Feminism and Gender Relations

PersonalFailure commented on my previous entry:

And then we have reality.

What is unrealistic about what was in the previous entry?

Feminism boosts sexual satisfaction for both men and women, a new study suggests.

Who said feminism didn't? Let’s take a look as this story from three years ago by Jeanna Bryner to which PF linked.

Feminists (and their men) have more fun Relationship study contradicts negative stereotypes about strong women

I'm definitely in favor of strong women.

Feminism boosts sexual satisfaction for both men and women, a new study suggests.

What is the definition of feminism being used?

Busting stereotypes that peg feminists as man-haters, a new study shows that having a feminist partner is linked with healthier, more romantic heterosexual relationships.

This could be true, depending on the definitions of "feminists", "healthier", and "more romantic". I never said that all feminists were man-haters. But some self-identified feminists do express hatred for men and disdain for masculinity.

[Much more after the jump.]

The study, published online this week in the journal Sex Roles, relied on surveys of both college students and older adults, finding that women with egalitarian attitudes do find mates and men do find them attractive.

I'm for equality.

Psychologists Laurie Rudman and Julie Phelan carried out a laboratory survey of 242 Rutgers undergraduates and conducted an online survey of 289 older adults who had an average age of 26 and typically had been in their current relationship about four years.

That's a small sample, and I wouldn't exactly call Rutgers undergrads a cross-section of the general population. Also, "relationship" is term that can have a wide range, one that includes marriage (and not necessarily monogamous), girlfriend/boyfriend, friend with benefits, and whatever else.

Older adults have more life experience "and thus may be more likely to show an incompatibility between feminism and romantic relationships," Rudman and Phelan write. While younger females likely grew up with the attitude that "women can have it all," the researchers note older women may have come of age in the era following U.S. women's suffrage (1919) or during the women's movement that emerged in the 1960s.

So the people with more life experience are down on whatever is being defined as feminism, and the younger ones are more likely to hold fantasy as reality?

For example, relationship quality was measured with questions such as: How often do you and your partner laugh together? And how often do you and your partner quarrel? For stability measures, participants answered how often they considered terminating the relationship, as well as how often they thought their romantic relationship had a good future.

Did they even ask about monogamy? For example, a man who has "a relationship" with a woman who stays in that relationship even as he has sex with other women has little reason to end that relationship. Likewise, a woman who has sex with others has little reason to turn down a date with a man who doesn't give her grief over it.

College-age women who reported having feminist male partners also reported higher quality relationships that were more stable than couples involving non-feminist male partners.

This is no surprise. College age women think they like it when all he says is "Whatever you want." It is a different matter out in the trenches of life.

College guys who were themselves feminists and had feminist partners reported more equality in their relationships.

But what does that mean? College guys are pretty much happy as long as they are getting some. They're not looking for a wife.

While they aren't sure how feminism works to enhance relationship health, the researchers have some ideas. Feminist men might be more supportive of their female partner's ambitions than are traditionalists.

I am very supportive of my wife's ambitions. Her ambitions, as stated by her, were to 1) have a career until she became a mother; 2) become a wife; 3) become a mother who raises her kids, rather than hiring someone else to do it; 4)buy a house. I was supportive of all four. I played an essential role in the last three.

Men with feminist partners may enjoy the extra breadwinner to share the economic burden of maintaining a household.

How sexist. Maybe men enjoy being stay-at-home fathers? How much money is left over from that second income after taxes (many of which go to support those "independent" women who made brilliant choices that rendered them with children and no husband and dependent on government aid; and to incarcerate people who grew up without their father); commute and wardrobe costs, daycare bills, and therapy bills? I like that my wife isn't stressed out and upset about something that happened at work and too tired or too busy for family dinners and some good lovin'.

It is an interesting study, but doesn't negate what was said in the previous entry. Someone can call themselves a feminist and recognize the differences in the sexes and how they like to be treated.

As for me, I know that I wouldn't be happy with a woman who wanted hired help to raise her children rather than either her or myself, a woman who was unwilling to ever let me make a decision, a woman who would have her own child dismembered because it was inconvenient, or a woman who refused to accept that men and women are different and to revel in that difference. I know my wife wouldn't be happy with a man who would expect her to work away from their kids even though he had a job – thus requiring warehousing the kids, who would always let her make the decisions, who would support the dismembering of his own children or anyone else's, or who thought that women were just like men.