Motherhood and feminism - Page 5

[siobhang]

I have still not gotten to the end of the thread...

Originally Posted by michelemiller

black men did not have power in relation to white men. but this does not mean that black men did not have power in relation to black women.

But white women had more power than black men - even to this day, most white women have more power than black men.

We cannot divorce class from issues of race or gender. When I was in Senegal (an incredibly hierarchical society where women are definitely NOT equal to men, at least legally or politically - and young people are also treated as subordinates - I was 23), I was treated and viewed as having much more power than the average man - because I am a white american who was living in Senegal. And they were right - I could get on a plane at any time and live in America (seen as a mecca for many) or get a visa to live in Europe more easily than they could. I had access to money and income potential most could only dream about.

It was fascinating (and occasionally irritating) dealing with high status African men, actually (I did some work with UNESCO, based in Dakar). They are so used to seeing women and younger folks as naturally subordinate but also used to seeing white Americas as superiors that I confused the hell out of them. They didn't know how to treat me - and most of our conversations were spent with them trying to convince me that I was subordinate to them.

It was a real lesson in how authority is negotiated between two people, based on key markers of class, race, age and gender.

Siobhan

[IncaMama]

Originally Posted by siobhang

But white women had more power than black men - even to this day, most white women have more power than black men.

We cannot divorce class from issues of race or gender.

i agree with the second part, but obviously come to a different conclusion than you. we cannot and should not divorce these issues from each other. they do not exist in isolation, nor will they ever. but that doesn't mean that the fact that there are significant interactions across these lines diminishes or eliminates the very real inequities that exist *within* categories. yes, race sometimes holds more sway than gender. but sometimes, it doesn't. i hope i haven't made it seem that i view this issue as a simple linear equation. i think that your experiences in Senegal are significant and obviously very illuminating for you. i have had similar experiences in my family's native country, Peru. I am "gringa" to them and hold more power than my peasant uncles. I am an American outsider, I have more money, I have more status as a fairer skinned woman who speaks English. But this doesn't close my eyes to the very *real* plight of my Peruvian aunts, grandmother, female cousins, etc. My own status as an American among Peruvians makes my "cultural capital" (to again use Bourdieu) a more significant relational marker. But it in no way negates the gender inequities that exist in the country as a whole.

[siobhang]

I have been thinking a lot about this topic and i think fundamentally we are misusing the word power.

Power can mean one person's ability to make someone else do something, but that is only one, and rather small, definition.

Power, in my view, is about ability of an individual to make choices - to have agency over their lives. A key way to measure power is risk susceptibility - i.e. what power do you have to mitigate against risk, such as a partner dying or becoming gravely ill, a husband becoming abusive, etc.

Power may not be a zero-sum game, but many many many people (especially those in power) behave as though it is. This means that a pretty normal response to others increasing in power is to feel like your power is diminishing and to do something about it, usually by trying to reduce someone else's power.

There are multiple factors that constitute power - financial/economic (i.e. the ability to generate income to pay for basic needs), social (i.e. the ability to gain social acceptance and support - and to call on resources from family, community), emotional (i.e. the ability to influence other people, negotiation of roles, authority, initimate relations), etc.

Some of these are not socially based at all. If I were confined to a wheelchair, I wouldn't have the power to walk and therefore am unable to hold jobs that require walking ability. It isn't anyones "fault" - it is what it is.

And some challenges facing women are similar - women have babies - pregnancy does prevent women from engaging in certain activities (tightrope walking, for example). The tricky part is in seperating societal assumptions from biological facts.

For example, it is absolutely possible to breastfeed and work full time outside the home away from your baby. HOWEVER, there are many factors that hinder women's full agency in breastfeeding - societal lack of recognition of the value of breastfeeding, the economic necessity of not taking unpaid leave which requires many women to return to work after 6 weeks before breastfeeding is fully established, the logistics of her job (as well as the assumption that a woman can just find a more suitable job either before the baby is born or right afterwards), her biological supply (i.e. if she has low supply or had difficulties pumping), her baby's inate temperment and physiology, etc etc.

Now, a woman may have no power over her biological supply (though there are lots of tricks and tips to maximize it), nor her baby's inate temperment and physiology (though she may come up with ways to respond to it).

She may also have limited power over her job requirements - for example, most women I know in office jobs are able to successfully negotiate time off for pumping and working from home one day a week - they are considered the lucky ones.

Unfortunately, for many women, even this "win" is still insufficient to allow them to easily combine breastfeeding and work (and those who persevere are deeply committed to breastfeeding). And for women who don't have office jobs, scheduling pumpings can be very very challenging.

So when we say women have a "choice" to breastfeed for 6 months or longer, this is really a lie, because many women have the deck stacked against them to begin with.

Anyway, my point is that we need to STOP looking at power as "that man over there is trying to tell me what to do" and rather as a societal system that routinely devalues some activities and rewards others. We are all part of the system, and we all help or hinder the statis quo.

Siobhan
- boy i really need to get back to work...

[siobhang]

Originally Posted by michelemiller

i have had similar experiences in my family's native country, Peru. I am "gringa" to them and hold more power than my peasant uncles. I am an American outsider, I have more money, I have more status as a fairer skinned woman who speaks English. But this doesn't close my eyes to the very *real* plight of my Peruvian aunts, grandmother, female cousins, etc. My own status as an American among Peruvians makes my "cultural capital" (to again use Bourdieu) a more significant relational marker. But it in no way negates the gender inequities that exist in the country as a whole.

Oh, I totally agree 100%!! I find it fascinating to see what markers trump others. For example, historically race trumps gender, but in some circumstances, class (and income) trumps gender and race. Look at Oprah - one of the richest and most powerful women in the world - or Condi Rice.

But as you point out, the fact that I can cite two powerful black women does NOT mean that black women on average have anywhere near the same amount of agency over their lives as white women, black men, white men, Latino women, etc etc.

A great quote about the OJ Simpson trial - someone said that it proves that in America that if you are rich enough, you trump institutionalized racism. I don't know if I entirely believe that, but it is a very interesting thought.

Siobhan

[Brigianna]

Originally Posted by michelemiller

ok, reading your responses to my post i think that the construct "power" is messing us up, and keeping us from actually talking about the same thing. i'm defining it a bit more broadly, rather than individually. you keep mentioning power as something that someone exerts over another, but that is not the only kind of power. power also exists in what Bourdieu termed social capital (other forms of capital as well). i think i've seen this mentioned in the thread (not sure by whom). this is the value that society gives an individual or group of individuals, regardless of whether the individual/group is even aware of it or desires it. so yes, in your examples of the factory owner and the king, you are talking about overt power structures that are questions of choice. and there are certainly gendered situations in which those would apply as well. BUT, i would argue that the bigger issue (at least in our society) is the implicit power structure. it's the social capital that is granted to men and not women, adults and not children, etc. it's not about direct exertion of power over another.

Okay, I think I get what you're saying here--are you talking about social privilege? Because I certainly agree that social privilege is part of the structure regardless of whether any given individual chooses to do with it. But I don't think that's the same thing as having power *over* someone. I have a lot more social privilege than someone earning minimum wage no matter how I as an individual choose to treat that person. But I wouldn't say that I have power over that person.

but by this definition, it should be women with the power. i can't remember who wrote about this, but i read a treatment on the comparison of human society to other species (ants, other insects, birds) in which the male has very little "power". crap i'm not doing this argument justice - i'll have to go back to my office to find this book again. anyway, my point is that evolution would dictate that the men are dispensible and not the obvious choice for "power". it does go back to economics in this sense, as the male "worker bee" (who would normally be at the bottom of the totem pole) is granted more economic substance than the "queen", despite her obviously stronger evolutionary assets.

I think from an evolutionary standpoint they're equally powerful. Yes, women are more directly involved in the reproductive processes, and one man can impregnate multiple women, so in theory fewer of them would be necessary, but the man's evolutionary asset is that he is not hindered by pregnancy or breastfeeding, so he can go out and hunt or whatever. Even in our modern society it is very difficult to raise a child by yourself; in primitive times it would have been almost impossible. The man is needed to go out and bring food back to mother and baby. And of course, humans have a natural inclination to want to mate and form unions beyond basic reproduction. So anyway, I don't think one has more evolutionary assets than the other. You need both to conceive a child and most of us need both to raise a child.

i agree with you that the economic disparities were more overtly oppressive than the gender inequities during the time you're talking about. but i disagree with the bolded statement. it's been several years since i've delved into this literature, so i'll have to get back to you on specific examples. BUT i will say that the knowledge that the prince is more powerful than the princess is damaging in and of itself. we talk all the time about socialization, how important it is for women to have positive role models, how important it is for them not to feel the oppression of the "glass ceiling". and while i agree that poor males also felt the power of the glass ceiling, i would argue that it *WAS* more oppressive for females, if only for the simple fact that even with money, women were "less' than men. there is much more to say on this subject, as i *truly* feel that your impression of the gender inequities in the lower classes is inaccurate. but since i don't have the facts in front of me to back it up, i'll wait until i do. i won't get to my office until next week at the earliest, so it'll have to wait until then.

Well if it were me, I would rather have money but no power than no money and also no power, but that's neither here nor there. I wasn't meaning, though, that class difference was greater than gender difference, but that gender difference (as in difference of power), with a few exceptions, existed only for the elites. Neither the poor men nor the poor women had any real power. So the peasant man couldn't deprive the peasant woman of power because he didn't have any himself.

Also, and I hope I can articulate this right, I think there is a difference between mistreatment and oppression. Anyone can mistreat anyone, but you can only oppress someone you have power over or the ability to coerce. So I don't doubt that there were men who mistreated their wives, and women who mistreated their husbands, but I wouldn't call it oppression.

can you explain how this is different from cultural relativism in function?

I'll try, but this is not my field so I'm not sure I have the right concepts matched up with the right terms. But as I understand it, cultural relativism is the idea that there are no absolute standards, only standards by culture. For example, to stay within the feminist theme, disenfranchising women in Saudi Arabia--the cultural relativist view would be that their rights are not being violated by the standards of that culture, and that we Americans should not impose our ideas of what people's rights should be on other cultures. I disagree with that. I think all people are entitled to certain inalienable rights regardless of their culture, including the right to participate in government.

i think you misunderstood me. i was advocating both sides in theory...when i said "I would..." i meant that an academic feminist would...., not *me* personally. just to clarify.

Okay. But there are a lot of feminists who take the other side.

again, i think we're talking around each other here. he may not have power *over* you, but he is granted more social capital than you. regardless of what he or you choose to do with it.

He probably has a little more social capital, but I think the difference is negligible.

i don't believe they are either, nor did i mean to suggest that you did. and i'd argue that our nation's history is filled with non-feminists who believed this and who wrote it into various legally binding documents and policies. the fact that feminists are now operating within that system does not mean that they would have chosen it for themselves, had they had the opportunity to do so when these "social contracts" were being formed.

There are a few discrimanatory laws and policies, which I agree are wrong. I am an ERA supporter btw. But I think that legal injustices should be addressed within the legal and political processes. I don't think we need to apply political standards to our family relationships.

[Brigianna]

Originally Posted by siobhang

I have not finished reading this thread, but so far this is fascinating. What a bunch of intellegent, articulate, thoughtful women! I am loving this.

Brigianna, thank you for your list. So far, I have not really understood what you stood for, but your list is very illuminating, and most of which I agree with - and the rest I respect.



Espeically this point. I work in international development, with a background in child survival. I believe ferverntly in the right for a child to not die of preventable illnesses like diarrhea. I believe that every woman should have access to healthcare to protect herself and her family. I believe fervently in reproductive freedoms (though abortion I find personally disturbing but would never want to legislate against it).

But I also am fervently against population control programs because the vast majority of time it is a case of rich, powerful people telling poor, powerless people how many children they can have. And unfortunately, many population control programs (even those dressed up as reproductive freedom programs) are coercive and maniupulative in nature.

My 2 cents

Siobhan

Thanks for sharing this. I really believe that the population control movement is one of the most whitewashed agendas out there (along with vaccines and institutional schooling).

We cannot divorce class from issues of race or gender. When I was in Senegal (an incredibly hierarchical society where women are definitely NOT equal to men, at least legally or politically - and young people are also treated as subordinates - I was 23), I was treated and viewed as having much more power than the average man - because I am a white american who was living in Senegal. And they were right - I could get on a plane at any time and live in America (seen as a mecca for many) or get a visa to live in Europe more easily than they could. I had access to money and income potential most could only dream about.

It was fascinating (and occasionally irritating) dealing with high status African men, actually (I did some work with UNESCO, based in Dakar). They are so used to seeing women and younger folks as naturally subordinate but also used to seeing white Americas as superiors that I confused the hell out of them. They didn't know how to treat me - and most of our conversations were spent with them trying to convince me that I was subordinate to them.

It was a real lesson in how authority is negotiated between two people, based on key markers of class, race, age and gender.

I used to do work in other countries and while I was not generally well-treated, I was treated as privileged by virtue of being American. There was one experience in particular in which I truly think if my passport had said anything else, I would not be alive today. So anyway that was a very concrete lesson in social privilege. I do agree that it's complex though.

[Brigianna]

Originally Posted by siobhang

I have been thinking a lot about this topic and i think fundamentally we are misusing the word power.

Power can mean one person's ability to make someone else do something, but that is only one, and rather small, definition.

Power, in my view, is about ability of an individual to make choices - to have agency over their lives. A key way to measure power is risk susceptibility - i.e. what power do you have to mitigate against risk, such as a partner dying or becoming gravely ill, a husband becoming abusive, etc.

I agree with this. I think having power means having freedom to do what you want. Having power *over* someone means having the ability to make them do what you want, or to prevent them from doing what they want.

Power may not be a zero-sum game, but many many many people (especially those in power) behave as though it is. This means that a pretty normal response to others increasing in power is to feel like your power is diminishing and to do something about it, usually by trying to reduce someone else's power.

There are multiple factors that constitute power - financial/economic (i.e. the ability to generate income to pay for basic needs), social (i.e. the ability to gain social acceptance and support - and to call on resources from family, community), emotional (i.e. the ability to influence other people, negotiation of roles, authority, initimate relations), etc.

Some of these are not socially based at all. If I were confined to a wheelchair, I wouldn't have the power to walk and therefore am unable to hold jobs that require walking ability. It isn't anyones "fault" - it is what it is.

And some challenges facing women are similar - women have babies - pregnancy does prevent women from engaging in certain activities (tightrope walking, for example). The tricky part is in seperating societal assumptions from biological facts.

I agree with this too, but I don't think you really can separate societal expectations from biological facts. There are some things that are biologically possible but that are not in line with the natural order.

For example, it is absolutely possible to breastfeed and work full time outside the home away from your baby. HOWEVER, there are many factors that hinder women's full agency in breastfeeding - societal lack of recognition of the value of breastfeeding, the economic necessity of not taking unpaid leave which requires many women to return to work after 6 weeks before breastfeeding is fully established, the logistics of her job (as well as the assumption that a woman can just find a more suitable job either before the baby is born or right afterwards), her biological supply (i.e. if she has low supply or had difficulties pumping), her baby's inate temperment and physiology, etc etc.

Now, a woman may have no power over her biological supply (though there are lots of tricks and tips to maximize it), nor her baby's inate temperment and physiology (though she may come up with ways to respond to it).

She may also have limited power over her job requirements - for example, most women I know in office jobs are able to successfully negotiate time off for pumping and working from home one day a week - they are considered the lucky ones.

Unfortunately, for many women, even this "win" is still insufficient to allow them to easily combine breastfeeding and work (and those who persevere are deeply committed to breastfeeding). And for women who don't have office jobs, scheduling pumpings can be very very challenging.

So when we say women have a "choice" to breastfeed for 6 months or longer, this is really a lie, because many women have the deck stacked against them to begin with.

This is something that I think falls under the category of biologically possible but not in line with the natural order. I believe that babies should be with their mothers, and that this is the natural order. Now with our modern social structure and technology, a mother doesn't have to be with her baby in the early years, because we have daycare and pumps and bottles and formula, all of which are man-made. So I wouldn't look at that as an issue of society preventing women from breastfeeding, but of society promoting an unnatural situation (mother separated from baby during the nursing period) and then being surprised that there are problems. And while expressed milk is heathier than formula, it is still not as healthy for the baby as the natural way, nursing directly from mother.

Anyway, my point is that we need to STOP looking at power as "that man over there is trying to tell me what to do" and rather as a societal system that routinely devalues some activities and rewards others. We are all part of the system, and we all help or hinder the statis quo.

Siobhan

Well, some of us are still hung up on the "people trying to tell us what to do" side of things because people are in fact trying to tell us what to do, and more importantly, trying to take away our legal rights to live differently. But I agree that the social systems are also important. I think we need to work on building a true social compact and protecting those who need help. But not at the expense of our individual rights. And I think we should also have realistic expectations--circumventing nature isn't always going to work.

Oh, I totally agree 100%!! I find it fascinating to see what markers trump others. For example, historically race trumps gender, but in some circumstances, class (and income) trumps gender and race. Look at Oprah - one of the richest and most powerful women in the world - or Condi Rice.

But as you point out, the fact that I can cite two powerful black women does NOT mean that black women on average have anywhere near the same amount of agency over their lives as white women, black men, white men, Latino women, etc etc.

A great quote about the OJ Simpson trial - someone said that it proves that in America that if you are rich enough, you trump institutionalized racism. I don't know if I entirely believe that, but it is a very interesting thought.

That is a valid point I guess, but I would categorize all those people first as "rich people." So I wouldn't consider Oprah's power an exception to black women not having power, but a confirmation of rich people having power. There are a few exceptions, but generally I think if you have money, you have power.

[captain crunchy]

I suppose I am still not understanding the whole "there is no need for feminism" arguement, though I know those weren't your exact words. It is just how it is reading to me.

How is it that one can claim there is no power dynamic in favor of men when it has been as recently as in my lifetime (less than 30 years) where a woman was not eligible for a bank account or a credit card without her husband's signature? As recently too, a woman who made an income comparable to her male counterpart could not buy a home if she was unmarried? Similarly, it has been just as recently that women were allowed to wear pants to work in lieu of a skirt -- we are not talking 19th century people, we are talking the 1980's and into the early 90's. More recently, women have been fired from being airline attendents who didn't meet a weight requirement (these were not obese people who could not fit down the isle and do their job, these were people who were for instance, 145 lbs when the cut off was 135). Have you heard of a man being fired from his job because of his weight? -- barring personal trainers who become obese and other such obvious and convenient arguements.

Now with our modern social structure and technology, a mother doesn't have to be with her baby in the early years, because we have daycare and pumps and bottles and formula, all of which are man-made

Mothers not being with their babies in the early years is far from a modern structure. The elite almost exclusively used wet nurses, and those wet nurses were almost exclusively poor women, who, if they were spending nearly all their time with the elite family, couldn't have had time to bond much or nurse her own infant much -- so the power trickles down and affects the poor family. Similarly, the use of a wet nurse was almost always at the request of the head of the family (the man) because the act of an elite woman feeding her baby herself was seen as in poor taste, and something only the common people do. I doubt many women challenged their husbands, seeing as in those days, you could be killed for that....so was that a true choice they were making? Or, if the choice is comply or be killed (or beaten, or thrown out onto the street)... you would choose the latter? Then, if you were thrown on the street with your infant and completely poor and pennyless, you may have to take up wet nursing someone else's infant to get *any* income, so your child would suffer anyway. Vicious cycle.

I think there is a difference between mistreatment and oppression. Anyone can mistreat anyone, but you can only oppress someone you have power over or the ability to coerce. So I don't doubt that there were men who mistreated their wives, and women who mistreated their husbands, but I wouldn't call it oppression.

Yes, there is a difference between mistreatment and oppression, we agree on that. However, mistreatment is an individual thing, whereas oppression is on a much larger societal scale. The fact that (again, in my lifetime and still happening in some states and cities) it is perfectly acceptable for a man to beat his wife, that is oppression because it is a belief widely held (still) among one gender against another. Yes, there are men who don't beat their wives and who are against it I realize that, but as a broad social belief, laws show us that no one thinks there is no big harm in beating your wife if she isn't "sumbitting". That is clear by the fact that people spend more time in jail for smoking a joint than they do for beating their wife to a pulp. Oppression is when an act on an individual scale, is widely accepted by society as a whole, perpetrated by one group of people (mostly males) against another group of people (mostly females).

Speaking of biological advantage, it is clear that males have that over women in the ways of mass and physical strength. Before the tomatoes come, I realize that there are short skinny men and women body builders who could kick their asses. I am speaking purely biological, if all factors were the same, men *usually* outweigh women and *usually* possess more physical strength, which automatically (biologically speaking) gives them more "power". Think of it in animal terms, a lion walks up to a cat and wants it's meal. Sure the cat can "choose" not to give it to him, at what price, but the cat sees the imbalance of power, by biology alone.

...and when you have the Bible on your side (Eve ate the apple, gave it to Adam, she must suffer thing) as men have had for centuries... that coupled with people's fear of God's wrath (God being a male too by the way)... well, it is no suprise who was winning that power struggle.

[IncaMama]

*applause* very well stated, CC!

[Arwyn]

CC, I really liked your earlier post "I'll be a feminist until..." (Actually, I like all of your posts, but especially that one.)

I think the promotion of "choice" above all else is distracting. All of my female friends who have gotten married had "choice" about their last names - all of them had the "ability to choose" to hypenate, blend, keep their previous name, encourage their fiance to take their name, etc. Every single one "chose" to take her husband's last name. When everyone's "choice" just happens to coincide with societal expectations and pressures, I think it's pretty obvious that the right to choose is being adversely affected, and is even a bit of a chimera. They have the specter of choice, but, because of societal pressures, have no real choice.

I am in favor of real choice, which can only exist when we minimize societal pressures that promote conformity over all else. Of course, we do live in society and we always will - there will always be societal pressures and expectations. We are social creatures - we like to "go along" with what everyone else is doing. But until the social pressures aren't promoting the idea that men are stronger than women, that they are more deserving of good paying jobs, that mothers are less cabable of participating in society, that parenting is unimportant, that children should be neither seen nor heard, not to mention all the other things CC mentioned, then our choices are being restricted.

The interesting thing here is that some women do manage to go against the grain and make their own, unique choices. Some women manage to breastfeed for three years, in spite of social pressures to formula feed from birth. Some women became doctors even back in the 1800s, when they didn't even have the right to vote - my mother became a doctor in the 1970s, when less than a quarter of medical students were women (and thus the female med students had to use the nurses' locker rooms, because the doctors' locker rooms were only for men). So, one could argue, women of that time did have a "choice" to become doctors. I would argue, with good evidence on my side, I believe, that their choices were being constrained, that although every individual had "choice" the women of that time didn't have real, unconstrained freedom.

So while "choice" is all well and good, and no one who chooses to formula feed or take their husband's name is going to point to "societal pressures" for why they made the choice they did (each of my friends had a "very good reason" or three for taking their husband's name - and apparently none of their husbands had a "very good reason" for wanting to take their wife's?), that doesn't mean that their ability to choose wasn't being impacted, just that those forces may have been invisible to them.

I don't think that in a world with more real ability to choose that all women would work outside the home with their babies on their backs or keep their own names or breastfeed for three years or weigh 130 pounds. But as long as those are the exceptions and not the rule, I'm going to be blaming sex discrimination and formula companies and advertising and and a culture that promotes instant gratification, in addition to working to help women (and men) feel freer to make choices that are actually right for them.

On another note, I read a really really good book recently, called The Mother's Voice by Kathy Weingarten. Doesn't really address much of what I talked about above, but does discuss how oppression and gender shaping can occur within a loving family, and how a mother can reclaim her right to her "voice" and her "story", which is what I think much of feminism is, or should be, about.

[Brigianna]

Originally Posted by captain crunchy

I suppose I am still not understanding the whole "there is no need for feminism" arguement, though I know those weren't your exact words. It is just how it is reading to me.

How is it that one can claim there is no power dynamic in favor of men when it has been as recently as in my lifetime (less than 30 years) where a woman was not eligible for a bank account or a credit card without her husband's signature? As recently too, a woman who made an income comparable to her male counterpart could not buy a home if she was unmarried? Similarly, it has been just as recently that women were allowed to wear pants to work in lieu of a skirt -- we are not talking 19th century people, we are talking the 1980's and into the early 90's. More recently, women have been fired from being airline attendents who didn't meet a weight requirement (these were not obese people who could not fit down the isle and do their job, these were people who were for instance, 145 lbs when the cut off was 135). Have you heard of a man being fired from his job because of his weight? -- barring personal trainers who become obese and other such obvious and convenient arguements.

I agree that those things are unjust. And to the extent that feminists have worked to correct those injustices, I agree with them. That doesn't mean I have to agree with their underlying philosophy. I support equal rights and equal opportunities for all people. You can support women's rights without supporting feminism.

Mothers not being with their babies in the early years is far from a modern structure. The elite almost exclusively used wet nurses, and those wet nurses were almost exclusively poor women, who, if they were spending nearly all their time with the elite family, couldn't have had time to bond much or nurse her own infant much -- so the power trickles down and affects the poor family. Similarly, the use of a wet nurse was almost always at the request of the head of the family (the man) because the act of an elite woman feeding her baby herself was seen as in poor taste, and something only the common people do. I doubt many women challenged their husbands, seeing as in those days, you could be killed for that....so was that a true choice they were making? Or, if the choice is comply or be killed (or beaten, or thrown out onto the street)... you would choose the latter? Then, if you were thrown on the street with your infant and completely poor and pennyless, you may have to take up wet nursing someone else's infant to get *any* income, so your child would suffer anyway. Vicious cycle.

Yes, the elite used wet nurses. That doesn't change the fact that the *most natural* way for a baby to be fed is to be nursed by his mother. And I'm wondering why you think that wet-nursing was forced by the men? As I understand it, women who could afford to do so used wet nurses for the same reasons that many modern women choose to use formula. And as you say, nursing your own was looked down upon. I doubt there were many cases of the men forcing their wives to use wet nurses, or throwing them out for not doing so.

Yes, there is a difference between mistreatment and oppression, we agree on that. However, mistreatment is an individual thing, whereas oppression is on a much larger societal scale. The fact that (again, in my lifetime and still happening in some states and cities) it is perfectly acceptable for a man to beat his wife, that is oppression because it is a belief widely held (still) among one gender against another. Yes, there are men who don't beat their wives and who are against it I realize that, but as a broad social belief, laws show us that no one thinks there is no big harm in beating your wife if she isn't "sumbitting". That is clear by the fact that people spend more time in jail for smoking a joint than they do for beating their wife to a pulp. Oppression is when an act on an individual scale, is widely accepted by society as a whole, perpetrated by one group of people (mostly males) against another group of people (mostly females).

Where in the U.S., or anywhere in the so-called western world, is it legal to beat your wife? The laws may not be enforced the way some people think they should be, but it's still illegal. In fact men have been arrested for "beating" their wives even when it was completely consensual, thanks to the feminist idea that women are incapable of giving consent and need to be protected from themselves. I know a man who was put in jail for "domestic violence" after defending himself from his live-in girlfriend's drunken attack on him. Sadly, you will get more jail time for smoking a joint than for many violent crimes against people of either sex. But do you think that beating up your wife is worse than beating up some guy in a bar? Because most laws treat domestic assault more harshly than regular assault, which I don't agree with.

Speaking of biological advantage, it is clear that males have that over women in the ways of mass and physical strength. Before the tomatoes come, I realize that there are short skinny men and women body builders who could kick their asses. I am speaking purely biological, if all factors were the same, men *usually* outweigh women and *usually* possess more physical strength, which automatically (biologically speaking) gives them more "power". Think of it in animal terms, a lion walks up to a cat and wants it's meal. Sure the cat can "choose" not to give it to him, at what price, but the cat sees the imbalance of power, by biology alone.

Yes, but men could not survive without women and women could not survive without men (collectively I mean). We are still the same species. So I don't think there's any net advantage of one over the other in nature. Where the imbalance comes in is when social power structures create an imbalance.

...and when you have the Bible on your side (Eve ate the apple, gave it to Adam, she must suffer thing) as men have had for centuries... that coupled with people's fear of God's wrath (God being a male too by the way)... well, it is no suprise who was winning that power struggle.

Not to get further derailed with a theology discussion, but men do not have the Bible on their side. Some people may choose to interpret it that way, but they are very much outside the mainstream of Christian theology. And it is true that men and women are given different roles, but that doesn't mean that one is better than the other. Personally, for myself, I agree with those Biblical roles, not only as an act of faith but also because I think they make the most sense as a method of organization. *However* I absolutely do not think anyone should be forced into those roles; it should be a personal choice. And I'm not going to criticize anyone else's choice in that regard if it's working for them. But I do believe there are benefits to the Biblical roles, which do not detract from anyone's equality or freedom. Also, at least in the Christian traditions that I am familiar with, God is not a male--we say "our Heavenly Father," but that is a metaphor, not an actual belief that God is male.

Of course, I believe in religious freedom. If you want to believe that God is male or female or whatever, and live your life accordingly, more power to you. But that is not a justification for coercing others.

[Brigianna]

Originally Posted by Arwyn

I think the promotion of "choice" above all else is distracting. All of my female friends who have gotten married had "choice" about their last names - all of them had the "ability to choose" to hypenate, blend, keep their previous name, encourage their fiance to take their name, etc. Every single one "chose" to take her husband's last name. When everyone's "choice" just happens to coincide with societal expectations and pressures, I think it's pretty obvious that the right to choose is being adversely affected, and is even a bit of a chimera. They have the specter of choice, but, because of societal pressures, have no real choice.

I am in favor of real choice, which can only exist when we minimize societal pressures that promote conformity over all else. Of course, we do live in society and we always will - there will always be societal pressures and expectations. We are social creatures - we like to "go along" with what everyone else is doing. But until the social pressures aren't promoting the idea that men are stronger than women, that they are more deserving of good paying jobs, that mothers are less cabable of participating in society, that parenting is unimportant, that children should be neither seen nor heard, not to mention all the other things CC mentioned, then our choices are being restricted.

I'm not really sure what to say except that I completely and totally disagree. Choosing to conform to societal expectations is a choice. If you choose to surrender your individuality to conformity to obtain some social benefit, that is a choice. Now I'm not talking about where there is actual coercion, like violence or economic coercion. Obviously if someone can commit violence against you or deprive you of your livelihood for your choice, then it is not a real choice. But "social pressure" is not coercion. And I think that the assumption that it is is an insult to women. Actually this kind of reminds me of that other thread about TV commercials. Seeing an advertisement does not force you to go out and buy that product; you choose to. And social expectations do not force you to conform; you choose to. Or you choose not to. Incidentally, I kept my own name when I got married, which some people thought was a bit odd, but I didn't face any "pressure" to do otherwise.

I don't mean this to be as hostile as it sounds, so please forgive my inability to say this better, but I really and truly do believe that what you are saying, which is what most feminists would say, is grossly insulting to women in the suggestion that we are so weak-minded and sheep-like that a little social pressure can sweep away our ability to choose, and also insulting to people who have endured real coercion to compare someone worried about the neighbors thinking she's odd to what they have gone through.

The interesting thing here is that some women do manage to go against the grain and make their own, unique choices. Some women manage to breastfeed for three years, in spite of social pressures to formula feed from birth. Some women became doctors even back in the 1800s, when they didn't even have the right to vote - my mother became a doctor in the 1970s, when less than a quarter of medical students were women (and thus the female med students had to use the nurses' locker rooms, because the doctors' locker rooms were only for men). So, one could argue, women of that time did have a "choice" to become doctors. I would argue, with good evidence on my side, I believe, that their choices were being constrained, that although every individual had "choice" the women of that time didn't have real, unconstrained freedom.

So while "choice" is all well and good, and no one who chooses to formula feed or take their husband's name is going to point to "societal pressures" for why they made the choice they did (each of my friends had a "very good reason" or three for taking their husband's name - and apparently none of their husbands had a "very good reason" for wanting to take their wife's?), that doesn't mean that their ability to choose wasn't being impacted, just that those forces may have been invisible to them.

I don't think that in a world with more real ability to choose that all women would work outside the home with their babies on their backs or keep their own names or breastfeed for three years or weigh 130 pounds. But as long as those are the exceptions and not the rule, I'm going to be blaming sex discrimination and formula companies and advertising and and a culture that promotes instant gratification, in addition to working to help women (and men) feel freer to make choices that are actually right for them.

But no one has ever had unconstrained freedom. And, as you say, there will always be social pressure of one kind or another. Freedom is two-sided--people have the right to make their own choices, and other people have the right to disagree with those choices. I think it would be arrogant to demand that society or advertisers or anyone else agree with your choices or refrain from promoting different choices. I don't care if mainstreamers promote different choices from mine--it's a little annoying, but it's not restricting my freedom at all.

Furthermore, feminists have succeeded in making social pressure work for their side. I am asked to justify my choice to be a sahm and for rejecting the instant gratification culture. They disagree with me, which I don't mind, and question my mental health and capacity for free will, which I do. And I would love to see social pressure used for our side, to have breastfeeding and ap and homeschooling and treating children respectfully become the norm that is represented in the major institutions. But I absolutely disagree with restricting people's freedom. I know I am a bit of a heretic on this site, because I don't support banning formula samples or anything like that. Let people make their own choices as long as they're not hurting anyone but themselves, and if they choose to cave to social conformity, so be it.

On another note, I read a really really good book recently, called The Mother's Voice by Kathy Weingarten. Doesn't really address much of what I talked about above, but does discuss how oppression and gender shaping can occur within a loving family, and how a mother can reclaim her right to her "voice" and her "story", which is what I think much of feminism is, or should be, about.

I agree that people should have the right to their own voices and stories. But I don't see how feminism helps that. Feminism attempts to silence and discredit those with different views, which is why I think there's such a focus on psychology. I don't think it's a force for people's rights at all.

[EnviroBecca]

Boongirl asked for recommended reading earlier. I recommend The Way We Never Were by Stephanie Coontz, which is an excellent debunking of many common assumptions about what American families were like in the past. While it is not about feminism primarily, it does a lot to sort out which economic and social changes actually are the result of feminism, which ones have other causes, and which ones are in fact returns to patterns that were established before or during World War II and temporarily suspended during the 1950s.

Also, I'm currently reading for the first time Male and Female by Margaret Mead, a very interesting analysis of how gender roles work across cultures and what aspects of gender are truly universal. I don't agree with her on every point, but she had some very interesting ideas and explained them extremely clearly. (This book was written in 1948, and the edition I have includes new forewords by the author in 1962 and 1967 commenting on changes in American gender roles. Makes me wonder what she would say now!)

Boongirl, I am not asking you to "feel sorry for men" but to acknowledge that restrictive gender roles have been bad for EVERYBODY and therefore that BOTH sexes can and should have more freedom to use our individual strengths and fill our individual needs. I think that viewing this as a struggle between women as imprisoned victims and men as omnipotent oppressors encourages hostility between the sexes, which does not help to resolve anything.

Boongirl wrote:

since not all men have done this and not all cultures, then the argument that they were slaves to social pressure is bunk.

Riiiiight, social pressure is a single force consistent across all societies. I guess that means anorexia nervosa has nothing to do with social pressure--because not all women starve themselves and the people of Tonga believe that morbid obesity is beautiful.

Captain Crunchy wrote:

Sure, men and boys have their own struggles, societal pressures, and so on -- I don't dispute that. Pound for pound though, women and girls are still the greatest victims on a global scale of inequality.

That's true. I don't discount that at all. Mostly I have been talking about mainstream American society because I know enough about it to feel qualified in making judgments about how it really works and what should change. Other cultures are very different, both for females and for males, and most generalizations do not hold across all cultures. Suffering in other places affects us all, and we should do what we can to help. But the fact that women are victimized in Afghanistan doesn't mean that women in the United States can claim the same level of victimhood.

The two main reasons I keep bringing up male role narrowness are:
1. I believe that we will accomplish more change by working on this problem together than by being divisive.
2. All types of work need to be done by somebody; therefore, to make room for women to do "men's work" we must make room for men to do "women's work".

Who here who claims to be a feminist doesn't recognize that reproductive rights are a two way street???

I don't know about people here, but I have talked with many self-proclaimed feminists who believe that any information that makes abortion or birth control sound bad should be suppressed. I dropped my membership in both NARAL and Feminist Majority and my subscription to Glamour magazine because of their stance on emergency contraception, which was to trumpet that it's "not a form of abortion" and attack as a liar anyone who said anything about EC possibly flushing a fertilized egg. It's true that EC doesn't work if the zygote has implanted and thus can't end a "pregnancy" defined as beginning at implantation, but many ordinary people think that the moment when egg and sperm meet is important and would think twice about taking action after that point. ***SOME*** people believe that because the knowledge that EC can prevent a fertilized egg from implanting would cause some women to decide not to use it, we'd better make sure they don't have that information! : Certainly not all people who call themselves "feminist" or "pro-choice" are in that camp, but many are, including several prominent organizations.

I'm aware that there are bad population-control programs, but there is also a huge demand for contraception that is not getting filled in the majority of the world. I think it is very important to make contraceptives available and affordable to those who want them and to provide information about them to those who don't know. This can be done without being coercive.

Brigianna wrote:

But when they are passing laws taking away people's right to choose, that is where they cross the line. That and their assertion that no woman can make a different choice, or if we do it's because we're "brainwashed."

Well, see, what you're missing is that the phrase "right to choose" has been co-opted to mean one specific thing: The right to have an abortion under any circumstances. That's a right I support. However, I also support the right to enjoy porn, the right to be a prostitute, the right to call oneself "Mrs. John Smith", and the right to state publicly that women who wear pants are going to hell. None of these are choices that fall under the term "right to choose" as feminists have been using it.

Captain Crunchy wrote:

Similarly, it has been just as recently that women were allowed to wear pants to work in lieu of a skirt -- we are not talking 19th century people, we are talking the 1980's and into the early 90's.

Right now, nearly all men in the United States are not allowed to wear a skirt to work in lieu of pants. While there may not be a written rule forbidding it, in most workplaces a man who shows up in a skirt will attract so much attention that his supervisor will tell him to dress differently. This is sexist and wrong.

You made many good points in that paragraph about genuine discrimination against women that still exists, but that sentence jumped out at me as an example of something that's called discrimination when it happens to women but not when it happens to men.

Arwyn wrote:

They have the specter of choice, but, because of societal pressures, have no real choice.

I think this holds true in many many areas of modern life. Often it's not that the "real choice" isn't available at all but that the expectation that one will choose from a huge array of "options" that are actually very similar prevents one from even noticing the real alternatives. For example, it's supposedly so wonderful that we have the freedom to choose from such an array of diet sodas in various flavors with various sweeteners...but it might be a better choice, for many reasons, to drink tap water with a wedge of lemon instead. That sounds trivial, but think of the impact: the billions of dollars spent on diet sodas, the additional spending on artificially-sweetened food by people accustomed to sweetness by the sodas, the dental problems caused by acidic soda (and possibly by the sweeteners), the trash, the people who think they NEED diet soda to maintain a healthy weight...

[Brigianna]

Originally Posted by EnviroBecca

Riiiiight, social pressure is a single force consistent across all societies. I guess that means anorexia nervosa has nothing to do with social pressure--because not all women starve themselves and the people of Tonga believe that morbid obesity is beautiful.

I don't think most people diagnosed with anorexia (which I don't think is an actual illness but that's another day's topic) are acting based on social pressure. Most so-called anorexics aren't trying to lose weight; they're trying to assert control over their environment.

Mostly I have been talking about mainstream American society because I know enough about it to feel qualified in making judgments about how it really works and what should change. Other cultures are very different, both for females and for males, and most generalizations do not hold across all cultures. Suffering in other places affects us all, and we should do what we can to help. But the fact that women are victimized in Afghanistan doesn't mean that women in the United States can claim the same level of victimhood.

Exactly. Also, women in Afghanistan are victimized by the warlords and leaders of that country, not by Afghan men as a whole.

I don't know about people here, but I have talked with many self-proclaimed feminists who believe that any information that makes abortion or birth control sound bad should be suppressed. I dropped my membership in both NARAL and Feminist Majority and my subscription to Glamour magazine because of their stance on emergency contraception, which was to trumpet that it's "not a form of abortion" and attack as a liar anyone who said anything about EC possibly flushing a fertilized egg. It's true that EC doesn't work if the zygote has implanted and thus can't end a "pregnancy" defined as beginning at implantation, but many ordinary people think that the moment when egg and sperm meet is important and would think twice about taking action after that point. ***SOME*** people believe that because the knowledge that EC can prevent a fertilized egg from implanting would cause some women to decide not to use it, we'd better make sure they don't have that information! : Certainly not all people who call themselves "feminist" or "pro-choice" are in that camp, but many are, including several prominent organizations.

Well, I can see where they're coming from on Plan B, because some people are trying to classify it as an abortificant, which it isn't--if Plan B is abortion, then the regular pill is also abortion. So is breastfeeding, for that matter. So it's about defining the terms.

But I absolutely agree with you on the other points. Another example is the way so many feminists criticize cpc's for offering non-abortion options to pregnant women in need. I consider cpc's to be pro-choice, because they provide another option for women who, because of economic necessity, would otherwise have no choice other than abortion.

I'm aware that there are bad population-control programs, but there is also a huge demand for contraception that is not getting filled in the majority of the world. I think it is very important to make contraceptives available and affordable to those who want them and to provide information about them to those who don't know. This can be done without being coercive.

I agree with that, but I think they should give all the information, including the risks of hormonal birth control. And if people don't believe in contraception for religious reasons, they should respect that instead of trying to convert them.

Well, see, what you're missing is that the phrase "right to choose" has been co-opted to mean one specific thing: The right to have an abortion under any circumstances. That's a right I support. However, I also support the right to enjoy porn, the right to be a prostitute, the right to call oneself "Mrs. John Smith", and the right to state publicly that women who wear pants are going to hell. None of these are choices that fall under the term "right to choose" as feminists have been using it.

I was meaning "right to choose" in the broad sense that you mean, which most feminists don't support. For them, "choice" really is just a code word for abortion and birth control. They are actively anti-choice about the things that you mention and others.

Right now, nearly all men in the United States are not allowed to wear a skirt to work in lieu of pants. While there may not be a written rule forbidding it, in most workplaces a man who shows up in a skirt will attract so much attention that his supervisor will tell him to dress differently. This is sexist and wrong.

That is a good point. Why should women have more clothing freedom than men?

I think this holds true in many many areas of modern life. Often it's not that the "real choice" isn't available at all but that the expectation that one will choose from a huge array of "options" that are actually very similar prevents one from even noticing the real alternatives. For example, it's supposedly so wonderful that we have the freedom to choose from such an array of diet sodas in various flavors with various sweeteners...but it might be a better choice, for many reasons, to drink tap water with a wedge of lemon instead. That sounds trivial, but think of the impact: the billions of dollars spent on diet sodas, the additional spending on artificially-sweetened food by people accustomed to sweetness by the sodas, the dental problems caused by acidic soda (and possibly by the sweeteners), the trash, the people who think they NEED diet soda to maintain a healthy weight...

But I *like* my diet soda. I know it's bad for me, but I don't care (not enough to stop drinking it anyway). I know that there are other options, but I prefer diet soda. Shouldn't that be respected as a real choice even if you disagree with it? I don't think anybody is forced to drink diet soda, or doesn't know about other drink options, but people spend money on diet soda because we prefer it.

Now if you wanted to say "diet soda is disgusting and gross, drinking it is a mortal sin, and anyone who drinks diet soda is a vile, sinful person," I would support your right to say that. If you wanted to run an ad campaign about the harmful side effects of artificial sweetners, I would support your right to do that. What I would disagree with would be trying to ban it or otherwise restrict our access to it, or saying that it isn't a real choice because we're somehow brainwashed by the diet soda industry.

I think you can disagree with a mainstream cultural assumption and encourage people to question it without denying that it's a real choice.

About books--one of my favorite books that touches on this subject is the novel "The Handmaid's Tale" by Margaret Atwood. It is about a futuristic society where women's sexuality and fertility is controlled by the state after a theocratic coup. She wrote this partially as a criticism of mainstream feminists who supported the theocrats' attempt to criminalize sexuality.

[RedWine]

Ladies,

Thank you for an intelligent thread -- what a courteous debate!

Brigianna -- thank you for taking the time to write out your views. I agree with you 100%, on every word you've typed.

[Arwyn]

Everyone has full freedom and personal choice and free will, all the time, and no one is coerced into anything (ever - there is always a choice, even if the choice is to die rather than do what their oppressors want). That is completely true.

It is also true that everything everyone does and every choice anyone ever makes is influenced and often restricted profoundly by the society they live in and the assumptions and beliefs (often contradictory) of that society, and that what each person does and the "choices" each person makes is almost always predictable by knowing the social and psychological forces they live with.

Both are true.

I'm not trying to be annoyingly zen here or anything - both are completely true. To acknowledge one of the above statements and think the other is wrong is to deny something fundamental about what it is to be human and alive in this world. We have full freedom of choice in each moment, and we live our lives in largely predictable ways based on the pressures of the society we live in.

One of the strong points of feminism, although (as with every strength) it is sometimes made a weakness by going too far, is the acknowledgment and exploration of the second idea. I am heavily influenced here by my familial history with Al-Alon and buddhist-influenced psychotherapy, and their belief that power and personal autonomy exist only when one admits one's powerlessness in the face of disease/social pressure. I come from a background where admitting and acknowledging one's powerlessness is the only path to power. So no, I don't think it's insulting to women to say that every choice a woman makes (and a man - I don't exempt them, so I guess I'm insulting them and calling them weak also?) is influenced, and often restricted, by the society she lives in - I think it's empowering.

By acknowledging that every choice I make is being influenced and often restricted by the world I live in, I can examine those influences and restrictions and assumptions and choose to accept them or reject them. I am made more powerful, and my choices are made more free, by that knowledge. That, in my view, is the power and the gift of feminism - it helps me to be on the look out for, to see, to acknowledge, to deconstruct, and finally to accept or reject the patriarchal and misogynistic influences that surround me, and I am freer for it.

[EnviroBecca]

I like your philosophy, Arwyn.

Brigianna wrote:

Well, I can see where they're coming from on Plan B, because some people are trying to classify it as an abortificant, which it isn't--if Plan B is abortion, then the regular pill is also abortion. So is breastfeeding, for that matter. So it's about defining the terms.

It's "defining the terms" that is at the root of that debate: Whose definition is the "real" one? Rather than let either side "win" and have their definition be the only one allowed in patient info leaflets or the media, I think the details should be spelled out to allow for informed choice. The woman considering EC or the Pill or breastfeeding should know that it may prevent a fertlized egg from implanting, and she should know that this is more likely with EC (because it doesn't prevent ovulation) than with the Pill taken daily. She also should be informed of the side effects of artificial hormones, particularly in the large and sudden dose of EC, and also the side effects of pregnancy and childbirth.

I consider cpc's to be pro-choice, because they provide another option for women who, because of economic necessity, would otherwise have no choice other than abortion.

I assume "cpc" means "crisis pregnancy center". Like population control programs, I think these run a wide spectrum from helpful to coercive. Some of them talk women out of abortion using shame and horror stories rather than promises of help, and some that promise to help do not follow through. Also, at least here, some of them advertise in the yellow pages under "abortion" even though they not only don't provide abortions but won't refer people to abortion providers. That's very dishonest and doesn't promote informed choice.

I know that there are other options, but I prefer diet soda. Shouldn't that be respected as a real choice even if you disagree with it?

Sure. I didn't say it shouldn't. I said the real choice is between diet soda and other non-caloric beverages, not between varieties of diet soda.

[Brigianna]

Originally Posted by Arwyn

Everyone has full freedom and personal choice and free will, all the time, and no one is coerced into anything (ever - there is always a choice, even if the choice is to die rather than do what their oppressors want). That is completely true.

It is also true that everything everyone does and every choice anyone ever makes is influenced and often restricted profoundly by the society they live in and the assumptions and beliefs (often contradictory) of that society, and that what each person does and the "choices" each person makes is almost always predictable by knowing the social and psychological forces they live with.

Both are true.

I'm not trying to be annoyingly zen here or anything - both are completely true. To acknowledge one of the above statements and think the other is wrong is to deny something fundamental about what it is to be human and alive in this world. We have full freedom of choice in each moment, and we live our lives in largely predictable ways based on the pressures of the society we live in.

One of the strong points of feminism, although (as with every strength) it is sometimes made a weakness by going too far, is the acknowledgment and exploration of the second idea. I am heavily influenced here by my familial history with Al-Alon and buddhist-influenced psychotherapy, and their belief that power and personal autonomy exist only when one admits one's powerlessness in the face of disease/social pressure. I come from a background where admitting and acknowledging one's powerlessness is the only path to power. So no, I don't think it's insulting to women to say that every choice a woman makes (and a man - I don't exempt them, so I guess I'm insulting them and calling them weak also?) is influenced, and often restricted, by the society she lives in - I think it's empowering.

By acknowledging that every choice I make is being influenced and often restricted by the world I live in, I can examine those influences and restrictions and assumptions and choose to accept them or reject them. I am made more powerful, and my choices are made more free, by that knowledge. That, in my view, is the power and the gift of feminism - it helps me to be on the look out for, to see, to acknowledge, to deconstruct, and finally to accept or reject the patriarchal and misogynistic influences that surround me, and I am freer for it.

There are degrees of coercion. Being in danger of being killed is more coercive than being in danger of losing you job, which is more coercive than being in danger of losing the respect of strangers. Of course people exert pressure and influence over each other all the time, but we are supposed to have the capability to resist social pressure short of coercion, and some of us are supposed to resist actual coercion too.

There are many things I do for no reason other than social convention and conformity. I don't want the hassle of non-conformity on those matters. But I only do that for things that are not very important to me. Everyone has to make a decision and strike a balance of what issues are worth going against what amounts of social pressure. There is mild social pressure to wear coordinating clothes, which I do for the most part, and very strong social pressure to put my kids in school, which I refuse to do. Because homeschooling is very important to me, and wearing mismatched clothes matters not one bit to me, I willingly choose to conform in one case but not the other. But it is still a choice.

People can be coerced to change their behavior, but not to change their thinking or beliefs. A woman may choose go along with certain social conventions because it isn't important enough to her for her to do otherwise, or she may even actually be coerced into conformity by physical or economic threats, but if she actually believes or buys into those standards and conventions, it is by her own choice. It is not insulting to say that people may be influenced by society; it is insulting to say that people may be influenced by society *against their will.*

Also there is the matter of other people's freedom. People do not have the right to coerce each other into conformity or restrict other people's choices, but they do have the right to disagree with other people's choices and exert social pressure on them. If you redefine coercion and restriction to include disagreement and social pressure, and suggest that meaningful choice can only take place in the absense of disagreement and pressure, you are infringing on other people's right to express disagreement.

I also think that when it comes to social influences, people tend to find what they're looking for. So if you start out with the assumption that society is full of patriarchal and misogynistic influences, you will probably see many influences as being patriarchal and misogynistic. Because I have chosen to live in an openly patriarchal relationship, I am more sensitive to all the contempt that mainstream society seems to have for our kind of family. Because of certain experiences that I have had, I am very sensitive to feminists' and others' ideas about free will and mind control. So I think that what you choose to be concerned about influences your view of social forces more than social forces influence your views, if that makes any sense.

[Brigianna]

Originally Posted by EnviroBecca

It's "defining the terms" that is at the root of that debate: Whose definition is the "real" one? Rather than let either side "win" and have their definition be the only one allowed in patient info leaflets or the media, I think the details should be spelled out to allow for informed choice. The woman considering EC or the Pill or breastfeeding should know that it may prevent a fertlized egg from implanting, and she should know that this is more likely with EC (because it doesn't prevent ovulation) than with the Pill taken daily. She also should be informed of the side effects of artificial hormones, particularly in the large and sudden dose of EC, and also the side effects of pregnancy and childbirth.

I agree, except I was under the impression that Plan B does prevent ovulation. I'll have to look that up...

I assume "cpc" means "crisis pregnancy center". Like population control programs, I think these run a wide spectrum from helpful to coercive. Some of them talk women out of abortion using shame and horror stories rather than promises of help, and some that promise to help do not follow through. Also, at least here, some of them advertise in the yellow pages under "abortion" even though they not only don't provide abortions but won't refer people to abortion providers. That's very dishonest and doesn't promote informed choice.

Sure, there are good and bad cpc's. I volunteered for Birthright, which I think is one of the better ones--they're open about what they do and they're very helpful in providing services, including helping women apply for Medicaid and things like that. The dishonest ones are harmful, but I think that to the extent that a cpc offers another choice to a woman who doesn't want to have an abortion but is feeling constrained by economic pressure, they are facilitating choice.

Sure. I didn't say it shouldn't. I said the real choice is between diet soda and other non-caloric beverages, not between varieties of diet soda.

Okay. I think that's true of a lot of products--people get so caught up in "which one? what kind?" that they forget to ask "why do we need this in the first place?" Schools are another example of this that I've vented about a lot on this site--the real choice is between school and no school, not between different schools.

[captain crunchy]

Brigianna, I appreciate that you (and everyone else) has kept this discussion and debate civil and respectful. I do agree with you on *some* points, however, I strongly disagree with you on others but I was thinking about this topic and I think the issue that I disagree with the most is my perception that you are rejecting feminism as a whole because of the actions of a few groups or subsets.

I mean, to me it is the same thing as people completely rejecting Christianity and *christians* because *some* so-called christians bomb abortion clinics and hold signs like "aids kills fags". It is like thinking all gay people are evil and promiscuous because *some* go to bath houses and have unprotected sex with random people. It is like hating black people because *some* african americans have commited crimes.

I mean, yes, I will agree that some so-called feminists hide behind that label they put on themselves in order to push agenda that gives people fewer rights over thier bodies and choices -- but I still maintain that most feminists (well, me anyway) are not like that. I just caution against using terms like "the feminists" the same way I would caution against anyone using terms like "those blacks" or "those christians" or "those gays" when beginning a sentence regarding what you do and don't agree with and why.

My only "feminist agenda" is to see that women and girls get the same rights, considerations, opportunities, and respect as their male counterparts. I feel the same way about different races etc...but there is no real word for that...humanist maybe? However, the plight of girls and women is dear to me because I can't identify with being a slave, or black, or hispanic, or even part of the impoverished (though I have been very poor). I have been a girl, and I am a woman. Of course I do care about those other issues, but it makes sense that I am a feminist...to me anyway.

That having been said though, being a feminist is not *all* I am. Just part....a pretty awesome part too.