The “F” word

Recently I have been reading a book called Significant Sisters.

It talks about early feminism, specific women who carved a certain path out of rock and made way for the future. Now, I have stated before, I am very thankful for the head way, for the options that these women have granted me, but I am not an advocate for feminism.  And after reading this book (I am only half way through, I have other women to read about yet) I am of the opinion that what these early women achieved was indeed a greatness, but it became a movement, it became something they never intended.

I think the problem I have with feminism, is certain aspects of how it is manifest in each woman. Now it’s not to say that there is something wrong with these women, not one of us is perfect and we shouldn’t expect these women to have been either. But I see a lot of feminism as being driven by selfishness. A selfishness a lot of these women were completely oblivious to. They also seemed to crave a certain kind of infamy that their path brought to them. OF course without these women though, a lot of things we take for granted would never have eventuated.

I think I am especially grateful to Caroline Norton. She changed the Law regaurding child custody after and during divorce proceedings. In the 1800’s while men could sue their wives for divorce, women could not sue their husbands. Men, were perfectly within their legal rights to take their children away from their wives and give them away should they choose.  Children were property, the property of men. Their welfare was never considered.

Norton is often snorted at by feminists. They don’t count her among their own for several reasons. Firstly, because she didn’t care about the rights of mothers until her own divorce and her husband took her children from her, then used them as bargaining chips against her. (She made a modest income writing, and she was not legally entitled to her earnings, they were legally her husbands.)

So many feminists don’t acknowledge her. Secondly, she didn’t believe in the same cause as the early feminists of her day. She still believed strongly in the sanction of marriage and the protection that marriage was supposed to provide for a woman. Her issue was that women had very little protection when her husband could cut her off from himself, her children and take anything she did manage to earn for herself on top of that.  her cause was justice. NOT equality. She still acknowledged men as protector and provider. She put up with physical abuse from him, because she believed that was what she was supposed to do. (Of course, she also acknowledged that she goaded him into itand whilst I don’t believe men should beat women, I do honestly believe that some women are very good at goading a man into it. Caroline Norton was one of those women, by her own admission)

Caroline Norton changed the legal system. She gave mothers more power, more worth. And made the courts acknowledge the welfare of the children involved in a divorce.  The balance of power in the legal system, was probably tipped the opposite way for a time in the 70’s onwards, but I do believe we now take child custody cases on a case by case basis. Caroline Norton never imagined that what she fought for would tip so far against men. She never meant for that to happen. She wanted justice, not to take the power away from men.

And I think that is the real issue anyway. With all these women who took up the mantel and paved a new way for women everywhere, they weren’t motivated by wanting to bring down an evil and oppressive patriarchy, they were motivated by wanting justice. by wanting choices that would benefit their families and their children.

Ultimately all the early feminists really wanted was a voice and the right to be heard. They didn’t want to take the world or the power away from men, but merely wanted to BE a part of their world. To share it. To be valued, to be  women. 

It’s the contempary feminists I seem to disagree with. The Germaine Greer’s of the world. I have no desire to be the same as my husband. I like being a wife. I like being a mother. And I resent the heck out of anyone who tells me that I should want more. As far as I am concerned, what more is there?  What I hate most about this post feminitsic world is the condescending tone in which other women tell me that they could never make my choices, they’d feel so useless, it would drive them insane with boredom. Or the off hand way other women say that they would love time to potter around the house all day, as if that is all I do. It’s insulting. Because being at home with your children is useless? becasue being a housewife means staying in your pyjamas and watching soaps on tv all day?

No I don’t like feminism. And I am pretty sure many of the early feminists are spinning in their graves. this wasn’t what they had in mind either.