can put their feet up on them - I know because my friend used to. :D All sorts of needs.
 
Johnny Vodka said:
Read my posts again. Some punters might well want to practically abuse a sex worker - others might be more looking for human contact. And all sorts off stuff in between. BDSM scene - some people will pay a sex worker just so as the sex worker can put their feet up on them - I know because my friend used to. :D All sorts of needs.
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Care to respond to my post about value too?
 
equationgirl said:
Because it went the same way every thread about feminism on urban goes.
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Yep. seems to be a pretty regular pattern, and one that always involves dissecting Johnny Vodka's beliefs.

As far as the question in the OP goes, I don't think it's unreasonable at all for a man to call himself a feminist, and I would definitely call myself one - experiencing domestic violence and spending teenage years being raised by a single mother results in a hardening of attitudes and a strong belief in equality, IME - but I can't think of any time when I have actually had to declare myself a feminist, much less argue about being one.
 
Johnny Vodka said:
Read my posts again. Some punters might well want to practically abuse a sex worker - others might be more looking for human contact. And all sorts off stuff in between. BDSM scene - some people will pay a sex worker just so as the sex worker can put their feet up on them - I know because my friend used to. :D All sorts of needs.
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Read mine and weepiper's posts properly.

We're not saying that all sex workers experience assault, rape and murder. We're saying that in light of this type of violence experienced more frequently by sex workers it's just ludicrous to try to suggest that women sex workers are valued.

It's laughable that you think anyone would seriously agree with that statement.
 
Johnny Vodka said:
If people - male or female - want to buy sex with a consenting party (male or female), then that's up to them. (And I'm willing to believe there are all sorts of reasons why people buy sex.) It's not something I partake in or appeals to me at all, but I don't see how it's any of my or the state's business, beyond trying to ensure, as I mentioned above, that society should try and prevent people falling into sex work out of desperation.
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While your idealistic notion may appeal, what is "consent"?
 
ViolentPanda said:
While your idealistic notion may appeal, what is "consent"?
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There's a long post earlier in this thread about things I'd want to see to minimise people going into sex work through desperation. Also, just because someone sells sex, it shouldn't mean they'd have to sell it to anyone. Yes, it's idealism, but I'd rather most vices were regulated than left to the black market.
 
Red Cat said:
But not all women who fight for equality call themselves feminists, it doesn't mean a distancing at all, it means other people have different ways of describing politics that include the support for gender equality.

When I was politically active, ages ago, a feminist was someone who saw patriarchy as the main oppressive structure, others thought it was class and capitalism, that women's oppression was a part of that, not a different system. A feminist wasn't just someone who supported gender equality, but someone who had a theory about why and how women were oppressed and located it in patriarchy. I don't want to get into arguments about that, just pointing out that not everyone has the same analysis and not everyone identifies with feminist as a descriptor of their political position.
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Red Cat this is an interesting post. Before this thread I had no idea that this was so (just assumed all on left would describe themselves as feminists and socialists/anarchists or whatever else). This idea that socialism would render feminism null is new to me. Remain a bit unconvinced tbf guess cos I see men being dominant as so all pervasive at all levels that it seems unlikely that come any wealth redistribution or change in power structure or revolution (whatever you want to call it) that that would just disappear.
 
I think the idea is remove the conditions that encourage AND reproduce patriarchy, then it should go some way- I don't think anyone believes it'd vanish like scotch mist but it'd be possible to order things equitably rather than where we are now and possible to adress structural imbalances in a way that isn't some capitalist 'women in the boardroom means feminism is done now' way
 
Nancy_Winks said:
Red Cat this is an interesting post. Before this thread I had no idea that this was so (just assumed all on left would describe themselves as feminists and socialists/anarchists or whatever else). This idea that socialism would render feminism null is new to me. Remain a bit unconvinced tbf guess cos I see men being dominant as so all pervasive at all levels that it seems unlikely that come any wealth redistribution or change in power structure or revolution (whatever you want to call it) that that would just disappear.
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My understanding of the idea, which I don't entirely agree with but I think has some truth, comes from Marx's idea that the nature of the economy ("the base") defines the natures of society ("the superstructure"), so if you change how economics is done, you change what society looks like. In capitalism, patriarchy is useful because it means that women can be kept at home to bring up the kids without being paid, reproducing the next generation of labour to be exploited. Some also argue that in more recent times, capitalism (variously called Late Capitalism or Advanced Capitalism I think), has found a better way of doing this - with state schooling (and other things maybe?) meaning that women can also be brought into the labour force to be exploited for profit. The state schools are paid for through tax that the 0.1% richest people don't pay, and many of the 1% richest also have the opportunity to avoid, so capital still doesn't pay for the upbringing of the kids (the rest of the time outside of school still being provided for free by women), but also gets more workers to profit from.

The argument goes that under socialism, the economic system would not have that drive to exploit workers for profit, that work would be equitably distributed according to ability, and that part of the transition period would see patriarchy disintegrate, because it's not useful to socialism as an economic system.
They would point to things like the relatively advanced state of the early USSR with regards to women as evidence of this.

Personally I think it's flawed and that whilst I agree that socialism would produce a different society, I think this would give us an opportunity to deal a massive hammer blow to patriarchy, it doesn't mean it'd definitely go, there'd be many people wanted to hang on to their power and we'd have to take it from them. We may just end up with slightly different shade of shit. I reckon you can definitely change society by changing economics though, so the possibility is there.

btw, If I'm asked, I identify as a feminist. Fucking hate the term ally, mainly cos it's a word I associate with war/computer/board games, it's all about self-interest and allegiances can be dropped, changed or disregarded at a whim, not possible for me with this issue so no, not an ally.
 
They would point to things like the relatively advanced state of the early USSR with regards to women as evidence of this.
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funny one that, my old dear visited the soviets in the 70s as a schoolkid and when I ask what she most remembers she say 'badges and you saw women doing jobs that women just didn't do in 70s uk'
 
Thanks BigTom

If socialism means work will be distributed according to ability, who will make those decisions? Cos that is where the power lies there surely. Hard to imagine it would be women?
 
DotCommunist said:
funny one that, my old dear visited the soviets in the 70s as a schoolkid and when I ask what she most remembers she say 'badges and you saw women doing jobs that women just didn't do in 70s uk'
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One problem they had in the USSR is that while women we're allowed in to the workforce the culture didn't change that much and they were usually still expected to do all the housework etc.
 
Nancy_Winks said:
Thanks BigTom

If socialism means work will be distributed according to ability, who will make those decisions? Cos that is where the power lies there surely. Hard to imagine it would be women?
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why not? under capitalism women of a certain class make decisions about work all the time- feels a bit godwins to mention thatch, but there we are
 
Belushi said:
One problem they had in the USSR is that while women we're allowed in to the workforce the culture didn't change that much and they were usually still expected to do all the housework etc.
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Women in the USSR were inadequately supported by the state, which, as in capitalist socities, saw the benefits of shifting the costs of social reproduction, and the reality for millions of working class Soviet women was being stuck in some of the lowest-paid, lowest-skilled and most arduous work outside the home.

We'd need to look at the various periods of the USSR too, how it was experienced by different classes of people who lived there and where they were, like the problems faced by dispossessed peasant women who migrated to the slums of new Soviet cities in the early years of industrialisation. The problems faced by women in Central Asia...
 
Nancy_Winks said:
Red Cat this is an interesting post. Before this thread I had no idea that this was so (just assumed all on left would describe themselves as feminists and socialists/anarchists or whatever else). This idea that socialism would render feminism null is new to me. Remain a bit unconvinced tbf guess cos I see men being dominant as so all pervasive at all levels that it seems unlikely that come any wealth redistribution or change in power structure or revolution (whatever you want to call it) that that would just disappear.
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Well, some did call themselves socialist feminist/marxist feminist because they felt that marxism wasn't sufficient to explain male dominance. There's the theory of social reproduction, meaning that the free labour women provide in the home produces profit for the system - women raise the next generation of workers, feed and clothe the men, provide emotional support, an outlet upon which frustration can be taken rather than political action being taken, look after the elderly, the ill. In political practice, the idea that class struggle was the most powerful means of overcoming women's oppression meant that the domestic sphere and its problems, free child care, depression due to social isolation, violence etc. was ignored by political organisations based on the workplace even if they had an awareness of how women were exploited by social reproduction in their theory.

Part of the marxism argument also stresses, or stressed, how sexism divides the working class, makes it less able to act as a class. Subsequently, a fight against women's oppression that is aimed at patriarchy, as opposed to class society, isn't thought to be useful as its seen as weakening the ability of the working class to change society. There were similar arguments about racism - do you organise separately or does that weaken the class? I'm not sure that these arguments about how to organise are current, they were of a time and place and a political milieu which doesn't really exist anymore and didn't really when I was politically active in the 90s, although organisations like what remains of the swp no doubt still have the arguments amongst themselves.

I'm not really interested in a feminism that isn't marxist. My experience as a woman getting older is that it is aspects of social reproduction that concern me most, the free labour, the cheap labour (nursery workers, primary school teachers, health care assistants, carers), the mental and physical ill health that often goes along with this. The destruction of the welfare state means that these functions are being returned to women (not that they ever were taken away but less money made available publicly means more of a burden on women to do the work for free). The way in which the emotional work of women, apparently invisible work, isn't valued, either considered important or paid sufficiently well for or even considered work at all. My pension is going to be much reduced now the nhs has moved to career average rather than final salary, obviously penalising women who take time off and then work part-time while looking after kids. etc etc. I don't experience misogyny daily or even weekly, in fact I experience it very rarely these days, but I'm exploited every day, regardless of the feelings men have about me and my gender.
 
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