culture - Joelle Nebbe-Mornod on Diigo

17 Apr 09

14 Apr 09

HOWTO Encourage Women in Linux

infohost.nmt.edu/howto.html - Preview

feminism linux informatique culture gender

16 Feb 09

Alright darlin' - The F-Word

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sexism harassment youth culture feminism

She was walking home from the bus stop in broad daylight and a man cruised the curb for a while, trying to talk to her before getting out and grabbing her arm, pulling her towards the car. She pulled away, firmly said no and walked on. She is 17. This might sound unnerving, but as she breezed in, she told the story like a bit of gossip
I am 19. In the last few months, men, none younger than 30, have followed me down the road I live on, approached me at bus stops and generally leered from cars as I wait to cross the street. That’s only in the past few months.
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- I can understand that a man has a natural reaction when they see a woman or girl they are attracted to, but he doesn’t have to act on it by staring or shouting something. Maybe due to shyness or politeness, a man younger than about 25 has never behaved like this in front of me. But it’s scary that men react this way when they are old enough to have, and possibly already do have, children of their own.
- Maybe the media representing teenagers as all sexually active, with teenage pregnancy and STIs constant headlines, makes the men believe that girls can be treated as women, therefore it’s acceptable for him to show his attraction and make a move despite being much older.
- I would not consider myself a provocative dresser or particularly attractive. I do not wear low-cut tops or high heels in the daytime. I don’t dress typically, but tend to favour vintage dresses. I have curly red hair too, which I am told most do not favour, so judging by the amount of men that leer at me, a lot of girls must be in my situation or worse. When talking to friends about this, we all discussed our worst encounters and the commonalities were that we were walking alone and approached in cars or on quiet streets. A man followed my friend around a mile home and when she told him he looked around 50, he said: “Age is only a number, I want to take you out, yes?”

Why feminists shouldn't have to keep mum - The F-Word

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feminism thinking politics culture motherhood

While I love being a mother, I resent the current cult of motherhood in our society. It’s something feminists need to challenge, instead of feeling it’s a thing they need to adapt to and be oh-so-polite about. When I was on maternity leave following the birth of my son, the loneliness I felt at being out of the workplace and spending all day with someone who couldn’t talk was compounded by the fact that when I did meet with other mothers, the contemporary cult of motherhood required me to hold my tongue. It’s not that no-one talks about the physical and mental challenges of being a mother. Women do, all the time (even though the same discussions on cracked nipples and tantrums in Sainsbury’s are treated as ‘taboo breaking’ each time they arise). The trouble is, while we’re all allowed to say how difficult it is, no-one’s allowed to say that it’s too difficult and needs to change, because that would be seen as undermining the very roles with which we’re struggling. So we get nowhere or, worse, we learn to seek value in all the things that could be so much better if only we’d try to alter them.
This is not, by the way, another so-called feminist attack on mothers, but on a culture that encourages them not only to think so little of themselves, but to positively glorify themselves in doing so, as though this constitutes some kind of sacrifice on behalf of our children. In magazines, TV programmes, mothers’ groups and web forums, it seems to be taken as read that motherhood makes you less of a person. Rather than challenge this, as feminists have done and continue to do, the accepted response is to go along with it all, but say it doesn’t matter, as long as everyone appreciates how noble we are for having given up said personhood.
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- what clearly is a feminist issue is the way in which all parenting issues are cast as mothers’ issues, as is the way in which any negative perspective on the undue burden parenting puts upon women is misrepresented as a failure to value the work mothers do. Quite frankly, I’d rather someone saw that changing nappies is not the whole purpose of my life rather than “appreciated” my contributions. I don’t want to face the same lack of choice as women before me, but have it repackaged as the best, most important job in the world.
- Remarketing the value of motherhood to women without actually counting the cost is not elevating mothers; on the contrary, it’s treating them like idiots who’ll do anything for a bit of hollow flattery. I’m not under any illusions about how difficult yet rewarding looking after a child can be. I don’t think many feminists are, but this doesn’t mean the ways in which men and women currently divide parenting responsibilities are beyond reproach, or that work which is valuable cannot also be seen as damaging to anyone who’s expected to do it year-in year-out, just because she was born female.
- For instance, it is not reasonable to ask feminists to treat essentialist and non-essentialist views on the roles of mothers and fathers as though they are equal, just because not to do so will offend some mothers and fathers. It doesn’t matter to me how you choose to run your own household. It does, however, matter that the view that mummy does one thing, daddy another, currently holds sway over our parental leave laws and limits the freedom of individuals to make their own choices. It matters that many children are being brought up with restricted views of what women and men do, simply because the essentialist views of their parents are held to be off-limits in feminist debate. It might upset some mothers to say that their femaleness is not intrinsic to how they act as parents. But it isn’t, and to claim otherwise isn’t to take a neutral “all things are equal” approach. It’s to say mixed-gender couples who achieve an equal division of labour and perform similar roles are somehow doing it wrong. And why should we put up with that, just so that others feel their personal choices, choices we have no interest in challenging, are viewed as superior? I don’t care if an individual woman chooses to take on all childcare responsibilities, if this is the division of labour that works for her and her partner. I do, however, care if this particular allocation of roles is claimed to be “natural” and any deviation from this taken as a personal insult.
- We get to choose whether or not we become mothers, and our choice is undoubtedly influenced by the conditions under which mothers have to live. And we can influence these, not by buying into the cloying mummy-world that popular culture currently offers our sisters, but by looking for different routes, challenging what’s accepted as normal and taking alternative paths ourselves.