The fight for equality

[Pearly]

Gemma thinks women are risking their right to equality by acting badly and joining the ladette culture, what do you think?

The fight for equality

[TheKingOfGlasgow]

Honestly? I don't think much of it....

The ladette culture is as much a threat to the 'women's lib movement' as drag queens are. I.e. no threat at all.

[go_away]

It echoes a little of what the book Female Chavanist Pigs outsets.

We have come such a long way from getting the dinner on the table at exactly 5 o'clock and being treated as second class citizens.

Sounds like an either/or. Gemma writes in details about women finally being able to cast of the shackles and become wonderful doctors, lawyers etc, but little has been written about the woman who chooses to stay at home. The paragraph above makes the role sound a little demeaning, in my opinion. I thought feminism was about having the option to persue things that men can e.g. in the world of work, that doesn't mean to say that women who don't are setting us back.

You might think women from all over the world would be frantically emailing each other, panicking over the sanctity of the female image and screaming: "Look, we've worked 80 bloody years to be able to wear trousers, own our own houses, be doctors and lawyers, be able to go into a bar by ourselves and make the lazy toe-rags cook their own dinners. Stop screwing it up!"

That's a trap a lot of Western feminists fall into. They assume that their wants are universal. They aren't. That wasn't the point she was making, but I thought I'd mention it

I do see the point that Gemma is trying to make. Binge drinking and the anti-social issues associated with excessive alcohol consumption are problems. However, you have to take the rough with the smooth. Given that we have the disposable income, and choices to be able to go out for some drinks at night, some people will act in an irresponsible manner, and drink until they stumble home or threaten someone in an aggressive manner etc. But I think other examples could have been used rather than the obvious 'ladette', for example, the Paris Hiltons of the world, or people like Jade Goody (although times are changing for her atm).

[Pearly]

But I think other examples could have been used rather than the obvious 'ladette', for example, the Paris Hiltons of the world, or people like Jade Goody (although times are changing for her atm).

She did actually include some of these examples in her original rant, but it was very similar to the rant on idiolising idiots, so I chose to leave it out. Thanks for your thoughts though, very interesting topic defo...

[Ballerina]

Isn't she just contradicting herself? Saying we need to act a certain way to uphold our repuations?

[ShyBoy]

As I see it, feminism is about men and women being treated equally and fairly, both being able to achieve the same goals regardless of gender (in a nutshell). But it's up to every individual what they achieve, and as many men might be binge drinking and being sick all over the place rather than being the 'ultra hard assed boss' (why is that so desirable anyway?) as women.

Really, we should see it as a good thing that women don't feel ashamed to go out and drink a man under the table, that they've embraced they can do everything men do - from being the CEO of a MNC to drinking contests which result in much drunkness and more often than not meaningless sex aftewards.

But yea, my 2p.

[Yerascrote]

Originally Posted by go_away

Sounds like an either/or. Gemma writes in details about women finally being able to cast of the shackles and become wonderful doctors, lawyers etc, but little has been written about the woman who chooses to stay at home. The paragraph above makes the role sound a little demeaning, in my opinion.

Good point, my mum likes being a housewife.

Total gender equality is impossible imo. There's too many physiological/psychological differences and attitutudes towards gender that full equality will never be achievable.

[sophia]

.

[Yerascrote]

Originally Posted by sophia

Equal doesn't mean the same, and once you get your head round that, it's not so hard to think that men and women can be equal, yet different.

I know that, equality covers many fields. They're already equal in most fields but aren't in others. Women pay less in car insurance because males cause most accidents, this could be a result of masculine traits such as higher levels of testosterone and general attitudes towards speeding. Men earn higher in sport because on the whole, more people prefer to watch males at sport (football, tennis, golf, snooker, darts etc etc) and that means more sponsors i.e.more money for males.

[Skive]

Men go out, get pissed, have casual sex and have fun without feeling ashamed. Surely equality would mean that girls could go out, behave the same way without feeling ashamed and without others referring to them as 'shamful' and 'slovenly'.
At the moment girls that behave the same as many men on a night out still often get referred to as 'slags', whilst the men get a slap on the back from their mate.

Equality surtely means that women should have the same choices as men, and that includes the choice to get plastered wihtout having to feel ashamed.

[ShyBoy]

Originally Posted by Skive

Men go out, get pissed, have casual sex and have fun without feeling ashamed. Surely equality would mean that girls could go out, behave the same way without feeling ashamed and without others referring to them as 'shamful' and 'slovenly'.
At the moment girls that behave the same as many men on a night out still often get referred to as 'slags', whilst the men get a slap on the back from their mate.

Equality surtely means that women should have the same choices as men, and that includes the choice to get plastered wihtout having to feel ashamed.

I agree. What's more;

Originally Posted by rant

jumping up and down like a monkey on the swivel chair demanding when lunch is because she's "gagging for a pint and a shag with the boss".

Maybe one of those who think there is a divide between a 'lady' and a 'slag' is the rant-er, or at least those who think women who do go binge drinking are somehow inferior women.

[Flashman's Ghost]

Equal but different. 99% of jobs and lifestyles should be open to all, but to be fair when my Nan was seriously ill and needed a nurse to help bathe her I'd rather that nurse was a woman and I still hold to the view that infantry and armour should remain men only.

That said to go back to the original article women drinking too much and behaving promiscously isn't new...

http://muse.jhu.edu/cgi-bin/access.c...4.2warner.html

In October 1742, William Bird, keeper of a lockup in Westminster, stood accused of causing the death of one of his inmates, Phillis Wells. She had allegedly died as a result of dehydration and severe overcrowding, and her cries, along with those of the other women confined in the roundhouse, had gone unheeded. "Damn the Bitches," Bird is quoted as saying, "They want Gin." In his defense Bird claimed that there was a woman supplying the inmates "with Water through a Tobacco-Pipe," presumably from the outside; he also claimed to have "caught them drinking of Gin."

In accusing the women of causing a commotion in order to obtain gin, Bird was appealing to an association that was already well-established in the minds of his contemporaries. Gin was commonly known as "the Ladies Delight," and took as its symbol "Madam Geneva," otherwise known as "Mother Gin." The latter was, in the words of one contemporary, "held in the highest Esteem by those of her own Sex, even of the first Quality, being admitted into their most private Apartments, ever at hand to administer Relief under the many Disappointments and Afflictions, so unfortunately incident to that tender Part of Creation." "Unfortunate ladies," we read in another source, "have had recourse to Drams for consolation, from time immemorial," while "widows tears" and the "Shreeks of desponding Matrons" are supposed to have greeted the passage of the Gin Act of 1736.

The story of women and gin exists on two planes: for some it was an economic commodity to be sold with other goods, and for others it was a social commodity affording access to the shops and public houses where it was consumed. Gin was, if only for the generation that came of age between 1720 and 1750, central to the lives of working women in London;

[Braineater]

Binge drinking and anti-social behaviour are problems for society as a whole.

If we really want to break down gender barriers we should start looking at things from a gender-neutral viewpoint instead of "men/women are victims of this.....men/women perpetrate that...."

I don't see how "ladettes" are going to dent feminism. Feminism has flaws like any other ideology. Maybe some of the more "conservative" feminists were expecting some sort of utopia but instead they have women acting "like men" and thats what they fear. Maybe we should start talking about how "people" should act instead of breaking it down into men or women.

Until then I just hope women and men can really enjoy themselves a bit more sensibly.

[Namaste]

Originally Posted by Skive

Men go out, get pissed, have casual sex and have fun without feeling ashamed. Surely equality would mean that girls could go out, behave the same way without feeling ashamed and without others referring to them as 'shamful' and 'slovenly'.
At the moment girls that behave the same as many men on a night out still often get referred to as 'slags', whilst the men get a slap on the back from their mate.

Equality surtely means that women should have the same choices as men, and that includes the choice to get plastered wihtout having to feel ashamed.

I think the problem is more to do with social class than gender issues and not all wome want a career (but for the record Gemma, I want to be one of these career women going to work in a suit and working in an office).

There isn't any one way a woman should act, that is the very thing that feminists have been fighting...

[Kermit]

I think the rant is utter bollocks, to be quite honest.

Women through the ages have fought for the same rights and opportunities as men- the right to be a lawyer and, equally, the right to go out and get trollied. Saying that women are "bad" for not becoming doctors and lawyers is just as restricting and just as denigrating as saying that women are "bad" for not staying at home and raising babies. Saying that a "good" or "proper" woman should only do certain activities is no different to what women have been told for hundreds of years.

Gemma is doing the same thing that people have done for hundreds of years- attacking women for not acting in a way that they feel is "desirable". Swapping the kitchen for the boardroom doesn't make it any less restricting and denigrating.