What women want
Following up on the conversation generated by my post on the green credentials of women executives, I cannot help but ask on this male dominated forum just what it is that women DO want? I’m not asking in any Mel Gibson movie type way. That’s been done to death and this is a political blog.
I am asking what it is, from a feminine perspective, that is needed most in our political dialogue. Despite the gender of our current PM and Chief Justice, it’s a male dominated sphere. Even this blog is a male dominated sphere. It was refreshing to hear so many new voices commenting on that post.
In a challenging report entitled Power, Politics, Positionings - Women in Northern Ireland, Ellish Rooney summarises the conundrum with questions such as mine:
But there is a Catch 22 in writing about ‘women and [anything]’.
The impression may be encouraged that, by virtue of being separately addressed, women are thereby taken care of, dealt with, perhaps even included in the debates - whether on politics, history, religion or economics. Yet the vast bulk of analysis in these areas in Northern Ireland makes no mention of gender. And where the structure of relationships between the sexes is seen as irrelevant, women are excluded.[2]
In mainstream debate, women are assumed to be included. Yet when a separate space for ‘women and …’ is created, the pressure to integrate gender, to include women, into ostensibly gender-free understanding is lessened. The idea that women can, and perhaps should, be dealt with separately, even additionally, is subtly reinforced: ‘women’ are made visible in the separate space but the penalties are insidious.
Another catch of the ‘women and …’ approach is that it reinforces the notion that women comprise a homogeneous category, sharing essential qualities or experiences. But gender identity is one component of complex networks of class, race, religion, culture, geographical location, sexual preference and age; and it is a resultant of physical characteristics, social experience, political analysis, national identity and historical moment. Women are differently positioned in relation to each other.
I don’t really want to debate ‘women and politics’, but rather just ask what you think we should be talking about this election. (’You’ meaning the women readers/bloggers who pass through my little pond here. ‘We’ meaning perhaps the Greens, both women and men, perhaps all political parties.)
One of the things I like about the Green Party itself is that our top level leadership positions require a gender balanced co-leadership, without forcing any gender specific requirements on how it should work or on any level other than the top level. This kills off the issues raised by Ellish above while at the same time ensuring a more inclusive dialogue can sort of happen by default. It’s far from perfect but it does go a long way towards ending any kind of gender monopoly.
But I digress. My real challenge is, what do women want in terms of the political dialogue?
July 21st, 2008 at 10:47 am
If a candidate is gay does that go on the feminine side. What about bi and lesbian (bi sexual not bicultural).
July 21st, 2008 at 10:53 am
PS when is the next lesbian herbal collective workshop? (read that in Rosemary McLeod’s column…. children were making one out of Lego)….. also recall (TV) lesbians fighting with communists at Waitangi day celebrations (Okains Bay?)…… Anyone remember the Bushwackers (Kiwi wrestling duo …”don’t think those two ever went to no college McMann”)
July 21st, 2008 at 11:03 am
1. honesty
2. female politicians with less testosterone than the male ones
July 21st, 2008 at 11:52 am
“female politicians with less testosterone than the male ones”
Seriously? WTF? This is an example of the abuse that continually flows towards women in Parliament. If a man is aggressive he’s just aggressive. If a woman is aggressive and puts up a fight instead of being meek and letting men slug it out, for a large number of people, like the commenter above, she’s somehow less female.
July 21st, 2008 at 11:54 am
yes what is it with wimin not participating much in this sort of forum? too busy with driving the kids to shcool? and yet there we have a bunch of ladies running the country (with no dercernable positive progress) for the last 9 years. In fact its been steadily going down hill with worsening social /environmental problems, despite the 49,000 bureaucrats, 3000 extra police, and ‘whole of govt’ approaches….: ‘horse shit’
as far as scuttling the cannabis law reform thing which started out in good faith after 1999, women were hugely instrumental in burying it. Judy Keall, Annette King, Helen of course, Heather simson(?), Steve Chadwick, Linda Scott, Sue Kedgely, Sally Casswell…
- an interesting fact that political commentators all missed. The Health committee after hearing peoples views against prohibition up and down the country in 2001, overwhelmingly in support of ‘decriminalising’, elected to do another inquiry on some gynacologist who stuffed up (parry?). as higher priority to finishing all the work theyd done on cannabis,
the parry inquiry was completed before the July election, cannabis was held over to a committee which hadnt heard the submissions…
womens health more important than social justice? and the harm maximisation going on then and worse than ever now…Thats why i mention Sue K, because she voted for that totally inconsequential Parry inquiry and helped Labour slime out of their cannabis law review due process (so did PHillida bunkle admittedly)…I recall buttonholing Annette King about the stalled cannabis report, after a public meeting in 2002 just prior to that horrible election (the rise of the worm). The one thing she said to me was ‘the greens supported the Parry inquiry, we didnt…’
Annette King is perhaps my least favorite politician, as she started out supportive of reform process and sympathetic to the issues raised, but was quite happy to bury it and is now Helen’s right hand lady, minister of police and justice presiding over the matrix of dysfunction and criminality that a certain law reform would have mitigated hugely …evil….
reminds me a bit of ‘animal farm’ where some genders are more equal than others….not that i dislike women - just ones who have power and get arrogant with it.
a final point. our drug laws are gender biased in the extreme, and its men who by far get a rougher deal. ‘theres a fraction too much friction’ because of them. We’d all be getting along so much better without this great source of inequity going on…once again cannabis is the lynchpin.
July 21st, 2008 at 12:04 pm
Nice one George. Thanks for pointing that one out. I have to say though, I would suspect some people make comments tongue in cheek without thinking of the real message they project in their words. Am I right to assume, kaimatacroft, that this might be correct for you? Or do you still stand by what you said?
July 21st, 2008 at 12:13 pm
Should never have given them the vote in the first place.
July 21st, 2008 at 12:21 pm
Politics, as our system is set up, and still exisits today, is obviously male-dominated. Considering women have only be allowed to contribute a vote in elections for the last hundred years, I would say we have done well at intergating female voices in parliament, and on the political stage. And we still face discrimination in society, particularly in the workforce and in the home. I would love to see a proper, civil, open discussion on this issue, and the articulated thoughts of both genders. But I am afraid most men (big bro illustrates his with his comment above) cannot handle such a task. What a shame.
July 21st, 2008 at 12:26 pm
Meghan - Unfortunately, I concur. I was hoping to stimulate a bit of decent dialogue with this post, but instead just some bashing of tired old stereotypes is what I have got for my troubles!
July 21st, 2008 at 12:33 pm
big bro has shown himself capable of tongue in cheek though…
July 21st, 2008 at 12:56 pm
StephenR: I agree! I would love to hear his more constructive opinions on the topic though.
July 21st, 2008 at 1:00 pm
I think ‘wanting to hear what women want/think’ deters some people from commenting, personally.
Couldn’t agree more on the issue of ‘essentialism’ that frog raised in the original post - why are we looking at this as a gender issue? Is that what we value above all else, like, in the para that was quoted:
?
July 21st, 2008 at 1:15 pm
I think I digressed from the topic at hand a little with that, oh well.
July 21st, 2008 at 1:52 pm
kaimatacroft is scientifically correct. Testosterone levels in the womb dictate whether a person will think like a man or a woman. Its the kneejerk reaction from george and meghan we should all worry about, the idea that testosterone affects how someone thinks in adulthood is patently absurd.
July 21st, 2008 at 2:32 pm
Interesting that we should get so many of the male readers responding! But that’s kind of typical of this blog, and one of the reasons why I usually don’t bother responding by the time I get to the bottom of the comments.
What I’d like (and I only speak for myself) for this blog is people to shutup and start listening.
What I’d like talked about in this election: the major thing affecting the world (global warming) and the major thing that is affecting us as a nation now (buying the groceries and paying the mortgage/rent). The trouble is, as people start to really struggle in their day-to-day lives they are going to care less and less about the big issues, especially if the effects of those seem far off and they can diffuse responsibility to people in other, bigger, countries.
July 21st, 2008 at 2:42 pm
You don’t normally respond because males are responding first?
July 21st, 2008 at 3:13 pm
“What I’d like (and I only speak for myself) for this blog is people to shutup and start listening.”
A blog without comments…..yeah that would work!
July 21st, 2008 at 3:26 pm
stephenr: males are responding to a post specifically asking women to respond. see response to bb below.
big bro: i’m referring to the usual respondants who dominate this blog.
July 21st, 2008 at 3:46 pm
I was sort of launching from what Megan said, since no one else was really saying anything…although your comment seemed to imply you didn’t normally comment as a matter of course (”reasons why I usually don’t bother responding”).
Don’t find many women on blogs generally, oddly.
Anyhoo, would broadly agree with the last para of your first post.
July 21st, 2008 at 5:03 pm
Yes that’s right StephenR women just don’t do the whole blog thing. Our poor little ickle brains can’t handle the jandle. Or maybe you just don’t notice women’s blogs, or women commenting on blogs? Here’s a tip, have a look at the rather lengthy (and growing all the time) blogroll of NZ women blogging here (scroll down, it’s on the left hand side).
Thanks for initiating this discussion Frog. I think the point made about listening is a good one. It annoys me that the male commenters above couldn’t shut up for long enough to let some women have a say, and now the comment thread is all about them. You get this at political meetings too - even when there are women on the stage speaking often the questions will be dominated by men. I think that it’s necessary to create space, a vacuum if you will, for women to fill, in those kinds of environments.
As with Maori, I don’t think there is any one group or person who can be said to represent a “woman’s view”. But making a conscious effort to include women in decision-making groups for organisations, organising groups for events, as candidates, etc, has an impact on other women who see an exemplar and consider doing it too, imho. Lyn at Grey Lynn Singles Club wrote a great post on this a while back:
http://greylynnsinglesclub.blogspot.com/2008/05/presidential-campaign- illustrates-my.html
July 21st, 2008 at 5:35 pm
Alicia - thanks for that. I guess it’smore of a check-in, as we do get a bit testosterone laden around here. The fact that we often focus on food and some other day to day issues as well as the big ones, climate change and peak oil, means we’re close if not on the mark. Anyway, it’s good to hear from you,since you are not a regular commenter. I don’t mind if you lurk! As long as we’re covering the issues that would bring you back now and again.
July 21st, 2008 at 10:14 pm
As an older woman, what gets up my nose is the loss of focus on the first principal as a woman, children.
The almost casual ignoring of the plight of the young who over flow our hospitals, with poverty related illnesses.
Diseases that would not have been tolerated even in the 1940’s.
Both Plunket & School Health nurses would have had them whipped into Karatane or a Health camp.
Now we pretend they are someone elses problem, while we out bloke the blokes.
Well you did ask!
July 21st, 2008 at 10:53 pm
Kelpie,
The issue you raise is also important to men (well some at least!).
There is a gross neglect of primary health care in New Zealand. I personally have seen children with, for example, untreated communicable skin diseases which would normally be only seen in third world countries. There are a multitude of reasons for this; poor hygeine, overcrowding in sub-standard housing; poor nutrition and inadequate medical attention.
As well as dealing with the underlying causes (poverty, lack of parenting skills etc), we also need public health nurses in schools and elsewhere who have the power to effectively deal with these primary health care issues. Sending kids to health camps might be a good response in some circumstances.
Its simply not good enough for a child to (possibly) see a GP (even if its free), and then not have regular checks to ensure the prescribed treatments are followed, and have measures put in place to prevent further disease. If you know of the kinds of situations I am referring to, you also will appreciate why many antibiotics are becoming ineffective. Even if a GP prescribes the correct medicines, there is a large chance they will not be taken properly if it is left up to the parents.
The sad thing is that if the government invested more money in primary health care, the total health care bill would probably fall. Instead, we rely on ambulances at the bottom of the cliff.
Getting back to the topic, I think that many of the issues women want dealt with are actually the same as what men want.
July 22nd, 2008 at 2:09 am
oh, you saw that comment as insulting toward females?
look closer at what was said… when women prove they can be just as aggressive, just as criminal, just as violent, power-hungry, egotistical & dishonest as men, do we just conclude women are flawed pretty much the same as men? oh, no, the male species is still the one at fault for those things… the women are just acting “male-like”
July 22nd, 2008 at 4:23 am
Alicia, I was going to respect frog’s attempt to encourage female participation until I read the responses to kaimatacroft. I can’t find my sister’s Maori dictionaries to check whether kaimata is a female name but I got the impression it was a genuine response to frog’s invitation. Maybe I don’t get enough exposure to the MSM to interpret the testosterone comment the way others have. IMHO, to succeed in politics, whether corporate or public, requires a set of attributes that aren’t uniquely male or female, in fact bossy attributes - some good, some bad - that most of us don’t have but that we (generally) expect in our leaders. If I’m even halfway right it means women at the top are going to be no different from men at the top because men at the top aren’t normal (as in standard deviation from the mean).
Now, some of us like communicating through this forum because we have slow deep thinking minds that are hopeless in face to face conversation, and because you don’t get this sort of (generally) intelligent debate of serious issues in the smoko room at work. That may be a uniquely Mensa blokey thing, if it is I hope it’s not too alien a concept for a women to understand/appreciate/interpret (
the right word escapes me at the moment).
I, too, found your I usually don’t bother responding and shutup and start listening comments at odds with each other. Some of us are listening and all we’re hearing is silence, so, hey, we must be right cos nobody’s telling us we’re wrong. Go on, spit it out, the worst anybody’ll do is bite your head off. Well, they can be sarcastic, but that’s water off a ducks back.
Perhaps the Dixie Chicks said it best:
http://www.petroltax.org.nz/PDF/00-Let Her Rip.mp3
It’s probably illegal to save it to disk but since I own the CD it should be legal for you to listen to it.
July 22nd, 2008 at 8:29 am
Julie, heh, sorry - don’t seem to be any women on the blogs that I frequent, is what I should have said, the sometimes-misogynism on the big one (Kiwiblog) can certainly be a bit off-putting sometimes. I should go to more blogs, but there are sooo many already. Sigh.
I have in fact been to the Hand Mirror before (I think NRT mentioned it first), but haven’t found it that interesting for me, though perhaps I might start lurking.
As Kevyn said, “Some of us are listening and all we’re hearing is silence, so, hey, we must be right cos nobody’s telling us we’re wrong.”
Rip into it!
July 22nd, 2008 at 8:32 am
# andrew Says:
July 22nd, 2008 at 2:09 am
>>>> what do women want in terms of the political dialogue?
>>> 2. female politicians with less testosterone than the male ones
>> This is an example of the abuse that continually flows towards women in Parliament. If a man is aggressive he’s just aggressive. If a woman is aggressive and puts up a fight instead of being meek and letting men slug it out, for a large number of people, like the commenter above, she’s somehow less female.
> oh, you saw that comment as insulting toward females?
> look closer at what was said… when women prove they can be just as aggressive, just as criminal, just as violent, power-hungry, egotistical & dishonest as men, do we just conclude women are flawed pretty much the same as men? oh, no, the male species is still the one at fault for those things… the women are just acting “male-like�
well, it is a fact that females have less testosterone than males. So the person who made the comment ‘women politicians with less testosterone than male ones’ was the one implying that it was about women acting like men.
The truth of course is that women who behave in an evil or agressive way do not have more testosterone than men, and decent, virtuous men do not have less testosterone than women. It is the attempt to bring testosterone into it that makes it sexist.
July 22nd, 2008 at 9:51 am
The Hand Mirror says, and I concur, that youse have all drifted off topic a bit. Which, I know, is the way around these parts, but still.
In some Green Party meetings I’ve been to the facilitator takes a gendered speaking order - one man, one woman, one man, one woman, etc. It means two things - (a) you get to hear a lot more of what the women in the room are thinking rather than having them pushed to the side of the conversation by loud men, and (b) when women feel they have had enough to say men have to stop too. It works great, and I’ve always wondered how it would work as a comment moderation policy? Thoughts?
July 22nd, 2008 at 10:02 am
Pointless. Everyone’s opinion is on written and on record, so quite difficult to ‘drown’ anyone out - is up to the individual what they talk about/who they address. If it was a comment moderation policy (which i doubt it seriously ever would be, just too difficult) i’d go hang out somewhere else, probably.
July 22nd, 2008 at 10:04 am
Sounds like a good policy for those meetings though, in my experience.
July 22nd, 2008 at 12:11 pm
That’s a huge question which your original posting acknowledges. What do we want?
Respect is a good start - for each other and the planet that sustains us.
Acknowledgement that there may be other ways of managing debate than the winner-takes-all, there-is-only-one-logical-way-to-see-the-world way that seems to characterise much political debate.
Understanding that “economy” really means “good housekeeping” and that households need other things than money to make life worthwhile: trust, good communication, tolerance and inclusion for example.
July 22nd, 2008 at 3:06 pm
Hi Frog
Thanks for starting this topic and Julie thank you for linking to it!
I held a top role in a political organisation a while back and found the gender dynamics fascinating and disturbing. Despite being a female in charge all the other top positions were all virtually held by men. Several of these men felt the need to continually challenge my decisions and indeed completely ignore group directives. This would mean we, as a group, were paralysed from moving forward as key positions were actively ignoring the roles they needed to perform and instead pursuing ego boosts. As this was a volunteer organisation there is little one can do to encourage people to collaborate other than ‘being a good leader’.
The continual undermining of my direction for the group seemed to me to be based on my gender. One male in particular would call me at 11pm at night with long discussions often featuring critiques of female’s roles in the organisation.
I ended up prioritising my family over the organisation and walked away to leave the boys to fight amongst themselves. I was always disappointed however that what should have been a collective was undermined by gender insecurity.
July 22nd, 2008 at 3:12 pm
Hi Frog
Thanks for starting this topic and Julie thank you for linking to it!
I held a top role in a political organisation a while back and found the gender dynamics fascinating and disturbing. Despite being a female in charge all the other top positions were all virtually held by men. Several of these men felt the need to continually challenge my decisions and indeed completely ignore group directives. This would mean we, as a group, were paralysed from moving forward as key positions were actively ignoring the roles they needed to perform and instead pursuing ego boosts. As this was a volunteer organisation there is little one can do to encourage people to collaborate other than ‘being a good leader’.
The continual undermining of my direction for the group seemed to me to based on my gender. One male in particular would call me at 11pm at night with long discussions often featuring critiques of female’s roles in the organisation.
I ended up prioritising my family over the organisation and walked away to leave the boys to fight amongst themselves. I was always disappointed however that what should have been a collective was undermined by gender insecurity.
July 22nd, 2008 at 10:35 pm
i’ll say.
the only reason a man’s post here could dissuade a woman from participating would be if he had already said what she was going to say!
frankly if noisy people make it difficult for others to participate at meetings this is a failing of the chairing - getting people to take turns in any rational, fair order is obviously the aim & the solution - gender order is not special in that regard.
as for curtailing any debate as soon as just one sect has decided to do so, that is obviously unfair & ludicrous
July 22nd, 2008 at 11:16 pm
“i’ll say.
the only reason a man’s post here could dissuade a woman from participating would be if he had already said what she was going to say!
”
Except that women here are saying different. But why listen to their experience, how could they possible know.
*
I’ve been out of the Greens for a few years. Do you have a women’s caucus? How are women being actively included in policy making? How are Green women connecting across ethnicity and class?
I don’t think that women run NZ, although I do think we are better off than many places in the world. Women organise differently than men, so if they were running the place it would look quite different too.
btw, Helen Clark did one of the best things for NZ women when as Minister of Health she got the legislation passed that allowed midwives to practice independantly (1990). There is a strong link between the status of midwives in a country and the status of women.
I can’t see how Clark could be other than she is as Prime Minister in this country at this time i.e. I can’t see how she could keep her previous commitment to the needs of women, because the system that put her there requires her to be a hard nosed bitch. That’s the essential dilemma for women and politics - in order to have the power to do anything women have to adapt to fit into a system that won’t allow them to do the things that women want.
Marilyn Waring spoke about this a long time ago, about the female politicians she knew and what happened to them as people as time went by. She talked about Clark, and I think Richardson and Shipley, and those that got out before they were turned into pseudomenwomen. Some of the women that stayed and ended up doing women alot of damage originally entered politics with strong commitments to women’s wellbeing.
I find it really hard to imagine how women stay in politics because it is so brutal. Plus it is a system that works best for the values of the class of white men. So what I would like to see is (a) finding ways to support women to stay in politics and keep their souls, and (b) finding ways that actually change the system so that women can be there in a real way, not adapting to being like men.
*
There’s been some really good comments from women in this thread, I hope more women will post (and be encourage to post).
July 22nd, 2008 at 11:22 pm
Frog, maybe you could invite a woman blogger to guest post on the Green Party blog sometimes. Also, it’s not that clear if you ever have women blogging here, could that be made clearer?
July 23rd, 2008 at 7:03 am
ah yes. “hard nosed bitch” = “masculine”
the point has already been made - when a man is bad it’s because he’s a man.
when a woman is bad it’s because she’s being like a man.
go on then give one rational reason why women would be dissuaded from participating due to the participation of men?
July 23rd, 2008 at 11:32 am
Why won’t you accept women who say that they don’t contribute because men dominate the conversation? Do you think they are lying? Stupid? What?
I don’t get the feeling that you really want to understand why women sometimes don’t speak up in conversations dominated by men. What you want is an argument so you can stick by your belief that such a thing doesn’t happen. If instead you stopped and listened, as has been suggested, then more women might come along and talk about what stops them from talking. And we’d learn something. As it is, it’s probably only hardnosed bitches like me that will bother with the argument and we’ll just go round and round in circles.
It’s not the participation of men per se that puts some women off. It’s HOW men participate*. This thread is a classic example.
*(a headnod to the men here who are attempting to do something that supports women)
When I called Clark a hardnosed bitch I wasn’t comparing her to men, I was comparing her to how she was when she was younger. And the point I was making was that the system she is working in requires her to become a hardnosed bitch. Women simply aren’t allowed to be a range of things (men aren’t either but I’m wasn’t talking about men in case you hadn’t noticed).
Let me put it another way. The patriarchal system requires certain kinds of behaviour. The reason men appear to be blamed for that is because they have a unique position within patriarchy (they have the most to lose if patriarchy falls, and the have the most institutional power to bring about that fall, hence a conflict of interest). So there is a focus in men’s responsibility that is different than women’s. I think men often mistake this for them being blamed for everything, or for all bad things being designated as male. I can be clearer in how I talk about that, can you listen more?
Having said that, there is no doubt that there is a certain kind of conversation here. Lets call it confrontational. I can see that as a masculine aspect (not a male one) because I have a good deal of masculine qualities and have no problem with that. I happen to like confrontation and debate. But it does get tedious alot (esp in blogs), and not all people do well in that kind of conversation. For women, there are other ways of relating that are well known. There’s even been some mentioned in this thread. Did you notice? Are you willing to change and converse differently if it meant that more women would participate? Or do you think we should only have one (dominant) way of relating?
July 23rd, 2008 at 11:55 am
akew, Metiria, Sue K and Jeanette all blog here occasionally. In fact Metiria wrote the piece on Monday about 1080.
July 23rd, 2008 at 12:03 pm
“Why won’t you accept women who say that they don’t contribute because men dominate the conversation? Do you think they are lying? Stupid? What?” = Stupid, ideolistic, sexist, professional victims, need i go on?.
July 23rd, 2008 at 12:23 pm
since i asked an outright question & waited patiently for an answer, i see no basis for the suggestion that i’m not listening… hard to listen to an explanation which is not fothcoming.
well o.k. you supplied a kind of answer - you consider confrontational writing to be what drives women away, & you blame it on men - by describing it as a masculine aspect - despite providing the evidence of your own case to demonstrate that it is just as much a feminine aspect.
when you called clarke a hardnosed bitch you went on to imply that this was because her gender identity had been compromised. this did seem to me to be yet another effort to call any bad characteristic of a person essentially a “manlike” characteristic.
you haven’t allayed this suspicion by talking about “the patriarchy” & how it supposedly benefits men. so i’m not sure if it is an issue of you making your views clearer.
to be honest, not really. i noticed some vague suggestions - people should be honest & give constructive ideas… i agree with that & don’t see it as a different way for women to relate than men but rather an ideal that all of us should aim for & many of us (of both genders) succeed at much of the time. aside from that i regretfully note that i noticed a couple of women saying men should just shut up - i guess that’s their male side coming through again though
neither, we all have different ways of communicating - different from each other & different for different circumstances. it’s up to anyone whether they want to participate or not.
i trust i’m always open to persuasion though.
July 23rd, 2008 at 1:11 pm
In response to weedeater (1154Hrs, 21 Jul)
“reminds me a bit of ‘animal farm’ where some genders are more equal than others….not that i dislike women - just ones who have power and get arrogant with it.”
I reply:
“reminds me a bit of ‘animal farm’ where some genders are more equal than others….not that i dislike men - just ones who have power and get arrogant with it.”
This whole conversation has LITTLE to do with the actual state of affairs in Aotearoa NZ, and a LOT to do with the misogyny of some male contributors here.
If these are OLDER contributors who have yet to accept that we live in different (and I believe better and much more sensible) times, that is one thing … However, if they are YOUNGER males who are feeling threatened by the women in their own generation, that is very sad (for them!)
July 23rd, 2008 at 1:19 pm
I am 19, ive growin up with feminism and have a great deal of respect for women and treat women as equals, even if my comments here do not reflect that, that is mostly due to my instinctual dislike of tribalism and professional victims. though one of the things about growing up with feminism and having it forced down your throat in every humanities paper is that you see its many many many flaws, not unlike how being brought up catholic i got to see just how terrible, illogical and self-contradictory it really is.
July 23rd, 2008 at 1:49 pm
Adding to my last post (above):
I find this discussion difficult because the people with whom I associate (especially among the Greens and my personal friends) are not “sexist”, “racist” (or “whatever”ist!) and they constantly strive to make sure that they are do not come across in that way.
However, we all have some “old baggage” lurking around. No no one is perfect in this regard.
Therefore, as we associate with/in various circles:
If we each would welcome a gentle comment (rather than make a denial) when our words could be taken in that way, there would be a HUGE leap forward in real communication taking place …
July 23rd, 2008 at 2:12 pm
Sapient,
Having read your posts for a while now, you are doing very well for “a 19year old male with a catholic upbringing”.
Some of the stuff that still goes under the name of “feminism” is part of the pendulum swing and the rage and hurt from those, older than you, who were badly affected by the sexist times in which I was raised … many of then Catholic!
I am 66 years old and was lucky to be raised by parents who (in today’s terms) would have been considered feminists, as would their parents and grand parents …
My kids (aged 28 and 24) are great, and they have very impressive friends
All this makes me wonder what all the fuss is, and has been, about!
July 23rd, 2008 at 2:52 pm
when i read the following comments:
“Politics, as our system is set up, and still exisits today, is obviously male-dominated.”
“And we still face discrimination in society, particularly in the workforce ”
“in order to have the power to do anything women have to adapt to fit into a system that won’t allow them to do the things that women want.”
“t is a system that works best for the values of the class of white men.”
“The patriarchal system”
i’m forced to conclude in harmony with eredwen this whole conversation has LITTLE to do with the actual state of affairs in Aotearoa NZ.
but when i see all the finger pointing at men i get the feeling it is to do with misandry in some contributors, not misogyny. it’s the misandrist contributors “who have yet to accept that we live in different (and I believe better and much more sensible) times,”.
when i hear, somewhat incredulously, that women are shrinking shyly away from a debate simply because men have been there, i don’t really get the impression that it is men who are sadly feeling threatened by women.
July 23rd, 2008 at 3:35 pm
eredwen,
i should probally have been more precise in my statement. I have no problem with feminism in the sence of equal rights and privledges for women and a society free of chauvinism, in that sence i am a feminist. But when people get to the whole victim mentality, ‘men are evil’, ‘men are the scum of the earth and cause all the problems’ and ‘men are the oppresors’, ‘the only true women are lesbians’, and ‘men cant be feminists’ kind of side (those whom i refer to as feminazis), it starts to get on my nerves big time, and unfortunatly that is what seems to dominate alot of the humanities and i have encountered alot of that in my studies.
That tribalism, ‘blame game’ and victim mentality has done more damage than anything else, every ethnic clensing ive studied has started from a similar basis and practically every war uses that same mentality as the justification. In and Out groups are fundimentally dangerous and the lower the barriers and higher the understanding; the betterfor society as a whole.
LOL, im not the typical 19 year old scarfie. one of the reasons i am on this blog is it helps greatly in exposing myself to other opinions and assisting me in developing more complete opinions myself, so far it has helped greatly to that end.
Cheers
Sapient
July 23rd, 2008 at 3:38 pm
“that is what seems to dominate alot of the humanities”
We obviously had very different humanities experiences…
July 23rd, 2008 at 3:54 pm
-”We obviously had very different humanities experiences…”
ive only studied them officially in the last two years, so its entirly possible; though of course by humanities i am refering more to sociology, anthropology and psychology than the history, economics, philosophy and politics papers which seem to have minimal feminist input past the point of ‘and this is when women got the vote’ and ‘and this is what happened when women entered the work-force’
July 23rd, 2008 at 4:07 pm
Sapient, while I wouldn’t go so far as to say that nobody holds the views that you refer to as ‘feminazis, I don’t think they’re nearly as prevalent as you believe.
For every woman who thinks men are all evil, there’s dozens of men (and no small number of women either, sadly) who interprets any attempt to expose systemic bias towards men as accusing all men of being evil.
July 23rd, 2008 at 4:07 pm
I was in the Geography/Politics streams at uni a couple of years back, and there were plenty of opportunities to explore feminism/gender studies issues in all papers, more advanced papers as a ‘lens’ of analysis too. History is a subject that is subject to ‘historiography’ why is similar to a ‘lens’, as you may know. The rather drastic modes of thought that you referred to before were spouted by students, presumably, as I can’t imagine anyone would have a problem learning about and discussing those with uni staff, as objectionable as they perhaps are.
July 23rd, 2008 at 4:50 pm
Andrew and Sapient,
In defence of some of the women who are ANGRY. Incest / rape statistics alone give one pause for thought about unequal power situations in some homes.
Abused females, from little baby girls to assaulted adult partners and sexual assault victims, can become very angry women.
They are at one end of the spectrum, and there are many whose experiences of the power differential are quite different from mine (as a woman from close to the oppposite end of the spectrum.)
July 23rd, 2008 at 4:52 pm
I’d so love to engage with a number of the comments on the thread but unfortunately I don’t have the time right now.
I will however, answer the original question and acknowledge frog for having the courage to ask it in a respectful way. It’s amazing how many people just rely on their own assumptions about what other people might be thinking. There’s a few of them in this conversation..
As a woman I would like to see some discussion about a fundamental rethink about the way we value our communities and our environment. We have created a political and economic system which values speculative largesse over constructive contributions to our communities. In fact, community doesn’t even have a value in political debate. Check out the Budget one day, see if you can find the community line item… As Marilyn Waring says it’s not measured, it doesn’t count.
But my main concern is what we’re doing to our kids. We are literally killing them.
We are raising a generation of children who will learn (from advertising mostly) that the goal in life is to have the most stuff. Unless their family intervenes and gives them some alternative messages, children today are being raised from about the age of 3 months old to buy. And they should only buy stuff if it’s made by certain companies which produce our ‘culture’. And that message doesn’t really change as they get older.
And most of us are not only doing nothing to prevent this, we are encouraging it.
If some of us do manage to raise our kids with positive, sustainable community and family focussed beliefs and they decide to take on a career which contributes back to society they will be economically caned for it.
As a woman I want to see a major rethink of our economy. And I want to see the debate focussed on what our communities value, not what’s valued by big business or their think tanks. And sooner rather than later before we completely stuff the planet.
Arohanui
July 23rd, 2008 at 5:50 pm
CStephen,
That may explain the discrepancies, I started BA in politics and psych but then dropped politics to study the other social sciences. There are a large number of higher level papers focused on the study of women and interactions there-of inmost of the humanities, though i note not a single one on males, my point was that the ‘feminist’ perspective has an overly strong influence on the subjects taught in some of the social sciences, particualy sociology papers. The examples which I made were of opinions presented to me by members of this party, individuals in the real world, and particualy in my course texts, the examples always being portrayed as the truth with no arguement possible, including with lecturers.
Eredwen,
It is true that the statistics are terrible, and the statistics only tell a portion of what is accually going on. What the angry women dont seem to realise though is that those events do nothappen because the individual is male or the victim is female, they happen because of the forces of sociology and because our society legitimises on a small range of approaches that are considered acceptable for people on the basis of their sex.
The angry and militant (feminazi) approach is likley to, due to afforementioned processes, do more damage to both females and males than a more peaceful and reasonable approach, which admitedly the mainstream of true feminism has followed.
It feels as though I dig a hole with exponentially increasing depth with every arguement I make based on personal experiance, so henceforth i shall refrain from making such arguements, atleast on this thread.
July 23rd, 2008 at 9:10 pm
Crap lecturers Sapient!
“though i note not a single one on males,”
IMHO the study of gender can only but involve men, not necessarily to do with how they’re ‘putting women down’, but the concept of ‘gender’ and how it enforces ‘masculine’ behaviours which can be just as tyrannical as society enforcing feminine gender norms - this is of course distinct from the study of the active feminism movements I, II and III(?) but should be integral to those papers you allude to….If it’s any consolation, 3rd year and especially hons papers involve a lot more discussion.
Anyhoo.
July 24th, 2008 at 11:25 am
I am delighted to see male (students etc?) discussing gender issues on a blog.
My adolescent years were in the “dreaded 1950’s”.
Most of my friends, from the “top” academic” class in a girls’ school with a “top academic reputation” (”CoEd” schools came la few years later) went into Nursing or Primary Teaching, some became “Secretaries”.
These were chosen as “good (fall back) jobs for married women.”
Only three from our year went directly to University. (In my brother’s year at Otago Medical School, then the only Med School in NZ, there were only three women students.)
Most women were “engaged to be married at 19 and married at 21″. They worked for two years and then had children.
Interestingly, later many of my ex-class mates were active in the feminist movement, some went to University as mature students … and some of those ended up teaching there.
Times have changed for the better, and I delight in many of the the attitudes of the younger generations.
July 24th, 2008 at 12:31 pm
“(students etc?)”
Fresh enough from uni to remember stuff that admittedly wasn’t my number one interest…
itstheeconomystupid, those are hardly concerns exclusive to women though are they?
July 24th, 2008 at 1:09 pm
Stephen, of course not. But this conversation isn’t about finding issues that women care about and men don’t, that would be stupid. This conversation is about what women want in terms of political dialogue. As a woman, and only one woman I might add, I don’t ever try and speak for all women, these are what my priorities are. They might be a bit obvious. But women have been pointing out the obvious for centuries now. It’s what we’re good at
July 24th, 2008 at 1:13 pm
Good to clarify.