After my post below I thought I'd expand and examine some of my thoughts over the next few days. I'm really enjoying the debate in the comments, do join in if you haven't already.
Some of my thoughts will be drawn from a highly accessible book by Elaine Storkey called "What's Right with Feminism?"
I'm not sure I can sum this up more concisely than she, so in her words what is the feminist case?
Modern Western society, argue the feminists, unlike its preindustrial counterpart, is a society in which women are dependent, manipulated, vulnerable, passive and exploited and men are dominant. Society is designed by men for men, and women are seen as functioning to uphold and support the male domination. Thus womens work, whether at home, in the factory, in the office or hospital echoes daily her total dependence upon and subordination to the man.
I think it's difficult to argue against that premise. Namely it's difficult to argue that society isn't male dominated, that it is equal or indeed that it is female dominated.
Mark H makes the point in the comments to the blog below about how some of my statistics were very Western in the implied definition of success. I think he's right. Therefore in the context of the nature of the feminist case the fact that there are fewer female leaders, fewer women in positions of influence, in the media means that in our society it continues to be predominantly designed by men for men.
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1 comment:
Thanks for continuing the discussion with the excellent quote. I just wanted to make it clear that I agreed with many of the points in the orginal discussion. But in our Western society I think there has been enormous change and I think there needs to be recognition that men are struggling in ways that women simply do not once we leave aside the boardroom/bishops/politics (and of course these are enormously important).
But look at how women succeed further in education, are more healthly, are more active in social and community groups and are much much less likely to end up in prison than men? Most women can always have a recognised role in soceity as a parent/mother. Men need the co-operation of women to become parents and if women change their minds the men have little if any rights to continue actively in the parenting role.
The shift in western world from jobs being 'industrial and physical' to 'customer focus, white collar and service industry has actually meant women are now more employable than men in the job market. The key skills in many, many roles are things such as 'interpersonal skills, negiotation skills, support skills, organisational skills, communication skills'. All skills that women tend to score more highly at than men.
Compare sucide rates of men and women in the UK.
The boardroom/bishops/politics is only maybe a decade or maybe two away (Denmark and Sweden already have fairness here).
The question is what future do men have?
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