[Jamie89]

Originally Posted by Niamh.

Clearly we have come a very long way although still some parts of the world have not and are a reminder of what life would have been like for a woman years ago.

But it's almost like some peoples attitudes are, well you can vote and drive now so shut up. Women face sexism and are treated like we are less than men every bloody day, alot of men do this, probably without even realising most of the time, going to buy a car and the salesman speaks to your husband rather than you eventhough you're the one buying the car, always being asked to make the coffee over male co-workers, as a teenager being warned against having boyfriends when boys your age are encouraged and lauded for the same thing, the list goes on. It's so ingrained in peoples heads they don't even realise they're doing it most of the time and these examples seem small and stupid but they all add up and over time are so ****ing belittling and infuriating. Maybe you've never done any of those things which is great but that doesn't mean they don't happen everyday.

Great post, and I think the bit in bold is very true of most discussions about equality. But yeah this really is what feminism is about for me, not necessarily needing to make big changes (in terms of laws and things) but reinforcing general values, and I think that's where the thoughts of "women already have rights so if they want more then they want to be more than equal" come in because it misunderstands that continued feminism isn't about more and more rights, like the rights are there because they need to be in order to get to a place of equal treatment, as the foundations of it I suppose, but equal treatment still isn't always happening.
As an example I used to help with the recruitment in a company I worked for and my boss would favour male applicants because she had sexist views about men being better workers (and also having to pay for womens maternity leave etc, it was a relatively small business so she would consider the potential costs of that) and really there is no way of stopping someone like that filtering applications accordingly to their prejudice, marking someone more harshly during an interview, etc etc. (I think this is a good example as well as to it not being a men vs women thing in terms of feminism.) She'd also be harsher in general to the female employees when they made mistakes. And equal rights laws being in place isn't actually going to change someone like that's attitudes.
And I think feminism should include areas where men receive poorer treatment than women as well since it's all part of the same thing which is essentially prejudice based on gender and that can come from both men and women, and be directed towards both men and women. There might be more of it directed towards women from men so there's generally more of a focus on that but that shouldn't be a reason to exclude any other issues that arise from gender inequality, like TS says it should be a cooperative thing.