Why the Netmums ‘Death of Feminism’ Study is Utter Bollocks

Woman-power symbol (clenched fist in Venus sign). עברית: כוח נשים (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Yesterday Twitter alerted me to the death of feminism. Several newspapers were running a story based on ‘research’ which seemed to show depressing news for feminists. The truth of course, was somewhat different. 

 The reports were based on a survey carried out by parenting website Netmums, (not to be confused with Mumsnet). Netmums had surveyed 1300 members who were then widely reported in the media as being representative of all British women. A quick look showed some strange results, I had to comment on their discussion page:

“I find the results quite strange with the focus on the negative. It seems that an anti-feminist message was almost sought.

So, “almost a third (28 per cent) think traditional radical Feminism is ‘too aggressive’” Doesn’t that mean two thirds don’t think that??

“17% claim feminism has gone too far, oppressing men and ‘losing sight of the natural roles of men and women’” What do the other 83%think?

And only “1 out of 5 describe Feminism as old fashioned and simply not relevant”, brilliant, that means 4 out of 5 think otherwise.

My experience tells me that feminism is on the rise, more and more women are sick to death of misogyny in society. As for the ‘man-hating’, it’s just an anti-feminist myth. Feminism is about a progressive society for women AND men, girls AND boys.”

 On a Mumsnet discussion later on ‘Honeydragon’ commented;

“I did the survey, it was carefully crafted to make feminists look like a bunch of out dated dungaree wearing bastards ….It mainly focused around wearing make up, and going to get your hair done…. choice of feminist role models included :- Coleen Rooney, Katie Price, Muthamma and Michelle Obama …It really was a pile of wank and I told them so.”

A closer look reveals that the results were drawn from questions such as; ‘If You Don’t Call Yourself a Feminist Why is This?’ and ‘Do You think there are any Downsides to the Successes of Feminism?’ There were so many faults with the construction of the survey that reading anything into the answers would be a waste of time.

Of course, the right wing media jumped on it with glee. The Daily Mail took the chance to show their favourite photo of a woman’s stilettoed foot on a man’s head, along with an unflattering picture of Germaine Greer. The Express reported that feminism was over, and the Sun and The Telegraph also salivated all over it. TV programmes Loose Women and The ‘always ready to attack feminism’ Wright Stuff also ran features on it.

The Netmums survey has been called trolling by some who took part in it and it would seem to have been a particularly pernicious PR stunt. I don’t know why Netmums chose to denigrate feminists, but a certain saying comes to mind – ‘Nobody Kicks a Dead Dog’. The anti-feminists who have fawned all over this survey and rushed to pronounce feminism dead have only proved the opposite as several excellent bloggers have made clear today. Feminism is in rude health.

Related articles:

http://saltandcaramel.com/feminism-i-s-ove/

http://attemptingtheordinary.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/a-rant-about-that-survey-oh-you-know-one.html

http://www.rarelywearslipstick.com/2012/10/feminism-friday-reinforcing-stereotypes/

http://news.bitchbuzz.com/the-rise-of-the-femenist-and-why-it-must-stop.html

http://youarefeminist.wordpress.com/2012/10/18/18/

http://wrcwomensnews.tumblr.com/post/33891042359/netmums-should-take-responsibility-for-their-role-in