Innies. Heh.

I was counseled to give up on my dream to be a veterinarian because women were rarely admitted to schools of veterinary medicine. I remember being told that schools didn't want to put a lot of time into educating women in a profession when those women would just quit as soon as they got married and had children.

Sadly, you're right--so many people take our current ability to enter any career field for granted. "Feminism" has gone way beyond "womens' issues" in recent years, being puppets for the Left, but that doesn't negate the good that's been done at all. I hate the word "feminazi" for that reason, and of course, Godwin's Law. ;-) But I also consider myself a feminist, in that I think all of our options should be respected. Better yet, it shouldn't even be an issue any more at all whether we are stay-home moms or childless, single career women, or working moms, or whatever.

I am tired of left-wing feminists shrieking about "the patriarchy" and their "oppressed" lives, while either totally ignoring FGM, stoning, honor killings, etc., or trying to equate that with western "oppression" of women. The only time I've ever felt gender inequality in my 39 years is when I joined the Air Force and found out I couldn't be a fighter pilot or do any job I wanted (yeah, I was clueless). I've also seen women get hired for their looks, but I don't think that's ever going to go away. That pisses me off too, but I sure didn't feel like I was suffering, much less like an Afghani or Saudi woman! I was just sorta a little pissed.

Nowadays the whole "feminist" crowd should really be renamed; they're only about abortion and pure politics. They don't appear to care about real problems; rather, they spend their time vilifying women who aren't just like them.

I'm really glad you posted this, because I can't stand seeing people on our side trashing "feminism" and throwing around the "feminazi" line. I don't think they mean anything malicious, I just think they're really uninformed. I guess I'm right there in the middle ground with you!

Okay, I wasn't even a twinkle in my fathers eye in '71. I didn't come around until after the withdrawl of US forces from Vietnam.

So here's my deal, little that it's worth:
1) I grew up in a different paradigm. I don't get the age old rancor. It's pretty rare in my age frame. I'm not trying to make less of what was and what people went thru, but are we actually dealing with that paradigm?
2) I grew up being bombarded with the idea that 'treating us like guys' and college enrollment proportionate to societal make up was fair. We've got that in preponderance in my age frame---and they still aren't happy.
3) I grew up with angry harpies(Gloria Alred being an example, whatever real equality she fought for being ancient battles). Women who have no compunction about heaping abuse on little boys because they feel it's fair for thousands of years of abuse. That ain't kosher. That ain't equitable.
4) I've grown up seeing things like the Ophelia Complex put forth by 'feminists' who never apparently realized that male children(and men) have to go thru the same sublimation of self as girls/women. (Red Badge of Courage, Susan Faludi's 'Stiffed', there's lots of examples of men suffering the same thing. Heck, JOhn, in your wrasslin' career was there ever a time you told yourself not to cry because you didn't want your parents/sibs to see you being 'weak'? Men do the same things, ladies.). They can't admitt that anyone else suffers.
5) It shouldn't be about who's the bigger victim, who has the more valid claim to being shafted. But that's largely how we think about it---and that means we'll ride a pendulum on the issue instead of getting to a nice steady state of fairness.
6) ry's an idiot. ;)

I suppose I am in between SHE WHO... and ry, in age. The past was a struggle, but at the current time I watched 1/3rd of the men's sports at my university disappear in the maw of Title IX, I work at a company that is well over 50% women (in my team the boss is a woman, all my team-mates except one are women) the pastor of my church is a woman, the CJA and SOO of my brigade are women, etc. It was a fight back in the day, but the fight is over. You can always point to individual creeps and discriminators, but they are the exception, and not really tolerated. That is how it stand shere in the good old USA, at least.
That being said, it isn't over in most of the world - the fight needs to go on in the Islamic world, Asia, and Africa too. You are right that the UN should get off it's hiney and try to help women there.

Wow.. I wasn't even born until 1972. Beth, you are OLD!!!

*runs for the hills to escape*

I'm bigger and stronger than a lot of folks and I'm (reasoanbly) polite so I'll generally offer to help carry heavy things and open/hold doors. The door thing is for pretty much anyone, the help is for those where it looks like it's easier for me than for them. That often means that I offer help carrying things to women and not men. Tough.

I also tend to complement women on their dress more than men. That's because most of the men I work with dress somewhat like I do and that ain't gonna get you complimented (doing good not to get arrested for vagrancy). Did used to have a guy that wore the nicest suits every so often. He was in pretty good shape too. Hopefully the ladies he encountered socially appreciated the effort he put into his appearance as much as we appreciate their efforts.

Oh, and on the Wednesday holiday thing - shouldn't that mean we get the whole week off?

(doing good not to get arrested for vagrancy)

Having met KCSteve, I can vouch for the authenticity of that statement...

As for those of you who say it is over, the battle's won, etc... I disagree.

I've watched SWWBO's career in the IT field.

There is ageism. The young punks have real problems with their parent knowing more, much less as much, about IT than they do.

There is sexism. When you make it their mother, it gets worse. The two are related in many way - I think the younger women may not suffer from that particular bit as much..

But - there is still sexism. SWWBO gets torqued at a co-worker, she gets counseled for not being able to control her emotions. Co-worker fires off on SWWBO, she gets counseled for provoking the attack. And I've been around the block enought times to SWWBO isn't the problem in these scenes.

I've also seen it at work elsewhere.

Just because you don't notice it doesn't mean it's not still happening.

That said, it's better, and much better in the military now than it was when I was a young LT.

But it's still there, and will be to some level, I think, until it literally ages out of the system.

My grandmother was the daughter of slaveowners. Her views on blacks were very different from mine. The difference is overall context. Which is why Ry, and Maj John, and SWWBO see different things.

The same thing is true about gays in the military. I still see some issues, revolving around the issue of privacy - that young soldiers don't see, and may well not have anywhere near the prevalence in their generation that I percieve in mine.

Which means the issue will probably age itself out of being an issue.

But until it does - it's still an issue for those people on the rough side of it - even if you don't see it yourself.

Wow.. I wasn't even born until 1972. Beth, you are OLD!!!

*runs for the hills to escape*

I taught SWWBO how to shoot, Jon. You can run, but you'll only die tired, boy. She'll keep shooting after she drops you just to watch your limbs twitch.

She's *much* tougher than I am.

John,

You're right that it will probably have to 'age out', but that brings up the point that we really can't stop pushing on it for a while longer.

I remember back in 1980 when I got a job at a desalinization test plant. I was the only male in the IT section, and the most junior employee. The guys working the physical plant were amazed that I had no trouble 'working for a woman'. Personally, I didn't want her job and thought she did it well so I was amazed at their attitudes. Wasn't an age difference thing so much as a cultural difference. Right now our culture looks at requiring women to wear burkus and says "WTF?" We'll be able to stop worrying about it when the average person's response to being told that a guy should feel something's wrong when he works for a woman with the same sort of "WFT?". Well, we probably won't - we'll probably be dead by then. :)

Oh, and as for Jon, do you and SWWBO have any working Mosin-Nagants in the armory? Might not be as good for the 1/2 mile head shots as my PSL but COM should be pretty easy. Remember Jon: "Serpentine!"

Steve - what flavor of Colonel Mosin's bangstick do you prefer?

"You're right that it will probably have to 'age out', but that brings up the point that we really can't stop pushing on it for a while longer." Have to disagree here with the esteemed gentlemen and Lady from Missouri and Kansas(KC makes it hard, there's parts of KC on both sides of the border).

You keep pushing on it like that(like we still live in the Victorian age) and you'll lose people my age and younger. Keep pushing it and you'll create new victims who will resent it and act like turds. Guys my age and younger are saying 'WTF' to jerks who go nutty about working under a woman. YOu keep pushing like you're talking and they're going to, rightly, feel like abuse is being heaped on them for no good reason---with one hell of a backlash for women.
BUt what do I know, right? I'm just a young 'un, and we all know that young 'uns don't know nuthin.

Punks, the lot of ya!

Wow.. I wasn't even born until 1972. Beth, you are OLD!!!

*runs for the hills to escape*

I taught SWWBO how to shoot, Jon. You can run, but you'll only die tired, boy. She'll keep shooting after she drops you just to watch your limbs twitch.

She's *much* tougher than I am.

I couldn't agree with you more John.

Coming back to the feminist issue, I think that the hard left feminists have ruined the term for the women that agree with them in principle on some issues, like myself, but are not interested in burning their bras (I like mine with all the wire support I can get), or growing hairy armpits, or having doors slammed in their faces, or being shoved past in the pouring rain as another taxi is snatched away from under their noses and the driver splashes their newly acquired Manolos (Blahnik shoes) in the process. I am not interested in that kind of equality, it's just an excuse for encouraging bad manners.

I don't wish to be equal, and I certainly celebrate the difference, and the gentlemanly behavior that I grew up with. But what is important to me is that women maintain equal opportunities in their careers and are not discriminated against, human rights issues are observed, and that they are not treated as second class sub-human creatures, physically and mentally abused and in most cases treated as sex slaves, as they are in Muslim countries.

Until we deal with these issues, we are absolutely nowhere, but back in the middle ages!

"Punks, the lot of ya!"
Just for that we Zombies are moving The pArty from The Chief's to Che Donovan.
(Ooooh, I wonder what's in the fridge. And hey, dogs to play fetch with. We like playing fetch with dogs. And I bet Beth made sure that there's more channels of cable than Bill's got. Just don't wonder what we did with the duct tape.).

BUt I'm serious in that you have to work both sides of the problem(in a generational way). Otherwise we wind up in Susan Faludi-ville(read her book Backlash. I don't think what she claims has happened yet, but it can.).