Do you think (your) sexuality changes how you relate to women-only spaces?

And whenever I do talk about feminism to women, most of them cloud over tbh. Whereas men can have some very interesting points to make about feminism and tend to embrace the conversation much more.

Most of the females I know are happier discussing other people's relationships and their latest diets. Stereotypical I know and tremendously frustrating because that's not how I want women portraying themselves.

Personally I feel that feminism has probably contributed to my being able to select a decent partner and sustain a long term relationship with him.

Had feminism not given me the tools to pick a good'un and establish some workable "rules" for our relationship (eg mutual respect / no sexist fuckwittery) I probably wouldn't have stuck around. I am a fairly intolerant person.

Mind you I would have carried on having sex with men. So feminism hasn't informed my sexuality per se, just the sort of sexual relationship I have (eg marriage as opposed to a series of flings)

However that's not quite what you were asking - feminism for me has not been ideas developed in a woman-only context, both my parents are feminists and I have expanded / changed my own ideas as I grew up. Sometimes (often in fact) that was a fairly solitary process.

Hmmm not really. I have worked in women only environments too and for women bosses and in my experience they tend to be a lot more competitive. To me, it's always as if women have something to prove. Probably because society labels them - a man is just a man but a woman is either a mother/daughter/wife/friend/sister etc. To many women that label comes before their career label.

This makes (ime) women much more aggressive in a career situation, always needing to prove themselves worthy and very competitive in all that they do. You've heard that motherhood is competitive with mothers competing as to whose baby spoke first, whose child is more gifted etc and I find that in other walks of life too.

Whereas lucky men, well they can relax more because they don't have to prove themselves. They are deemed capable just because they are men (although the roles are reversed should a man embrace the role of father and attend parent and toddler groups in which case it's always "where's the mummy? Is she ill?")

I get on, as a general rule, far better with men because it's much more relaxing. But then I don't want to talk about relationships, about who dumped who, about the latest pair of shoes, about which foundation goes best with which skin type. I find those conversations dull and completely uninspiring.

I like Mumsnet because you don't have to have those conversations and for once I realise that I'm not alone in wanting to discuss politics or talk nonsense. There is no competition here (or less so) because the usual boundaries of class/age/looks/gender are diminished. I can honestly say that Mumsnet is the only place where I enjoy talking to groups of women.

I'm not sure that has anything to do with my sexuality, or perhaps it does? Perhaps that's why I generally have more male friends and find it easier to talk to men? In situations where I have been with groups of women, say in ante-natal classes, at work, in school, I've always been quite isolated. They will all get on just fine and arranged to meet-up and I've always been left out of that. I simply don't have anything in common with them.

That's not true of all women I hasten to add and I do have some very close female friends but it's my experience.

Even lesbians can't, can they - they still have dads and brothers and sometimes sons.

Absolutely, I stupidly didn't even think of that.

Coincidentally, I have just seen we seem to have a thread called "sleeping with the enemy"

Not sure it's what you are getting at, but I do find the more interested in feminism I become the more difficult I find the "idea" of a heterosexual relationship. I love dh he is who I want to be with but sometimes when I am ranting discussing a feminist idea he just seems a bit, I don't know, bored maybe. And I realize how he just doesn't get it which I find annoying.

I just think feminism adds this whole unique spanner in the works in that most women do want to be around men. If it were a race issue or anything like that you can step away from the person or the class causing your problems to an extent. If you are a hetero female that's not really an option.