There is no better evidence of the giant lie that is feminism than this truism -
In EVERY other context of life, work is thought of as a means to an end, something you have to do, but don't necessarily want to do, a chore, etc. Think of all those derogatory references to bosses, movies like Office Space that mock the workplace and the like.
Feminism, in contrast, has convinced guillible women that work is the sole path to liberation and fulfillment.
What amazes me is that no matter how much time goes by and how long it is proven that work isn't the end all be all, feminists keep convincing themselves the problem is everyone else but them, whining at 35 years old about not being able to find a good man.
Then they write all this dribble about "choice" (why do liberals package everything in the language of "choice", "opportunity", "access"?) to rationalize their pathetic lives.
When I was a lawyer at a big law firm, all those feminist "successful" lawyers were straight up bitches. I knew then as a young lawyer that I never wanted to grow up to be one of them. Those women were outright MEAN to other women. Quite vicious actually.
Because they never had children or neglected the ones they popped out between depositions and court appearances, they had no idea what it was to nurture, to teach, to be compassionate. It was the men who were more nurturing and more likely to be our mentors.
For the first time in my career, I work in a department that is all female and, as far as mentoring goes, it is nonexistent. These women do not mentor, they don't cut slack for new mothers to have flexible hours ("because if we give it to one, we have to give it to all"), etc.
It's like a giant sorority house of bitchy, gossipy Cosmo-reading buffoons who sit around lamenting about how they are sick of eating out and how tough it is to find a good man, desperate to be fixed up with anyone. And we're entertainment lawyers, supposed to be all glamorous and hot to trot. LOL!!! What a joke.
Wait a damn minute. How did Dina respond to the post before it was posted?
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!!!
While I'm finding the debate on this issue rather old and tired, I found this recent post by Rev. Renita Weems rather interesting:
http://somethingwithin-rjweems.b...minist-
but.html
Roderick,
The time of post is adjustable. Justin posted it last night but with a post "stamp" of this morning. I further adjusted the time just in case we post something later on this morning.
We now return to our regularly scheduled commenting.
Thanks, rich, for helping me out.
Q, I'm with you on this one (and many other subjects) which are best decided between individual couples.
Feminism, in contrast, has convinced guillible women that work is the sole path to liberation and fulfillment.
What amazes me is that no matter how much time goes by and how long it is proven that work isn't the end all be all, feminists keep convincing themselves the problem is everyone else but them, whining at 35 years old about not being able to find a good man.
Honestly, I disagree with this. Among both of my black and white friends who are over 30/35/40 who aren't married, I don't know a single one who sat down and said that they were going to choose their job over marriage and kids. A woman shouldn't be punished for finishing college and getting a good job. Most of my friends are high powered career women. They have good jobs but aren't like the woman in "The Devil Wears Prada."
I think about one friend, who was recently married and isn't quite 30. She makes a point to preach that she decided early on that she wanted a family. Most women decide that but many do not have that dream fulfilled. The kicker is that she has a PhD and she married a guy who followed her to this sunny state of CA from GA. She's trying to plan a family now ... except, dude is currently unemployed. They got married in January and I assumed he got some kind of transfer from his job (even though it took him a few months after the wedding to get here). Then I hear that he is studying to take the test to become a substitute teacher. What bill will that pay in the state of CA unless you are living with your mama or a WIFE who has a PhD making 6 figures? So, yeah, she has a man. She has the anti-feminist stance but she is the one working! Even when he does start "subbing," what kind of income can he provide out here while she is off on maternity leave or if she decides to leave the Fortune 500 company and stay at home? (Oh, and I didn't realize he didn't have a job until she, amongst the girls, made some comment about his non-income having self). But she's preaching to her peers! Puleese!
Most of my friends are high powered career women. They have good jobs but aren't like the woman in "The Devil Wears Prada."
I meant to say most of my friends AREN'T high powered career women. They have good, well paying jobs but aren't out there fighting men trying to get to the top.
Among both of my black and white friends who are over 30/35/40 who aren't married, I don't know a single one who sat down and said that they were going to choose their job over marriage and kids.
Did they have to sit down and consciously say this out loud? Or is it possible that their priorities over the past 10 years spoke louder than words?
Roderick,
While I agree with you that "this one (and many other subjects) which are best decided between individual couples", what amazes me is the double standard people have re: the discussion of marriage.
Last week, we discussed fining parents for smoking in cars and giving 11-year-old girls birth control pills without their parents knowing and we were hard-pressed to hear anyone say "this one (and many other subjects) are best decided between individual parents/families."
Nope. When it comes to pretty much everything else, it's ok to tell people what to do. But bring up the topic of marriage and the Nanny Staters all of a sudden flip.
What's up with that? What about - "well, they're going to get married anyways, so we should prepare them for it?" What about - "well, let's be realistic about how immature many people are about marriage so we should advise them on it." What about - "well, we can't just let them divorce in cars because it gives the children asthma?"
I know these women and most of them have spent the past decades bending over backwards, looking stupid most of the time. Their only asset is that, in the end, they can take care of themselves. The saddest case is actually the 44 year old white girl who is resolved that her only chance is illegal immigrants. I understand her acceptance because she is from San Diego but, GOOD GOD, how are you dang near VP level and dating jobless illegals or those who work as fry cooks at the Target lunch counter? I am glad for everyone who has what they think they want. But, look at the societies where women don't have rights (mainly many countries in Africa). You can call it Feminism (which I actually thought was a stupid white woman movement because black women have been working since the first slave ship) but what is the alternative?
No woman in an oppressed country would even be on a frickin' computer were it not for the women's movement. The thing that cracks me up are the women born after 1970, with educations, their own homes and money and now complaining that feminism is the reason why they don't have the men whom they let dogged them for years.
How stupid is that? Heck, go to Afghanistan and live like a real woman if things are so bad here!
i agree with a lot of what you're saying here Dina.
I do think women need men and children to be the best person they can be. This doesn't mean that who they are single and childless isn't okay, but in order to live up to their full natural potential, a man and child(ren) are necessary.
I wouldn't be half the woman i am today if i were not a mother.
I hope to one day see the person i grow to become as a wife as well.
As far as the feminists go, I think it's much easier to blame external factors for our shortcomings and recreate the picture of what an 'ideal' reality looks like.
Viewpoints on this will depend on people's motivation. I always say people are motivated by either the desire to 'feel happy at all times, or as much as possible' or to 'reach greater spiritual, emotional and intellectual heights'.
So, if your desire is to feel happy as much as possible, why would you admit to not being fulfilled and not even being in a position to obtain that fulfullment?
No woman in an oppressed country would even be on a frickin' computer were it not for the women's movement.
How do you know that? Who told you that?
My family is Arab and Muslim from one of those "oppressed" countries and I come from a long line of educated females. And, for the record, Muslim "feminists" have been telling Western "feminists" to shove it up their asses for the past 100 years. That their arrogant White Woman's Burden nonsense ain't welcome.
But, back to the main point, I've heard this line before about how we women should be thankful for all that the feminists did for us, blah, blah, snooze. Really, what did they do?
Harriet Tubman didn't need no damn feminist to give her permission to take charge. Amelia Earheart didn't need no damn feminist. Mother Theresa didn't ask permission from feminists to do her works.
These feminists think that CIA operative Gloria Steinem is a modern day Jesus, a messiah without whom no woman could achieve feminine salvation. LOL!!!
I'll give it to the feminists. They have made themselves the Gods of women and guillible people fall hook, line and sinker.
Dina, why are you messing with me?
I let your attack on Friday slide because I was busy and now you come full force on a Monday morning of all times and bust me with something I didn't say?
Did you have a bad weekend or something? 
"Nope. When it comes to pretty much everything else, it's ok to tell people what to do. But bring up the topic of marriage and the Nanny Staters all of a sudden flip." Dina
Had to think about that for a minute. But that's a damn good point Dina.
Americans are quite comfortable dictating to other people whether or not they can smoke in their own cars and apartments. They are quite casual about reading homosexual fairytales to other peoples children. Americans are quick to distribute birth control drugs to little girls in public schools -
but the mere suggestion that girls be encouraged and prepared to marry and have children is treated as blasphemy.
There are Same-Sex and Trans Gendered clubs in some high schools but how many young family clubs are there? Girls can study trigonometry but not parenting?
Ladies? How much of your lives have you spent solving trigonometry problems compared to raising children?
The social engineers are programming Americans to fail in marriage and in child rearing.
Weak families produce weak people. Weak people are easier to control.
-
Both J and Thorman make the point we all should talk from this: Men and women are different, there needs and paths to fulfillment are different, and we should never attempt to confine women in neat little boxes. J admits that there is nothing wrong with women having families and Thorman acknowledges the important of families in women's lives.
Both posts recognize that there is more than one path to fulfillment. And in either path ("feminist" or "traditional") there is a chance you will be fulfilled or disappointed. This has always been the case. Madame CJ Walker was a business woman in Harlem over a hundred years ago. She was a "professional" woman we typically think of as fulfilled. And I'm sure anyone reading this can think of countless grandmothers, mothers, and aunts who were stay-at-homes and were fulfilled. On the other hand, there are countless examples of those who became disappointed with there path. Can any of us say Walker or our stay-at-home aunts were on the wrong path? One thing is certain (besides that they didn't know what the hell "Gen Y" was): those who chose the disappointed path were very likely on the wrong one. So, to echo J, we should never confine women only to certain limited paths that may lead to disappointment or ruin.
We gotta get away from thinking there is one path for a woman (or for anyone). No one reading this is on the same path they were 10 years ago, 1 one year ago or, sometimes even a month ago.
The fact that we have these two posts is an acknowledgment that a woman's life can be as deep and as layered as she wants it to be--no matter which path she walks.
Roderick,
I ain't messin' with you. Indeed, I actually agreed with what you said.
It was a useful illustration of the double standard employed in discussions of marriage, which leads me to Rich's points.
Rich,
No one is arguing that there is only one path for women. That is, except feminists.
It is the feminists telling women that their path to fulfillment is down the road of college, career and not the "drudgery" and "burden" of children.
Thus, when someone speaks of the importance of marriage and motherhood, the Nanny Staters go f'ing ballistic and start yacking about personal decisions, blah, blah, blah.
But when feminists paint stay-at-home mothers as beasts of burden who live horrible lives, no one has the guts to call that a personal decision. No one says, well maybe some women find that fulfilling.
It has become quite fashionable to attack those who believe in family and values, but somehow feminists and their ideology are off limits?
Double standards. Hypocrisy.
A useful quote regarding all this doublespeak about choices -
"No women should be authorized to stay at home and raise her children," said feminist founder Simone de Beauvoir. "Women should not have that choice, because if there is such a choice, too many women will make that one" (Saturday Review, June 14, 1975)
That is a scary quote Dina...I remember being a teenager who was disgusted by my mother being stay at home with my younger sisters. I wanted her to get a job like the other moms had...but I have to say that my two youngest sisters are some of the most smart and well adjusted people I know. They are very secure in who they are and approach life in a calm and deliberate way. The oldest three of us were a lot more manic and insecure in high school. The attention a good parent gives their children over time is a priceless asset to that child's life. I have seen father's do this for their children and be just as effective as many mothers.
Thank you for a very thoughtful response Patrice.
I too have seen fathers impart that same sense of stability to children. A few couples we know sort of have stay-at-home dads in that the father runs his business from home, and the kids thrive just as well.
Feminism, in contrast, has convinced guillible women that work is the sole path to liberation and fulfillment.
Dina
Dina,
I'm curious as to which version of feminism you are referring to.
Of course you know that, just like any liberation struggle, the ideologies underpinning the feminist movement are as wide as they are diverse.
The upper-middle class American feminism of Steinem is different from the upper-middle class French feminism of de Beauvoir; the eco-feminism of Shiva is different from the socialist feminism of Mies is different from the Black liberatory feminism of Davis and hooks; etc.
So, in the spirit of accuracy, could you please tell me which 'feminism' advocates careerism and an end to mothering as the path to female liberation?
women are raised/influenced/programmed to want a family.
"the fact is that we have a choice, and what fulfills and limits us is not created by society and media, but increasingly our own desires."
An interesting historical fact is that when the Jamestown colony was originally attempted to be settled by the Virginia Company-It began with approximately 100 men and a tiny proportion of women/children. When they needed replenish and restock the colony's morale and longevity they recruited single women and men with families. They recognized the need that family was the foundation for a new civilization. People tend to sacrifice and have a greater sense of hope when a baby enters the picture. Look at any planned civilization, a baby definitely is a symbol of hope for a better future. That is why in biblical times, the quickest way to kill off a civilization was to murder and destroy the first born babies. It killed morale as well as acted as a mode of genocide. In this country, in current times, it has been argued that the fall of our morals and sense of humanity can be aligned with the destruction of the family unity. I agree with DVE "Weak families produce weak people. Weak people are easier to control." You can see it as subtle as watching today's TV ads for KFC...career black mom feeding her kids with no dad in sight. Yet and still, in our country we do have choices and options. Some people have a purpose for doing some of God's "other" work and THAT is what gives them fulfillment even greater than having a spouse and a child. Is that horrible? Do they lament their choices? I find that many folks become very self preserving once they have their own children. Who has time to think about organizing, communicating and strategizing the community when they have a soccer game to tend to? We all have different roles to fulfill in a modern society. I feel if we each took our roles seriously, committed 100% to focus on doing them with excellence, spend less time judging and criticizing who is doing the best job, and DO THE WORK...our society could improve for families to thrive within vs. continue to disentegrate right before our very eyes.
Abu,
Thank you for asking that question.
I want you to imagine a boardroom full of executives, high atop the skyline of a major city. They are in serious discussions because their product sales are in decline.
One brilliant female, with the dark-rimmed glasses and just above the knee skirt suit, says, "I've got it. We need to repackage the product, make it more hip and modern."
The balding White man at the head of the table looks a bit bewildered, but inquires further. The young female says, "people know Tide, but they are bored. They want something new, relevant. So, why don't we remove one toxic chemical, replace it with another and call it "new and improved Tide."
Young aggressive White guy says, "that's not enough. How stupid do you think people are?"
So young female thinks it through and says, "we'll call it Eco-friendly Tide with anti-bacterial ingredients." And all in the room smile.
Fast forward a few weeks. Consumer is at the shelves and doesn't see the old boring Tide, but the new and improved Eco-friendly Tide with a green sticker and pictures of flowers, gets excited and buys it, bragging to her friends about how environmentally friendly she is.
And all she did was buy the same MF'ing Tide that she was buying before.
Sorry my friend, but all this b.s. about eco-feminism, yada, yada, is the same Tide in a new bottle. Gimme a break.
Got it Dina...you prefer not to answer the question. Happy to give you a break and not press the issue further...hehe.
Abu,
Perhaps you missed the point. Repackaging the same bullshit as new and improved, 3rd wave, 4th wave, whatever doesn't take away from the fundamental essence of feminism - dividing men from women.
It doesn't matter if you hyphenate with socialism (which is the foundation of feminism), eco-, racial or whatever, feminism is at its core a philosophy of women v. men.
When you wrote "eco-feminism", my immediate thought was "WTF does environmentalism have to do with feminism?" Don't environmental issues affect men just as much as they affect women?
But I know the answer to my initial question. ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.
Convincing women that "eco" issues affect them differently is just the modern, revamped version of victimology that Gloria Steinem sold to our mothers' generation.
New and improved with a new spokeswoman on the ad campaign, throwing it under the umbrella of global warming. Brilliant. Brilliant marketing.
No Dina, I didn't miss your point; just thought I'd give you an opportunity to be a little more precise in your condemnation of a global liberation struggle.
I'm sure you can appreciate that feminism means different things to different people (Qusan's link makes this point quite convincingly). I'm sure you can also appreciate that had it not been for the first, second, etc. waves of feminism in North America, you would not be sitting where you are today having this discussion (since some of the feminists you denounce made your admission to law school/law firms possible).
In many parts of the world (including LA I’m sure), women are exploited and oppressed in ways that would make even a misogynist like Gingrich cringe. Feminism, like the kind practiced by Mujeres Creando, is of immense significance in the liberation of women and in the revolution that is undermining many of the oppressive relations that have dominated the Bolivian landscape since the Spanish conquest.
Struggle is a complex endeavor and one that must favor plurality over monopoly. What this means is that we must not expect nor demand that everyone adopt the same platform or join the same group to participate in the movement. The authoritarian monotheistic thinking you accuse Steinem and her ilk of is in the same league as the kind you are now practicing yourself.
To you (and perhaps your colleagues), feminism might imply a death match between men and women; to others, feminism is about challenging a variety of coercive hierarchies and liberating those who are made subordinate through domination.
You're welcome to despise your colleagues for choosing work over family but don't demean the struggle simply because you don't see your part in it.
If "feminism" means so many different things to so many different people, then it actually means nothing. So, I am giving it MY meaning in order to make my point.
It is, at its essence, a divide between men and women. A wedge driven into the family unit that is extremely destructive. Instead of viewing the world as human and advocating human rights, feminists chop and dice the world into little pieces and only care about women's rights. Divide and conquer.
Should you wish to modify that definition to make your point, I'm listening.
You repeat the, "you wouldn't be where you are without feminism" conclusion as if it's an incontrovertible truism. It's religious orthodoxy. Sorry, but I don't think feminists are my Messiah Jesus who created a new covenant that liberated me. But, I'd love to hear this - please tell me what my world would look like if feminists hadn't come on the scene. I'd LOVE to know.
Struggle is a complex endeavor and one that must favor plurality over monopoly. What this means is that we must not expect nor demand that everyone adopt the same platform or join the same group to participate in the movement.
You used a lot of big words and said absolutely nothing. What is the struggle? How do you know "feminists" (of whatever scent of Tide they come in) are part of this monumental struggle and not tools of the oppressors?
You're welcome to despise your colleagues for choosing work over family but don't demean the struggle simply because you don't see your part in it.
I don't despise anyone for the choice. I'm just calling bullshit on their propaganda; on them leading young women astray; on them telling women that being a wife and a mother is the worst thing they can do, but being an employee is glorious; on them emasculating men and making men more feminine while eschewing femininity for themselves.
feminism is about challenging a variety of coercive hierarchies and liberating those who are made subordinate through domination.
This sounds really good, but what does this mean? What are "coercive hierarchies" as opposed to "voluntary hierarchies"?
"Liberating those made subordinate through domination"? Sounds noble. Define subordinate.
If we translate this doublespeak, are we going to find out that it is the family unit that is the "coercive hierarcy" to which you refer?
Dina,
You’ve taken this from the abstract intellectual to the hardcore personal. Clearly, you have heaps of emotion and feelings towards this issue, probably something to do with your past.
Since I’m not a woman, I don’t have an attachment to the topic. I have however taught courses about resistance and liberation and have thus been exposed to many of the debates/facets of the feminist movement. Also, since (as you know) much of my research concerns subsistence farmers and well over three quarters of the world’s farmers are women, I have also been exposed to women’s organizations operating at the grassroots/practical level.
What I’m trying to say is that feminism is far more complex than the straw man you’ve created. Perhaps because I’m a male and an outsider, I’m more attuned to recognizing the distinctions in the different feminist movements but I imagine it also has much to do with the variety of feminist groups I’ve been exposed to; they are far from a monolithic whole.
For instance, many of the resistance movements in Latin America that engage feminist struggles (like the one I mentioned in my earlier post) would take great offence to the very narrow description you put forward. Not only are you taking an ethnocentric – (White American) and classcentric (middle-upper) view of feminism but also an egocentric one.
Rather than simply condemn the movements wholesale because of your own experiences with a narrow and bourgeois strand of it, I would suggest reading a little more about the topic; perhaps from the perspective of campesinas and indigenous women, two groups who will have had far different experiences with feminism than you and your professional colleagues.
In the meantime, this editorial on 'feminist mothering' might be of interest to you http://www.theage.com.au/
article...7926912827.html
"To create a society that values mothering is to create a world in which human beings matter more than money. This world seems very far away." In a very tight and small circle of believers, human beings do matter more than money. Outside of that it is ALL about the BENJAMINS...AND that is the root of the evil attack on our relationships, our families, our civilization.
Abu,
I don't think what you are describing is feminism. The fact that women in less developed countries make up the majority of farmers doesn't make the issues they face somehow unique to women - my suspicion is that they are fighting corporatism/globalization just like millions of men around the world are doing.
Indeed, I would wager that these women in the campesinos have more in common with the farmers in Korea fighting the trade deal with the US, than with feminists of whatever brand in America and Europe.
Feminists in America and Europe are the enemies of these women, which is why I can't stand feminists. You see, feminists of the American and European variety are fighting for the right to be the trade representatives and CEO's who put these women in the campesinos in a worse position than they already are. Feminists in America and Europe think that winning/liberation means being CEO of a company and getting an outrageous salary (that often comes at the expense of the everyday worker). For feminists in America and Europe (i.e. White feminists) to succeed, every woman of color will pay the price.
This isn't a global struggle of women against men; against coercive hierarchies. This is a global struggle between corporate plantation lords and serfs. True feminists are on the side of the corporate plantation lords and want to be one of them.
" True feminists are on the side of the corporate plantation lords and want to be one of them"
www.Theyrule.net has some supporting or disconfirming evidence 
I would like to start by pointing out the fact that the article to which all of these reponses have been written, as well as the vast majority of the responses slamming feminism, have been written sans evidence to back them up. Instead of fact, all I see are conjectures and biblical references. Statements such as, "The natural result of this union between the masculine and the feminine is the child - Heaven's most precious gift. Without a child to care for, a woman often becomes frustrated, bitter and distracted." which was made by Big J are erroneous and the heteronormative, patriarchal social constructions which they embody are both ridiculous and offensive.
Joan made a couple of comments that I feel are worth addressing. Both had to do with (Joan felt) families and how the family unit somehow negated feminism. The first regarded the Jamestown Colony. "It began with approximately 100 men and a tiny proportion of women/children. When they needed replenish and restock the colony's morale and longevity they recruited single women and men with families. They recognized the need that family was the foundation for a new civilization." The founders of this colony were rapists and murderers who ravaged a continent and committed genocide for their own economic gain. The decisions they made as to how to increase moral for the colony did not come from an unbiased, altruistic mindset, nor were they versed in the least in modern (or even contemporary) psychology. No, the MEN who made these decisions were the product of a violently patriarchal society that entirely devalued the female except for reproductive purposes and as homemakers.
This brings me to Joan's second point, that, "That is why in biblical times, the quickest way to kill off a civilization was to murder and destroy the first born babies. It killed morale as well as acted as a mode of genocide." This statement in itself is fallacy. The bible does not reference the killing of the first born, butt he first born SON. This is the product of a patriachal society that devalues the place of women. The bible that Joan has refered to is the Judeo-Christian bible which, depite the matrilineal descent of Judasim is unerringly sexist. Prayers are made to the "god of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob," never, "Sara, Leigha and Miriam." There are only two prominent female figures in the new testament, but virtually innumeralbe males. This is because the bible is a story of societies dominated by patriarchy written by males, themselves subject to a patriarchal system. The feminism movement is a challenge to this system. Thus, in response to Joan, these examples cannot be taken as historical evidence against a feminist movement, as itself is the product of a biased and inherently oppresssive system.
In writing this I have been sucked into another major fallacy committed in the argument against feminism, that feminism may destroy the family unit. This is patently untrue, Feminism merely seeks to un
I didn't realize that this comment board had a character limit, I seem to have lost about three quarters of my response which I will rewrite at another time. Until then.
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