I find the division among women themselves on this issue fascinating. Overall I tend to agree more with lily's side of the coin more or less. To comment on a vistana quote though:

"I'm really trying to stop ranting here, but I hatehatehate the attitude that all feminists are radicals and think women deserve more than men."

Not all feminists certainly, but it would be hard to dispute a lot of the vocal ones/ones who seem good at getting attention would just as soon kick me in the balls as they would be my equal. And that's an unfortunate waste of what the true message should be. And although perhaps once they were doing good, at this point, I see many "feminist" women copying what I've seen men do for years - form "Old Boys Clubs" where they pat the other sex on the head and say "yes Dear" then dump all over them the moment they aren't looking, except now it's happening both ways. And that's a shame, because it was stupid when we did it, and it's no less stupid when women do it too.

"Equality" is this really big word people like to throw around about a lot of things. Youx sex, sexual orientation, race, and religion being the "big four" I can think of off the top of my head. I've yet to see much real evidence of the word equality becoming more than a theory with any of them really.

Should women be paid less if they are doing the same work? Absolutely not, and I still hold out hope that I'll see the day when it stops being unequal on that front. As long as a woman is capable of doing the work required, we should all be payed the same. I must say though there are certain jobs I'm still not comfortable with women doing. Firefighting is one example, and I'll tell you why. As a 6 foot 4 210 pound man, if I was ever in a housefire and passed out due to smoke inhilation, I still want *another* 6 foot 4 210 pound man to be the one trying to pull my ass out of that building. It's nothing against women, it's just raw physics. (This is somewhat ironic as my last Domme was in her past a female fire fighter and said she intended to return to that work at some point. We had a couple... interesting discussions on this.)

In terms of the actual topic, which was feminism and submission, any feminist preaching that submission is wrong for women (or whatever wording you want to choose) is either: (1) badly misinformed about what we do, which isn't particularly unlikely in our society even now, or (2) A member of the "down with men" group, who make much too much noise for the size they really are. I agree fully with the idea that feminism, as a whole, was supposed to be about the right to choose. And if a woman chooses to submit, who is anyone to tell them they don't have that right in their life. What many "outsiders" to the lifestyle don't grasp is just how empowering being a submissive can be when it's with the right person.

Many of the strongest, most empowered women that I've ever encountered were submissives. I think there's a message there somewhere.