"Feminism's biggest challenge for 2012: justifying its existence"

To whoever dreamed up this title: this sets a dangerous precedent. What the hell would we be left with if things had to justify their existence?

Ontology would pretty much consist in establishing the reality of..erm... me, lager, various recreational drugs and weekends...what else could possibly hope to pass the test?

Oh yeah...and football.

Yonmei: 'In what way wrong? Do you now think men are superior to women and deserve to be served by women? If you value being able to think for yourself as an independent woman, why would that lead you to believe you ought to be dependent and subservient to men?'

I don't. I don't think feminism is the only dogma which allows women to think for themselves and value their independence.

Married women in the past ( overlooking WWI and WWII
) ensured the breadwinner went out to graft whilst she brought up future workers and home-makers.
When the breadwinner's wages stated down under the Heath administration both parties had to seek employment.
The additional income earned was not only taxed but had to be spent on labour-saving domestic units and prepared food. If grandparents were unavailable, child care costs featured as big items in the household budget.
Whilst she pursued her career, ladies such as Mrs T could rely on a millionaire husband to provide the household services - nannies/maids/housekeepers - to keep the family unit running smoothly. Not forgetting the taxpayer when likle Mark got lost in the sand.
Nice work if you can get it.
Without the housewife becoming a worker we wonder how the white goods sector not to mention the entertainment and gadgets industry essential in many double-income households would have fared.
Just you try and force women back into the domestic sphere and then watch the collapse in white goods and furniture sales. Let's not include 'house' sales. Mrs T bequeathed the UK mortgagors less living space than even the deprived Yanks. The USA is a mighty big, yes mighty Big country but the majority live in very cramped living quarters.

Even Cameron realises that two incomes are essential
to get by on.
Feminism was used by the patriarchy as just another dodge to keep people from seeing the essentials. Did the some of female population go for common law marriage and no legal support. Recreational drugs and alcohol - good enough for men so why not. Pro-creational choice - yeah! Work for less pay?
And those little haus fraus and/or career girls - did they come on side. You betcha they didn't.
Affirmative! Smaller or non-existent pensions. It's not men - it's the present system.
Cameron's wife is a high-flying director and George Osborne's is a journalist and party girl. Inherited wealth is all very well - but a regular salary is a bird in hand.

Dollface

"If you value being able to think for yourself as an independent woman, why would that lead you to believe you ought to be dependent and subservient to men?"

When did you last beat your husband?

Your question is ridiculous. Feminism no doubt has many factions and subsets. However, within feminism there are a core number of accepted truisms which have emerged not through any serious replicable studies but simply because a sufficient number of early and prominent feminists repeatedly stated them. In this respect, feminism is a faith. It has core tenets to which its adherents must subscribe.

Now it may well be the case that some of these tenets are true or at least partly true. None the less, feminists are asked to accept them on faith.

On the whole any feminist 'epistemology' has to conform to a framework which holds that all of civil society has been 'designed' to keep men dominant. This is achieved by degrading and debasing women at any and every point; through education, advertising, ingrained cultural stereotypes, the workplace, the family...everything. Now this model can yield SOME reasonably plausible theories which seem to correspond with existing phenomena. However, feminists also examine other societal features, try to see how they fit within the "dominant patriarchy model", and find that they simply fit...but rather than drop the whole scheme, they make them 'fit'. Unfortunately, they make them 'fit' by trying to alter the "status" of these inconvenient features. These alterations are achieved in two main ways: a) dodgy statistics based on unfounded extrapolations b) reliance on some stripe of post-structuralist thinking in which any statement or proposition can be morphed into basically any other through acts of inversion and 'imagination'.

Anybody rejecting this 'system' would probably be doing so through a desire for intellectual honesty, clarity or integrity; this is far more probable than the explanation put forward by Yonmei: ie the 'apostate' is a self-hating doormat.

Feminists have already achieved all of the things they ever really cared about. Massive and rising numbers of abortions, convincing young women that the only legitimate goal in life is making money, and that heterosexual love is a con.

So pardon me if I think the premise for this article is nonsense.

"The battles that remain involve telling people -- often, but not exclusively, men -- that I don't like things they like"

Fine. But you have to accept that in a free society, we men are entitled to tell you to mind your own business about what we say and watch. If you are as you say every bit as capable as men, then we are under no obligation to heed your whims.

Sooner or later feminists will realize that the only beneficiaries of feminism are lesbians, colleges and the government. You've all been tricked. Married women were far better off, happier and lived longer 30 yrs ago. Think about it before you react. How can you ever love a man when you are told they are the enemy. Science has proven that the feminist lifestyle greatly increases breast cancer risk. It is unnatural for woman to wait so long to have children. Who is it that you are working for, the government? Lesbians? Don't you know that men will devote their lives to a women who is pure. It is whoredom that causes men to abuse women.

In the UK alone:-

80,000 women and girls are raped or subjected to serious sexual assault, mostly by men, each year.

An emergency call is made to domestic violence hotlines once per minute. Over 80% of victims are women assaulted by men.

Over a million women are stalked every year.

Over three quarters of women are afraid to go aout alone after dark.

Why are we not more angry?

Maybe we're asking too much of one "ism". Just to name a few broad topics, we are opposed to all forms of violence and threats of violence against women, we seek fundamental rights for women in countries where they aren't enshrined in law, we want equality and freedom from harassment in the workplace with recognition of the difficulties of balancing a family life and career, we want respect and recognition of our abilities and acceptance of our foibles without being judged as silly, weak or inferior just because we're female, and until we get all of those things we think it would be polite for people not to make jokes about the fact we don't have them.

And of course that's just the list I came up with right now. Undoubtedly that didn't represent the next person's view.

Then factor in the usual bias that the most extreme views tend to be overrepresented in media to the detriment of the more moderate.

It's hardly any wonder a lot of women look at 'feminism' (whatever they think it is) and don't feel that it represents them.

"but [sexist jokes] make me uncomfortable"

Explain to me why I should care? Imagine life if we were all unable to do anything that might make one other person or more 'uncomfortable'...Most of what you write makes me uncomfortable.

Feminists all seem blind to the ramifications of this, but keep shouting about how they would like things to be, as though noone else's ideas on the subject mattered.

It all rests, I think, on this credo that women must be 'the victims', and you just need to persuade others of this.

Supposing you're wrong? But I know too well the response that gets...

@ Charlotte Vere

Got away with what? Describing movement? I would absolutely defend describing what Geri Halliwell did in that era as being deliberately sexually provocative (for sound commercial reasons). It was part of what the Spice Girls were selling.

If I had described a female TV presenter "jiggling around" while hosting a show on, say, particle physics, that would be different...

@ QRG

Yes, I fully support your right to disagree with me. I can still try to change your mind, though.