I need feminism because...

clairefontaine

MaxWig wrote: »

I beg to differ.

The rise in single mothers was not as a result of a sudden increase in fuzzy, maternal feelings in 17 year old girls.

It was as a direct result of financial incentive.

Sweden has taken the simple step of eradicating the cultural preference of the mother as primary care-giver.

There is very little/no difference between men and women in terms of their desire to care for children.

We just all like cash

I don't agree with you there. I don't think changes in child benefit would make a bit of difference to those who are missing and those who aren't.

Plenty of countries where there is no such thing as child benefit have missing dads, some who opt out and some who are missing because they are in prison and some just drift away after a divorce.

The bottom line though,is that it is one of the main causes of poverty, not just because kids are expensive, but also because the careers can't compete with childless women, married women, or with men, so they get lesser paying jobs because they can't do the hours and are perceived to be over committed.

coffee_cake

meeeeh wrote: »

I mostly disagree with Claire's points (ok I mostly disagree with anyone's points about anything ) but marxist feminism is probably one of the main strands of feminism.

http://www.sociology.org.uk/as4i4c4.pdf

Still, saying that all feminists are marxists is still funny
I see what you mean anyway

Morag

http://www.snopes.com/history/american/burnbra.asp

Feminists NEVER burned bras.

The rise in single mothers in the 70s was due to the work of Cherish who worked to secure rights and assistance for single mothers so they had more options then the boat to England to have an abortion or to live there away from stigma or the Magdalene laundries.

http://www.onefamily.ie/about-us/our-history/

One Family began life as Cherish in 1972. In that year, a group of single mothers, led by Maura Richards (née O’Dea), set about reaching others in the same situation. Founder member, Colette O’Neill, suggested Cherish as a name for the group, taken from the 1916 Proclamation, which declared that Ireland would ‘cherish all of the children of the nation equally’.

Unfortunately in 1972, this was often not the case, and single pregnant women were often thrown out of their homes, lost their jobs and were rejected by their communities. Cherish was set up to provide such women and children with a voice, empowering women to help themselves and their families.

Mary Robinson, Cherish’s first President, who only resigned when she became President of Ireland in 1990, has described Cherish as one of Ireland’s first self-help groups.

As an organisation, Cherish not only provided services to single parents and their children, but also campaigned for change. While many changes were brought about, the two most significant were the introduction of the unmarried mother’s allowance and the abolition of the status of illegitimacy.

In 1973, after much hard lobbying work, Cherish celebrated the introduction of the unmarried mother’s allowance – the first social welfare payment to acknowledge the existence of women bringing up children on their own.

In 1987, after many years of campaigning, the Status of Children Act finally abolished the status of illegitimacy.

When developing the Strategic Plan for 2004–06, it became clear that the society in which we offer our services is very different and that one-parent families exist in many forms in Ireland today. It is in recognition of these changes that we extended our services to all members of all one-parent families, and renamed ourselves One Family.

As One Family we continue to work to affect positive change and achieve equality and social inclusion for all one-parent families in Ireland. In 2009 One Family merged with Gingerbread Ireland and assumed operational responsibility for them. As part of our Strategy 2010-2012 we look forward to marking 40 years of our leading and radical organisation.

In the 80s and 90s being a single mother lost some of it's stigma as it was seen to be better then taking the boat and having an abortion. The book the snapper shows the shift in attitudes, it was written in 1990 the movie came out in 1992.

So as education about contraception in this country has increased and attitudes towards abortion has changed, so to is the attitude towards single parents. Which is something I don't agree with, I know many who have worked and their children went on to college and worked.

Tbh I find the stuff clairefontaine is spouting both ridiculous and dangerous as it seems to be only about setting women against women.

Being pro choice means accepting and supporting all choices women make in a crises pregnancy situation, abortion adoption and raising the child.

clairefontaine

Sorry Morag but if you can't criticise an ideology, it's nothing more than another brainwashing cult. That is what is dangerous. Not what I am "spouting" as you so rudely put it.

This thread is about feminism, not pro choice and has a far wider reach than crisis pregnancies. Single parenting also includes divorced women who had planned pregnancies. The myopic view of feminism not to include a family perspective is what has led to all this conflict around childcare and working vs stay at home mothers. Single parents, including divorced mothers are part of this picture, but it also includes mothers, fathers, divorced, single, and married.

The crisis pregnancy picture pushes yet anther myopic view of single parenting and one income households. Everyone is one argument, one affair, one nervous breakdown, one episode of chronic malaise from finding themselves in a one income household. The western rates of divorce are phenomenal. No one can or should think they are invulnerable to this. Do I expect feminism to solve this? God no. But I will point out its part in it.

So no, I'm not too concerned about high heels or my boobs, but I am concerned about the roots of poverty connected to the breakdown of the family. It would appear to me to be a much bigger fish to fry.

Morag

clairefontaine can you back up what you have asserted please.
Otherwise I am going to given it as much credit as that myth about bra burning.

clairefontaine

Morag wrote: »

clairefontaine can you back up what you have asserted please.
Otherwise I am going to given it as much credit as that myth about bra burning.

There is plenty of available criticism you can google. It not as if I invented this perspective.

Morag

clairefontaine wrote: »

There is plenty of available criticism you can google. It not as if I invented this perspective.

Nope but you have presented it here and the normal route of discussion is that you back up your claims when asked to.

clairefontaine

http://www.theatlantic.com/sexes/archive/2013/04/good-day-care-was-once-a-top-feminist-priority-and-it-should-be-again/275027/

https://pathwaystofamilywellness.org/component/option,com_crossjoomlaarticlemanager/Itemid,80/view,crossjoomlaarticlemanager/

http://articles.latimes.com/2012/jun/03/opinion/la-oe-hymowitz-unmarried-mothers-20120603

You can start with this.

Morag

Actually how about you start a new thread for this rather then clutter up this one which is meant to be about people expressing why they feel/think they need feminism.

clairefontaine

Morag wrote: »

Actually how about you start a new thread for this rather then clutter up this one which is meant to be about people expressing why they feel/think they need feminism.

Oh sorry I didn't realise this thread was just for proselytising.

Didn't know I was in the religion fora.

Morag

Nope that thread was set up for people to express how they feel/think they need feminism as you don't then I don't' get why you don't start a separate thread.

fits

clairefontaine wrote: »

I don't know why you are bringing up Sweden. I don't want to pay 80% in taxes and live in one of the most depressive cultures in the world, with one of the highest suicide rates do you? Nor would I want that much government interference.

I just would like to say, this is well off the mark. I don't live in Sweden, I do live in Finland though. I have just enjoyed an evening swimming in the river after work. It has been sunny and hot for the last six weeks.

Never have I experienced such a family friendly, family-centric society. I am a researcher and two of my male colleagues have taken extended parental leave in the last year (5 months and two months). They genuinely share parenting equally as far as I have seen. The childcare and education standards are the envy of the world.

Oh yeah, and (from Wikipedia)
"The total income taxes including the mandatory insurance fees were 29.8% for an average yearly income of 37,400 € in 2010"

They were also the second country in the world to give women the vote and are generally a trailblazer in gender equality.

fits

Just found this article. Ivana Bacik arguing for paid paternity leave for men. Having seen such a system working in practice, I strongly agree with her.

http://www.thejournal.ie/readme/column-we-must-introduce-paternity-leave-%e2%80%93-for-the-sake-of-women-too-299313-Dec2011/

fits

This thread is about FEMINISM! If you want to start a thread or a movement about father's rights feel free. I would support that. But I am not going to start it!

And post I was replying to, magically disappeared.

The Corinthian

fits wrote: »

This thread is about FEMINISM! If you want to start a thread or a movement about father's rights feel free. I would support that. But I am not going to start it!

I was responding with reference to Ivana Bacik's politics, not father's rights - bizarrely, you can mention the topic, but the moment anyone you disagree with does, even if it is not the subject of what they're discussing, it becomes whataboutary to be censored or shouted down.

And post I was replying to, magically disappeared.

I deleted it almost immediately after I posted it because I decided there was little or no point in posting it here.

When you reach a point in a discussion, so entrenched, that clairefontaine effectively got called a 'gender traitor' for "setting women against women", one really has to give up.

fits

The Corinthian wrote: »

I was responding with reference to Ivana Bacik's politics, not father's rights - bizarrely, you can mention the topic, but the moment anyone you disagree with does, even if it is not the subject of what they're discussing, it becomes whataboutary to be censored or shouted down.

Is there anything in the article I linked to that you disagree with? Do you agree that paid paternity leave would benefit both genders?

AND if fathers were able to take a more active role in their infant's upbringing, it might lead to a more even balance in the family law courts, don't you agree?

Wibbs

Morag, if you have an issue with a post, report it, do not backseat moderate.
The Corinthian, you have been warned about this more than once on more than one thread, so take a week off for your trouble.

mariaalice

clairefontaine wrote: »

Sorry Morag but if you can't criticise an ideology, it's nothing more than another brainwashing cult. That is what is dangerous. Not what I am "spouting" as you so rudely put it.

This thread is about feminism, not pro choice and has a far wider reach than crisis pregnancies. Single parenting also includes divorced women who had planned pregnancies. The myopic view of feminism not to include a family perspective is what has led to all this conflict around childcare and working vs stay at home mothers. Single parents, including divorced mothers are part of this picture, but it also includes mothers, fathers, divorced, single, and married.

The crisis pregnancy picture pushes yet anther myopic view of single parenting and one income households. Everyone is one argument, one affair, one nervous breakdown, one episode of chronic malaise from finding themselves in a one income household. The western rates of divorce are phenomenal. No one can or should think they are invulnerable to this. Do I expect feminism to solve this? God no. But I will point out its part in it.

So no, I'm not too concerned about high heels or my boobs, but I am concerned about the roots of poverty connected to the breakdown of the family. It would appear to me to be a much bigger fish to fry.

I looked at you links and they seem to be all American, its true loan parenting mean you are more likely to live in poverty, but not always my sister was a loan parent with very little involvement form the father and she was no badly off at all as teachers are relatively well paid, nor was I badly off after I separated from my first husband( my children's father was very involved after we separated ), you can't compare Irish society to USA we have a welfare state and a different culture family is still very important here, we don't have the same rate of divorce etc, ultimately what you earn mostly come down to your education. After an initial surge Irish divorce rates have stabilise, again I think father involvement post separation is down to the sort of man their are in the first place.

clairefontaine

Feminism and pro life have this in common. Both encourage single motherhood. Neither have addressed their role in one of the major causes of widespread poverty.

Maryalice, respectfully a welfare state is also poverty. Just wait till Irish mammies get their slash and burn from the government. It's coming. The RC church is a patriarchy. We don't have accurate statistics on divorce as there are all these separated people who never got divorced and started new families.

I can't see how you can claim a €900 a month crèche fee nation is a family value nation.

Historically, feminism was about he redundancy of men, so I can't see why you can't mention it. Funnily a lot f feminism was about men, so it seems odd that it should be considered off topic.

Oops there's me expecting reason again, my bad.

mariaalice

Feminisms is a broad church and you can be a feminism and not subscribe to every feminist agenda, again Ireland is not the US. Crèche fees should be subsidised through tax credits.

clairefontaine

mariaalice wrote: »

Feminisms is a broad church and you can be a feminism and not subscribe to every feminist agenda, again Ireland is not the US. Crèche fees should be subsidised through tax credits.

Ah so the tax payer should cover it. Re appropriation of wealth?

No Ireland is not the US, but that is hardly the point. Feminism is a global ideology.

To think the same knock on effects don't happen in Ireland is misguided. Or maybe it's because Ireland is still a patriarchal run theocracy is the reason it doesn't? And that is assuming it doesn't.

fits

Claire fontaine, I am having some difficulty trying to figure out the kind of society you want? Is it a return to single income families?


Of course that would have some benefits but it can also be very risky for the individuals involved... both men and women no?

coffee_cake

bluewolf wrote: »

Made affordable how?

clairefontaine wrote: »

Ah so the tax payer should cover it. Re appropriation of wealth?

How do you want childcare made affordable?

clairefontaine

bluewolf wrote: »

How do you want childcare made affordable?

I'm not an economist. I can't answer that.

clairefontaine

fits wrote: »

Claire fontaine, I am having some difficulty trying to figure out the kind of society you want? Is it a return to single income families?


Of course that would have some benefits but it can also be very risky for the individuals involved... both men and women no?

I'm not proposing a utopia. I'm saying feminism hasn't been the answer and brought about a host of consequences with it because it is faction obsessed and partial.

fits

clairefontaine wrote: »

I'm not proposing a utopia. I'm saying feminism hasn't been the answer and brought about a host of consequences with it because it is faction obsessed and partial.

Hmm. Well obviously, in the first instance, I don't agree. Feminism has brought a huge improvement to the lives of women in the west (contraception, divorce, votes etc)

But secondly, I think its a good idea that if you're not happy with things the way they are, that people have constructive ideas about how to solve it. You just seem very negative about anything which has been suggested in this thread.

clairefontaine

fits wrote: »

Hmm. Well obviously, in the first instance, I don't agree. Feminism has brought a huge improvement to the lives of women in the west (contraception, divorce, votes etc)

But secondly, I think its a good idea that if you're not happy with things the way they are, that people have constructive ideas about how to solve it. You just seem very negative about anything which has been suggested in this thread.

I have repeatedly suggested a more family based approach.m

Make things issue based, not gender partisan based.

fits

clairefontaine wrote: »

I have repeatedly suggested a more family based approach.m

Make things issue based, not gender partisan based.

Well to my idea of things if feminism reaches its goals, society will be more family friendly... as it is in the Nordic countries.

But I think we have very different ideas about what feminism means.

clairefontaine

bluewolf wrote: »

You surely can if you're attacking everything else as "tax payers paying"

I already said I can't. I'm not an economist.

Why are you telling me I can, when I already said I can't.

I identified a problem, doesn't mean I can solve it. Respect that.

eviltwin

Here's an interesting insight into what life might have been like if it weren't for feminism

http://www.irishcentral.com/news/How-things-have-changed---ten-things-that-Irish-women-could-not-do-in-1970s-183526621.html

For these reasons alone I am very grateful to feminism