US “Although this has now been achieved in our society, the phrase 'equality for women' proposes a dogmatic assumption that women are still oppressed in overall relation to men.”

I do so like to quote dearest Margaret on these matters and about 20 years ago, or so, she said

“The battle for women's rights has been largely won.”

More to the point she also said “The woman's mission is not to enhance the masculine spirit, but to express the feminine; hers is not to preserve a man-made world, but to create a human world by the infusion of the feminine element into all of its activities.”

She saw the goal not to reinforce masculinity and not to replace that with a feminist outcomes but to achieve the best ‘human’ outcome.

She spoke with a common sense that defies many. Then, she spoke so much common sense, no wonder she was, at her zenith, the most powerful woman in the world.

I note SJF has remained silent on definitions of “misguided behaviour”.

Me thinks her post itself was “misguided” in the first place.

And Veronika “I was meansprited to point it out.”

yes, “mean spirited” is, obviously, something you aspire to.

As for myself, I refer you to Rhett Butler’s famous parting line.

US

Bottom line is we are in agreement on the big picture if not some of the finer details. The ideal is for overall fairness and equality regardlesss of gender (or race etc).

Feminism has gained much for women in many spheres but in other ways it has also been detrimental but that is another issue.

R0bert

As you have written two bitchy posts about me here (with a hint of an ongoing grudge), and several on other OLO threads, I have the right to throw back some of the same.

Firstly, if you really practised the fairness and objectivity that you constantly preach, you would find that my OLO history contains many, many reasoned and respectful exchanges with many fair and reasonable men and women - not just on gender, but all the threads I have participated in. When I am dealing with fair, reasonable people, I treat them with fairness and reason.

When I refrain from treating certain posters with fairness and reason, this is an intellectual CHOICE I make, not an undisciplined emotional dump as you make out. Even then, they are just tongue-in-cheek rehashes of the pompous writing style that many of these anti-feminist posters adopt as a matter of course – while expecting to be treated with dignity in return.

I do not agree with the approach taken by other feminists here that one must be even-tempered and reasonable in the face of slanderous attacks on feminism. Not only do you end up wasting hours and hours in fruitless exchanges that go nowhere, I also believe this approach is simply an extension of the traditional male/female power structure – which deems that men can say whatever they like, but women must always conciliate.

And secondly, you and I have never hit it off because, among other things, I have often shown your statistics and methods to be either unethically selective or downright false. Underlying many of your posts is a weird crusade to prove that feminists generally use statistics and other research to distort the truth, when this is the very thing I have caught you out on on several occasions.

And lastly, if you intend to do a Col Rouge and provoke me in post after post to declare times, dates, links and commentary threads to back up every claim made here, save yourself the time – because the history is there for those who wish to look it up.

But is your ultimate goal a matriarchy, SJF? Doncha know that's what we're all gunning for.

Meanwhile, I wonder MTR thinks of the Blake Prize entrants. I'd like to see her bring her hammer-sharp art crit to the whole "jew on a cross" debate.

SJF, I referenced your own false claims and showed them to be just that. You've never shown my statistics and methods to be either unethically selective or downright false, rather you've made the claim that the methodology behind those stats is flawed and ignored the material showing that claim to be false. You've generally not even bothered to post material in support of your claims on that front let alone engaged in any honest debate about those claims.

You hide behind the idea of not needing to follow anybody elses instructions to avoid acknowledging that you can't back up your claims. I've posted a detailed summary which clearly shows that you have made false claims on this thread. The history was there when I chose to look it up. Where was the "same old avalanche of tedious tanties about wowsers trying to spoil everyone's fun/hold us back/keep us holy" you refered to? Rather you were trying to provoke such as response.

As Pelican points we tend to defend our own gender when it seems under attack, I think you are both trying to provoke those attacks and create the impression that feminism was under attack to create conflict.

Thankfully most of the other feminists here do take a different approach, they discuss the issues, trying to be fair in their dealings with others, defending feminism when it's under unfair attack but not seeking conflict for conflicts sake. Your choice to interpret that as "one must be even-tempered and reasonable in the face of slanderous attacks on feminism" says much more about your own attitudes than it does about feminists who want solutions rather than fruitless conflict.

R0bert

Veronika (RStuart)

‘SJF, what part of the art world have you found "ultra-conservative, ultra-patriarchal"?’

Some thoughts …

Despite its bohemian pretensions, the art world is heavily restricted in terms of what artists can and can’t paint and what galleries can and can’t exhibit and what funding bodies can and can’t grant. For example, my peace group has tried to establish a Peace Art Award, but none of the arts funding agents were willing to give us a grant because we were ‘too lefty’ and ‘too anti-war’.

Also, and unlike most people, I actually view the pornographic use of women’s bodies – artistic or otherwise – as socially conservative, not progressive. It’s been around at least since Roman times, and reached a zenith in the Victorian era. Heavily militaristic/religious/corporate/fascist societies are almost always sexually repressive – not because they don’t like sex, but because they fear its power and must control it. Yet, ironically, the more repressive the social landscape, the more pornography proliferates.

I believe that one of the reasons why pornography has proliferated so much in recent times is because we are living through a repressive dominator backlash against the liberalization of society in the mid- to late 20th century, that was really just another resurgence of the Enlightenment continuum.

I also view the ‘political’ control of women’s sexuality as a symptom of this deeply conservative backlash. The scantily clad woman of Western culture and the heavily veiled woman of Eastern culture are just two sides of the one conservative coin.

As I’ve indicated to RStuart a couple of times, and to his exasperation, I’m neither for nor against pornography or its censorship. I do believe, however, that discussions about pornography should not be viewed as a battle between those who are anti-sex/pro-sex, anti-censorship/pro-censorship and pro-progress/anti-progress. Eroticism is a very complex business.

Don’t know if this adequately addresses your query or whether it runs off on the wrong tangent. However, I felt I just wanted to get some of my ideas down regarding the original essay – instead of having to fruitlessly defend myself against anti-feminist ‘jerkery’