Married Female Feminists

[Anonymous]

It's a messy label, for sure, and it has blurry edges. At a minimum, a feminist is someone who believes that girls and women are equal in dignity and worth to boys and men. How this plays out in reality is quite different. For me, I have a tough time dealing with "feminists" who don't recognize the bodily autonomy of girls and women and are willing to have a male-controlled state enforce laws that could lead to disability, illness, or death (yes, anti-choice "feminists" this is you). I also have a hard time believing that a woman can be a feminist if she does not pursue economic independence of some sort, assuming she is physically and psychologically capable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I consider myself a feminist but not a burn your bra type. I don’t consider my husband to be a feminist but he’s always lets me be me and is very supportive and helpful. He’s also been very supportive of our daughters’ career goals.

This is the same boat we are in. To be fair, I don't really know what would make him a feminist vs not. Neither of us are the "vocal about our causes" people nor will we ever go to a protest or parade. But DH is an equal partner at home. He supports me and encourages me. He supports both our kids and when DD expressed an interest in robots and engineering things, DH was ecstatic because he's a programmer and they found an age appropriate kid/parent robot building program.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you are a happily married feminist, and your spouse is a man, what is your husband like? Are there traits or green flags that men can exhibit that would suggest that they would romantically pair well with a feminist?

Weirdly, my Arab Muslim husband was the one man I have dated who was fine with me just being me. That's really all I ask.

Ok, but I have to ask

- does he have the right view of other women?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you are a happily married feminist, and your spouse is a man, what is your husband like? Are there traits or green flags that men can exhibit that would suggest that they would romantically pair well with a feminist?

Weirdly, my Arab Muslim husband was the one man I have dated who was fine with me just being me. That's really all I ask.

But would he be okay with your being a feminist

[Anonymous]

My husband would never call himself a feminist nor would I date any man who did. He lets me be me and is not controlling. We both work and split household and childcare equally. It works for us.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I consider myself a feminist but not a burn your bra type. I don’t consider my husband to be a feminist but he’s always lets me be me and is very supportive and helpful. He’s also been very supportive of our daughters’ career goals.

<sigh> Bra burning is a misogynistic myth. I don't mean this in a snarky way but it's sad that so many people, especially allies, perptuate a falsehood that ridicules and demeans the fight for gender equality. It perpetuates the prioritization of men as history makers.

It's also another example of how diminishing the incredible accomplishments of women fighting for gender equality and the radical change it has on society. It is thanks to this Second Wave of Feminists that we have access to contraception, get our own credit cards, don't have to change our names when we get married, prevents institutions that receive federal funding from excluding students from participating in educational and athletic programs on the basis of sex. And, importantly, it resulted in the criminalization of marital rape and the recognition of gay marriage.

The origin of the misogynist myth is the protest of the 1969 Miss America pageant in Atlantic City. "Bras were just one of the items protestors were encouraged to bring that day that signified how the male-dominated culture was keeping women locked into rigid ideas of beauty, but they weren’t burned. Starting a fire on the boardwalk was illegal, so protestors opted to [toss] Playboy magazines and other items in a Freedom Trash Can. Still, the bra-burning image remained—a symbol that was easy to belittle as women focusing on something trivial. Misinformation and myths sometimes serve as placeholders in our memory when facts are not remembered." [From Feminisim Has a Bra-Burning Myth Problem https://time.com/2853184/feminism-has-a-bra-burning-myth-problem/]

Other items that were tossed into the Freedom Trash Can were girdles, curlers, false eyelashes, wigs, and issues of women's magazines

The image of brassieres going into a trash can was captured in a memorable photograph, along with some print references to bra-burning, which melded into not-so-accurate memories now so seemingly vivid in recall. Contemporaneous reporting indicates that some bras did burn at least briefly when a trash receptacle was set alight, but that trash can contained numerous other items as well -- there was no reported separate or distinct action of feminists' pointedly setting bras alone ablaze as a defiant symbol of liberation. [From Snopes: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/feminist-bra-burning/]

There are many, many articles confirming this - just Google it. A quote from a female report on the scene was parsed by a male editor to sensationalize and trivialize that protest and the overall movement. Snopes has a condensed, easy to read report about it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My husband would never call himself a feminist nor would I date any man who did. He lets me be me and is not controlling. We both work and split household and childcare equally. It works for us.

What the problem with being a 'feminist'?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you are a happily married feminist, and your spouse is a man, what is your husband like? Are there traits or green flags that men can exhibit that would suggest that they would romantically pair well with a feminist?

Weirdly, my Arab Muslim husband was the one man I have dated who was fine with me just being me. That's really all I ask.

Ok, but I have to ask

- does he have the right view of other women?

DP. I would ask that of all the women who claim their DH's aren't feminists but let them be themselves and are supportive (or variations on those themes).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My husband would never call himself a feminist nor would I date any man who did. He lets me be me and is not controlling. We both work and split household and childcare equally. It works for us.

What the problem with being a 'feminist'?

Not PP but we had this discussion at work the other day. Social media seems to have warped what some people think of as feminism. My younger coworkers almost see it was the extreme example...the man hating etc type extreme you see on SM. And several were like... Oh yeah I wouldn't identify as a feminist. When asked about their opinons and thoughts, it became clear they are feminists. Just the word seems to have taken on a different meaning.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My husband would never call himself a feminist nor would I date any man who did. He lets me be me and is not controlling. We both work and split household and childcare equally. It works for us.

What the problem with being a 'feminist'?

Misogyny- women want to distance themselves from the strident “femi-nazi” who might be fat, hairy and have political opinions. They prefer a less direct, soft and pretty approach, straddling the feminist fence, doing none of the work and having it both ways.

[Anonymous]

My DH is supportive of me, my career choices, let me earn the money when my career accelerated, was an equal partner in the house and a great dad to our DC. He’s a former D1 athlete, you’d never guess looking at him. My former LGBTQ but really emotionally unhealthy, trauma-ridden with daddy issues roommate actually hated him bc to her he represented the patriarchy. People’s biases and paradigms can be so wrong.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My husband would never call himself a feminist nor would I date any man who did. He lets me be me and is not controlling. We both work and split household and childcare equally. It works for us.

What the problem with being a 'feminist'?

Misogyny- women want to distance themselves from the strident “femi-nazi” who might be fat, hairy and have political opinions. They prefer a less direct, soft and pretty approach, straddling the feminist fence, doing none of the work and having it both ways.

There are plenty of ways to be a feminist in between these two extremes.

[Anonymous]

I got told by my 23 year old coworker that I wasn't a feminist because I... 1. Took DH's last name and 2. Decided to stay at home for 2 years after DS was born.

I told her that I made those decisions because that's what I wanted to do she told me I made them because of deep rooted misogyny. At this point, I realized there was no point in discussing this with her. If feminism has warped into something like her views, we have problems.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My husband would never call himself a feminist nor would I date any man who did. He lets me be me and is not controlling. We both work and split household and childcare equally. It works for us.

If you have any sense of history, you would call yourself a feminist. Did you attend college? Do you vote? Do you own property in your own name? Do you use birth control? I hope you realize that if you have done any of these things, then you are the product of the hard work of feminists. Don't be an ignorant hypocrite.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My husband would never call himself a feminist nor would I date any man who did. He lets me be me and is not controlling. We both work and split household and childcare equally. It works for us.

What the problem with being a 'feminist'?

Misogyny- women want to distance themselves from the strident “femi-nazi” who might be fat, hairy and have political opinions. They prefer a less direct, soft and pretty approach, straddling the feminist fence, doing none of the work and having it both ways.

There are plenty of ways to be a feminist in between these two extremes.

Most women are selective feminists and it sets back the sisterhood.