Cork Feminista Conference Recording 21st June 2014

[Empirical]

...
Personally I don't consider myself to be a feminist, but I do agree that we should have equal rights and equal opportunities....

But surely, that is a definition of feminism? Not the only definition, or how some feminists see themselves and others—I'm thinking of 'radical feminists' in particular—the harsh views of such people are what turn many away from feminism.

...Feminism is about hating men....

No it isn't. Some feminists hate (some) men, to be sure; but not all 'feminists' hate all men. And by 'feminist' I include any and all reasonable people.

[Curvaceous Kate]

But surely, that is a definition of feminism? Not the only definition, or how some feminists see themselves and others—I'm thinking of 'radical feminists' in particular—the harsh views of such people are what turn many away from feminism.



No it isn't. Some feminists hate (some) men, to be sure; but not all 'feminists' hate all men. And by 'feminist' I include any and all reasonable people.

I suppose I've never felt the need to be more important or tell any other woman how to live her life or believe that a Mother is more important than a Father. I'm not really sure what feminism represents any more, so as with everything else, I live with my own moral code. Some may overlap codes of others, but I have no desire to be put in that box.

[Paul Carr]

The Magdalene laundries, were born of repression of women in the name of religion, not in the name of feminism and it continues, but as things tend to do, it is attempting to evolve under a more acceptable mask, that being behind the mask of feminism. The values and desires have not changed, it's still fundamentally about repression and control, but dictated in a more palatable way that pretends to give back control while doing the reverse.

Sure,there was repression of women in the name of religion, but there was also repression of men. In fact, historically, men have been more repressed and oppressed than women. The patriarchy is just a figment of the feminists' imagination. Women were always treated better than men on average because culturally women were seen as protected and men were seen as protectors, and therefore disposable if necessary, as part of the family unit, as part of the neighbourhood and as part of the nation state. This understanding bound together all stable societies since the dawn of civilization and before that. It would be the same for remote jungle tribes. It also appears to be the same for chimpanzees with whom we share a common ancestor 6 million years ago. The patriarchy in the past and in the present, which is at the heart of feminist theory, is a lie.

Feminists and government officials (there is considerable overlap) are always highlighting the practice of female genital mutilation. This hardly goes on any more in western countries but is reportedly extensive in many global south countries particularly those of the Middle East and Northern Africa. This gives a good indication of what feminism is really about. Feminists ignore that genital mutilation does, in fact, go on in western countries too but not of the kind that computes with them. In western countries, men have undergone genital mutilation much more than women have. In the US, I think about 50% of the entire male population have undergone under genital mutilation as newborn babies. Even today in the US, 15% of newborn babies undergo this procedure. Yet, no US state bans the procedure save in a situation of pressing medical need. Where are the feminists, radical or "moderate", calling for male genital mutilation to be banned save in a situation of pressing medical need?

The historical repression or oppression of women, propagated by feminists who like to think they rode to the rescue of all women after 1960 or so to liberate them from the clutches of menfolk, is a myth in my opinion, at least, not in the sense that they were repressed or oppressed any more than their menfolk were. Marriage was not historically seen by women themselves as a tool of repression or oppression but rather as an means to better themselves and those around them not least their own families. In pre famine Ireland, for example, marriage was based on mutual admiration and on the skills which each partner brought to the family - the man provided land and farming skills to grow the staple crop of potatoes, and the woman brought weaving and spinning skills which provided extra money to buy tea, sugar and whatever else was needed by the household. Her input to the agricultural work of the family was also important. Before the famine women made an essential contribution to the family economy. As late as 1841 women accounted for more than half of the non-agricultural workforce. Most of their economic independence was based on spinning wool, cotton and linen.

Families at the time lived and worked together for the benefit of the family, not in fearful obedience to some patriarchal head of the household.

I read an interesting article by Angry Harry yesterday in which he quotes an extract from David Thomas's book "Not Guilty".

http://www.angryharry.com/esDidWomen...oOutToWork.htm

"The desire to free oneself from work was common to all classes and both sexes. Dr Joanna Bourke of Birkbeck College, London, has studied the diaries of 5,000 women who lived between 1860 and 1930. During that period, the proportion of women in paid employment dropped from 75 per cent to 10 per cent. This was regarded as a huge step forward for womankind, an opinion shared by the women whose writings Dr Bourke researched. Freed from mills and factories, they created a new power base for themselves at home. This was, claims Dr Bourke, "a deliberate choice. . . and a choice that gave great pleasure."

Another interesting fact that Angry Harry mentions is that women received 34 percent of the bachelor's degrees in 1920 but only 24 percent in 1950. He also mentions the 1853 Factory Act when the work of women and young persons (but not men) was restricted to the hours between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. It seems that men in positions of power were busy protecting women not oppressing them. Or that the definition of rape under UK law in 1844 was an offence that could only be carried out by a man on a woman. Again, this suggests to me that men in power protected women, not oppressed them.

As for the agency of women, Angry Harry mentions that women in the early 19th century were actively involved in the anti slavery movement in the US setting up many separate female anti slavery societies.

In another article,

http://www.angryharry.com/eswerewome...dinthewest.htm

Angry Harry asks the legitimate question if women really were historically oppressed as the Marxist Feminists allege how come women were not penned up in stables and treated like beasts of burden? How come they were not bred and domesticated in much the same way as cows and horses?

Or take a look at the Titanic casualty figures. 74% of the women on board survived. 87% of the female crew. But just 20% of the men survived and 22% of the male crew.

http://wizzley.com/titanic-suffragettes/

So much for women being treated like beasts of burden.

At the end of the day, feminism is a top down hate ideology created by the state. It is not a bottom up women's movement. Its hatred is directed at men but in the process women are also infantilized. We see that plainly in the current feminist campaign to criminalize the purchase of sex. Men are villainized and women, in her feminist role as perpetual victim, are in need of rescue. It is a quintessential feminist tapestry.

[Paul Carr]

I find the whole concept of 'feminism' to be very difficult; if initially there were 1st wave feminists, then 2nd wave feminists, and so on, the picture today seems to be quite fragmented and confusing. There are terfs and swerfs, for starters; there are Marxist-Leninist feminists, and Maoist-Stalinist feminists; these groups seem to have very little in common, other perhaps, than an attachment to a 'radical' ideology. The separation of 'different' and 'wrong'; you can be 'other' but it makes you neither right nor wrong.

I'd have thought that anyone who accepts a principle of 'equality' is a 'feminist'. The equality isn't absolute, rather bounded by simple biology (and perhaps psychology). Rather than 'equality', a better position might be 'equivalence' or 'complementarity'. Somehow, I suspect I'm in a minority on this.

Oh, I agree. Strictly speaking, there can never be equality between men and women. For example, female firefighters generally speaking aren't as good as male firefighters.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERwzqvs7vvU

But Feminists insist that they are all paid the same.

Manwomanmyth, incidentally, is an excellent youtube channel.

https://www.youtube.com/user/manwomanmyth/videos

It breaks down and explores gender issues as well as analyses the damage feminism is doing to societies.

Here is Angry Harry's take on equality between men and women.

http://www.angryharry.com/esEqualityNotAchievable.htm

[dob]

Paul, you will have to explain how the state (which one?) created feminism for some kind of nefarious purpose.
There was the old ideal of chivalry where by men opened doors for women and carried them over puddles to keep their feet dry etc. and the idea of women and children first you refer to in you rather long post. Would it be considered sexist or patronising today?
I agree with you to a certain extent, but I think you are labouring the point somewhat.

The fact is feminism is just another ism, whereby certain elites or regarded thinkers are setting out a theology that may not reflect the lives of regular people. This is at the heart of the Swedish prostitution laws, they put forward that prostitution is a manifestation of the inequality between men and women, prostitution is slavery, no woman would choose it, fill in the cliché - without consulting those in the front line, more or less talking down to them.

This cork feminista group had the bottle to have their support of TORL challenged, something all the other groups have not, the position of the trade unions is particularly strange, in my opinion.

[Paul Carr]

Paul, you will have to explain how the state (which one?) created feminism for some kind of nefarious purpose.
There was the old ideal of chivalry where by men opened doors for women and carried them over puddles to keep their feet dry etc. and the idea of women and children first you refer to in you rather long post. Would it be considered sexist or patronising today?
I agree with you to a certain extent, but I think you are labouring the point somewhat.

The fact is feminism is just another ism, whereby certain elites or regarded thinkers are setting out a theology that may not reflect the lives of regular people. This is at the heart of the Swedish prostitution laws, they put forward that prostitution is a manifestation of the inequality between men and women, prostitution is slavery, no woman would choose it, fill in the cliché - without consulting those in the front line, more or less talking down to them.

This cork feminista group had the bottle to have their support of TORL challenged, something all the other groups have not, the position of the trade unions is particularly strange, in my opinion.

Western states, after World War 2, cooked up modern feminism. Sorry, I didn't mean to say it was just one. Feminism could be seen as put-women-to-workism. Government planners saw that women could make a valuable contribution to the war economy and so realized that they could contribute extra tax to expanding governments and expanding welfare states after the war if they returned to the workforce in greater numbers.

The manwomanmyth youtube channel has many informative videos on this and many other issues.

Here, the origins of modern feminism is addressed in this 6 part video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkVWz0uXiEA

[Parrot]

In fact, historically, men have been more repressed and oppressed than women.

In fact, no. That's a statement of wilful ignorance. You have had to do a lot of work to be that wrong.

Angry Harry asks the legitimate question if women really were historically oppressed as the Marxist Feminists allege how come women were not penned up in stables and treated like beasts of burden? How come they were not bred and domesticated in much the same way as cows and horses?

So much for women being treated like beasts of burden.

Do you think someone has to be treated like an animal before they qualify as oppressed? On some level I want to laugh at this, but I'm concerned for you Paul. You've had so much exposure to misogynistic hatred you're like a fish that doesn't realise it's in water.

How many CEOs are men? How many of the world richest people are men? How many women are raped and how many convictions arise from that? You know when Switzerland started allowing women to vote? 1971. That's NINETEEN, not EIGHTEEN. Everywhere you look women are being judged for their looks first (consider the type of website you're on for a moment), far more than men ever are. I'm not in favour of circumcision for males (and plenty of feminists are not in favour of it either), but to compare it to girls getting their clits removed is appalling. It's really terrible you would do that.

[Paul Carr]

I'm not in favour of circumcision for males (and plenty of feminists are not in favour of it either), but to compare it to girls getting their clits removed is appalling.

Not as appalling as the fact that the UN, simultaneous to its call for an end to female genital mutilation worldwide, actually launched a plan in 2011 to accelerate male genital mutilation in Africa for AIDS prevention. It is a plan supported by some feminists.

Circumcision and genital mutilation is the same thing.

http://www.avoiceformen.com/feminism...-females-only/

The U.N. said in 2010 that about 70 million girls and women had undergone the procedure, and the World Health Organization said about 6,000 girls were circumcised every day.

However, they neglected the fact that the global prevalence of circumcision in males, estimated using current published data, is roughly a total of 1,306,411,547 men and boys who are circumcised — a global circumcision rate of 37.4%.

[Empirical]

...Circumcision and genital mutilation is the same thing...

No they aren't.

Male circumcision became popular in the mid-nineteenth century as a "treatment" or prophylactic against masturbation. Before that, it was only done either for religious reasons or for defined surgical problems—chiefly phimosis. In so far as it is done for non-medical indications, it can be considered to be a mutilation; the religious might well question this, saying that it represents the covenant of Abraham with God.

Circumcision as "prophylaxis" became popular in America and in upper class Brits; not to be circumcised was seen as not being "regular", a significant problem for boys in locker rooms.

There was a vogue around WW1 for circumcision as a prophylactic against syphilis. It didn't work. The present argument for circumcision is as a prophylactic against AIDS/HIV. There are conflicting reports on its efficacy.

Female circumcision has been categorised into 4 groups, from removal of the clitoris to more or less complete removal of the external genitalia, in which the "remains" are sewn up or infundibulated. When the girl is to marry, the tiny opening to permit urination and menstruation must be enlarged. And at childbirth, this opening may well need to be opened further.

Removal of the clitoris had a (thankfully brief) vogue in the mid-nineteenth century in England, as a cure for 'nymphomania' and masturbation. (Which nicely demonstrates a Victorian paradox; "hysterical" woman would attend the gynaecologist, and their problem would be treated by "manipulation", which the doctors found rather tedious. it could take up to an hour of "massage" to produce a "nervous paroxysm". The doctors were masturbating their clients to orgasm, and some of them just weren't very good. One of the first electrical household goods was the vibrator, which rapidly proved a godsend for patients and their physicians.)

Female genital mutilation is not done as an anti-masturbatory procedure, or as a prophylactic against disease. It is a means of depriving the woman of sexual and sensual pleasure, no more, no less. In that, it is a means of control of the woman's sexuality, until such time as a man takes charge of her—so she won't be tempted to "stray", and so that the man can be sure that she is a virgin.

Though we associate FGM with (some) Islamic countries, there is no requirement in Islam for this practice; it is entirely cultural.

[Empirical]

...You know when Switzerland started allowing women to vote? 1971. That's NINETEEN, not EIGHTEEN...

That is correct. The canton of Appenzell Innerrhoden refused to allow women to vote until the federal government forced them to in 1971.

Swiss law is based on the Code Napoleon. In 1971, the civil code began, "The man is the head of the household; he determines where the family will live..." an it goes on to say that the woman may only work with the express consent of her husband.

This has subsequently been changed, so that today the family is recognised as a partnership. Even today,in tax law, the man is still responsible for all the income in the family, and the tax declaration goes to him. A married woman still needs the consent of her husband if she wishes to get a bank loan etc.

Unsurprisingly, many Swiss live "in sin", or as they say, "concubinage"—which always strikes me as demeaning to the woman; they have separate tax arrangements. If they are married, the incomes are added, and as the income tax is progressive, a double income pays more tax than two single incomes. There are also problems with inheritance.