WHAT'S FEMINISM DONE FOR ANY OF US?
FEMINISM: What major changes have we made?
By Vanessa Feltz
HOORAY! Hooray! For International Women’s Day! Did you register it yesterday? Did you whoop and holler and congratulate the sisterhood. We’ve come a long way, baby.
That’s right, we’ve come so far we can drink like blokes, swear like blokes, indulge in promiscuous sex with nameless strangers and invest in boob jobs the minute we hit our mid-teens so we can waste no time earning wads of cash flaunting our pseudo-pneumatic twin peaks in our fulfilling careers as lap dancers.
We know no shame because we’ve forgotten how to blush. We’ve watched so many commercials telling us we’re “worth it” we believe every blessed word. We know our rights, our entitlements and, if all goes wrong, we have the number of a damned good compensation lawyer on speed dial.
We’re not weighed down by husbands. We haven’t bothered to tie the knot, or if we have it’s easily severed, so there’s no scurrying about at a man’s beck and call for us. Our children aren’t encumbered by fathers so there are no slippers to be fetched or rules to be obeyed. We’ve shrugged off the yoke of oppression. We don’t bow to any opinions but our own.
How can we refrain from taking to the streets in one glorious conga of elation? Never has the fairer sex had it so good. Before we get swept away on a tide of jubilation let’s pause just a second and wonder: if we’ve made such significant strides, where are we? We’re barely in board rooms. We’ve made a tiny dent in politics. We’re outnumbered two to one by chaps on the television. We’re making strides in industry, medicine, teaching, social work, architecture, retailing, tourism, manufacturing and the law only to be culled in our prime by the insurmountable
work/life balance dilemma.
Our predicament is simple. All it lacks is a solution. We want jobs. In many cases we crave and are more than capable of sustaining not just jobs but careers.
We also want children. Having produced said children, we have the temerity to want to spend time raising and
nurturing them. CAN a woman take time out to make pasta collages with her toddler – and the brothers and sisters who follow him – and later scale the heights of her chosen profession? Not in this lifetime.
Let’s keep the celebrations muted. We’ve made superficial strides which have turned out to be baby-steps. We’ve
gained the right to behave like boors without working out a way to transcend our own biology. We’re mixed up, confused, exhausted, frustrated and those of us who wish we looked like Cheryl Cole are just plain hungry.
THE OTHER SIDE OF THE STORY
09.03.10, 9:08pm
I personally believe that feminism has done a lot for women , not least for women who are in my , admittedly rare situation.
Far from believing that I have a right to a full time career alongside a handful of children and a traditional husband and family life , I know that I will never have this opportunity .
My internal reproductive system has been under-developed and malformed since birth , which of course means that I will never have children of my own whether legitimate , illegitimate or any combination of the two.
If none of the feminism of the last two centuries had ever happened I would no doubt have been unmarriageable due to my inability to be a brood-mare . The lack of equal opportunities legislation for women would have meant that I would also have found it impossible to have such a thing as a career , my own mortgage , my own property or my own political influence due to the lack of a vote .
I would also have been unable to pay taxes , found it extremely difficult to be accepted as a member of a tightly knit rural community , therefore becoming unable to contribute to it in a socially acceptable manner becoming a burden to my family due to a complete lack of independence .
Where would I be without equal opportunities in the labour market?
I am not a loony liberal , a bra-burning feminist or a champagne socialist . Or a lesbian.
I do not drink myself into a stupor at every opportunity or do drugs. Nor do I expect my parents to remortgage their house to help me fund my well-earned spending sprees.
I do not swear like a bloke on a regular basis , believe that the world owes me something or have a habit of jumping into bed with nameless strangers , simply because I could reasonably expect to get away with it.
There is a significant minority of women and men who did not sit down one day and 'choose' isolation , career-mindedness and self-development over the nuclear family .
This type of life has never been open to us.
Back to the question ' what's feminism done for any of us? '.
For me Vanessa, the answer is quite a lot actually.
• Posted by: Chrissy2010 • Report Comment
NO
09.03.10, 7:59pm
I deplore the fact that we have women MPs ,,Just what is good about H,harman..Hazel bliers.clair short,and god help us ,M thatcher ,,Ever since the Bu//////rs were allowed the vote this country has gone to the dogs..There is a old saying ,that if you want a woman you should be able to go into a field and pick one out, I have the best woman in the world {my wife} just in case she sees this post,and i didnt find her in a field,,I fear im digging a hole here. so Ill just say no,,
• Posted by: wigwam • Report Comment
WE NEED MORE FEMALE MPS!
09.03.10, 12:05pm
As this article quite rightly points out, women are grossly under-represented in parliament! Only one in five of our MPs are female, hardly a representative parliament is it?! The Jury Team http://www.juryteam.org have a great way in which we could raise women's profile in parliament, by changing the voting system from first past the post to proportional representation http://tinyurl.com/Proportional-Rep
Implementing proportional representation is key if we want to see more women in parliament and a parliament that reflects the will of the people. The way we vote can and does influence the number of women elected into parliament http://tinyurl.com/yzn5l2t. First past the post lets down women hugely, it offers very few chances for women to break into national politics and gives huge advantages to its incumbrents. It lets down voters and constituencies by limiting their choices and fosters negative and agressive political culture. Under proportional representation an average of 10% more women would be elected. There is already proof that PR works in making a more representative parliament. Sweden uses PR and 47.3% of their parliament are women and Rwanda has 56.3% women. We need to change our voting system now if we want to see a parliament that represents the people!
• Posted by: SarahJT • Report Comment
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