[ 23 September 2003: Message edited by: Youngfox. ]

[ 23 September 2003: Message edited by: Youngfox. ]

[ 23 September 2003: Message edited by: Youngfox. ]

[ 23 September 2003: Message edited by: Youngfox. ]

However the vast majority of progressives in Québec, be they in the trade union movement, the feminist movement or other, younger, social movements identify themselves first and foremost with Québec. Your comments display an appalling lack of sensitivity to your neighbours in Québec and understanding of our outlook.

[ 04 July 2003: Message edited by: Doug ]

It is very strange because here is a man, trying to understand feminism, but the idea that nice Canada might also be an oppressor nation (as is Québec, and the rest of Canada, with respect to aboriginal nations) inspires nothing but defensive hatred.

Without the determination of strong compassionate intelligent women we wouldnt even have the bloody vote, the right to own property, get divorced, have access to birth control, equal pay, benefits, or the right to support ourselves - we would still be "non-persons"

The only options availabe to women would be prostitute or wife if it wasnt for the women who had the courage and the intelligence to say women are worth more than that.

I am always disgusted with people who have NO knowledge of history and yet go off spouting their stupid opinions and thoughts - a SINGLE mother saying feminisim isnt about her? If it wasnt for feminists she would have had her children taken away from her and would have been shunned and vilified by society and would now be walking the streets having "proven" she was a loose immoral woman -

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It is very strange because here is a man, trying to understand feminism, but the idea that nice Canada might also be an oppressor nation (as is Québec, and the rest of Canada, with respect to aboriginal nations) inspires nothing but defensive hatred.

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Not that I want to contribute to the thread drift here, but I think your perspective is just as problematic as that of Youngfox.

I generally agree with lagatta on this, although I think the term oppressor is outdated and raises people's hackles unnecessarily.

The class angle you bring, LTJ is an important one (English-Montreal Capital basically running Quebec before the quiet revolution). Thankfully that is no longer the case.

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Then you won't be as likely to picture someone having a hissy because the local newspaper spells women "women" and not "wimmin"

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Feminism isnt about burning bras, opening your own doors - I WISH those were the only issues. The mockery of the media, and the rabid bible thumpers has often masked the real issues and frightened younger women into denouncing feminism lest they be identified as lunatic fanatics and non-feminine.

To be fair, with the waning of the feminist movement, and the left in general, feminism did get caught up in a lot of silly identity politics like "wimmin" or goddess and crone stuff - a lot of left-wing movements went off onto weird tangents as often happens in times of reaction. Or conversely, the horrid capitalist recuperation of feminism in the form of "power women".

There has been a certain lull in the World March process and in the "otherglobalisation" movement, sometimes women's issues have not got the attention they deserve - though a lot of the young people fighting sweatshop labour are in fact taking up the question of the most exploited of working women.

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Maybe we could begin again, with a term like "humanist"... someone who believes in the equality of all humans.

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"Humanist" means something else.

Discrediting the feminist movement is one of the government ways of losing support for women's issues, just like the lies about the poor and disabled are. People start to believe the spins and withdraw their support. People believe that if the government claims it's doing something, it actually is. The truth of the matter is that things are slipping back as far as equality is concerned. The few laws that have been passed are not mandatory and it's next to impossible to fight discriminatory practices. New laws in the offing will set women's issues back even further. Violence against women has increased. Poverty is on the rise and women-led single parent families are on the very lowest end of the scale. Very few women hold or even have chances at high-paying jobs and are still the delegated caregivers by society's standards and reduction in home support services are making it worse. Yet many people are of the impression that women are treated equally so feminism is no longer necessary.

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The backlash to equal rights for women has created this popular misconception of who and what feminists are.

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Then they did it with the eager partcipation of the feminists who really, actually, in real life, are like that. Haven't you read anything written by them? Don't you know or have met a few?

When magazines like Ms., which many hold to be the voice of feminism, give column space to cranks like Catherine MacKinnon and Andrea Dworkin, why wouldn't people assume that that's what feminism is?