<p>The very fact that this thread exists shows just how much, and how quickly, feminists have accomplished in this country. Tell today’s young woman that there was a time when she wouldn’t be able to get a loan for a house, or would be laughed at if she said she wanted to go into law, medicine or the sciences, and she’ll think you’re talking about the 19th century. It’s inconceivable that, in fact, it was well within her own mother’s lifetime. I clearly remember a high school counselor (who himself was in his 50s) telling a class – “you girls all talk about careers, but the reality is that most of you will be mothers and housewives” – this was at a top high school in enlightened Northern California in 1972!</p>
<p>My great grandmother and my grandmother came from wealthy family. They were the only child. Guess what wealthy families with only child did back then, they spent money and educated the hell out of their kids. So they were both a lot more educated then the equivalent contemporaries, where 99% percent of the population couldn’t read. So I’m confident in my background. I often talked to other female from Korea or even Russia and the likes, they were treated so poorly from their dads and husbands, it was like a very different experience altogether.</p>
<p>Oh, and heck yes, a feminist. Wife of one, mother to two (son included.) On my side of the family, daughter, grand-daughter and great-granddaughter of feminists. On my husband’s side, MIL was far more traditional than me or my family; she worked, but only when she “had to.” She never understood why I wanted to work – and why I was totally uninterested in teaching elementary school, which she thought was the ideal profession for women, if women really “had to” work. </p>
<p>"I don’t know any women my age (or men for that matter) who openly renounce the feminist label. But anyone who did would be quickly out of my life as our views would be quite incompatible.</p>
<p>I know older men like what int describes. In fact, I’m going to be related by marriage to some of them soon"</p>
<p>romani, good luck!! As long as your soon to be husband is fine (and I know he is), who cares about the opinions of the old guys. It isn’t going to matter in your life.</p>
<p>I don’t think there are many women that make a proud stand of openly renouncing the feminist label. But I think people’s backgrounds make a big difference to what they consider. There are many young women who feel they haven’t experienced discrimination, they have felt full equality, so what’s the problem now? They don’t realize how far women have come, in such a short time, because they have never experienced what many other women have. History is a good thing to remember.</p>
<p>I absolutely consider myself a feminist.</p>
<p>Have you read Women against Feminism?</p>
<p>one of the recent tweets.
;)</p>
<p>I expect that both my daughters consider themselves very strong feminists.
They are both fairly politically active as well.</p>
<p>Heck yeah, I’m a feminist.</p>
<p>I remember when I first started working, as a software engineer, though we were called programmers back then, there was another woman at work who was maybe ten years older than I was. She was an engineer too-- more traditional engineering, maybe a mechanical engineer or an electrical engineer. Anyway, she told me that when she first started work, potential employers told her that if she was smart enough to learn engineering, she was smart enough to learn to type and become a secretary. She would have been starting work in the late 60s or early 70s, so those attitudes must have been common then.</p>
<p>You know what, emerald, I used to always give my husband or sons the jars to open. Though I admit, if they couldn’t open them, I had this rubber round gripper that I called the “Man Replacer”. Worked great, but strangely enough…it just disappeared.</p>
<p>Now after rock climbing, I can open the jars better than anyone.</p>
<p>So what I excelled in short hand and typing. I was good that my teacher sent me to compete in a competition.
I was an Electrical Engineering and nobody said anything that stupid to me. My first job people where so nice and respectful except one guy he was just stupid, but not sexist. So you go through life and you ignore stupid people. Less stress.</p>
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<p>Oh certainly not me. I’m just sad that they exist. </p>
<p>I’m just waiting for one of them to say something to the wrong person (ie one of my male family members) about me not changing my last name (because, you know, not only are they stuck in the 1800s, but they’re loudmouths to boot) at our wedding. <em>grabs popcorn</em> </p>
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<p>I’m applying for my PhD in History and Women’s Studies. My peer group is very self-selected and I am fully aware of the fact that I live in a bubble. </p>
<p>The papers that I’ve been grading for the class I GSI for are really quite unbelievable. We just got done with our Women under Socialism unit and I’m bracing for those papers. The ignorance of history was astonishing to me. </p>
<p>Good for you busdriver.
I have trouble with big jars cause my hands are so small & I have arthritis.
But my PT gave me some sticky material to put on things.
Or else I use a butter knife to crack the seal.</p>
<p>My grandma & aunt always told me I should learn to type. But that was the last thing I wanted to be, so I never really learned. When I worked in an office we had a typing pool and I would dictate the letters over the phone.
That was so long ago, the computer had its own room!</p>
<p>" So you go through life and you ignore stupid people. Less stress."</p>
<p>Yes, it helps! Some people you can ignore, though some you end up needing to deal with. That reminds me of this one idiot captain that I flew with, as a brand new flight engineer at American Airlines. Don’t fly there anymore, I got furloughed. But every time a woman came on the radio, whether it was a mechanic, an air traffic controller, a pilot (and there were a lot of ladies at work that day), he would turn to me and say, “Well, another empty kitchen”. For about twenty times, I’d just smile and ignore the comment, and go about my work. Finally I couldn’t stand it anymore, and I just started laughing, and said, “You have to come up with something else, that same comment is just getting old!” That was the last time he said that to me, I think I should have said it earlier. I didn’t report him for anything, I dealt with it. But weirdly enough, years later, some captain (I think it was him), called me to apologize. Perhaps clearing his conscience. And I told him honestly, whomever he was, I didn’t remember him, and whatever it was, it was fine, there was no need to apologize. Some of the old guys still just don’t know how to deal with women. And we’re just like everybody else.</p>
<p>The young women who claim they aren’t feminists have never held a serious job</p>
<p>I have always worked in a very male dominated business environment. I am not sure if I am a feminists. I enjoy being a woman. I like to get dressed up, with make up and jewelry to work, and I know some men have been nicer to me because of how I looked. I have no problem in asking men to carry heavy things for me. I like it when men open the door for me or wait for me to get on the elevator before they do. But if you were to ask some of my colleagues, they would say no one would take me lightly when it comes to work because I am a woman. I think we can celebrate the fact we are women, it is good we are different than men, and being a woman doesn’t make us inferior at work (assuming it is the kind of work we can do).</p>
<p>Being feminine doesn’t have anything to do with being a feminist.imo.
I don’t think appreciating manners does either.
It’s just practical for the person who is more physically capable to handle heavy packages/doors, etc.
I think it is only fair to reciprocate however, when the opportunity presents itself.</p>
<p>My dad raised me to be a feminist. I have three sisters and no brothers. I heard over and over from my dad while growing up that I was to be able to take care of myself and not have to depend on a man for anything. He said it was fine to fall in love and to live with a man, but I shouldn’t have to live with a man for financial (or other reasons) if I didn’t want to. </p>
<p>My mom was raised by a father who didn’t necessarily believe that a woman should go to college. She married my dad when she was 18 and he was 22, a new college graduate. Dad made her go to college. He paid for it. She got her AA degree before starting to have kids, then finished her BA when my youngest sister was in 3rd or 4th grade. She earned her master’s the same year I earned my BA and an older sister earned her JD. My dad considered it an insurance policy, a way for his family to be provided for if something happened to him and why wasn’t a woman as capable as a man (or even more so). I think my dad learned it from his dad.</p>
<p>So, I come from a male dominated line of feminists…</p>
<p>Old school feminism made my SAHM feel awful – she was constantly berated for being “oppressed” when she was by choice the glue that held our family, and our neighborhood, together. Contemporary feminism seems to be much more geared toward the concept that all women deserve to choose lives based on what they want, not what society expects. It also goes beyond the workplace and is challenging society’s assumptions about gender roles. That seems like good progress. </p>
<p>But go over to the thread about the catcalling video, and be reminded that plenty of people still are in 1940, where come ons and harassment are just guys being guys and/or women being hypersensitive. Or watch the Disney pr machine gin up for another movie where the gender roles are entrenched in old tropes. (oh, for a movie where the guy is not a geek or a jock. the girl is not an amazon or a self-blamer or paired up at movie’s end,) Still progress to be made…</p>
<p>As a mid-40s engineer, I can’t say I was a trailblazer in my field. There were many that came before me. But I had two instances in college that I will never forget- one professor that told me it was okay if I didn’t succeed in engineering because I was a woman and could be a teacher instead. I wasn’t failing his class, mind you, it was really just an off-the-wall comment. I think it was cultural for him. He was an adjunct from a middle eastern country.</p>
<p>Another professor tried to give me a B instead of the A I’d earned. He was convinced that I’d had help from the guys with the CAD portion of the class. Um, no, I actually helped them with it. I told him in no uncertain terms that if he didn’t give me the grade I’d earned then I’d march down to the Dean’s office and have lodge a formal complaint. The prof was retiring that term, and was a good thing for him to do. He didn’t tolerate women in his class. (I did get the A, btw.)</p>
<p>I’m a few decades out of college, and although my particular branch of engineering is still (old, white) male dominated, I’m treated as an equal not as an oddity. It’s pretty cool to live/work through that change in attitudes.</p>
<p>And yes, I’m a feminist. So is dh and so are my 2 boys. </p>
<p>I am 16 and I am diehard anti-feminist. Now don’t say I am just taking the opinions of my parents, because my family is all liberal and atheistic, while I am conservative and catholic. Very interesting post to read!</p>
<p>Can someone explain to me how gender neutral bathrooms advance my position as a feminist? Or perhaps someone can guide me to the thread that discussed this. I somehow missed that. Thanks.</p>