I didn't know the hate was SO bad

Laura your site is excellent.

I think the internet is becoming the 21st century equivalent of 60s and 70s consciousness raising groups, where women got together to share their experiences of sexism and misogyny under male domination and realised that it was a system, that men create it to be exactly like that, and that we need to change it.

Very boring to talk about feminists and women, yet again, when we should be talking about unacceptable male behaviour that harms women's lives and makes our existences just so much more unpleasant than they should be.

Are you trying to say the rest of us are extreme, Garlic?

SaF - only if you assume extreme=bad. Within a political sense, extreme means (to me) away from the middle ground. I assumed that rad fems were frustrated by the staus quo after early gains for equality in some areas of society, and having identified the patriarchy's overarching control, decided that something had to be done. Radical, liberal, socialist and revolutionary wings of feminism imply that there are splits in the way different groups want to go about achieving equality, even if their aim of equality is the same.

I read Sanjeev's post as referring to feminism as a movement, not to this thread in particular. I reckon he's on our side. He made a good point though, that the extremer ideas are the ones that are highlighted/ridiculed/attacked to devalue the whole movement. Let's not do that here! We're here to support Laura!

Sanjeev may well have taken Startail's post at face value.

Which is why I was surprised that he as a man, is not slighytly insulted by it.

She seems to think that most men are neanderthal knuckle-draggers, in his words.

That's why I asked the question. I wondered if a man would think her assumption tht threatening and de-humanising women, was just human nature.

Good post, Basil, imo.

YY, all effective political movements have extremists. They're the engine that drives the ideology. Naturally, they are the most feared - and most lampooned - by opponents and, also the most misunderstood by fellow members.

SAF's right to point out the difference between radical and extreme.
I'm radical but not particularly extreme (hence friction, probably).

Startail hasn't directly said that she thinks most men are awful, people who have a low opinion of men very rarely do say that.

What she's done, is say that most men she knows would fall about laughing at (what she thinks are) radical feminist ideas - ie the radical notion that women are people and should be treated as such. She's also made reference to "human nature" (by which I presume she means men's nature in this context) while talking about men threatening women and making sure we know that we can't assume we'll be treated the same as men (IE allowed to express our opionion without being threatened with violence, or even just walk down the street without being remindied that we're the sex class). She also mentioned that she thought normal men can't relax in the company of women without being thought of as sexist.

I read that as her having a very low opinion of men. Either that, or as a very high threshhold of what should be considered sexism.

I know Sanjeev's capable of speaking for himself but please will you avoid assuming he's got egregious motives? He made the mistake of taking startail's post at face value. This is likely to be because he's new here. It might also mean he supposes he Knows How To Do Feminism Better Than Women. But assuming any man has a superiority complex is ... well, isn't it a bit sexist?

radical does not equal extreme. can i recommend some 101 time?

The extremism I referred to was not within this thread. It was within the feminist movement as a whole. It is a broad church, and contains feminists with much that they agree and disagree on. It is demonstrated all over this board. I hoped that this was clear by my talking about feminism as a political movement. If there weren't different degrees, or sections, within feminism, then why do some call themselves radical and others liberal feminists? These two sections have varying views - pornography for one.

This is the kind of thing I think startail has a problem with, and was in answer to Basil's question.

extremism your mask is starting to slip, not that it was ever very convincing.

Abigail - you have lost me. Basil asked me a question at 09:41. Can't you see it? And my reply to Laura at 09:24. Can't you see that either?

Wow that's really good Laura (about the hits and stories not the all women should die nonsense)

Wtf are,you talking about Sanjeev. Not wanting men to make everyday sexist comments to us is not extremist views. Pretty basic in fact. There was absolutely no reason to write that other than to stir it. I for one am sick of every thread you are on being about you and what you want to talk about.

Laura it is a great website and I am sorry you are getting so much shit. At least you know that you are making a difference and they are a little bit scared if they are resorting to these intimidating methods.

To answer you question though - no, I don't shout at anyone in the street, male or female, because I am not a knuckle-dragging moron (though some here may disagree ). These people have bigger problems though.

I don't see where startail has said that most men are awful. I think startail has a problem with some of the more radical elements of feminism, not the basic belief that men and women should be equal. For me at least, feminism = politics, and any political movement has wings of greater or lesser extremism. Extremism is always the hardest part of a political movement to 'sell' to the general public, and it's the bit that the enemies of that system (and I don't mean startail here) will highlight, caricature and ridicule.

Not sure what you mean by 'ash now', Basil. Have I said something wrong?

I like the site as it is, as long as you are happy to moderate the comments, of course.

How about a twitter idea - instead of using twitter as a medium, create a hashtag? I'd use it :) #everydaysexism perhaps? A bit long?

ash now sanjeev, you're a man, do you shout at women in the street, or find it practically impossible to be in the company of a woman without de-humanising her in some way? if not, do you think that's because you are practically superhuman, an outstanding example of an egalitarian man or do you think you are just normal and startail is wrong about how awful most men are?

I'd like you to describe the ideas you think some of us have, startail, which prevent normal men functioning in our presence without being assumed to be sexist.

can't you also have a function whereby you have to sign into a site with your facebook account in order to comment? i seem to have seen a lot of that recently which is a way i guess of identity verification. must admit it puts me off though - i don't want to share my identity/details that widely.

Just a quick thought, Laura, but what about using Facebook or Twitter to host your site? I know Twitter is restricted to 140 characters, so that may not be ideal, but there may be similar web apps that I don't know about.

The point is, all users have to be registered, and are traceable. There have been some high-profile prosecutions of abuses on these sites recently too, which might deter the majority of the nutters.

it's like saying we should leave people living in poverty here until there's no poverty that's worse in sudan. or that we shouldn't tackle child abuse amongst pampered western children till children aren't being used as soldiers somewhere.

it's nonsense basically isn't it?

if anything we should be leading the way at the same time as advocating for others. and if we tackle sexism properly in the west then the powers of the west will be more easy to harness to influencing other parts of the world.