I didn't know the hate was SO bad

:) :) one for each post [buwink]

Brilliant site - will add my experiences too.

roughtyping - www.everydaysexism.com/

Thanks laura

One of the great things about Laura's site is that it can change things. Some people might see it as just an opportunity for women to moan about trivial stuff. I don't think it is. To gain ground, feminism needs to win hearts and minds. Anti-sexism legislation is in place in the UK, but there are still gaps in pay and opportunity. That must be because attitudes have not caught up with the law. It wont change everything overnight, but if it makes one man think about the throwaway comment he made about a colleague's 'nice arse', it has achieved a victory - 'First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.'

feminism like all ideologies is open to discussion and debate
that can be robust and one can comment upon women too.it isn't a gushy effusing that women are necessarily great,and men aren't. commenting on positive and negative aspects of women behaviour etc isnt anti women. nor is it antifeminist. frankly whererever I see any sweeping generalization I will challenge it whether it is about male or female

a,generalizations such as all men are sexist, I'd challenge that.as it's not a factual given

generalization such as women cannot be sexist, I'd challenge that.as it's not a factual given

Could someone post a link to the website please? Really interested to see it. Sorry if it's already been posted!

i'm a little tired of women calling themselves feminists and then proceeding to use their energy to slag off women.

at the risk of stating the obvious that's not feminism. it's selfism and that self happening to be female.

Laura - great site. Congratulations on launching it and comiserations that it's been so badly targetted by arseholes.

I think everyday sexism is a hugely important part of women's liberation. The more the little things are tolerated, the less awful the big things seem. They're all on the same spectrum and minimising one end serves only to minimise the other end as well. If we could really eradicate sexism in this country we'd see a lot more condemnation of things like FGM in other countries and some positive action against them.

I think what you're doing is hugely important. Good for you!

xenia - Of course wome can be ambitious, seek power, etc. But ime on MN other posters disagree with you not because of that, but because of the negative comments you make about other women's choices. Sometimes I think you are right, sometimes wrong - but it is that gets you criticised.

One good thing about the internet is it allows people under a cloak of anonymity to set out their views. Sometimes mine are so different or extreme people think I must be a man they just cannot envisage women want money, power, successf, have ambition etc. That does not sit comfortably with some feminist who think those things are something no morally good person might have and instead want to cut down the edifice of success and the like.

Most people men and women however thankfully do share some common ground. Most men in the UK would not want women to lose their legal rights and equality under the law and most want things to be pretty fair at home.

The fact we can see the views people might be thinking gives people ammunition. If you don't know what you're up against you cannot do it down or work against it. So I don't think it's wrong if people express views on line. I don't think we want to change the thread into one about where you draw the line in terms of how free is speech and I am at one extreme. However we probably all agree that someone operating a blog or website can control what is written upon it and others can set up their own sites to express their own views if they choose. Where I do have problems is where like in China this week they have taken down one major site expressing political views. I had problems in Iran on getting on to certain sites.

What we need is very large surveys of male views completely anonymously to obtain male views. If we don't know what the views are then we cannot combat or change them in our sons.

As soon on line as someone descends to personal abuse of another (as they often do of me) then I have always won (and of course I want to win as it's a race and the fittest survive and women yes are allowed to hold that view, to want to be the very best in the UK at what they do - we don't all want to stay home and clean the floors and nurture children believe it or not). Those who end up swearing or writing abuse are basically saying I am rather unintelligent. I cannot express views properly. I am not very successful. I probably have a low IQ and I earn very little.

I do think though we have a role to play as strong women in being robust and delighting in debate. I get fed up with women who are all nice to each other, yes you look gorgeous in this dress, supportive supportive whatever happens. It is nauseating. We should also be anti women when the women are doing silly things like earning very little, giving up careers or subjecting duahgtesr to FMB or whatever the error of their ways is. We are allowed to have views and they do not always have to be the same as other women's. We are people. I spend a lot of time supporting equality for men too, fathers' rights and the like as I am sure most feminists do. Things always should be fair to both genders.

No, Nyac. I appreciate your replies but have been here so many times before ... Nobody's ever given me a more explicit definition of 'radical feminism' and neither did my reading yield one. On a forum, it may seem as though we differ on what the 'roots' of a patriarchal structure look like. But I doubt that we really do.

One of the big problems with a written, rapid-fire medium like this is that each reader applies their own individual prism to the words. That's natural, unavoidable and, without the many cues of face-to-face interaction, there's nowt to be done about it. It often leads to lengthy sophistry (might not be the exact term, btw!) fixating on a particular word.

I honestly think it's a waste of time and bandwidth to exchange hundreds of posts about one writer means by a particular word. We are capable of interpreting a writer's posts in the wider context of a discussion and their posting style in general. If unclear, we can propose interpretations until we find one that makes sense to all the participants ... I tend to think it's worth doing that if I know one of the posters is autistic or not English but, otherwise, it's everybody's responsibility to remember they don't own the definition of a word.

Need a coffee break.

Laura, your site is great. Kudos for starting it.

The scumbags who are targeting you are vile and it saddens me that most of them will be young men. I think some other posters have hit the nail on the head as to why this might be. Where do they go from that position as they get older?

That said, I think that the examples of hate that your contributors are describing are more disturbing. The urge of so many men to belittle/attack/objectify women is a massive problem for women. That a significant minority of the population do not think of women as fully human and wish to point that out to them is a subject that is long overdue a national soul-searching.

Changing laws isn't changing power structures garlic. It's creating slightly different circumstances within the same power structures.

I suppose my question to you would be why on earth do you think you're a radical? I find it very bemusing. You were even claiming that pointing out a man's sexism was "sexist" to him, which isn't just a non-radical act, it's an anti-feminist one.

Maybe you could expand on what you think radical feminism actually means, because clearly there are some different definitions at work here.

startail - No there is nothing extreme in any of those things. I actually don't think moderation does bring many gains tbh.

I am a lesbian and I think Peter Tatchell a clear radical and Stonewall also radical, have brought about massive gains by being challenging and not moderate. It is easy to ignore a group of people that are being too moderate imo.

I think it is different with individuals actually. Of course if you want to change individual's views you do it in a different way.

Xenia you probably will hate me for agreeing with everyword.

Clearly extreemism means different things in different cultures. I preach moderation here because I believe we need to consolidate feminism's gains and make equality as automatic as breathing.

To my eyes there is nothing extreme in fighting for the right to vote, to gain an education or to have freedom of movement and employment.

Driving in Saudi particularly winds me up because was a rural child, my car has been my freedom since I was 18 and still is.

I have always said that, if I had no DH or DCs that is the campaign I would join.

Of course it's used as a weapon by opponents. That is the nature of extremism. No political movement has ever got anywhere without a hardcore of extremists.

Re; radicalism. If changing the power structures of a society isn't radical, the only further action I can see is to shoot all the men or round them up and put them in ghettoes. I'm sure I'm wrong about this but have been unenlightened by quite a bit of curious reading (prompted by being told on here I'm not radical). Anybody wants to fill me in, I'll be grateful. Otherwise, I'll just muddle along in my opinionated-old-lady way.

As opinionated old ladies keep saying: don't take recent gains for granted! Equality laws and financial autonomy for women are under greater threat, now, than they've ever been before. They are young and fragile. If our current rights are hampered, feminism really will need to start shooting ...