What is a feminist?

Great Debates
101

[QUOTE=Justin_Bailey]
And has been pointed out in this thread, neither do women.

You can talk about the global idea of feminism all you want, but in the United States, in 2008, there is complete equality of oppurtunity between men and women.
[/QUOTE]

Men do have a movement, and should. They fight for things like paid paternity leave. Rights for divorced fathers. Men often don’t have equal opportunity in reality when it comes to parental rights. Women often don’t have equal opportunity in reality in the working world. Which doesn’t mean that the door is closed on becoming an engineer, but if you look at things like starting wages for male vs. female surgeons, or the number of hours billed a man needs to make partner in a law firm vs. a woman, there is still a disparity. (See Elsa Walsh’s book Divided Lives for a cite).

As a global movement though, U.S. women (and women in most Western countries) have it pretty darn good. There is still a lot of work to be done on rights for women in other parts of the world.

102

[QUOTE=Sarahfeena]
True, but most women still do not choose to have no children at all. So, they are still satisfying their maternal drive, but with less hardship. This is not what I would consider truly overthrowing biology, but rather trying to control it to some degree.
[/QUOTE]

I don’t understand your argument. Are you saying that despite reproductive control, most women still want to have children? I certainly wouldn’t argue this point and fail to see a contradiction between women choosing to have children and feminism. Feminism is about empowering women with options and education, so they have the freedom to make the fundamental and life altering choice to have children. Feminists don’t criticize women for choosing to raise children over a career. Feminists criticize the lack of social value placed on stay at home mothers and children. Feminists don’t criticize women for choosing the teaching profession. Feminists criticize the lack of social value placed on teaching, a female dominated profession. Motherhood is uniquely female and teaching children is intimately connected to motherhood and women.

103

[QUOTE=unconventional]
I don’t understand your argument. Are you saying that despite reproductive control, most women still want to have children? I certainly wouldn’t argue this point and fail to see a contradiction between women choosing to have children and feminism. Feminism is about empowering women with options and education, so they have the freedom to make the fundamental and life altering choice to have children. Feminists don’t criticize women for choosing to raise children over a career. Feminists criticize the lack of social value placed on stay at home mothers and children. Feminists don’t criticize women for choosing the teaching profession. Feminists criticize the lack of social value placed on teaching, a female dominated profession. Motherhood is uniquely female and teaching children is intimately connected to motherhood and women.
[/QUOTE]
I wasn’t saying that there was a contradiction between women choosing to have children and feminism. I was responding to miss elizabeth’s point:

[QUOTE=miss elizabeth]
His point would be a lot more interesting if it had any basis in reality. But it doesn’t.

For example, in every country when women have the right to control their fertility, they overwhelmingly choose to delay having children, and to have less of them. If it were true that more choice resulted in more people choosing their “biological destiny”, wealthier women would have more children than poorer women, but in fact the opposite is true. The more choices a woman has, the more likely she is to rebel from her biology and limit her offspring.
[/QUOTE]
All I was trying to say was that women will always have a biological urge to have children. I agree with miss elizabeth that women, when given the opportunity to have fewer children, will do so, but I don’t agree with her that what Der Trihs said has “no basis in reality,” either.

I have to disagree with you in all that you say about feminists…there are indeed people who call themselves feminists who criticize women for choosing raising a family over a career, and often they are the ones who devalue the job of raising children. I would love to think that all feminists agree with what you say here, but I know for a fact it isn’t the case.

In addition, your implication that teaching is a natural career for women contradicts what others have said here, that the maths and sciences are not naturally masculine careers, but that women can find as much fulfillment from such a career as they can in one that is more traditionally female.

104

[QUOTE=unconventional]
Feminists don’t criticize women for choosing to raise children over a career.[…]Feminists don’t criticize women for choosing the teaching profession.
[/quote]

As I’ve pointed out earlier in the thread, blanket statements like that can ruin an otherwise acceptable argument. The fact of the matter is that, yes, some self identified feminists do, indeed, do those things.

[QUOTE=unconventional]

teaching children is intimately connected to motherhood and women.
[/QUOTE]

No.
I teach, and I’m absolutely neither a mother, nor a woman.

Teaching children is intimately connected to education. That’s it. Fathers raise their children, too, after all. The idea that education is somehow “intimately connected to motherhood and women”, actually, is probably part of that cultural baggage that’s been discussed in this thread. There is no connection, innate or otherwise, between mothers/women, and teaching. Other than that in the US at least, education is compulsory and any mother will have a child that is in school somewhere. Then again, so will any father.
Edit: simupost for the win!
And on another note, I can’t ever wrap my mind around the tendency of folks on the other side of the pond to shorten mathematics to “maths”. It just sounds… wrong. It’s math, math!!! :wink:

105

[QUOTE=NinetyWt]
These are all good questions, and I think parents and educators should be contemplating them.

Frankly, I was a bit surprised at the findings of the ASCE report I linked previously:

Surely no one percieves any profession as restricted to one gender anymore? I don’t think my kids do.
[/QUOTE]

Little boys still look at me funny sometimes and say ‘I thought only girls were nurses’ I don’t think anybody specifically teaches them that

106

[QUOTE=outlierrn]
Little boys still look at me funny sometimes and say ‘I thought only girls were nurses’ I don’t think anybody specifically teaches them that
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That was a bit naive of me, wasn’t it? I think NurseCarmen gets mistaken around here for a female often - I should have remembered that.

Dangerosa, that is a good point about father’s rights. I’m a bit chagrined that I overlooked it.

107

[QUOTE=NinetyWt]
I think NurseCarmen gets mistaken around here for a female often -
[/QUOTE]

To be fair, even if it was ConstructionworkerCarmen, the “carmen” part would probably make folks think of a woman.

Likewise, even BallerinaBiff would conjure up images of a scruffy guy with a potbelly… dancing in a tutu.

But maybe that’s just me.

108

[QUOTE=unconventional]
I don’t understand your argument. Are you saying that despite reproductive control, most women still want to have children? I certainly wouldn’t argue this point and fail to see a contradiction between women choosing to have children and feminism. Feminism is about empowering women with options and education, so they have the freedom to make the fundamental and life altering choice to have children. Feminists don’t criticize women for choosing to raise children over a career. Feminists criticize the lack of social value placed on stay at home mothers and children. Feminists don’t criticize women for choosing the teaching profession. Feminists criticize the lack of social value placed on teaching, a female dominated profession. Motherhood is uniquely female and teaching children is intimately connected to motherhood and women.
[/QUOTE]

Bolding mine.

This right here is why the argument is being made to be a humanist instead of a feminist. This statement says, in effect, that there are differences between the sexes that can not be overcome. If we allow that as true then it should be just as okay to say physical sciences are uniquely male and engineering is intimately connected to maleness and men.

So far the scientific evidence seems to point to the fact that on average there are differences between the sexes in basic ability for certain tasks. Individuals can, and do regularly, cross the average inate diference line with great success.

I’m honestly not sure where the right answer is towards legislation or rules on things like affirmative action. I’m even a little unsure about the idea expressed earlier that a CEO won’t hire women as upper management because they leave and have babies. It’s the CEO’s job to make money for the shareholders and if replacing a woman who left the office to have a baby costs more money than hiring a man who is less likely to leave, what’s the right decision?

Is the problem that we expect the woman to raise the baby, that we have to have a job to support ourselves, that we (as a species) reproduce, that we consider making money to be the purpose of a business, or something else?

I’m inclined to think it has more to do with the cutthroat nature of business than anything else. I have no answer to the problem, however.

-Eben

109

[QUOTE=FinnAgain]
As I’ve pointed out earlier in the thread, blanket statements like that can ruin an otherwise acceptable argument. The fact of the matter is that, yes, some self identified feminists do, indeed, do those things.
[/QUOTE]

Fair enough** Fin**. I should clarify that the feminist thought that I have been exposed to doesn’t devalue women for choosing children over a career. The feminists I know would argue that women should be free to make choices and those choices are important and have valued.

[QUOTE=FinnAgain]
No.
I teach, and I’m absolutely neither a mother, nor a woman.

Teaching children is intimately connected to education. That’s it. Fathers raise their children, too, after all. The idea that education is somehow “intimately connected to motherhood and women”, actually, is probably part of that cultural baggage that’s been discussed in this thread. There is no connection, innate or otherwise, between mothers/women, and teaching. Other than that in the US at least, education is compulsory and any mother will have a child that is in school somewhere. Then again, so will any father.
[/QUOTE]

I commend your career choice. Maybe if more men choose a career in education, not administration but the classroom, salaries will improve. Historically, teaching has been a female profession. Women stayed home with children and became the first teachers. If you ask a random sample of people which job is tougher teaching first grade or calculus, my guess is that most respondents will say calculus. How many male teachers work in elementary schools? I am confident there are substantially less men than women. The economy is changing and men are increasingly choosing the classroom. I graduated in the mid 90s with a degree in education – emphasis in middle school education. There were guys in the program but most were female. The gender split seems to decrease in secondary education.

110

[QUOTE=unconventional]
I commend your career choice. Maybe if more men choose a career in education, not administration but the classroom, salaries will improve. Historically, teaching has been a female profession. Women stayed home with children and became the first teachers. If you ask a random sample of people which job is tougher teaching first grade or calculus, my guess is that most respondents will say calculus. How many male teachers work in elementary schools? I am confident there are substantially less men than women. The economy is changing and men are increasingly choosing the classroom. I graduated in the mid 90s with a degree in education – emphasis in middle school education. There were guys in the program but most were female. The gender split seems to decrease in secondary education.
[/QUOTE]

Anyone who says calculus has never spent any time around first graders. I will agree that it’s likely the majority response, however.

I’m a bit confused by the rest of your post. Are you pointing to an example that says women are more likely to take a low paying job than men?

Whether it’s societal or biological, I think the basic drive for career choice is different for men and women. On average I think that men are motivated more by financial success and women more by emotional success. Which is to say that a man is more willing to do work they don’t like for high pay than a woman is, generaly. It’s important to note that the difficulty of a job has very little to do with the enjoyability of the job.

I’m sure that if you start mandating a minimum six figure salary for teachers there will be an increase in interest from lots of people, including men, regardless of the difficulty in the position.

-Eben

111

[QUOTE=unconventional]
Fair enough** Fin**. I should clarify that the feminist thought that I have been exposed to doesn’t devalue women for choosing children over a career. The feminists I know would argue that women should be free to make choices and those choices are important and have valued.
[/quote]

Thank you very much for retracting and modifying your original assertion. The intellectual honesty quotient of GD just was raised by a few points :wink:

[QUOTE=unconventional]

Historically, teaching has been a female profession. Women stayed home with children and became the first teachers.
[/quote]

Well, I’d agree that, historically, teaching has been viewed as being a “woman’s” job. However, I’m a bit puzzled on your second statement. How far back in time are we going? I’m not being facetious, so please bear with me…

For instance, in ancient Greece/Rome, many if not most teachers were men, IIRC. In th antebellum south, for example, freed slaves, at an amazing rate, spontaneously founded their own schools and the teacher was almost always the person whose masters had let them learn the most about reading and writing; the connection between citizenship and literacy was clearly on many freed slaves’ minds, and achieving social power was their only concern. In Texas during the late 1800’s, for example, there were male teachers as well, albeit they were paid better than female teachers.

By “first teachers”, then, are you talking neolithic times?
If so, I’m really don’t know anything about the anthropological side of that question. Do you have a cite? I wasn’t aware that we had firm evidence for the division of roles that was ironclad enough to make definitive statements about who taught and who didn’t.

[QUOTE=unconventional]

If you ask a random sample of people which job is tougher teaching first grade or calculus, my guess is that most respondents will say calculus.
[/quote]

Perhaps… but that’s also because many people view our profession as being glorified baby sitters, and “calculus” is often code for “really fucking hard oh my god I have no idea what I’m doing math scares me heeeeeeeeeelp!”
:smiley:

[QUOTE=unconventional]

How many male teachers work in elementary schools? I am confident there are substantially less men than women.
[/quote]

You may be right. It ‘sounds true’, but I’d still be curious to see what the actual percentages are via a cite. What conclusion would you draw, by the way, from that gender disparity?