General Chat

I forgot to add my interpretation of feminism. To me, it's just women wanting to be on a level footing with men in all aspects of society. By that I do NOT mean an equal number of men to women in every job or position, but that ALL those, men and women alike, are there on their own merit, and not because they are one gender or another.
At the same time, for me it is also about recognising and respecting the differences between the genders. The two are not the same, so men and women in some respects will never be truly equal, but when it comes to the workplace and society in general we should all be regarded as equals. If a woman is perfectly able to do as good a job as her male colleague, she should be employed to do so, but not at the expense of her male colleague or purely because she is a woman.

Chris, that doesn't take idle men like myself into account - I'd much rather achieve something by thinking about it :)

Cynthia, I have always reckoned that men use brawn to solve a problem whereas we girls (not having such strength) use brain!

I've never really had much interest in feminism to be honest, but I do like to be considered 'feminine'.


In general terms such as respect, employment, finance etc., I am all for gender equality.


However, I am also aware that men and women ARE different from each other and, because of that, may not always be able to be treated equally either due to physical capabilities or other circumstances.


Cx

Forgot to say men can be feminists too.

I'm with Uggers on this one. I watched it last week and though I was initially shocked at what she seemed to be suggesting she re-phrased it slightly to try to make it clearer. To me she seemed to know she'd got it a bit wrong and was open to misinterpretation. However she didn't make the point entirely clear and many people would have taken it the wrong way.

That said I'd sooner listen to Germaine Greer as a feminist than Janet Street Porter who seems to forget that women still need to get there on their own merit and not simply because they are a woman.

Muffy, i haven't seen the Germaine Greer interview but it sounds, from what you said, that what she was talking about is more to do with Freud.

A good book to read, although I admit to only having read parts of it so far myself, is Feminist Thought by Rosemarie Putnam Tong.

I dont see--kiss daddy goodnight--as encouraging a young person regardless of age to be flirty or engaging to develope into anything more than a parent/child relationship.


(there are of course exceptions when a parent will encourage contact for unnatural reasons these are mostly one sided and advances are not made by the child.)!!

I agree with Chrissie - Greer's a smart woman, I just think she brought up a complex subject in a flippant manner at the wrong forum

Thanks Kay x

Suem if you can get on demand or call back watch it,,,,,,or you can still see it on BBC iplayer ,,its about 7 mins into the programe.....and hear it as it happend ,,,,I think youre conclusion will be the view of many.........

Well if GG's comments and body posing are accurately reported on this thread I have damaged all my children (including my son) as I always said 'kiss Daddy goodnight' or if OH was putting them to bed he would say 'kiss Mummy goodnight'. Straight forward, no coyness, certainly never entered my head that it could be construed in any way other than saying goodnight to someone you love.

I truly believe things are over analysed :-(

I was well into it in the seventies and at one point was the only woman training with 250 men.

To me it means being able to hold your own with men and not behave as if you are two different species rather than two genders.

As a fossil of that bygone age I will have nothing to do,if I can help it,with anything not aimed at both sexes.I am nterested in a lot of the things thw WI do but will not become involved with them because they are the Women's institute.Would not go on a hen night or go to a women only gym.

No doubt my ideas are very silly but they are pretty ingrained now and I doubt they will change.

I couldn't have started with what I thought GG was "going to say" because i don't watch the programme and didn't know she was on it or what it was about lol.

But she said what she said. If "off the top of her head"...as you suggest, then she wants to learn to engage brain on exactly how something will 'sound'. She is after all a professional 'speaker'.

"She gave 'kiss daddy goodnight' - those words, as if she were quoting someone, wtith a coy lift of the shoulder, as girls and women do when they are being pretend-reluctant ( no means yes ) as an off the top of the head example of the things people say that encourage little girls to be coy and flirtatious and sexualised."

"Pretend-reluctant...no means yes..."???? Now THAT is a minefield!

But I still think she was 'wrong headed' to use kissing daddy goodnight in any context given the subject, she was asking for trouble...which is of course what she seeks. I think it's fair to say most self-labelled 'Anarchist Marxists' do ? lol

Kissing daddy goodnight was really not what Greer was talking about or saying, really is was not, really.

She gave 'kiss daddy goodnight' - those words, as if she were quoting someone, wtith a coy lift of the shoulder, as girls and women do when they are being pretend-reluctant ( no means yes ) as an off the top of the head example of the things people say that encourage little girls to be coy and flirtatious and sexualised.

I just don' t see how anyone can see that she was talking about 'kissing daddy goodnight' when what she said wasn't even that, what she said was an example of the kinds of things that can be said _in_a_certain_way_ _to_little_girls_ to encourage them to act in a certain way when they interact with other people.

I always think that people often start with an idea of what they think someone is going to say or what they want them to say and then that is what they hear maybe .




when I posted on this website before it was always in trying to find and such, and of course doing my tree, I came back and decided to look around the boards since everything seemed new and saw an ancestor post on this board right away and then I saw this thread which interests me ( Barbie pink girly girl that I was ! ) but I think I will go back to ancestor posts. :-)


...................... added later .......................

yes I see it must be back to the fact based world of finding ancestors for me , I think nobody risks being misunderstood there ........

I think what Ms Greer has forgotten is that you don't change people ( and therefore society ) by talking AT them, you change them by talking TO them.

As part of what she said yes, and that is fair enough.

But that isn't anything new...it's been going on since lol Adam and Eve...it's down to who your child's main role models are, if that's you as a mother and you are straightforward, not manipulative, don't use coyness and flirting to get your own way then she will see that as being the 'way to go'...

but kissing your dad goodnight doesn't figure in the equation, nor does kissing your mum come to that.

It is always interesting to know other people's experiences, I didn' t have Barbie dolls, they were too expensive, I had imitations and I liked them better. :-) And pink is still my best colour !

I think Greer is talking about using flirting and manipulation and being 'coy' to get what you want and that is what girls are taught instead of being taught to be direct and straightforward.

Surely ( and I am listening to the whole programme now as I missed it ) as was said by one of the other panellists, the first line of defence as it were is the PARENTS

behind ( almost) every young boy who becomes a young man with sexist attitudes , and every young girl who dresses as an 'adult', flirts, etc..is a mother ( or other female 'carer') . If Ms Greer is right in her approach, why is it that so many women fail to follow her lead?


btw I didn't have either a Barbie doll or a father I kissed goodnight...but flirt? yes I learnt that without any problem lol.

I suppose I am just hearing and seeing what is there as part of the whole thing she was saying

but I suppose I have said all I can say about that,

I did not agree with much of what Greer ( PhD ) said in her 'middle phase' shall we say

but I cannot disagree with what she is saying about teaching little girls to be manipulative and flirtatious and that is what she was really talking about as watching and listening to the video really shows.


I have fixed this message to add spaces because I know I like to talk in run on sentences :-)