General Chat

disgusting things to say x

Well...shows I was half asleep as I got it the wrong way round lol...she was saying that girls kissing their dad's goodnight encourages them to be coy and manipulative and flirty x

what a load of cods waollop

Well I never reckoned GG to be worth listening to in her heyday. I like being a woman, I have always felt equal, I do not feel inadequate. I never burned my bra - I needed it after breastfeeding.

As for children kissing their parents - how do my gchildren come into this? Both in their 20's gson throws his arms round his gdad, kisses me and our gdau hugs and kisses both of us.

Muffy, I think that youtube clip cuts it a bit short - most of what she says is quite reasonable and it sits easier in the whole context but I think it was the wrong thing to say then and there. I don't know much about child psychology (if that's even the right subject :)) but I expect she was referring to something well researched which she didn't explain so it all came across a bit bizarrely. Apart from that, I agreed with what she was saying about sexualisation of kids

I usually find Germaine well worth listening to but I'd need to see more of this to make up my mind. I don't agree with her in many things these days but I do admire her and the work she did for the women's movement. I heard her speak when I was a student and agreed with most of what she said and wrote then.

I am a feminist and proud to be so. Equality was what we wanted back then and equal rights for men and women, along with equal pay for equal work.

Being a feminist doesn't necessarily mean being unfeminine, it's a broad church - like most political movements.

Gwynne

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b011vl9t/Question_Time_09_06_2011/

I agree it's not very long but it was the only clip I could find.earlier.....but here's the link to the whole programme if you want to see it more in context.x

I watched the discussion about that question earlier which is why I think it was a mistake to bring in a complicated subject so flippantly - she did give the impression there was something wrong with girls kissing their dads and from what else she said, I don't think that's what she meant.

I can't bring myself to read the bit from the Daily Mail :)

She certainly could have expressed herself better.

I'm not sure she meant what the DM thinks she meant but that's typical of the DM.

Gwynne

To be fair to the Daily Mail..I don't know what she meant either...it could be interpreted in so many different ways ! lol.

I like her straight forward way of talking .. but there was very little I agreed with that she said on that particular night ....I usually enjoy watching her on things like QT as I enjoy watching heated debates. I don't necessarily have to agree with what people are saying to have admiration for they way they put things across x

I watched Iplayer and there will be many who took exception to her,,,,,,,
Quote --
*girls are taught to flirt from a child,* by such as **kiss daddy goodnight** that cant have many conatations of meaning to a basic listener can it?

I understand where she is coming from regards ages and dressing styles out there, for especially for under 12syo.

Ohhh dear I have watched this thread with interest and somewhat confusion.. I thought the FM began because women/females wanted to be treated as equals! They wanted the same voice and too heard in the same tone as their fellow males. Fine ,good for them, and I am grateful to the girls I truelly am. My Mother worked as in the civil service in the 1950's she did the same job and carried out the same task the differeance was she paid a lot less than and the building in Manchester where she worked didnt even have a ladies loo, she had to walk to 2 buildings down to all weathers to spend a penny, she had no chance of promotion because she was a wome and when she married she had to resign, married women where a no no, can you imagine that happening now? I dont think so.

So for what feminist have achived for women I am truely grateful, but when the likes of Germaine Greer says *girls are taught to flirt from a child,* by such as **kiss daddy goodnight, she suddenly looses all of my respect. I would love to be able to kiss my dad good night, to show who much I love him. I was never incourage or taught to flirt as a child I credit the fact I was born with that gift to do so, sorry thats when she and women like her stop wanting be seen as an equal and show very strong signs of being anti male :-\

Too bad the people talking about what Dr Greer said didn't hear her say it ... to think she really meant all girls kissing their daddies goodnight ... well that is thinking she spouts nonsense or she is an evil witch which I don' t think she does or any of us has any reason to say she is or we ought to think she does, I would think it better to think about what she might really have meant , maybe that 'daddy's little girl' isn' t the only thing little girls should be taught to be ...

watch what she is doing and how she is saying it here

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-XbhT3YXTk

we should really not pretend that she said something she didn't, she answered 'that depends on whether a child is being taught to flirt with you' she did not say that the man in the audience was teaching his child to flirt with him or that any other man was doing that, if he chose to be 'offended' he did it for his own reasons not because of anything she said, he just wanted to make her look bad the way some people here do.

I am so glad that when I renewed my membership I did it right when the site was broken lol ! but it seems to be working better now

oh and smileyfaces :-)

Hiya Chrissiex

I've read your post through twice and I'm not sure I can make sense of it at the mo...could be that it's too late in the evening for me though!!!.

I'll have a gander at the link you provided in the morning and come back to you then?

x

I've been reading up a little on Ms Greer since the controversy.... I am sure she has her reasons for doing one thing while saying another (!) but i think she's now just another 'celeb' famous for, on her own admission, writing a bad book at the right time, and wheeled out because everyone knows she is going to say something controversial at some point.

Chrissie you must be hearing something totally different to what I am hearing in that clip!

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 :-)

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.

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.

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.

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.