I am sorry if these comments threaten to take the thread off track again, but I've been offline and felt that since some of it was addressed to me, I should respond. And I want to note that the mention of CDD explains a lot to me, since if you ever venture into CDD websites or read CDD "romance" literature, you will find it filled with strong anti-feminist messages. It is part of the what the sub-culture seems to believe, that feminism is the enemy.
A whole sub-culture that has picked a false demon, in my opinion, for all the reasons I already stated.
Mirror, you made a CHOICE, as do most CDD families, to apply that lifestyle and philosophy. That you had that CHOICE, and were not forced into accepting this as the way things "must" be, is ultimately the result of feminism. Feminism was always supposed to be about allowing us, as women, to choose what is best for us. You shouldn't have to be in tears or upset by the fact you made an unpopular choice: it was yours to make, and you don't need to defend it to anyone or anything. Will some of the more ardent feminists try to argue you out of it? Probably, but just remind them of what I just said: feminism is about allowing women to make a CHOICE. You have made yours as a unique individual and have spoken eloquently about being happy with it. I respect that.
Ragtime, sorry if I didn't spend a lot of time clarify the different ways the term "equal" can be used. The goal is equal in the eyes of the law, of employers, in opportunity. "Equal" is not meant in these contexts to mean "the same."
As for your life-style being biblical, there is an entire website set up by Christians explaining why CDD is NOT in line with Christianity. I won't argue it for them, I'll let you find the site on your own, if for some odd reason you haven't been previously aware of it. Choose what you want but please don't make it sound like this is something people are supposed to do for God. I accept that you may think you have done it for God, but I think the real factors are much more complex and perhaps, at times, much more primal. I'm on the outside looking in, so I realize I could be off-base, but I do think it is something you should ponder. Not to change your choices, but to gain the self-insight that comes from fully understanding them, and since you are making all the important decisions in your household, you have an extra duty to be as self-insightful as possible.
In this thread you have not, however, been posting "accept our choices, they were ours to make" nearly as much as "I hate feminists," which may as well read, "other people's choices aren't as good as mine." For you as a unique individual, sure, that might be true, but NOT for THOSE OTHER PEOPLE. Please show some respect for other people's choices or opinions, and their right to make them, and maybe even ponder the fact that CDD wasn't all that "beautiful" for anyone in the days before women were free to CHOOSE it, for without that choice it IS just abuse.
You can't really separate the positive aspects of how ANY of us live our lives today from the immense social change brought about by the feminist movement, ie that ALL people, INCLUDING women, should be free to choose their life, whatever that choice may be, which means that the negativity towards feminism really is misplaced. I grew up during that period of change, and I know how significant it was; before that movement, girls were told how they were supposed to be and how they were supposed to think, period, end of story, who you really are inside doesn't matter. I can't really say that you would have liked those narrowly defined women all that much better, because they didn't exactly fit the mold you and your wife are living, either.
Separately, I want to go back to prior comments about women being governed by their emotions more than men. I actually disagree with that. I think that what women, on average, do is display their emotions more freely in the moment than, on average, men do. But in my observation as a mother, wife and daughter, boys and men experience every bit as much emotion, and often more, but are more likely to try to bury it. Why they bury it seems to be some combination of nature and social pressure, and the role that comes along with being supposed to be "strong," but it isn't really a very healthy attribute, because it someday someway it will come out. Watch the news and you come to realize that men are much more likely than women to "snap" in a destructive and deadly way, and I believe that is because suppressed pain and emotion don't go away; they simmer. Unresolved pain is a common reason men become abusers. I really do not consider this a good thing, and I like the way feminist mothers encourage their sons to cry when they need to and express what they actually feel, instead of what they think society wants them to feel.
I see that there is also a response to my post from HisDivineMajesty:
Quote:
What my personal problem with feminism - and some these viewpoints make me feel that once more - is that, instead of tackling actual issues that currently lack funding or effort, they want to expand and expand on things that are already heavily in women's favour. Reproductive issues? Women can have an abortion, men can't, and men usually end up paying for children they sometimes didn't even want to have (or aren't even theirs in the first place), even after divorce. Violence against women? In order to equally tackle these issues, they'd be better of redirecting 90% of their funding to violence against men, as men are victims of violence much, much more often.
Economic justice could probably also be best served to men. It is often said that men make more, but make more in jobs with less attractive working conditions, in order for women to spend more.
There are plans for a legally-enforced quota of women in well-paid office jobs. However, there's not a quota for women in low-paying, undesirable jobs or even well-paid undesirable jobs, like working on an oil rig.
Interestingly, men hold those positions much more often than women, and because they're dangerous, filthy or undesirable, they make more money than working a similar-level office job.
So basically, women have quota to enforce their representation in well-paid office jobs, but not in well-paid undesirable jobs, and certainly not in man-dominated undesirable low-paid jobs.
I'll go to bed in a few minutes. I now realise I've eaten too much salt and vinegar chips, and I can hear them being digested. What a nice thought. Goodnight.
Feminism is going to, by and large, promote female issues. Given thousands of years of subjugation, it just makes sense. Men can and should fight for their own - as long as they aren't doing it in a way that will suppress someone else, of course.
Abortion rights are on the table, still, because there is a huge, on-going, political battle to remove them. There is no expansion there. This is and will always be a women's issue, because men can't carry the babies, and every time we try to think of a way to give the men a stronger voice in the process, we run up against natural rights of the woman. If you can figure that balance out, be my guest, get it some political traction, because I have male friends who have been hurt by that reality, and it leaves me stumped. But ... don't do it in this thread, that really is a whole other can of beans.
Men are rarely the victims of DOMESTIC violence, which occurs in the home, far from police eyes, perpetrated by people one is supposed to trust, and does love ... that is much trickier and insidious. You are talking apples and oranges here, and while violence in general is something for us all to be concerned about, it isn't an issue that should be handled mostly by women, and is already well in the public eye, continually addressed in politics and the law. Feminism is, by definition, going to promote women's issues, particular if they would otherwise fly under the radar.
I disagree with your assessment of the economic disparity, because it is my understanding that they are very careful to survey similar occupations. It really isn't effective to look broad scope, because so many of us choose to work less hours or off a career path.
There is no legally enforced quota for women in jobs, I am pretty sure that got done away with, although you might still find it occasionally in a fire department or police department, not sure why or if that is true. Affirmative action, if even that is still in place (not sure, its been a few years since I've been in a work place subject to it), asks only that an employer show they hired a statistically similar percentage of the qualified women actually applying for the job as they did men, and if there aren't any women applying, that they did something to try to entice them to. I should know, I was involved in a lot of hiring in hot affirmative action years. I think you've seriously misinterpreted what goes on, or maybe just haven't seen the inner workings of enough businesses to know.
As far as women spending more, I just read an article that discussed how much extra a year it costs a woman to live just for being a woman, and that excluded anything optional like make up or clothes. Basically, we have a lot of sanitary and health needs you don't, they cost money, and they aren't fully offset by costs that arise in the reverse. Which, I guess, must not have considered the extra food costs having a teenage boy will bring you, but the parents pay that Wink (yes, I have a teenage boy in my house!).
As I mentioned in my earlier post, the men's issue I think most needs to be brought to the forefront is education for boys. University enrollments are swinging 60% female, and that is not because they are biased towards women, but because boys are not excelling in grades K-12 at the level girls are. There are many, many developmental differences between young girls and boys, with boys generally developing over a longer and more drawn out period, which is a problem when the schools push more and more developmental skills into lower grade levels. A 6th grader today must be extremely organized, the grading emphasizes organization, but the average 11 year old boy is not developmentally ready for it (take one look at a middle school and you realize you are seeing girls that look and act and like women, but boys that look and act like ... boys). Eventually it all evens out, but by the time it does the boys have taken a pretty big shot to their self-esteem and no longer see themselves as capable students with plans for college. The attempts by certain women to raise this issue is getting some push back from other feminists, given how long and hard they fought for girls to thrive in school, but I think we should all want to reach a balance that is as fair as possible for both genders. Because, as the old saying goes, a mind is a terrible thing to waste - any mind. If someone is looking for a fight that is worth fighting, with results that can actually be achieved, instead of just an opportunity to sling ugly words and irate rants on a message board, THAT issue is it. IMHO. As a mom with a teenage boy and a pre-teen daughter. The book: "The Trouble with Boys" by Peg Tyre. Extremely well researched.
And with all that ... I really need to end my participation. I don't have time. Plain and simple.
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Mom to an amazing young adult AS son, plus an also amazing non-AS daughter. Most likely part of the "Broader Autism Phenotype" (some traits).
Last edited by DW_a_mom on 07 Apr 2012, 11:58 pm, edited 1 time in total.
07 Apr 2012, 5:55 pm
