To dislike it when men post on mumsnet?

Oh, so you do see those words.

I wouldn't assume any longer that a majority of posters are women, for a start.

But internalised misogyny is a thing. It is not OK, but it's an absolute ouroboros of crap when there is so much misogyny that it can no longer be denied, but somehow the only pertinent discussion point still becomes how women are to blame for it.

There are a zillion more words to insult a woman than a man in our language; this is an inevitable result.

Well, as we've learned from this thread, many of the people posting are actually men. So we don't know how many posters using these insults are women. Ime when misogynist insults are used, someone usually challenges it, so I don't think its fair to imply its an accepted norm on MN. It also seems a bit odd to be suggesting there's some conflict between a thing being 'bad' and some people on MN doing the thing as though they are mutually exclusive. People on here say bad things all the time. Doesn't make them less bad, does it?

I've just been reading a thread where many posters have been referring to the female subjects as bitches, cows and witches (from memory, though they probably used even more of the examples up thread).

If these words are so bad (they really are, and I wince whenever I see them ) why do many women on this board use them so liberally to describe other women?

See, @saraclara, this is the response people who try to undermine the reality of misogyny in our language usually give. They claim it doesn't matter (it does), or it isn't up to date (it is), or sometimes that women deserve it, but they never pretend it has somehow escaped them, because that's even more ridiculous than this post.

@NonPlayerCharacter

In fairness 'strumpet' and 'floozie' were criminally underused by Jane Austin.

"A ladys imagination is very rapid; it jumps from admiration to love to matrimony in a moment. They can be quite the floozie" - Darcy

@NonPlayerCharacter ,

‘I love your pretence that it's not completely self evident to any English speaker and you aren't totally familiar with words such as slut, slag, whore, harridan, strumpet, bitch, hag, crone, cougar, floozie, chit, termagant, harpy, Karen, frump and so on.’

This did make me laugh a bit! The outraged tone, as if even someone with basic education would be familiar with ‘termagant’ (I remember learning that one in O level English), ‘chit’, ‘harridan’ or ‘strumpet’. A lot of your list are archaic, and would be known only by those who study or watch Shakespeare today.

All that means is that we can see that the patriarchy dominated hundreds of years ago.

I wonder how the comparison would look if we only looked at words coined in the last 50 years. I suspect, but don’t know, that it would be far more even.

Yeah, the way I read your post with the "we" was as a woman, I phrased my post really badly but didn't want to edit it without looking like I was dishonestly changing the meaning IYSWIM. There's always loads of disagreement about "men's spaces" amongst women. That was why I quoted you.

No, not a man! Had the hot flushes to prove it!

😀

Well - yes, but men and women tend to co-exist together to a much greater extent. Someone who is, e.g. anti-semetic is highly unlikely to give birth to a Jewish baby. Someone who is anti-immigrant is unlikely to have immigrant parents (actually scratch that example in my country they usually do). So its a bit different. Also, prefacing comments with a "I know many lovely men" is a way to stop people popping up to say "Not all Men" by saying it first. But it rarely works, plus people can then say "that's just what a misandrist WOULD say to cover up the fact they're a misandrist". So how do we communicate online with other women in a way that doesn't offend you?

I don't care. It is a public forum.
If it there was to be some sort of gender policing so people could comment, then it would be harder to sign up and post. As it is, even a forum that claims to be "by parents for parents" has a childfree board, and countless others that have fuck all to do with being a woman or having kids.

@Jenepeuxpasdiscuteravecdesstupides Sorry - I meant to tag another (male) poster who was saying women want access to women's spaces and quote you as a dissenting opinion on that if that makes sense. Not saying you are one of those men! (or indeed a man at all)

Actually, there was a recent thread on the Garrick club on Mumsnet, and there as a wide range of views on whether the Guardian campaign was justified and nuanced discussion. Likewise many other threads on similar issues as well as threads on motherhood versus career, what "equality" actually means etc etc. You and the other man who posted the same obviously didn't read those threads. Which is fine. But its weird when (some def not all) men have no interest in reading what women write (you don't have to) but still want to come onto those threads and TELL women what they all think, tell them WHY they think it and tell them why its wrong.
Its like this thread - the OP asked if she was unreasonable to dislike men posting. She has said several times she doesn't think men should be banned from posting, But still many many posts appear telling her why she is wrong to think men should be banned from mumsnet.

Its actually fine on threads like this. But sometimes there are threads e.g. where a woman has experienced something horrifically traumatising, and asks if its normal/unreasonable to fear men or sometimes feel angry. Talking about her feelings not a statement about all men. And it will be swarmed by men saying "you can't say all men are like that", "you can't generalise", "this is misandry" "women do bad things to", "my wife...." etc etc.

I used to think it was deliberate. Now I genuinely think in some cases its an inability to read what a woman is writing/hear what they are saying without overlaying their own opinions over the top.

And you have every right to explain to me on a public forum what women really think and why I am in fact wrong to think it. But I am allowed to laugh at it, and other posters are allowed to dislike it and - shock horror - talk about it on here.

For the record NAMALT. Many posters on here are great and I am sure there are very helpful male posters who I don't even know are men. Now feel free to explain to me what I really meant in the above post and why its wrong.

Thanks for this intelligent and well reasoned post. I read "I will continue to love my Dad, my boyfriend, my 3 sons, my male friends" (take that!) as if that thwarted all the evil posters whose MO is to make women stop loving male friends and family and I couldn't be dealing with any more of it. Jfc.

It's worth noting that a common theme in male gendered insults is that the man is somehow womanish, the worst thing to be. If we didn't have so much misogyny, men might not feel so unable to show vulnerability and therefore be driven to the worst possible outcome.

If you care about male suicide at all, please don't spread this sort of dangerous misinformation. Men take their own lives typically due to undiagnosed or poorly treated MH problems, alcohol/substance abuse, financial pressure and loneliness. Nowhere in any report or data on this subject is there the merest suggestion that a cause of these tragic deaths is the 'demonisation' of men by women. So if you have any care at all about this issue, other than using it as a stick to beat women with, then you'll stop making up reasons and educate yourself on the real ones. And perhaps maybe even do something to increase support.

And interestingly enough, the insult of choice on the opposing side is "terf"...a term that turns feminism into an insult and is levelled pretty much exclusively at women, even when men also agree that sex is real, immutable and sometimes matters. And which doesn't even make sense since the original radical feminists also believed that sex was totally immaterial, which is precisely why they had to develop a term that described a radical feminist who didn't agree on that particular point.

Agree with every word. I will continue to love my Dad, my boyfriend, my 3 sons, my male friends. Whilst believing that some people are terrible, it doesn't matter what sex/ sexual orientation/ gender they identify with (and before anyone starts no I don't believe you can biologically change sex).
Whilst also witnessing first hand the detrimental impact on male mental health stemming from the modern trend of demonising them. Suicide is the biggest killer of young men, and reading posts like this makes it very clear why, I want no part of that

Seriously? I'm back to being politically homeless

No it wasn't, but it's OK. It's no bad thing to show just how easily provable it is.

You can speak up for issues affecting men without pretending that you never ever knew about such basic, well-worn, everyday misogyny. In fact I don't know why more men and pro-men posters don't do that on here. You'd think male mental health, male suicide and so on would be far more important than coming to Mumsnet to complain that a SA survivor or a single mother of children with a totally absent father hasn't got the greatest view of men as a sex class.

Thank you for the links. My question was a genuine one.

I love your pretence that it's not completely self evident to any English speaker and you aren't totally familiar with words such as slut, slag, whore, harridan, strumpet, bitch, hag, crone, cougar, floozie, chit, termagant, harpy, Karen, frump and so on. Yes, there are male gendered insults like dick, arsehole, fuckboy and cocklodger, but you know fine well that a) there are nowhere near as many b) they are not sexualised anywhere near as often as female ones and c) while a woman is a slag or slut, a man could easily be a stud or a lad. I can't, offhand, think of any word used to describe a sexually active woman as a positive, although I'm sure you'll be frantically Googling now.

And I love your pretence not to know that many female counterparts to male terms have devolved to have sexual elements like mistress and courtesan.

But since you ask so very nicely, I'll honour your disingenuous question and link you, as just the first hits I got, from Wikipedia. 26 pages for male gendered insults and 53 pages for female... and even a quick look will show you a pretty marked difference in tone between them. Please don't pretend you can't see that either.

As a quick addition, I also saw a number of pages dedicated to answering the question of why there are so many more gendered insults for women than men, so I think it's very fair to say that most people already know...

Can you link to those lists please?