Why are you a feminist?
If I've talked politics or religion with people for a while it's likely that I've let them know I'm a feminist. Some have found that fact surprising, and they usually proced to ask me why. Indeed, why am I a feminist? Simple. I believe women ought to have equal rights and equal standing in our society. Then they usually roll their eyes and say what I was thinking, namely 'duh'. And then they ask what they had actually meant to ask in the first place: "Do you honestly think it's still necessary?" To that I can only say: "Do you honestly have to ask?" Meaning two things. One: If I didn't think feminism was still necessary, I probably wouldn't be writing and arguing about women's rights under a feminist banner as much as I do, now would I? Two: Look around you, do you honestly thing we've achieved those two things I mentioned?
I found a wonderful example as to why I'm still fighting this battle in the newspaper of December 17th. It's a free newspaper that everyone gets so it doesn't exactly have the really awesome indepth articles (those I'll hi-jack at my folks'), but it has the news and it doesn't pretend to have more than that, so that's cool. Now, let me just point out: I live in Denmark, we may have a right-wing government, but we are far more progressive when it comes to women's rights than for instance the US, which takes up a lot of the writing space when it cmes to feminist issues. We've had legal abortion for several decades, and while there's time-limit as to how late you can have an abortion, it is free for all and it is an integral part of our universal health care system. Not an exception to it. Since the abortion issue is one of the really big ones when it comes to women's rights one would think that when we have that one more or less settled, what other problems could there be here?
The newspaper on December 17th has this:
Front page headline: Feminine jobs pay considerably less than masculine jobs. Two common jobs are compared, that f a welder and that of a nursing home carer. The educations required for either job are of equal length and yet the difference in pay is: 18 %
A right-wing politician objects that one cannot compare jobs just like that. He says that the nursing home carer's position comes with certain benefits that are worth quite a lot if translated to currency, and he exemplifies with..... wait for it.... better maternity leave! As if that's something really awesomely fashionably modern. It's a traditional feminine occupation, they have *had* to make decent maternity leave deals because 96 % of their employees are women.
He also claims that the nursing home carers have a better work environment. Oh really? Well, their work environment is likely a good bit cleaner than the welder's, but better? I don't know about that. It's different. The welder's environment will depend greatly upon where he works. Welding is used in small facilites where one welder will do many different things, welding is also used in large shipyards where the work can be very monotonous, not to mention the level of noise in different work places can be very diverse. Thus, welding is not a uniform thing that can just be compared. What about the carers? Some of them work in the rivate homes of the elderly, that means where stairs are not built for ease of access, where there are no elevators if you need to take the heavy vaccum cleaner with you to the 2nd floor, where there are no aids for lifting a person who has fallen down, where there is a lot of smoke or other things one might be allergic to or that are simply unhealthy. Additionally, having visited family members in nursing homes I have seen just how physically and verbally abusive the 'inmates' in such nursing homes can be. It may not break the carers' bones nor outright kill them like accidents in a shipyard could a welder, but it can break them mentally and it does in many cases. Not to mention the fact that there is a lot of criticism of how these carers do their jobs, even though the allotted time for each task is often ridiculously brief.
This article takes up pages 4 and 5. The wages up for comparison are these:
Welder: Hourly pay including pension: 183.36 DKK
Carer: Hourly pay including pension: 149.78 DKK
And these are also including those additional fees for potentially damaging work environments etc etc
Now, if we compare them including benefits such as paid vacation, maternity/paternity leave and sick leave it look like this:
Welder: 231.27 DKK
Carer: 193.43 DKK
The difference is even bigger! What exactly was this politicians point about the carer's maternity leave being better? It may well be but apparently either the sick leave or the paid vacation cancels it out. What does that tell us? One: that he's wrong about the value of those benefits and two: that apparently benefits such as vacation and leave is worth less when it's a woman needing it.
Besides, the welde can go home in weekends. He might have the opportunity to work weekends and earn extra, but few industries here work all through the weekend. Very few indeed. But the carers? Well, people don't stop needing care just because you want to spend your weekend with your family. Just like hospitals don't close on weekends, for which I'm sure most people are very grateful. So that was one issue.
Headline on page two of this newspaper: Midwives protest.
A hospital has decided to cut funding for their maternity ward. That means less preparatory counselling, which means more fear before giving birth. It means the counselling for parents of a stillborn, the special offers for those pregnant with twins or more, plus counselling for rape and incest victims who are pregnant will all be closed.
Obviously the midwives who are there to give pre as well as post-natal care are unhappy that they cannot have the funds to do their jobs properly, so they have gathered signatures and protest vocally. The director of the hospital is reported to be impressed with the support for the maternity ward but as he says: "We don't have enough money, so we must prioritize. It's a shame about the pre-natal counselling and I pity those with special needs, but they must look for other options, because we prioritize safety for those giving birth."
Yeah, 'cause they really need his pity. And they may not be giving birth right now, but in a few months they will, so wha kind of bull was that? And if prioritizing those giving birth means not preparing them properly for the ordeal and therefore causing more to choose epidurals and c-sections that might not have been necessary I really don't want to see what it would be like if they were not prioritized. Ack!
On page 6 a journalist gives his opinion on how the new female head of the Church Ministry has been conspicuously silent when it comes to the issue of some male preachers refusing to shake hands with female preachers, and the story about how the bishop needed several months to decide whether that was acceptable or not. If this church was its own institution they could act however they'd like for all I care. But this church is the one whose employes are paid by the state ad supposedly should have room for everyone, and as long as the state pays their salaries it should bloody well be up to the state to tell them not to discriminate, the journalist writes. This male journalist finds it very disconcerting that the female Secretary of the Church Ministry as not yet said a word on the treatment of female ministers.
I find it very disconcerting that a male journalist reacts to tis discrimination before a female politician does. And this particular politician is usually one of the most loud-mouthed ones who really dare to tell it like it is. Perhaps getting the post as Secretary of a ministry has taken the fight out of her.
On page 9 we find the headline: Porn sells t-shirts
There's not any porn on the t-shirts themselves, but the ad for the site selling the t-shirts has a photo taken from a man's view down at his penis and a woman kneeling in front of him, obviouslyjust about to give him a blowjob. The woman's eyes have been covered with an 'anonymity bar' with the text t-shirtlounge.dk, and the ad text says: "New t-shirts have cumed"
The advertiser defends his ad saying: "It's irony" Obviously he has no clue what irony is. Actually, him saying that it is irony is ironic because it's not irony.
For those who deperately need to view the picture: you can go check it out at http://t-shirtlounge.dk
Page 10 headline: Cleaning aid for the lazy stay-at-home-dad
The article is about a small robot that can help with the domestic duties. It's nothing more fancy than a vacuum cleaner that does the work without needing to be handled manually. Just tart it and it'll do its job.
The article as such does not have any feminist issues at first glance but think on this:
1. Who usually does the cleaning? Who usually needs a hand with the housework? It's usually the women, even though they work fulltime like their husbands. But a headline saying: "Cleaning aid for the busy woman" just wouldn't appeal to the right audience because....
2. It's a technological gadget and we all know women don't dig that, so even though women are those most in need of this aide, we'll address the men about it.
All I can say is: What the fuck?
Page 12 headline: Bill Clinton to save his wife's campaign
Isn't it rather impressve that the key person here, namely the one running for the presidency has been reduced to less than a name? Hillary Clinton is Bill's wife, she's not a senator, she's not a politician, she's not a potential presidential candidate. Nope, she's Bill's wife. It's a little thing, but it's oh so telling.
All these items in one single newspaper. And people wonder why we still need feminism? I'd say it's obvious. But I guess you need to actually care before you start bothering with truly reading and understanding the news. Thus in the end the answer to the question in the headline becomes: Because I care. That's why.
I found a wonderful example as to why I'm still fighting this battle in the newspaper of December 17th. It's a free newspaper that everyone gets so it doesn't exactly have the really awesome indepth articles (those I'll hi-jack at my folks'), but it has the news and it doesn't pretend to have more than that, so that's cool. Now, let me just point out: I live in Denmark, we may have a right-wing government, but we are far more progressive when it comes to women's rights than for instance the US, which takes up a lot of the writing space when it cmes to feminist issues. We've had legal abortion for several decades, and while there's time-limit as to how late you can have an abortion, it is free for all and it is an integral part of our universal health care system. Not an exception to it. Since the abortion issue is one of the really big ones when it comes to women's rights one would think that when we have that one more or less settled, what other problems could there be here?
The newspaper on December 17th has this:
Front page headline: Feminine jobs pay considerably less than masculine jobs. Two common jobs are compared, that f a welder and that of a nursing home carer. The educations required for either job are of equal length and yet the difference in pay is: 18 %
A right-wing politician objects that one cannot compare jobs just like that. He says that the nursing home carer's position comes with certain benefits that are worth quite a lot if translated to currency, and he exemplifies with..... wait for it.... better maternity leave! As if that's something really awesomely fashionably modern. It's a traditional feminine occupation, they have *had* to make decent maternity leave deals because 96 % of their employees are women.
He also claims that the nursing home carers have a better work environment. Oh really? Well, their work environment is likely a good bit cleaner than the welder's, but better? I don't know about that. It's different. The welder's environment will depend greatly upon where he works. Welding is used in small facilites where one welder will do many different things, welding is also used in large shipyards where the work can be very monotonous, not to mention the level of noise in different work places can be very diverse. Thus, welding is not a uniform thing that can just be compared. What about the carers? Some of them work in the rivate homes of the elderly, that means where stairs are not built for ease of access, where there are no elevators if you need to take the heavy vaccum cleaner with you to the 2nd floor, where there are no aids for lifting a person who has fallen down, where there is a lot of smoke or other things one might be allergic to or that are simply unhealthy. Additionally, having visited family members in nursing homes I have seen just how physically and verbally abusive the 'inmates' in such nursing homes can be. It may not break the carers' bones nor outright kill them like accidents in a shipyard could a welder, but it can break them mentally and it does in many cases. Not to mention the fact that there is a lot of criticism of how these carers do their jobs, even though the allotted time for each task is often ridiculously brief.
This article takes up pages 4 and 5. The wages up for comparison are these:
Welder: Hourly pay including pension: 183.36 DKK
Carer: Hourly pay including pension: 149.78 DKK
And these are also including those additional fees for potentially damaging work environments etc etc
Now, if we compare them including benefits such as paid vacation, maternity/paternity leave and sick leave it look like this:
Welder: 231.27 DKK
Carer: 193.43 DKK
The difference is even bigger! What exactly was this politicians point about the carer's maternity leave being better? It may well be but apparently either the sick leave or the paid vacation cancels it out. What does that tell us? One: that he's wrong about the value of those benefits and two: that apparently benefits such as vacation and leave is worth less when it's a woman needing it.
Besides, the welde can go home in weekends. He might have the opportunity to work weekends and earn extra, but few industries here work all through the weekend. Very few indeed. But the carers? Well, people don't stop needing care just because you want to spend your weekend with your family. Just like hospitals don't close on weekends, for which I'm sure most people are very grateful. So that was one issue.
Headline on page two of this newspaper: Midwives protest.
A hospital has decided to cut funding for their maternity ward. That means less preparatory counselling, which means more fear before giving birth. It means the counselling for parents of a stillborn, the special offers for those pregnant with twins or more, plus counselling for rape and incest victims who are pregnant will all be closed.
Obviously the midwives who are there to give pre as well as post-natal care are unhappy that they cannot have the funds to do their jobs properly, so they have gathered signatures and protest vocally. The director of the hospital is reported to be impressed with the support for the maternity ward but as he says: "We don't have enough money, so we must prioritize. It's a shame about the pre-natal counselling and I pity those with special needs, but they must look for other options, because we prioritize safety for those giving birth."
Yeah, 'cause they really need his pity. And they may not be giving birth right now, but in a few months they will, so wha kind of bull was that? And if prioritizing those giving birth means not preparing them properly for the ordeal and therefore causing more to choose epidurals and c-sections that might not have been necessary I really don't want to see what it would be like if they were not prioritized. Ack!
On page 6 a journalist gives his opinion on how the new female head of the Church Ministry has been conspicuously silent when it comes to the issue of some male preachers refusing to shake hands with female preachers, and the story about how the bishop needed several months to decide whether that was acceptable or not. If this church was its own institution they could act however they'd like for all I care. But this church is the one whose employes are paid by the state ad supposedly should have room for everyone, and as long as the state pays their salaries it should bloody well be up to the state to tell them not to discriminate, the journalist writes. This male journalist finds it very disconcerting that the female Secretary of the Church Ministry as not yet said a word on the treatment of female ministers.
I find it very disconcerting that a male journalist reacts to tis discrimination before a female politician does. And this particular politician is usually one of the most loud-mouthed ones who really dare to tell it like it is. Perhaps getting the post as Secretary of a ministry has taken the fight out of her.
On page 9 we find the headline: Porn sells t-shirts
There's not any porn on the t-shirts themselves, but the ad for the site selling the t-shirts has a photo taken from a man's view down at his penis and a woman kneeling in front of him, obviouslyjust about to give him a blowjob. The woman's eyes have been covered with an 'anonymity bar' with the text t-shirtlounge.dk, and the ad text says: "New t-shirts have cumed"
The advertiser defends his ad saying: "It's irony" Obviously he has no clue what irony is. Actually, him saying that it is irony is ironic because it's not irony.
For those who deperately need to view the picture: you can go check it out at http://t-shirtlounge.dk
Page 10 headline: Cleaning aid for the lazy stay-at-home-dad
The article is about a small robot that can help with the domestic duties. It's nothing more fancy than a vacuum cleaner that does the work without needing to be handled manually. Just tart it and it'll do its job.
The article as such does not have any feminist issues at first glance but think on this:
1. Who usually does the cleaning? Who usually needs a hand with the housework? It's usually the women, even though they work fulltime like their husbands. But a headline saying: "Cleaning aid for the busy woman" just wouldn't appeal to the right audience because....
2. It's a technological gadget and we all know women don't dig that, so even though women are those most in need of this aide, we'll address the men about it.
All I can say is: What the fuck?
Page 12 headline: Bill Clinton to save his wife's campaign
Isn't it rather impressve that the key person here, namely the one running for the presidency has been reduced to less than a name? Hillary Clinton is Bill's wife, she's not a senator, she's not a politician, she's not a potential presidential candidate. Nope, she's Bill's wife. It's a little thing, but it's oh so telling.
All these items in one single newspaper. And people wonder why we still need feminism? I'd say it's obvious. But I guess you need to actually care before you start bothering with truly reading and understanding the news. Thus in the end the answer to the question in the headline becomes: Because I care. That's why.