What is with the backlash against feminism?

[Old Hippy]

Could it be because feminism has won most of the easy battles in the West? And now it's reached a plateau. An irresistible glass ceiling, perhaps?

I always found that party trick of a substained really high pitched voice shattering glass interesting.

it can be annoying though

 

[Borachio]

Link to video.

Is this the shrill voice of feminism?

 

[Old Hippy]

Is this the shrill voice of feminism?

but apparently a hammer works better...

http://www.theglasshammer.com/news/2012/08/09/how-do-you-define-feminism-at-work/

that article has a link to the ask4 campaign

" you don't get what you deserve you get what you ask for"

 

[Arwon]

Could it be because feminism has won most of the easy battles in the West? And now it's reached a plateau. An irresistible glass ceiling, perhaps?

As long as child-rearing women don't have financial independence from men, they're always going to be in a second-class position, aren't they? A kind of systemic inequality.

Even given financial independence, they'll still struggle to maintain a career in view of taking even 1 or 2 years out of employment for the task having a child. And employers will always question the loyalty of a woman with children in comparison with a man, won't they? Isn't that just the way things are; without some radical change in human society?

Or do I have this wrong?

Well, pregnancy discrimination is all kinds of illegal so the fact that employers are still getting away with it should tell you something about the sort of victories that have been won so far and the large amount of work that still remains.

 

[Commodore]

Could it be because feminism has won most of the easy battles in the West? And now it's reached a plateau. An irresistible glass ceiling, perhaps?

As long as child-rearing women don't have financial independence from men, they're always going to be in a second-class position, aren't they? A kind of systemic inequality.

Even given financial independence, they'll still struggle to maintain a career in view of taking even 1 or 2 years out of employment for the task having a child. And employers will always question the loyalty of a woman with children in comparison with a man, won't they? Isn't that just the way things are; without some radical change in human society?

Or do I have this wrong?

You're not wrong at all in my opinion. The problem comes in what should an employer's responsibility toward the personal lives of their employees be? I am of the opinion that it is not a private business's responsibility to ensure the financial security of its employees; their responsibility is to provide cost-effective and reliable goods/services to their customers and return a profit to their owners/shareholders. So from the business owner's perspective hiring women capable of getting pregnant to a position of significant responsibility is a much bigger risk than hiring a man to that position. I mean, what if that pregnant woman has to take her maternity leave at a time when the company really needs her? Or if she is always missing work or leaving early to deal with issues that arise with her child? Having children obviously does not make women bad people or even bad employees, but it does add a certain element of instability and unreliability to female employees that simply does not exist with male employees.

Are we supposed to just say "screw you" to companies and force them to hire higher risk employees just for the sake of diversity and equal opportunity? What about a business owner's right to hire the people they feel are the best fit for their organization? Sure getting pregnant and taking care of children are not bad things and people shouldn't be punished for it, but at the same time employers should reserve the right to hire the lowest risk (and thus the most profitable) employees they can. To me, the discrimination against pregnant women isn't born out of some hatred or contempt for women, but merely hiring them to positions appropriate to their risk level. They get put in lower positions so it is not a terrible loss to the company if a female employee has to take leave or, in some extreme cases, quit their job to take care of their children.

 

[Arwon]

To me, the discrimination against pregnant women isn't born out of some hatred or contempt for women,

Why would this be relevant

 

[Old Hippy]

Or if she is always missing work or leaving early to deal with issues that arise with her child? Having children obviously does not make women bad people or even bad employees, but it does add a certain element of instability and unreliability to female employees that simply does not exist with male employees.

.

what if the she is a husband and a he... should employers not hirer men if they are young and married because they might have children and care about them...
you know they just might want to leave early to pick up a sick child from school, especially if they are nearby and the wife works across town.

 

[Commodore]

what if the she is a husband and a he... should employers not hirer men if they are young and married because they might have children and care about them...
you know they just might want to leave early to pick up a sick child from school, especially if they are nearby and the wife works across town.

Actually employers do treat "family men" similar to how they treat women if they are constantly leaving work for family reasons. And the problem is not that employers won't hire those with families, it's that they just won't promote those who put their family before work. I personally don't agree with that philosophy, but I also believe it is the employer's right to choose who they want to advance in their organization as long as the reasons are related to the job at hand. That is supposed to be one of the benefits of owning your own business. If your employer wants you to commit more time to the office than your family as a requirement for promotion, then it is on you whether you want to advance your career or have a more enriching family life.

Think about it: Why should I, as a business owner, consider you for a promotion to a position with increased responsibility if I can't count on the fact that you will be around when I need you because you are dealing with family stuff. I would respect you for caring about your family so much, but I wouldn't consider you management material even if you had all the other qualifications for the position because one of the most important qualities of a manager in my opinion is that they be their to assist their subordinates when they need it.

Basically I would keep you in a position where your frequent absence to deal with family issues would have minimal impact on my organization. I don't see what is so unfair about that.

Why would this be relevant

It is relevant because it shows the discrimination actually has a legitimate basis to it and is not malevolent in its intent as a lot of feminists will argue. With that said, I am not trying to say the discrimination is 100% justified or that I agree with it, just that the intent and basis of the discrimination determines how it should be addressed.

 

[Arwon]

It is relevant because it shows the discrimination actually has a legitimate basis to it and is not malevolent in its intent as a lot of feminists will argue. With that said, I am not trying to say the discrimination is 100% justified or that I agree with it, just that the intent and basis of the discrimination determines how it should be addressed.

Bit of a false dichotomy. Discrimination has settings other than "actively mean" and "legitimate because directly relevant to role". Well meaning, dispassionate, "rational" prejudgement based on aspects of that person's life are still discriminatory.

Also, legitimate because directly relevant to role would be something like "blind person can't be quality control inspector". Boss wants to make workers work more hours is not actually a legitimate reason to discriminate based on family status. They should (and in Australia, at least, do) have a duty to make reasonable accommodations and to reasonably consider requests.

Really if someone is running a business in the expectation that everyone be always available no matter what, and it requires people to basically not have families or other priorities, then it sounds like a business that depends on unreasonable demands and isn't going very well.

 

[Commodore]

Bit of a false dichotomy. Discrimination has settings other than "actively mean" and "legitimate because directly relevant to role".

Also, legitimate because directly relevant to role would be something like "blind person can't be quality control inspector". Boss wants to make workers work more hours is not actually a legitimate reason to discriminate based on family status. They should (and in Australia, at least, do) have a duty to make reasonable accommodations.

Agreed. Most management positions (here in the US, at least) require either additional hours due to additional responsibilities or require to manager to be on-call when they are not in the office. So if I'm your boss and you are the kind of worker who is always telling me you can't do things because you have family commitments, that's fine but then you cannot reasonably expect me to consider you for a position with increased responsibility.

EDIT: You edited while I was typing. I don't think it is so much a company requires you to not have a family, but they want low-level workers to choose between the company and their personal life if they desire advancement within the company. I mean just look at the number of high-level executives that are either divorced or have been married multiple times. The number one complaint from the ex-wives and ex-husbands of those executives is that they spent too much time at the office. While they are probably correct in that complaint, one has to ask if that person would have become an executive in the first place if they didn't spend so much time in the office. It all basically boils down to what you want out of life: a rewarding and successful career or an enriching family life? Sure there are those rare few who manage to balance the two and have both, but unfortunately we live in a world where one must make a choice between the two.

 

[Old Hippy]

Think about it: Why should I, as a business owner, consider you for a promotion to a position with increased responsibility if I can't count on the fact that you will be around when I need you because you are dealing with family stuff. I would respect you for caring about your family so much, but I wouldn't consider you management material even if you had all the other qualifications for the position because one of the most important qualities of a manager in my opinion is that they be their to assist their subordinates when they need it.

OK i will think about it...
so any person with kids or with the possibility of kids (like single men)would be unsuitable for promotion, because people can not deal with family stuff and responsibilities at work, should I include older employees who might have to care for an elderly parent, you bussiness would eliminate most people that could actually show they have good time management skills coupled with a strong work ethic...

Basically I would keep you in a position where your frequent absence to deal with family issues would have minimal impact on my organization. I don't see what is so unfair about that.
.

there is a slight shift in your original position, now people that don't show dedication to the company work ethic don't deserve to be promoted, probably a good idea...
but it has nothing to do with working women with children, unless they don't show dedication, in which case it still has nothing to do with women who have children...

 

[Commodore]

OK i will think about it...
so any person with kids or with the possibility of kids (like single men)would be unsuitable for promotion, because people can not deal with family stuff and responsibilities at work, should I include older employees who might have to care for an elderly parent, you bussiness would eliminate most people that could actually show they have good time management skills coupled with a strong work ethic...

It isn't based on the possibility of having kids, it is based on how often you actually duck out early or take days off to take care of your personal/family business. Again, I want to state that I personally do not feel doing that makes someone a bad employee, but I also don't think I could trust them with additional responsibilities.

People who have good time management skills, as you describe, also don't wait until they get promoted or are being considered for a promotion to demonstrate those skills; they demonstrate them from day one because it is just in their nature. As a manager, you can usually tell which employees are management material and which ones aren't within their first 6 months of employment with the company.

there is a slight shift in your original position, now people that don't show dedication to the company work ethic don't deserve to be promoted, probably a good idea...
but it has nothing to do with working women with children, unless they don't show dedication, in which case it still has nothing to do with women who have children...

Not so much a shift in my opinion as it was a clarification of my original statement. If there is an employee that is frequently taking off work because they have family issues to take care of at home that makes them unreliable when it comes to important projects. Other employees are forced to pick up their share of the work, and I was trained in the Army that a true leader does not do that to their teammates. So by placing a greater emphasis on your personal life than you place on helping out your colleagues, that tells me you are not interested in being a leader within my organization. Which is fine, I wouldn't hold that against you as an employee, but then you also can't get mad at me and cry discrimination when I won't put you in a leadership position.

SIDE NOTE: As a manager, I can say I actually have the utmost respect for people who have a family to take care of because I have a family myself and I know how hard that can be. The employees I don't have respect for though are the ones who say crap like "that's not my job" when I ask them to do a little something extra or to cover down for someone who is absent. To me the "that's not my job" line is the ultimate example of poor work ethic and tells me that employee isn't here to work, but just to collect a paycheck. We haven't had any lay-offs in a long time, but guess which employees will be first on the chopping block if we ever do have to lay people off?

 

[Old Hippy]

SIDE NOTE: As a manager, I can say I actually have the utmost respect for people who have a family to take care of because I have a family myself and I know how hard that can be. The employees I don't have respect for though are the ones who say crap like "that's not my job" when I ask them to do a little something extra or to cover down for someone who is absent. To me the "that's not my job" line is the ultimate example of poor work ethic and tells me that employee isn't here to work, but just to collect a paycheck. We haven't had any lay-offs in a long time, but guess which employees will be first on the chopping block if we ever do have to lay people off?

I agree with most of what you say,
and while i see your criticisms valid, I just don't see them as a a feminist issue but one that takes day to day issues and claims they are feminists issures, Feminists are not asking for an easy ride but an equal ride. Your side note paints a picture of a average to bad employee, fair enough but women want the chance to prove they are not in that category just because they are women, that they can be outstanding employees, and I know women that are, my ex wife took 12 weeks off 6 weeks of that was saved annual leave, when we had our child, when she went back, her job was taken and she was back to being a clerk, she refused to train her replacement, but would cover his mistakes, she was back to being a manager within the year... when they decided she should spend 3 months working in every Australian office of the company to bring the branches in line to head office... so it was OK to spend 3 months out of the job, but not OK to spend 1.5 months out of the job...why because that was the wisdom of the time. nowdays most bosses are smart enough to understand this and it happens less often, some bosses are stuck in the past

 

[Commodore]

I agree with most of what you say, I'm not military trained i think section 8 was put in place just incase I joined...
but have a strong work ethic, starting my business when I was 19, and basically my own boss... and while i see your criticisms valid, I just don't see them as a a feminist issue but one that takes day to day issues and claims they are feminists issures, Feminists are not asking for an easy ride but an equal ride. Your side note paints a picture of a average to bad employee, fair enough but women want the chance to prove they are not in that category just because they are women, that they can be outstanding employees, and I know women that are, my ex wife took 12 weeks off 6 weeks of that was saved annual leave, when we had our child, when she went back her job, was taken and she was back to being a clerk, she refused to train her replacement, but would cover his mistakes, she was back to being a manager within the year... when they decided she should spend 3 months working in every Australian office of the company to bring the branches in line to head office... so it was OK to spend 3 months out of the job, but not OK to spend 2 months out of the job...why because that was the wisdom of the time. nowdays most bosses are smart enough to understand this and it happens less often, some bosses are stuck in the past

Agreed 100%. I fully acknowledge the discrimination is there and something does need to be done about it. My original point though was the discrimination women are facing in the workplace is not born out of contempt for women (in most cases anyway, there are some pretty terrible people out there though who do have contempt for women), but out of a habit to lump those taking leave for family reasons in with the truly bad employees. And I think that comes from the mindset a lot of managers fall into where they only care about productivity and when an employee has to take time off all the manager sees is an employee that is not producing, and doesn't really take the time to consider why that employee is not producing.

 

[Traitorfish]

The person I quoted could easily be considered mainstream. I read it for a university class for Christ sake.

Cited, not quoted. "Quoting" involves, like, quotes and stuff.

But from I can google gather, her argument isn't that women are just intrinsically superior writers. She's a postmodernist, aside from anything else, so that sort of argument wouldn't really make a lot of sense. The argument, rather, seems to be that women through their lived experience as women, rather than through some intrinsic woman-ness, have access to a realm of experience outside of masculine literary norms, so are better-positioned to write outside of these norms and thus to produce more challenging literature. It's not really an argument for female superiority, because the same reasoning also allows for people of colour, queer people, people from the third world, working class people, and so on, to write similarly challenging literature. The argument is that straight white bourgeois men are boring as hell, and we knew that already; it's been the central thrust of Western popular culture for sixty years.

SO I think you maybe took from her work the message you wanted to take?

 

[caketastydelish]

Cited, not quoted. "Quoting" involves, like, quotes and stuff.

But from I can google gather, her argument isn't that women are just intrinsically superior writers. She's a postmodernist, aside from anything else, so that sort of argument wouldn't really make a lot of sense. The argument, rather, seems to be that women through their lived experience as women, rather than through some intrinsic woman-ness, have access to a realm of experience outside of masculine literary norms, so are better-positioned to write outside of these norms and thus to produce more challenging literature. It's not really an argument for female superiority, because the same reasoning also allows for people of colour, queer people, people from the third world, working class people, and so on, to write similarly challenging literature. The argument is that straight white bourgeois men are boring as hell, and we knew that already; it's been the central thrust of Western popular culture for sixty years.

SO I think you maybe took from her work the message you wanted to take?

The problem with this is you could say the opposite to the same effect, and it would be just as boring and stupid to me.

Men tend to be more masculine for biological reasons or whatever. When men dream, they dream of masculine, violent rough and tough stuff. This makes their writing much more rough and stuff, which makes them more challenging/better writers.

The above statement is absurd, and I find Cixous's statement to be equally absurd.

I don't define the quality of someone's writing based on whether they're masculine or feminine. The center of gravity for being a good writer is just that: being a good writer.

 

[Hygro]

Cited, not quoted. "Quoting" involves, like, quotes and stuff.

But from I can google gather, her argument isn't that women are just intrinsically superior writers. She's a postmodernist, aside from anything else, so that sort of argument wouldn't really make a lot of sense. The argument, rather, seems to be that women through their lived experience as women, rather than through some intrinsic woman-ness, have access to a realm of experience outside of masculine literary norms, so are better-positioned to write outside of these norms and thus to produce more challenging literature. It's not really an argument for female superiority, because the same reasoning also allows for people of colour, queer people, people from the third world, working class people, and so on, to write similarly challenging literature. The argument is that straight white bourgeois men are boring as hell, and we knew that already; it's been the central thrust of Western popular culture for sixty years.

SO I think you maybe took from her work the message you wanted to take?

So... I made this terrible thread a few years back, before I got better educated. I was hoping to find culturally untapped oppressed groups in hopes of discovering novel music styles. I was trying to find an edge as a DJ. Another much, much more famous DJ, Diplo, actively travels around to find subcultures and bring their music to the fore—like New Orleans's sissy bounce genre. Anyhoo, I used to think he was cool for it, but now I feel a lot of it is purely self-serving.

Needless to say, the recognition that the average outsider is more likely to make an advancement in art than the average insider is pretty well known amongst artists of all stripes.

Every modern form of dance music came from cultural outsiders.

The problem with this is you could say the opposite to the same effect, and it would be just as boring and stupid to me.

Men tend to be more masculine for biological reasons or whatever. When men dream, they dream of masculine, violent rough and tough stuff. This makes their writing much more rough and stuff, which makes them more challenging/better writers.

The above statement is absurd, and I find Cixous's statement to be equally absurd.

I don't define the quality of someone's writing based on whether they're masculine or feminine. The center of gravity for being a good writer is just that: being a good writer.

Hm, you might want to go back and reread Traitorfish's post again and see if you can find a totally different way of interpreting it.

Also, your pm box is full.

 

[Traitorfish]

The problem with this is you could say the opposite to the same effect, and it would be just as boring and stupid to me.

Men tend to be more masculine for biological reasons or whatever. When men dream, they dream of masculine, violent rough and tough stuff. This makes their writing much more rough and stuff, which makes them more challenging/better writers.

The above statement is absurd, and I find Cixous's statement to be equally absurd.

I don't define the quality of someone's writing based on whether they're masculine or feminine. The center of gravity for being a good writer is just that: being a good writer.

So far as I understand it, Cixous is arguing about experience, not biology. The point is that women have experiences which are not encapsulated by the norms of bourgeois literary convention, and so are better placed to challenge those norms. It doesn't say that men can't challenge them, they clearly can; even the sort of machismo-soaked punchjaw whiskylit you describe was kinda novel for about five minutes in 1932. (The fact that it was almost immediately reconciled with bourgeois literary convention, however, is pretty telling.) They're just not as well-positioned, at least not from a gendered perspective. If men have experiences not encapsulate by bourgeois literary norms, they're probably experiences of race, class, sexuality and so forth.

So... I made this terrible thread a few years back, before I got better educated. I was hoping to find culturally untapped oppressed groups so as to discover what novel music these folks were making. I was trying to find an edge as a DJ. Another much, much more famous DJ, Diplo, actively travels around to find subcultures and bring their music to the fore—like New Orleans's sissy bounce genre. Anyhoo, I used to think he was cool for it, but now I feel a lot of it is purely self-serving.

Needless to say, the recognition that the average outsider is more likely to make an advancement in art than the average insider is pretty well known amongst artists of all stripes.

Every modern form of dance music came from cultural outsiders.

Pretty much. Like you say, it's so commonsensical at this point that it's actively exploited by boring artists to win credibility. We talked a while ago about Iggy Wossface, and that's basically her whole shtick, the outsider status of black American youth repackaged as something more palatable to suburban white audiences.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

It sounds reasonable that the experiences of "white bourgeois men" have had such impact on literature that other groups of people are in principle better equipped to offer something new and interesting.

However, on the other hand, writing is just such a complex thing that a theory based on such broad categories like gender, class etcetera seems hopelessly coarse to me so to be able to say something interesting about literature as a whole. Rather, I'd say that it just points to one dimension and we should be careful to put that dimension on a pedestal.

I also would be very careful about comparing writing to music.
Music is I think a lot more phlegmatic on account on how it is created. It requires instruments, a band, recordings... it in general will have a much harder time to evolve than an art which just requires some dude and a pen.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

I think that highlighting the issue of pay gap is good for society, however. As long as this issue remains, we need to strive to change it, and talking about it frequently will help achieve that.

*sigh*
Yeah, I suppose so.
It still is annoying, though