That Suzanne Moore article about feminism in the Guardian today

[HerBeatitude]

This one here is being debated here

and the comment is that loads of feminist articles in the Guardian are met by a torrent of mysogynist fury from male posters. They are discussing whether there is concerted campaign by anti-feminists to shut feminists up.

So I thought, we should go over to the Guardian and balance up some of those comments...

[yama]

Just read the article. Will try to get to the comments in a while (dd is about to hand the phone to me, she is chatting to my Mum).

[ISNT]

Blimey those comments.

It is pretty safe here really isn't it! I don't think I could carry on if it was like that all the time here.

[lemonmuffin]

Blimey. Suzanne Moore is cross isn't she, I'd bet my house that she's on here somewhere, probably in the feminist section

[yama]

I don't think it's called being 'cross' Lemonmuffin. I think it's called being a realist.

[sethstarkaddersmackerel]

oh, there are lots of angry feminists around now LemonMuffin, not just the ones on Mumsnet. We are just the tiny tip of a very large (and fast-growing) iceberg

[tethersend]

Pssst- lemonmuffin- you're in the feminist section

[tethersend]

Loving the "This is why I vote Tory" comment

Voting Tory and spending so much time reading The Guardian that you have a user ID? How well-rounded.

[David51]

I agree about the comments, however I'm confused about the article. Who are these 'polite and smiley feminists'? What exactly are they doing wrong and what should they be doing instead?

Ms Moore just seems to be lashing out at random targets here.

[ISNT]

I'd love to answer your question but I only know the feminists on here

Of course we are all polite and smiley

[HerBeatitude]

Nearly every feminist is polite and smiley.

We're women. We're trained to be. The social consequences of not being, are pretty big. It can have career consequences as well as employers prefer polite and smiley women than angry or sceptical ones.

When we're anonymous online, we're free to drop the smiley mask.

[ISNT]

I have never noticed that Dittany

[HerBeatitude]

Yes that's also true Dittany.

Hence the plethora of smileys I suppose - used to placate or take the sting out of straight talking quite a bit.

[CabbagefromaBaby]

I think it's a rubbish article, haven't read the comments but can imagine they are even worse.

[ISNT]

I think that hiding anger and being terribly calm and approaching it all from an intellectual sort of a standpoint does mean that something is lost.

Which is the reason we all came to it in the first place ie noticing injustice and inequality and feeling really upset/angry/pissed off about the whole thing.

Reducing it to a dry emotionless debate loses passion. I suspect that is the reason we are told over and over that feeling things isn't good enough reason to be angry. That we have to posit a debating point and then discuss. But this stuff isn't debating points, for us, it's something that affects us and women all over the world. For the people disagreeing with us it's often no more than a debate. Interesting that getting emotional about these things is seen as a bad thing, when getting emotional about things is also something that is stereotypically female. So even in the feminist section we have to discuss things in a way that is an approved male constructed way IYSWIM.

[ISNT]

Maybe we need more threads where we are more upfront about how we feel. There was one teh other day "actually I realise I am pissed off with men" which when you read the thread was a perfectly reasonable thing to say and a good point to discuss, but normally we would all shy away from "admitting" something like that for fear of being labelled bonkers/bitter/man hating which of course is an instant "lose" IYSWIM.

[ISNT]

[ISNT]

Thanks

[bronze]

I do wish she hadn't said about having balls though. Like men have the claim on being gutsy and bold.

[BitOfFun]

I like the one about alienating people who would "emphasise with your position".