Feminism - the male perspective.

Time for another serious post. This time, I want to look at feminism. Now having a female member of the team, I'm sure I will be corrected, re-corrected, and castrated if I say anything good ol' -Spanner deems incorrect, but I want to talk about its relevance, and indeed impact, nowadays.

I've grown up in a family with a laid back father politically, and a mother who would be incredibly politically active; marches, demonstrations and all that shizz, if her job as a civil servant (oh the irony) didn't occupy approximately 110% of her waking hours, with cooking, cleaning (although she does that less now we've got a cleaner who comes every other Thursday) occupying the rest, this encompassing everything from her quasi-socialist political outlook to her take on neo-feminism.

Of course, this means I've been 'subtly' indoctrinated with her ideals from the year dot, and I must say it has largely worked - although I believe that sexism as a playful joke is fine, I believe that there is no reason why women should be in any way seen as inferiors, and as I've probably made clear with previous posts, I've come to have quite left-wing politics, although not quite so extreme as said mother (who nonetheless votes Labour as 'none of the REAL left parties have a hope in hell').

However, there have been some areas where I've disagreed with her, and these are that women should get absolutely equal wages, and that feminism is still particularly relevant in today's world. Now, -Spanner, before you respond with a knee-jerk reaction that would be trademark of Persona 102, (who has yet to grace us with her presence - and trust me, she's a brilliant writer), allow me to explain my reasoning.

The thing is, whilst in essence, women and men should have exactly the same rights, INCLUDING the right to equal pay, there is the simple biological difference in that women are the unfortunate half of the human race to have to harbour babies before young'un chooses to finally face the light of day. The point is, whilst it is no fault of women's, it would be unfair on employers to have to offer exactly equal pay all the time, with no guarantee that female workers aren't going to get pregnant (although things are obviously different for those who can't, or choose not to have babies), and then having to offer all of the maternity rights that come with the package (quite reasonably).

I am aware of the existence of certain paternity rights, for instance the right to paternity leave, but these or drastically lower than those of the mother - quite rightly too - and often, if a man chooses to take paternity leave, it is on his own back. For this one reason, I believe it is reasonable to expect men to earn slightly more than women who may become pregnant. In this situation, couples are at an advantage financially to single mums, so I believe benefits in this respect may have to be increased.

Secondly, the relevance of feminism. I think most people today would agree that feminism is not as relevant now as it was during the female liberation movements of the 60s and 70s, and certainly not as relevant as during the early 20th century struggle for suffrage. However, does it have any relevance at all?

The aforementioned mother's feminist views are certainly stuck in the past - I think she feels that she almost missed her opportunity when feminism was at large, and is now attempting to jump onto the bandwagon when the train has long since left the station. However, she does make one or two interesting points; predominantly in the way that many, many more derogatory terms exist - particularly about sexual behaviour - for females than do for men, and that there still seems to be some sort of glass ceiling in place for females, particularly in politics.

Whilst these are two points which certainly need addressing, I worry that these are the only two real points that still exist, and so latter-day feminism is in danger of making a mountain out of a molehill, making a fuss about nothing. It is certainly not warranted for there to be any high-scale demonstrations about these issues, as still exist (admittedly predominantly in America), some violent, and especially whilst far greater problems still exist in the world - the plight of many poorer nations, and MEDCs' tendencies to exploit this, for instance.

To conclude, I feel that whilst there are still one or two things that could be altered with gender politics nowadays, I believe that they are largely minor, and that some of the 'issues' that people are making a large fuss about are irrelevant and unrequired. I'm sure -Spanner, Persona 102 (if she ever shows up) and any members of my audience who are female will have something to comment on this, and once again, I urge you; please do! Just remember, the rule's in the name: anonymity.

Persona 101