Women equal to men...what about motherhood?

Question

If the goal of 'some' feminists is to be literally equal to men...what does that say about the value they place on motherhood...

As Timothy Leary is quoted to have said, "Women who seek to be equal with men lack ambition."

(Oh and by the way any normal man, normally marries a woman and is obviously concerned to ensure his wife gets fair and equitable treatment in the workplace. So it is not merely a 'women's issue' as some feminists would suggest.

Caesar J. B. Squitti

The Faces of Feminism: The Cult that Deceived the World.
http://www.abeautifuldifference.com/webdoc3.5.html

Answer 1

Equal but different...I like that Timothy Leary quote! You might say that in many ways women are superior. Certainly we are capable of more, we are the only ones who can create life, give birth. We endure more physically & emotionally which means we have to be stronger, yet we used to be referred to as "the weaker sex." Equality with men shouldn't mean that women have to turn into men. To some, this is perhaps what feminism is (but then shouldn't it be called masculinism if they are actually denying their feminity & becoming like men?) making a way in a masculine world, acting like men, dressing like men, not having children, devoting themselves to career at the expense of personal relationships. Certainly there's nothing wrong with this if that's how a woman wants to live her life. But such a woman should not criticize another woman who chose to have a family & who makes her children her top priority, making motherhood her career. A woman should be able to choose how she wants to live her life. If she does the same work as a man then she should of course be treated equally, paid equally etc. But if a woman wants to have children she shouldn't be judged harshly or told that she's anti-feminist.

We are different. Biologically, emotionally, men and women are different. There's no point trying to make us the same. We each have our own strengths & weaknesses & we complement each other perfectly (sometimes!) The bottom line is to respect people equally regardless of their sex, race or any other differences. We don't all have to be the same to be equal.

Personally I choose not to have children. Not because I'm a feminist only because I've just never wanted to be a mother. As an artist, the things that I create are my babies. I wouldn't want the responsibility of caring for another very needy human and raising them. It would mean that I'd have to give up on my dreams & would no longer have time for what I want to do. But other people have a burning desire to have children & they should certainly be allowed to without feeling guilty. The point is that it's our choice. Women didn't used to have a choice. They had to get married & have kids & not go out to work. That is what feminism did: it stood up for our right to choose.

Answer 2

Equal, not the same. That means equal opportunities and the equal salaries, and equal appreciation for work accomplished. By the way, for all those men who think women might not earn equal treatment and salary, this impacts on your choices as well. If women get paid less than the two of you have less to spend. If men do not get paternity leave, than both men and women, and children lose! and by the way, feminists, both men and women, think that the value of mothers is so high that we should appreciate and support that role. and do you think that motherhood somehow means that women become not equal to men? what does that say about your idea of fatherhood? do you become less of a person once you become a father, less competent, less valuable? or does life become more important, does the work you do mean more? and if so, why do you think that this does not happen for women as well?

Answer 3

Equal does not have to mean "the same" or identical. We wish to have equal rights, to be treated with equal respect and be seen as equal under the law, but that doesn't mean that we want to be men or to be the same as men. 3-1=2 but "3-1" is still "3-1" and not "2". But is equal to it. If that makes any sense at all.

Oh, and to the guy above who made the comment about women not always being rational, have you ever seen a guy in the throes of either great anger or sexual arousal making "rational" decisions? Not likely...

Answer 4

You pose your question in a fascinating way. While I don't agree with many of the feminist precepts, their term "equal" does not infer to "sameness." They use it in an effort to refute any hint of "lesser." I, however, agree that their mission has carried them into an unwinnable argument because if taken at face value, "equality" with men will never be achieved. As Mr. Leary stated, "they lack ambition," especially in view of the fact that we are inferior in many ways and superior in many ways...Who cares about some lofty idea of exact "equality?"

Answer 5

___Don't forget, Leary took enough LSD to fricassee his brain.
___The valuable part of feminism was its reliance on the 17th and 18th century principles of equality, and getting them implemented in the 20th century. But the academic work in feminist theory in the 20th century was mostly just a way of twisting the criteria of equality, of defining "human" as "feminine" so that men don't quite qualify, and fudging intellectual method, so that most all the questions we pose about gender conveniently come out "proving" that feminism's ever-more strident standards are somehow justified.
___Look at how many men accept the notion of female superiority. Feminism really seems to make sense, if one doesn't question assumptions. No, I mean really question assumptions. This doesn't mean questioning already-dead medieval assumptions and then acting like one has accomplished some great intellectual feat. Question the assumptions that motivate the conventional beliefs of the academics, writers, and other idea-people of OUR time. Find the consensus among them, and you'll have found the essence of conventional wisdom. (It is not the same as vulgar ignorance, so don't use that evasion.) Dig deep, ferret out the assumptions beneath the consensus, dissect them, and then you can claim to have questioned assumptions in a meaningful way.
___There is one fundamental divide in humanity, and it is sex. Race is a bullsh-t concept of no real importance. Class is mutable. Only sex persists, and can be traced back through far more primitive forms of life. Humanity is incomplete without both halves, and it is absurd to claim that either one could be of greater value than the other in any moral sense. When intellectual convention produces evidence to the contrary, then it's time to revise intellectual convention.
___Feminists devised a critique of the "phallocentric" thinking of the dead white men of antiquity. It was a good critique, but ASTOUNDINGLY it never occurred to a feminist to apply the same critique to itself, to our current age, to test them for "uterocentric" thinking. This is just plain sloppy intellectual technique, that is, if one is to give feminism the benefit of the doubt, and not chalk it up to intellectual dishonesty.
___Its about the hardest thing in the world for conventional wisdom to see through its conventionality. And this is even harder when that convention is imbued with the idea of criticism, and the delusion of its own radicalism.

Answer 6

feminists believe in equality for all. to say that women want to be equal to men does not mean they want to be the same as men. it does not mean they do not value their ability to carry children...it means they want to be treated equally! they do not want to make 50 cents on the dollar that their male counterparts make. they do not want to be passed up for jobs or promotions bc they MIGHT have children and are therefore not reliable. women know their worth. they want everyone else to know it too. thats all. feminism is about equality. its about equal treatment. its about not being seen as less than.

Answer 7

Men and women are not equals in their specific nature. Women are placentaria, men not.
Women =O
Men = I = _
And its relevant of every single life, because their nature is the opposite. It has been Dame Nature who created sexual reproduction as perpetuation pattern.

Answer 8

What does pregnancy have to do with anything relevant to work, school, or social life?

Women can't play professional football either, but so what?

Answer 9

women are far superior to men...the only thing they lack sometimes is rational reasoning