Feminism and Figure Skating

[Dragonlady]

^ I would be interested to hear more specifics on the employment data you refer to, MM. My impression has been that men have been hardest hit by the recession. The latest (I think) US BLS data do show a .5% decline in the male unemployment rate while women's has not changed - but men's is still higher than women's. http://www.bls.gov/news.release/mmls.toc.htm This is not true of Hispanics, though. http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t03.htm

Your (MM's) comment on women's self-determination and the birth rate reminds me of another facet of feminism I dislike - the tendency to regard women's well-being and that of children in oppositional terms. The most famous examples of this are the arguments for abortion that liken pregnancy to kidnapping and the fetus to a powerful intruder who can only be stopped with deadly force.
http://spot.colorado.edu/~heathwoo/P...02/thomson.htm
http://harvardmagazine.com/1997/03/right.fetus.html

You make it sound like feminists hate children and will do anything in our power to avoid giving birth. In fact, feminists have been responsible for much of the child-centred legislation and protections for children which exist under our current laws. Prior to the rise of feminism, children had no legal rights at all and feminists were in the forefront of the movement to imbue children with rights, something that the reactionary right-wing folk have a really difficult time accepting because their parents should have all power over the children.

Feminists have pushed for quality day care for children of working mothers. Maternity and parental leave, and family leave to care for their families. They've fought for better pre-natal and post-natal care for young mothers.

Your whole anti-abortion rhetoric also rings completely false. Although given your link to an extreme right-wing evangelical organization, I shouldn't be surprised. I guess you have no problem with thousands of women all over the world dying in botched abortion attempts because, after all, they were killing their unborn children.

The thing of it is that as a feminist who opposes abortion, I had no worries that anyone was going to force me to have an abortion I didn't want and couldn't afford. If you oppose abortion, don't have one. Simple as that. But I don't try to force my beliefs on others and I've gone to the hospital to support friends who made a different choice than mine because it's not my place to judge whether or not what they did was right and I know they didn't come by their decision to terminate a pregnancy easily. No one does.

So now I'm a neanderthal, Dragonlady? Well - no point in someone as stupid as I am trying to reason with a genius like you.

For someone who resented having words put in their mouth, you're pretty quick to do the same in return. I DID NOT call you a neanderthal. I said:

None of these things are related to feminists ideas or ideals, but that that won't stop neanderthals for blaming feminists for every ill society faces.

[Tonichelle]

Had my mother listened to the feminist doctor (who was touted as "progressive thinking") when she was pregnant with me, I'd not be here. I know, some would probably wish she had - more power to you - but I'm glad she went with the backwoods Korean older than dirt doctor who let a nearly 40 year old brod give birth.

[Mathman]

^ I think the point is that the power to choose was in your mother's hands, not someone else's.

(I, for one, am glad you're here. )

[jcoates]

Another reason why men are recovering faster nationwide is that many fields where women are highly represented are in the public sector (teaching, nursing, social work etc.). With local, state and federal budgets all being cut, those area are seeing the greatest impacts and thus having a greater proportionate impact on women than men.

On a separate note, isn't it interesting to note that some are just as bothered by the idea of mere contraception and it's impact on society as they are by actual abortions? While I support any woman having complete decision making power over her own body, I can understand how some would take issue with the decision to end a pregnancy for various religious or ethical reasons. But it's one thing to take issue with a practice an another thing altogether to seek to ban it outright. Still, what I can not deal with is the persistent position that some take that such opposition should extend to actual prevention of pregnancy even among married couples (a position which even politicians have resurrected recently). There is an undeniable practical benefit that legalized and widely practiced contraception provides. It gives a woman time and consequently choices about what to do with that time. She can choose to not get unintentionally pregnant and thus pursue an abortion, to pick the time when she is ready to parent or to devote more time to the children she already has, to herself and her own health or education, to her partner, to her friends, her church, her community or to nothing at all if she pleases. That was once the domain of far more men than women. Stigma and shame associated with having few or no children has gradually eroded, though not been eliminated. If we are really arguing that women should be relegated to having their choices made for them by circumstance rather than their own volition, then what progress have we made? If we accept what some have argued here that abortion, contraception and freedom of choice for women are wrong or doing permanent damage to society, then will we next be arguing that women should never refuse their husbands as a remedy? Oh wait Dr. Laura already argues that position. There is an inevitable direction to these arguments after all.

BTW artificial means of contraception have been practiced for millennia though not nearly as effectively or openly as modern methods. Perhaps that's the issue some have with feminism and its constituent parts: the openness with which it is all practiced. People have always done these things, but while many or most find the open admission of these facts to be tremendously freeing, a smaller segment are appalled by such openness and wish it would all go away or at least back into the closet where it can be thoroughly ignored (thus allowing all manner of problems to fester and grow in the shadows.)

A personal example about choice rather than contraception. I've already written about the choices my grandmother was robbed of earlier in the thread. Well my mother was just as unlucky in many ways. We come from the DC/Maryland area. Maryland was founded as haven for Catholics. Perhaps only Massachusetts or Louisiana have as deep a Catholic tradition as matter of percentage of population as Maryland. It's everywhere, trust me. Catholic roots and traditions run deep here even for African Americans and are hard to shake off (believe me I'm still trying). In the old days before the Church changed it rules in the mid 60s, it was common practice and in fact almost an expectation for Catholic families to aspire to "give" one of their children to the church as a nun or priest. Religious orders performed great services for the community including educating children, feeding the poor and providing continuity. There was pride in having your son or daughter enter religious life. The only thing was there was often little or no choice involved for the person who actually entered that life. That was the case for my mother. She was expected virtually from birth to become a nun, in part to help fulfill the lost dream of her own mother who actually wanted to have that life. The pressure was all the greater given that she was an only child. If not her then who? How could she say no and disappoint her parents? So she did what her family and community expected and made her novice vows straight out of high school before was even 18. It was not until 5 years later after the Church and the world and her parents' point of view had changed significantly that all sides realized that it was the wrong choice for her (a realization millions of young women around the world also reached). She was too much of a free spirit to fit into such a restricted life and was ready to make choices for herself even if she made mistakes. I would not be here if we still lived in a world where women were restricted to choices made for them by those around them. I'd call that an example of a woman's self-determination having a very positive impact on this person's birth rate.

BTW, Toni I'm glad you're here, but plenty of non-feminist doctors would and have given the same advice to women of your mother's age about childbirth. There are plenty of health related concerns aside from any social ones to take into account, particularly since every woman's individual physiology is unique and can react differently to the conditions of pregnancy. It's not fair to malign all feminists based on one piece of medical advice.

[dwiggin3]

Had my mother listened to the feminist doctor (who was touted as "progressive thinking") when she was pregnant with me, I'd not be here. I know, some would probably wish she had - more power to you - but I'm glad she went with the backwoods Korean older than dirt doctor who let a nearly 40 year old brod give birth.

[Mathman]

I don't think it gets us very far to talk about what-ifs. If Hitler's mom had got an abortion she would have saved the world a lot of trouble. If Mother Teresa's mother had been a celibate nun like her daughter we wouldn't have been blessed by that saintly lady. If one sperm hadn't outraced another I would be a completely different person (or half different anyway).

[skatinginbc]

I think that one of the consequences or the "shadow side" of this continuing fighting for feminism is one of the reasons contributed in the rising of homosexuality.

I think that one of the consequences or the "bright side" of this continuing fighting for feminism is one of the reasons contributed in the rising of visible homosexuals. See? Two sentences saying roughly the same reflect different attitudes. One, in the shadows, the other, bright and sunny.
BTW: "Why do you have to drag every topic into a gay issue?" Gay = Thread moved to Politics = Nobody gives a damn = Silencing opponents. Now that this thread involves both "abortion" and "gay"....Please don't move it, Moderator. I beg your mercy.

I wish women in general be sweeter, softer, more humble...The world would be much warmer and nicer. Look at those mothers who dump their children, or even kill their own fresh blood. It's horrible!!!

I wish men in general be sweeter, softer, more humble...The world would be much warmer and nicer. Look at those husbands who dump their wives and children, or even kill their own fresh blood. It's horrible!!!

Being from Canada (quite a liberal society), some posts on this thread have surprised me.

Canada is so liberal that a white-skinned stranger with a strong foreign accent dared to tell me, a Canadian citizen, face-to-face "Go back to your country".
Canada is so liberal that the local Chinese newspaper is littered with anti-gay sentiments. I wonder if Bluebonnet reads Chinese newspaper.

[Olympia]

This thread is getting more and more interesting. When I get home from work, I'll have more time to post, but I'm enjoying everyone's comments so much.

The discussion about feminism and children is especially important, because it addresses the fallacy that feminists are anti-child. Dragonlady and Jcoates have done a sterling job of elucidating on the subject. Reproductive freedom doesn't mean freedom from having children. Some women prefer to remain childless, while others want intensely to bring up a family. This goes all the way back to the beginning of the women's movement: Susan B. Anthony was unmarried and childless, while Elizabeth Cady Stanton had a devoted husband and many children. I think Stanton actually became the more radical feminist in terms of her ideas, as I recall.

It's interesting to trace the history of the three major reform movements in American history, because many of the same people supported all three. Many of the suffragists began as abolitionists. Women like Elizabeth Stanton then took on the issues of suffrage because for all their zeal and smarts, they weren't considered competent enough to speak publicly about any issue. Stanton, a leading abolitionist, wasn't permitted to take the podium at an international abolitionists' meeting, IIRC in London.

Then a lot of suffragists became temperance advocates because women were often at the mercy of alcoholic husbands. It was all mathematical, really: the husband would take his salary and spend it all at the local saloon on drink. He'd come home with nothing, and the wife would have no money for food for the children. And there was nothing she could do about it, because all household money was considered by law to belong to the man. As for getting a job herself, most women were allowed only a few possibilities, including laundress and the job we call the oldest profession. We laugh at Carry Nation now, but she was a temperance crusader because she saw that drink literally destroyed families.

These were the good old days. No, we don't need to go back.

As for the coarsening of society, we could all go back to being June Cleaver, and we'd still have TV, films, and the internet with their endless stories of fights, exploding vehicles, and whatnot. In fact, most TV shows and movies that show that kind of thing (as well as music such as gangsta rap) are notable not for the presence of women but for their absence. Any women in the scene are purely for decoration or for the pleasure of the men involved. So though Spun and I both lament the degenerating of the social contract, I do not see the advance of feminism as the reason for it. My freedom, and all of yours out there, did not cause the desensitization of the public arena. Our retreat into daintiness will not clean up Dodge City.

[Pepe Nero]

I’ve been struggling with every bit of my will to not enter into an internet debate about feminism. A small part of me regrets ever using the word “feminism” in my original post, as I could have made the point I wanted to make without using that word. (I used it because it was the perspective that motivated the substantive issue I wrote about.) I am going to continue to resist going into that aspect of the debates being had on this thread, but I just wanted to thank some of the contributors who have done so: jcoates, Olympia, dorispulaski, louisa05, and Dragonlady. Your comments have been heartening to read.

let’s talk said that “The whole topic of this thread seems like an innocent trolling to me, or much ado about nothing.” I think this is an unfair comment. My original post was quite germane to the purposes of this forum. While you may not think that the question I raised is an important one, I see threads on this forum every time I visit that I don’t think are very important. Instead of going into the thread to tell the people who’ve participated that they’re talking about something that’s not very important, I simply don’t read it. I might add, this thread only became a discussion about feminism as a result of Spun Silver’s summary dismissal of feminism (#7).

I continue to think the name of the discipline is an interesting, if not important, issue. I would concede that my perspective is Anglophone, and that I know little about how the discipline is named elsewhere, or what the connotations of those names are. But where the sport is called “ladies” or the equivalent elsewhere, I believe that it belittles the competitors and stifles creativity, authenticity, athleticism, and art in the sport.

[callalily]

Canada is so liberal that a white-skinned stranger with a strong foreign accent dared to tell me, a Canadian citizen, face-to-face "Go back to your country".
Canada is so liberal that the local Chinese newspaper is littered with anti-gay sentiments. I wonder if Bluebonnet reads Chinese newspaper.

In Canada abortion is legal, and so is gay marriage. No political parties are suggesting that this be changed. Social conservatism is not an influential force in the political landscape (except possibly in Alberta). A socialist party holds second-party status in the federal legislature. It's rare for a politician to speak of his/her religious beliefs - that's considered to be their private business.

Obviously you'll meet people with a variety of different opinions, and as immigration increases various tensions are being felt, but Canada is to the left of the U.S. on the political spectrum.

[jcoates]

An interesting point about the public language used to describe female athlete. Dick Button struggled mightily to find consistency in the terminology he used to refer to female skaters. He frequently bounced around between calling them ladies, girl, and occasionally women. I often wondered if Peggy or his former wife or daughter chided him behind the scenes to get with the times. He did get better over time. Still, I think most people would agree that Dick was not a sexist, just of another generation.

A former colleague of Button's, Chris Schenkel, who called many skating events for ABC as color commentator in the 60s, 70s and 80s was notorious for making condescending comments about female athletes along with outright hitting on them on air during not just his skating coverage but also for tennis. There was an old made for tv tennis event held in Hilton Head, SC in the 70s. All the major stars played the event. He routinely made comments about the fine figures of the women and how attractive they looked in the tennis dresses. He commented on their hair, on whether playing hard was a strain on them because of their gender. To hear it is rather shocking from today's point of view. Talk about creepy.

So from that perspective, holding on to an archaic term in certain languages or countries, while potentially irritating, is more trivial than actual physical objectification.

[Tonichelle]

^ I think the point is that the power to choose was in your mother's hands, not someone else's.

(I, for one, am glad you're here. )

the thing was she was not given that choice by the progressive people in the field. It was "kill it off so it doesn't kill you" or other such nonsense. That they just flat WOULDN'T treat her or the child. Where is the logic in that?

this happened just four years ago to a friend of mine. The child was going to be underdeveloped when he was born so the doctors didn't want to touch the case because it was a "why bother, it might die and if it does live his life is going to be horrible". They weren't giving a fair and balanced viewpoint it was just a "this grosses me out for whatever reason, so let's just kill it". Nevermind that when animals are put down for quality of life reasons that's somehow wrong? What?!

In my case I'm fairly healthy, won't say normal because we all know that isn't true lol, but had my mother listened to little miss progressive pro woman THIS woman wouldn't be here. All because it was an inconvenience to the doctor.

My friend lost her child - after going to another doctor who was truthful that Asher probably wouldn't make it, but that wasn't his decision any more than it was the other doctors. They couldn'tnot try...

yes my mom and friend chose to go find someone else, but not before being bullied by their first choice of doctor. how many other cases are there that people don't have the "strength" to go somewhere else?

BTW, Toni I'm glad you're here, but plenty of non-feminist doctors would and have given the same advice to women of your mother's age about childbirth. There are plenty of health related concerns aside from any social ones to take into account, particularly since every woman's individual physiology is unique and can react differently to the conditions of pregnancy. It's not fair to malign all feminists based on one piece of medical advice.

Maybe 27 years ago, but even then women were having children well into their 40s... and they certainly are now (not all of them the old fashioned way, but I digress). The thing is, it wasn't a suggestion. It was a "this is the only way we will treat you." Where's the choice in that?! That it somehow helps women, I'm just not seeing it.

[Medusa]

So the admittedly awful behaviour by some doctors is a direct consequence of their liberal progressive minds, that were poisoned by ideas of feminism? And liberals have no respect for life and are always selfishly looking for their own advantage or a way to push their liberal feminist agenda on people, thus forcing women to abandon their children before birth? It couldn't possibly have anything to do with a lack of empathy, a corrupted medical system, individual character flaws and a flawed medical education?

[callalily]

I continue to think the name of the discipline is an interesting, if not important, issue. I would concede that my perspective is Anglophone, and that I know little about how the discipline is named elsewhere, or what the connotations of those names are. But where the sport is called “ladies” or the equivalent elsewhere, I believe that it belittles the competitors and stifles creativity, authenticity, athleticism, and art in the sport.

The names and "labels" that we use are important, I agree. They not only reflect our thought but can also shape it. While the ladies/women example (as a figure skating event title) may not seem the most blatant or significant one ("pro-life" vs. "anti-abortion", "woman driver", "geek" are more obvious examples in the English language), I do see what you are getting at. The "ladies" term is a historical one in the English-speaking figure skating world, but given a choice, I prefer "women" since I perceive it as a more neutral term that doesn't carry "baggage" that might influence the way competitors are viewed - the types of programs they should put out, the types of costumes they should wear. The term that bothers me more in figure skating, though, is "pairs boy". Every time I hear a coach or official refer to a 20-something year old man as a "pairs boy" I cringe.

[Olympia]

I think there's a related word in dance, at least in the musical theater. The chorus members of a musical are called chorus girls and chorus boys. I agree, it doesn't sound right to me, either.

Toni, I can't say anything about the doctors your mother and friend encountered, except to remind you that all feminists don't think the same things or act the same way. I had a feminist doctor in my family. She specialized in helping women with severe heart conditions carry pregnancies to full term.

And I too am glad you're here. We Kurt fans stick together!