The trouble with feminism is that apart from a few radicals it hasn't gone nearly far enough, indeed it has degenerated into the same populist passivism as gay activism has.
Tony Smith incongruously suggests there's been a "social revolution" in the last fifty years, which he attributes largely to feminism, when the phrase properly indicates a much more radical overthrow of "property relations", rather than vexatious, spuriously-self-validating identity politics.
Despite all the promise offered by radical feminism, all it accomplished in the end was a new mode of politically correct conformity; reaffirmed co-option within an utterly bureaurocratised and monolithic lifeworld. Indeed even the politically-correct veneer identity politics managed to lay over generational bigotries is wearing thin. The same bigotries prevail but have taken the self-deprecating form of idle jest; we've all learned to laugh at ourselves in public, but I suspect few are laughing in private.
The one important thing feminism helped to accomplish, for mine, was the realisation that "all" gendered and sexual identities are the same interpellated puppets. But having achieved this momentous insight, and simultaneously the nature of the puppet-master, our "social-revolutionaries" settled for tawdry equalities "within" the system of indifferent patronage that now allows them to mix and match identities. The hallmark of freedom equals the freedom to represent yourself on a chaotically liberated stage, but the diegesis and the props remain rigidly the same.
The real feminists inevitably succumbed to the "one" real and pervasive stereotype, neither male nor female, but an androgeneous and transsexual puppet.

In a sense one envies the vast majority of these marionettes, who ridicule all such talk; I hear ignorance is bliss.

Tony wrote "about 1970, many women began to feel the need for a critique of their oppression"...not gone far, broad or deep enough...otherwise you will recognize the grave danger we are all in...when match history with what we see now on the streets...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Woman_Suffrage
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%27s_suffrage
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suffragette
these date back to 1600's...but origins date much earlier...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Senate...roman senate structure is the 'foremother' to our current 'democracy'...public elects weilding power of the population...women by their inhernet nature realized power they have access to...without being a military genius like julius ceaser to have power...

so 'inherent' nature(look around you...):
1.man is 'aware of situation' hes in and responds-women is 'aware of herself in the situation' and responds(yep...'master at image'...and even courts cant effectively deal with this yet...)
2.men intrinsically 'act with accountability'-women'act avoiding accountability'...eg caught stealing...yeah, lots of reasons but man accepts its 'stealing'...women argues its stealing instead its 'borrowing_permanently'...
3.men organize to take over land then all within-women organize to take over the person then take their property...yeah, male driven wars we've all seen, but not women driven wars and believe me we are in one now...despite the 'image' of civil democracy...preferred is organized women with puppet man as their face...now apply this to government and business departments...and heard coined phrase 'snakes and its dogs' being made...

every women you meet now is a 'feminist', whether she admits it or not...and statistically too large a population to have occured spontaneously, so been engineered...from history always been rich well to do women protected by their society agitating while poorer women struggled with their lives taking these as role models...and always an 'image' of 'suffering' but linked to real unbalanced increased 'power and possession'...

to what we have now in every street in every country...property within fence within which women is the queen...constant monitoring of all(isolated child and father) and created 'rules' that must be abided...I noticed most of this when working as a gp from the sheer number 'families' where the women the absolute energized power house and childandfather obedient empty shell...and from women themselves whom when need real help 'really' talk...

contd...sam

My mother 94 year old mother says that the thing with the greatest impact in her lifetime was electricity.
I would say the thing with greatest impact during my lifetime has been feminism and the right for a woman to be respected as a woman, not thought to be an inferior version of a man. It still has a long way to go as many men still have misogynist attitudes, although they may mask them better. Too often men still respect women only for how well they fulfill the roles of daughter, wife and mother.

Where have you people been, behind the door? The world you believe in does not, & never has existed. Fighting a perceived inequality that never existed, at least in the modern western world, has cost women heaps.

During WW11 most of a service mans pay was allocated to his wife.

After WW11 I remember seeing most men in the community come home with unopened pay packets, which they handed to the lady of the house. She then handed back a small allowance of pocket money to the wage earner.

The woman ruled in most families, & spent most of the money, with the bloke complying for peace.

Even later, in my teens, I can remember, when men discussed their cars, hearing statements like, "I should have insisted on a Holden/Ford/Dodge, but she wanted this [insert European car make here], & I couldn't be bothered fighting. This damn thing has cost a fortune.

I think women's liberation has been a big step backwards for women. They got the men's backs up enough that they dug their toes in, & refused to be as hen picked as in the past. Women don't get their own way today, anywhere as much as 50 years ago.

Serves them right really

Hasbeen I wasn't around for the "bad old days" but much of what I've seen and read of our past backs up the view that mainstream feminists run with a very selective view of our history.

Quick to point out how women suffer (or suffered) but apparently oblivious to the privilege's that women have had. Quick to point to the privileges some men have had but oblivious to the hardships and sacrifices asked of men.

Feminists will point out how women have born the majority of early childhood care yet blame men for the shape of social attitudes. They will talk of women being agents of their own oppression but don't see the problem with then deciding who is oppressing who.

feminism has had a great role in challenging some gender assumptions and opening up opportunities for all but it's also shown massive double standards at time. Too many feminists are all to quick to embrace traditional gender stereotypes and roles when it comes to issues of child residency post separation.

Dropping terms such as oppression and the preference to deem cooperative and caring behaviours as feminine and aggressive domineering behaviours as masculine would help. Much of the language of feminism is divisive, the rhetoric is one sided and misses much that needs to be part of any further advance to practical equality of opportunity.

"Extra burdens should not be created for women by making them responsible for men's behaviour as well as their own." - as far as I can tell one of the principle obsessions of feminism is making men responsible for women's behaviour as well as their own.

R0bert

Taking up Squeers's point, it seems that the "liberation" of women only really took hold when capitalism reached a point of full throttle. His reference to androgynous participation rings true, as the main point seems to have been to get as many humans participating in the market as possible.