Feeling conflicted about (childless) man's feminist views on mothering

I think you are confused about what separitist means in this context. What do you think it means?
Why does my simile not make sense? What are the key points of difference?
You don't think we should alienate men. How is politely waiting fir them to be fair working out for us?

Your simile doesn't remotely make sense, and I really don't see the point in a separatist approach, which does nothing but alienate those who are actually on the side of women.

"I'd be rightly fucked off if someone dismissed my opinion on any topic based on the fact that I'm a woman. So it'd be hypocritical if I'd dismissed someone's opinion on any topic based on the fact that they're not a woman."

No no no, this is exactly the sort of faux-"equality", faux-"logical" thinking we have to get away from. If we internalise this nonsense we are fighting handicapped.

Men dismissing women's opinions because they are women - a state of affairs with a long, dishonourable history directly related to men controlling all important decisions, including those directly concerned with the bodies of women. Usually backed up with spurious self-seeking "logic" and "scientific facts" about "weak female brains", hysteria, irrationality, emotional dispositions etc

Women dismissing men's opinions because they are men - usually seen where a woman is attempting to preserve her own, and other women's, autonomy with respect to their own bodies. Often related to direct physical experience of the matter at hand, eg "when you have to get up 6 times a night, then you can have an opinion on breastfeeding"; "When you have to carry a baby inside you for 9 months, and then risk injury or death bearing it, then you can have an opinion on abortion".

These two cases are not remotely equivalent and we have to get out of this "sauce for the goose, sauce for the gander" trap because it is inhibiting our ability to see things clearly, and more importantly, fight for justice.

It's like this - suppose your parents gave you and your brother equal sized bedrooms (and then went on a long holiday and were totally unavailable for appeals to justice). Then your brother decided to annex part of yours for his massive scalextric. You are much smaller than him and afraid he will hit you if you oppose, so you put up with it, having no choice. Then you have a massive growth spurt and get some confidence and decide you want this space back, or at least some of it, because you want to take up painting and have nowhere to put a painting table or an easel. Conscious that the balance of power has shifted slightly, but not sure to what extent, he feels he should look as if he is negotiating with you, but doesn't actually want to give anything up. He says "I will give you 4 square feet for painting, but in return you have to take all your books off the shelves by your bed and I am going to put my stuff on them. This is a fair swap."
If you have any sense you can see perfectly well that this is not a fair swap. So please can we stop talking in terms of these awful bullshit equivalence arguments they keep using on us!

With the abortion debate, I think perhaps women opposed to choice about abortion (or pregnancy more widely) should be engaged with differently to men. There have been links on this board in the past showing that women who are opposed to abortion are more likely to have an abortion. There is an issue there that they may have abortions because they are lacking the social, emotional or economic support to continue with the pregnancy due to the conservative views of friend and families. As a consequence I feel other women have to engage with them in a way where they don't feel we are the enemy, so they are more likely to approach services and reach out for support rather than make a clandestine decision in a situation of isolation.

And I think that the views of men differ in reception based on who they are. I am going to feel differently about a man whose wife died when she was denied an abortion, a male doctor who carries out abortions when he puts his own well being at risk from protestors and a man who is pro choice about abortion but not about pregnant women in a wider sphere. And perhaps that is the view of the OP - that her willingness to listen to the opinions of the man in question are skewed by his prior behaviour, and that even when he posts something she agrees with, his reasons for posting that and his interpretation of it may be wildly different to hers.

On a different topic, Robert Jensen has said, when confronted with the views of 'sex positive' women on porn, that he cannot tell a woman what is an authentic sexuality for her as an individual, and while it may be an authentic representation of female sexuality for some women, it is not authentic to most women but is viewed as being so (or words to that effect). I can't see an issue with that. If a man like Jensen has spent a good proportion of his career listening to women (and POC) and researching the issues, it shouldn't be that his opinion is invalidated by some women who disagree, or that he should stop speaking about the issue.

Buffy - sorry, but I don't follow that argument. Of course nobody is that nobody has more of a right to decide what happens to a woman's body than that woman herself.

It doesn't matter whether that anybody else is a woman, a man, or velociraptor (male or female). No man should tell that woman what to do, but likewise no woman should tell her what to do, and she shouldn't butt out any less than a male. Why should she? It doesn't hinge on sex or gender, but on the fact that they're not the person who has to make the decision and live with the consequences. Are infertile women's opinions less valid too?

I do get that opinions are often informed by (lack of) experience, and this could and should be explored in an argument, but it doesn't follow that they should be dismissed outright. Why not give people the benefit of the doubt and assume they are able to empathise/think abstractly/be able to explore various positions and their consequences?

I'd be rightly fucked off if someone dismissed my opinion on any topic based on the fact that I'm a woman. So it'd be hypocritical if I'd dismissed someone's opinion on any topic based on the fact that they're not a woman.

Buffy - do you think the man, in the OP, sharing the video is giving an opinion?

Buffy - by "anti-choice" I mean those who seek to restrict the right to choose for everyone. You know the people who harass women going to abortion clinics, campaign for the restriction of abortion rights etc.

I do not mean those who have chosen for themselves not to abort as a personal decision without wishing to force everyone else to make the same choice.

I've never heard of pro-choicers wishing to impose a choice onto a women, "choice" being the key word here.

So would a woman who strongly believes no woman should have the right to abort a pregnancy have a more valid opinion than a man who believes every woman should have the right to do whatever the fuck she wants with her body?

I don't see a dilemma, because I don't think that you need to be a woman to have a valid opinion.

I really don't like the idea that the validity of one's opinion should be governed by their gonads - that's pretty much the opposite of what I think feminism aims for.

If only a woman should have a valid opinion on issues affecting women, that would mean that the opinion of a woman who is fiercely anti-choice should be regarded higher than that of a man who is in support of women's right to choose what happens to their body. Surely that's bonkers?

I find the implicit censorship worrying. Men can't post information by women, for women. Non-parents can't post information for parents.

Society is meant to be getting more open & accepting, except here it would appear.

Like an approving authority - that's a pedestal you put him on BTW...

I really do think this is a classic "non issue", OP doesn't like the man, fair enough. Does that mean everything he does is wrong by default?

Real Life - No

MN - Apparently so.

"If I had anal incontinence after having children, I would not want to see a male childless fit young man re-posting, like an approving authority, a poem about bodily changes after having children. Maybe someone on his feed does have anal incontinence. Maybe several have poor body image or in fact are suffering material disadvantages because their "poor" appearance has reduced the salary they can command. Or perhaps they "just" feel humiliated. Anyway it is tactless and inappropriate, and it is fine to feel it so, and it is absolutely fine to reflect upon it and express it, and every mealy mouthed approach towards the "even handed" is just discrediting these valid feelings as less important than this little squirt's "right" to take up other people's headspace"
This is the heart of it for me. If I had cancer and was feeling shit, I may not want to read an inspiring tale of a stranger who had beaten cancer, posted by a FB friend of mine. But should my FB friend forbear from posting? Is it annoying or tactless of them to post? My answers remain no and no. Indeed lots of the internet is explicitly constructed around this kind of sharing, eg BuzzFeed. I just don't see how they are annoying or tactless or inappropriate. Humans like to tell stories and listen to stories, both their own and those of others. I find the world a richer place for it

But you responses aren't all about feelings. You have advocated a position about how allies should not behave (thus you've taken a moral stance). You haven't just discussed the fact that you are annoyed.

Dusk, you're being unfair. No-one is saying you can't find him annoying, but this is a discussion board, so when you unpack why you find him annoying, some people have disagreed with your reasons. And questions are inevitable here, no? You can always choose not to answer.

Other people have stated contrary views and been challenged. It's the nature of the board, and i find it helpful - especially when I hear arguments that don't fit with how I had previously seen the world. I remember Dittany doing this regularly some years back. It didn't convince me every time, but it shifted me from complacency and forced me to think more deeply, and I'll always be grateful for that.

I haven't widened it out, I have just talked in general terms about the societal structures in which this whole episode took place because that is, essentially, why it is annoying.

I am not writing a recipe book on How To Be Well Meaning Without Annoying Dusk. Let alone the handbook for the world!

x-post
It's not irrelevant. The OP is about feelings. I feel annoyed.

If the OP was "how should not very experienced young men approach supporting feminism?" then maybe I shouldn't post without something positive to say.

As the OP is "This pissed me off, can I reflect upon it and discuss it here" I think it is fine to say "yeah, that would piss me off too"

And it is disingenuous to now make out that this is all about some random guy. You have widened that out to discuss structural inequalities in discourse in general, and thus the behaviour of everyone, presumably including yourself (unless you belong to every minority group). So you are discussing how everyone should not behave, not just the OP's work colleague.

To me this really relates to the other thread on here at the moment, about "the moral argument to feminism".

I feel like all this handwringing about being fair and logical with respect to this person (whom I don't know and to be honest is now just a cipher to discuss certain sorts of behaviour with respect to feminism, which I think is ok ethically in that we will never ever know who he is, God bless him) is spectacularly missing the point in ways that that thread is talking about.

If I had anal incontinence after having children, I would not want to see a male childless fit young man re-posting, like an approving authority, a poem about bodily changes after having children. Maybe someone on his feed does have anal incontinence. Maybe several have poor body image or in fact are suffering material disadvantages because their "poor" appearance has reduced the salary they can command. Or perhaps they "just" feel humiliated. Anyway it is tactless and inappropriate, and it is fine to feel it so, and it is absolutely fine to reflect upon it and express it, and every mealy mouthed approach towards the "even handed" is just discrediting these valid feelings as less important than this little squirt's "right" to take up other people's headspace

And I find it fascinating that framing all this in terms of men's association with feminism, in a way that suggests that in some contexts their "right" to express themselves should not come first, gets people so very prickly! "how do we know what he meant?" "how do we know what the video was about?" (it was in the OP.) "What are men supposed to do?" and finally "who are you, [me] what do you do, and what right do you even have by good credentials to express an opinion on this?"

this is why: he annoys me, like over-privileged young men often do. deal with it.

Of course you are allowed to find him annoying. He does sound annoying.

You don't have power over him. We have collective power over society. As such if you are advocating for a more ethical world, you surely have an ethical obligation to describe how 'allies' should behave, not just criticise them?

Whether or not he is annoying is irrelevant.

This is really interesting, this whole burden of proof / accountability angle.

I think the OP's workmate sounds like a right annoying little twerp, and when I express this, and unpack why, suddenly I am open to all sorts of questions and I get the impression that unless I can account for myself I am not allowed to find annoying little twerps annoying.

Fascinating. It's not like I have any power over him.

"I do think you are morally obliged to explain"

ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

"This guy pissed me off"
"yeah I can see that, he would piss me off too"

Now I am morally obliged to account for myself in terms of what actions I take as a feminist? Seriously?

erm, no I am not.

I found the use incorrect, because he did the absolute bare minimum to introduce the video - announcing author and subject seems sensible if you want people to watch something you put a link to. And I am sure you have noticed that others have picked up on this point.

Goedemiddag.

There are structural differences that come into play when someone from a more powerful group speaks about a less powerful group. But the same structural differences come into play when a member of a more powerful group chooses not to speak about a less powerful group. They're closing down a lot of potential discussion of an issue and will then instead talk about other issues. Talking about something is not somehow more 'problematic' than not talking about it.

And women having less power doesn't mean we can hold men to ethical standards in activism that are impossible for any human being to meet. I think that is why you won't explain what men do, because you are advocating a situation where whatever action an individual man took you could label it oppressive.

Why you are not morally obliged as a feminist to educate men, I do think you are morally obliged to explain what ethical activism you participate in about groups you do not belong to, because that is part of your responsibility as a feminist.