Converted from Rich Text

Isn't it rather an elementary error to assume that a correlation necessarily implies causality? It is surely equally possible that feminism was the RESULT of a male 'flight from commitment'. Or indeed that a simultaneous rise of feminism and breakdown in traditional marriages were both effects of some other cause. The most obvious beneficiaries were the manufacturers of consumer goods who were able effectively to double their markets and employers who no longer needed to pay a 'family wage'. Certainly not most women (or children; or men)!

IMHO (and _pace_ Ray), the UK feminist movement learned a lot from the US
Civil Rights movement. However, the Civil Rights movement was intrinsically
class-based, because colour and class were so intertwined. However, gender
and class are far from intertwined (almost independent one cd say). Thus
many gender issues focus on the interests of upper-class/academic women e.g.
the poor millionairesses who are discriminated against in the City.

For every column-inch on e.g. cleaning-women or working-class women

generally, one sees a media-mile on articulate upper-class women. (The same
goes for men: but we seem to have forgotten how to organise!)

Best Regards
JOHN BIBBY aa42/MatheMagic
1 Straylands Grove, York YO31 1EB (01904-330-334)

All statements are on behalf of aa42.com Limited, a company wholly owned by
John Bibby and Shirley Bibby. See www.aa42.com/mathemagic and
www.mathemagic.org <http://www.mathemagic.org/>

_____

From: email list for Radical Statistics [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
Behalf Of ray thomas
Sent: 12 June 2007 21:41
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Abortion

It is misleading to describe the feminist movement as 'pro-equality' and it
is quite wrong to lump it together with the contemporaneous civil rights

movement in the US,

The femist movement in Britain followed a 'separate but equal' policy. A
separate by equal policy does not lead to equality. The Feminist movement
in Britian seriously damaged relations between men and women. The marriage
rate rate fell dramatically. The remarriage fell. The divorce rate
increased.

Note that the statistics are produced using the eligible population as
denominator so the patterns observed are all independent of each other. In
other words the popularity of marriage has declined, and when people do
marry it is less likely to last than marriages made before the growth of
feminism.

The consequences of these trends could be said to include the fact that
there are more single parent families than ever the before. The Child
Support Agency that pursues the separate but equal goal has never been
successful. There are more people living alone than ever before - a
pattern that has exacerbated Britains housing crisis.

The feminist movement in Britain learned nothing from the civil rights
movement in the US. A key focus for the US civil rights movement in the

1950 and 1960s was the repeal of the of the separate but equal laws that
had enabled states in the South to maintain inequalites for more than sixty
years. In the 1960s the Supreme Court overturned the separate but equal
doctrine by outlawing segregated public education at the state level.

At about the same time the feminist movement in Britain was advocating
policies that encouraged the segregation of men from women !

The crucial characteristic of the 1960s 'revolution' is that it supported
participation in decision making, government, etc. The charter of the
Open University written in about 1967 allowed for an unprecedented degree of
participation and control by its staff. Everyone is a member of the
Senate. I think the OU has maintained a high level of particpation in its
government and that made a substantial contribution to its success.

The 'revolution' of the 1960s certainly supported women having control over
their own bodies. But I don't see any other common ground with the feminist
movement.

No doubt members will find other examples?

Ray Thomas

**************************************

-----Original Message-----
From: email list for Radical Statistics [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
Behalf Of Jay Ginn
Sent: Tuesday, June 12, 2007 8:11 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Abortion

Date of Abortion Law Reform Act was 1967, but I believe it was implemented
first in 1968, hence the change is often referred to as 1968. (similarly
with Thatcher's 1986 pensions legislation that operated from 1988, often
referred to as 1988 change).

Yes women had been taking control of their fertility long before ALRA. As
campaigners kept reminding politicians and Catholic churchmen, they could

not prevent determined women having abortions. But the back street abortions
put women's health at grave risk, often resulting in tragic consequences -
death, disability and infertility, the latter most sad for teenagers unable
to have a family as adults. Mopping up after botched back street abortions
also threatened to overwhelm emergency services as women increasingly voted
with their bodies against forced pregnancy.

As to the 'cause' of the pro-equality legislation in the late 60s and then

the 70s, there was a tide of feeling in the late 60s that the old order had
to give way, not only on feminist issues but on race (civil rights movement
in US), on homosexuality (Wolfenden), on censorship (Penguin's fight over
Lady Chatterley) on Vietnam war, on music (Radio Caroline broke the mould)
and on repressive authority generally (Paris 1968 uprising and radical
slogans, eg 'the last of the politicians/clergy shall be strangled with the
guts of the last bureaucrats' or something to that effect).

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