Do you consider yourself a feminist? (A question for both women and men.)

[louisev]

the joke is the boloney that is being posted here. Are you at all aware, that almost 30% of "single parent" households are headed by men who receive only a fraction of what single mothers get in terms of aid? In fact, most single dad homes get no assistance whatsoever.

the aid is overwhelmingly skewed to women. Anyone denying that fact is like a holocaust denier; simply blind and abusively so.

Dead wrong here, Kaiser.

There was a dramatic increase in single-parent families in the United States in the last three decades of the twentieth century; only 13 percent of families were headed by a single parent in 1970. Over one-fourth of children in the United States lived with a single parent in 1996, double the proportion in 1970. Approximately 84 percent of these families are headed by women. Of all single-parent families, the most common are those headed by divorced or separated mothers (58%) followed by never-married mothers (24%).  Other family heads include widows (7%), divorced and separated fathers (8.4%), never-married fathers (1.5%), and widowers (0.9%). There is racial variation in the proportion of families headed by a single parent: 22 percent for white, 57 percent for black, and 33 percent for Hispanic families.

http://family.jrank.org/pages/1574/Single-Parent-Families-Demographic-Trends.html

58 plus 24 plus 7 = 89% of single parent families headed by women.  Overwhelming majority.  And I would really like to see your evidence that somehow single fathers are discriminated against in the public aid sector?  Are you sure they are simply not eligible for aid because they work full time and make more money than single mothers with children?  Or is it that they aren't custodial parents?  Single parent heads of households have to actually be custodial parents to qualify for family aid under the new "slimmer" welfare benefits of the modern era.

Reality, not denial, and certainly not "Holocaust denial."  IF you want to argue facts, then produce facts.

[louisev]

And both of these articles are from 2001 - wow that's so much more up to date!

And that one states pretty clearly:

Single-father households still constitute only a small percentage of the overall picture. Married couples with children made up 24 percent of all households -- compared to 39 percent in 1970. Single-mother households represented 7 percent in 2000, up from 5 percent over 30 years ago.

Looked at another way, single-father homes made up 3 percent of the country's 71 million family households in 2000. Family households are those in which one or more people are related to the householder.

It still shows that single-mother led households are 7% vs. 3% of single-father led households.
  And even 24% is a significant minority of single parent families.  There is no 30%.


Your more controversial point about father's getting a "fraction of the aid" is not addressed in either article.  Where do you get this information?

[louisev]

The point health care benefits is totally wrong; the poster mistakenly refers to health care benefits rather than insurance; very different items. health care benefits are available for those in need. anyone unaware of this is simply out of touch. Of the many who do not have health insurance, most are males and many opt out of the insurance game becaue they choose to spend their cash elsewhere.

er, no.  Health care benefits are not available to anyone in need in the USA.  Health care is available ONLY on an emergency basis to indigent (i.e. penniless) persons ONLY at public hospitals, in the case of critical need.  Not at doctor's offices.  Not at dentist's offices, and not at private hospitals.  So the BEST that could be said is that for the poor, and the uninsured without funds, only limited emergency care is available.  To say that a person without health insurance and without money can walk into a doctor's office and receive care in the USA - is out of touch.

[brokeplex]

Wow, I went and googled, copied and was ready to paste the above paragraph as a rebuttal to your post, before I noticed that my rebuttal was actually already contained in your post!

Um ... 10 out of 500 CEOs? 20 out of 1000?

That's two percent, BTW.

And brokeplex, I'm already anticipating your response, about women choosing not to become CEOs or somesuch. Don't bother.


But I'd rather this thread not devolve into a debate on whether or not women already have achieved full equal rights. That seems like a good topic, though perhaps deserving of a whole thread of its own. I'd rather discuss whether people consider themselves feminists or, if they reject that label, why. Especially if they believe that women SHOULD have equal rights.

For example, brokeplex has not said anything to indicate he doesn't think women should have equal rights. And yet he does not consider himself a feminist. To me, that's contradictory. If you believe the first, you're automatically the second, IMO.

I responded to this challenge:

"Regarding women CEOs...I challenge you to name even 10 female CEOs in the Fortune 500!"

Of course women should and do have equal rights, except where they have more rights than men, such as in abortion decisions.

[serious crayons]

I responded to this challenge:

"Regarding women CEOs...I challenge you to name even 10 female CEOs in the Fortune 500!"

LOL, they should have said 11.

[brokeplex]

I assume this is not a serious post.

but, just in case....it's somewhat hard not to be sarcastic. "what about the everyday world of poor women"? What about the everyday world of poor men? How about the everyday world of poor people? The overt sexism of this post is exemplory of the nature of feminism--focus only on women and the rest of the humankind are irrelevant.

Poor men, just so you know, have been and continue to be in a worse position than poor women. There are no social welfare programs specifically targeted to aid men; it nearly all goes to women and children. That is largely why the "homeless" that are visible on the street are overwhelmingly men; women and children are the ones who are attended to for shelter, food and housing first. And there is little left for the men.

As for "cheap entertainment via sex" for the enjoyment of men being poor women's only lot in life, once again, such a riduculous comment it can hardly even be classified as a comment; it's only a jibe. Even when poor women end up with kids and no husband to support her (I wonder who's to blame on that score?), they receive health care and food and shelter while the poor man or men in her life scour the garbage cans.

So, the claim that women are not fairly represented in the work force at every level is wrong and the claim that poor women remain disadvantaged because of their gender versus poor men is wrong as well. All women's ships rose with the feminist tide.

I agree, and I hope that I am not putting word in your mouth, but here goes.

IMO Feminism has devolved into Sexism on a greedy quest for power grabbing.

Feminism in the days of my great grandmother and aunts, who were a Suffragettes, was about equal rights under the law, but in 2008 it is just a reflection of yet another identity group demanding a guaranteed piece of the pie. And this fits into the whole framework of identity politics pioneered by late 20th century feminists.

[brokeplex]

What a sexist thing to say! Is that the 'with us or against us' position that has appeared fairly promient in the feminist agenda?

If supporting equal rights and not being a feminist is a contradiction, then I would like to know if you support equal rights for men, and if so, are you a masculinist?

so Feminism is just advocacy of equal rights? nope, that is not the way that hand has been played out over the past decades.

unless Feminists are following the dictates of "Animal Farm" equality, such as:

 "all are equal, but some are more equal than others if they can belly ache loudly enough to join the victimhood brigade"

[louisev]

I can't believe I'm doing this but I am finding myself in partial agreement with Brokeplex here on the recasting of "feminism" as "advocacy of equal rights."  I'm afraid this just simply isn't true. IF it were, I would have become a feminist back in the 1970's.

Feminism has a great deal more to it than that, and while I will concede to those who have been on the inside that feminism is not a monolithic "Feminist Party" with a platform, the NOW certainly has a platform, and when I was approached by members of NOW with a picture of Thelma and Louise on a button, I recoiled in horror.  I was baffled into silence as to why a women's rights organization would ever see Thelma and Louise from the eponymous film as some sort of heroines of the feminist movement.  They were KILLERS for Chrissakes.  I walked away from the NOW recruitment table and have stayed away from them ever since.  

While their platform does state "equal rights and participation of women in all walks of life", which I certainly agree with, I have never agreed with the rhetoric, the advocacy of a third party,

[louisev]

Just so you know, the "current" census is 2000, from which my data was taken. your attempt to use 1990 census data and make an incorrect point, was noted as a ploy and subversive tactic. Shame, shame.

The "trend" is likely continuing since 2000, so the 24% of father-only households in 2000 is by many estimates that "almost 30%" of father-only single parent households is a valid statement.

I didn't "attempt to use 1990 census data."  I used the only data I could find in a google search of 'single-parent demographics."  But conceding the fact that single-parent families headed by a male have gone up, you have not yet, after three requests, provided evidence of these male single parents being discriminated against in seeking public aid which is being funneled in some manner to the single mothers. 

[serious crayons]

I can't believe I'm doing this but I am finding myself in partial agreement with Brokeplex here

Wow, there is really something strange going on around here today. 

 I was baffled into silence as to why a women's rights organization would ever see Thelma and Louise from the eponymous film as some sort of heroines of the feminist movement.  They were KILLERS for Chrissakes.

Maybe they felt that women have an equal right to murder, homicide being an area in which women are vastly underrepresented. 

No, seriously I understand your recoiling from identifying with killers. When Thelma and Louise came out (and La Femme Nikita, at about that same time) I wrote a lifestyle feature about this very topic. I think some feminists just got carried away with the novelty of women playing active, even violent figures, for a change. (Little did they realize that the stock movie character would soon prove common, albeit evolving into a scantily-clad fantasy figure for men.)

I don't see feminism and NOW as synonymous at all. I've always been a feminist, never belonged to NOW.

So let me ask -- not just Louise but anyone who considers feminism as something more than a simple belief in equal rights for women -- what else do you consider it to be? Nobody has been very specific about that -- brokeplex's "greedy quest for power grabbing" is about the closest, but isn't very concrete.




 I walked away from the NOW recruitment table and have stayed away from them ever since.  

While their platform does state "equal rights and participation of women in all walks of life", which I certainly agree with, I have never agreed with the rhetoric, the advocacy of a third party,


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