Men bashing

- killing of unwanted female babies
- mutilating girls' genitals
- trafficking of women and girls for prostitution
- allowing a man to rape his wife with impunity
- forcing women made pregnant through rape to continue with life-threatening pregnancy
- smearing a woman's reputation by bringing up her sexual history in a rape trial
- terminating the employment of a woman because she is pregnant
- paying female employees less than male employees for the same work
- executing married women, who are victims of rape, because they are deemed to have committed adultery.

I would have thought that the vast majority of men in this country would have no objection to any of that list.

^ Many. not 'any'.

Asking for equal rights means you have accepted the power imbalance. any women start of as liberal feminists, asking for equal rights, then think 'fuck that shit' for one reason or another and are pushed/awakened to be radical.

Radical means 'root'. Name the problem, get to the root of the problem. Society is broken and not fit for purpose.

I think I might have also misunderstood what radical feminism actually contains

Every day a school day. I'm off to read a bit more about it and decide if it does actually fit my beliefs. As I'm not one of these terrible academic feminists, I've never spent too much time agonising over how my beliefs fit within the feminist canon - I do the activism and take up arms for the issues that I feel strongly about. It's very possible I'm more radical than I thought, but if that is true, then I can hardly have been pushing a party line I didn't even know I followed! And I suspect I am not alone there. So more evidence that there is no clique...

vesuvia do you think that's what peres meant? That being exacting/uncompromising/unapologetic feminists (that not everyone likes to knock about with when they feel like chillin') is equivalent to being something like serial rapists in a culture of inpunity?

I thought that might have been what they meant but it just seems a bit too crazy.

The thing I find most depressing is that there are so many feminist goals that could be achieved now this very minute if only men would agree. There are some things that are mor structural,but lots aren-t they are just behaviour all changes that could happen at once.

MotherPeresA wrote - "if one is to have a movement dedicated to rights, it seems rather contrary to create spaces that possess all the same negative characteristics one is supposedly looking to change."

Here is a list of some examples of the negative characteristics of worldwide patriarchy that are not shared by feminists and which feminists want to stop:

• killing of unwanted female babies
• mutilating girls' genitals
• trafficking of women and girls for prostitution
• allowing a man to rape his wife with impunity
• forcing women made pregnant through rape to continue with life-threatening pregnancy
• smearing a woman's reputation by bringing up her sexual history in a rape trial
• terminating the employment of a woman because she is pregnant
• paying female employees less than male employees for the same work
• executing married women, who are victims of rape, because they are deemed to have committed adultery.

I'm not saying that the ends of feminism justify any means, but I think it is important to point out that misogynists and anti-feminists are in a different league to feminists in a comparison of negative characteristics.

Can you really decide that you just know enough and stop?

I don't think you can otherwise you'll quickly get out of touch. So much has changed with the rise of the internet, social media, mainstreaming porn and sexting, grooming and how sexism and patriarchy now operate. It was a different world only 10 years ago.

"Rad fem is, I think, by definition a socialist movement (from my understanding anyway), so as I'm not a socialist, I'm out just on those grounds alone. "
Well, I'd kind of disagree with that -- I'd see socialism etc as just as much a creation of patriarchal structures as other political movements.

As regards a quick skim of the argument on here, a lot of it seems to reduce to we're not being nice and friendly enough or offering enough buns to newcomers, and if we gilded the message a little, we'd have more friends and win more influence.

As opposed to being a mean ole bunch of harridans (Yeah US!)

As regards the 'at the root' definition of radical feminism, I caught a short piece in Scientific American t'other day. Isotopic analysis of human remains from China shows that from being equal between the sexes in the Neoliothic, there is a shift, so women ended up eating millet and wheat, whilst male skeletons show they ate millet and meat. Women's bones also began showing cribra orbitalia, a type of osteoporosis and an indicator of childhood malnutrition.

Which to me shows that the idea that women were less (hence should only be allowed to eat lower quality food, or food seen as of less worth, and would be the first to go hungry when times were hard) was already entrenched before men had the means or the opportunity to actually enforce this dietary apartheid. Which continued up until the present day, when the men at my family Sunday dinner table got the first choice of the roast, and the women and girls got what was left..............

I don't come here to educate myself, did that years ago

Do you really think this? Do you think you have nothing to learn from here? I struggle with this as a mindset - I hope to keep learning new stuff until I peg it. Can you really decide that you just know enough and stop?

Hmmm, I disagree that the orthodoxy here is radfem. I myself don't regard my position as rad fem, other than on trans issues, where the liberal side of feminism has frankly lost the feminist centre, and it doesn't seem possible to describe yourself as libfem and gender critical.

Rad fem is, I think, by definition a socialist movement (from my understanding anyway), so as I'm not a socialist, I'm out just on those grounds alone.

Perhaps you've made the very common misunderstanding that "radical" means "extreme", whereas in the context of radical feminism, the meaning is "from the root up", ie, the whole of the way that society functions needs rebuilt from the root up, because it's built on the patriarchy and can't be fixed.

As for liberal feminism, my understanding of that is typified by a sort of Everyday Feminism perspective: pro porn, pro legalisation of prostitution, every choice made by a women is a feminist one, and a race to the bottom of oppression. We could argue all day about whether that is feminism or not, but whatever it is, it's not for me, and it gets a short shrift on this board.

I have very strong feminist views, but I'm not radical. In fact, I'm one of those frequently scorned white middle class feminists. If I can now be described as radical in the way that people seem to want to use it, ie extreme, then frankly it was feminism that moved and not me.

BertrandRussell

"You know, feminists are so aggressive... they just put you down and sneer at you if you don't understand something and ask for clarification.................Oh, wait......'

I take from this that you are implying I am not a feminist. I am. I would never say feminists are aggressive and I have not done so. You are attributing meanings to what I have said. I would not insult you by implying my feminist beliefs are more real than yours, yet you do it to me.
This is the issue.
MotherPeresA makes a point about silos. Just because I think the 'tone' of FWR is not particularly helpful to feminism does not mean I am not a feminist. Why would you think that? Why would you suggest that with no evidence?
The orthodoxy, it seems to me, is radical feminism, I would class myself as a liberal feminist. I don't come here to educate myself, did that years ago. I do feel it is important that more women feel welcomed into the feminist fold. I understand the need for a radical vanguard but I think some of the all or nothing attitudes can work to alienate women - and men - who do come on here to educate themselves.

I am disappearing now as I have some RL stuff to deal with not because I am being rude

Then colour me un-self-aware - I've posted here under 4 or 5 usernames over the past few years (all unconnected - I have no PMs or special friends on mumsnet), I've had disagreements, I've had compliments, and I've never felt unwelcome

Same here. I think I've sent one PM, though.

Anyhoo, as the OP was about general feminist man bashing on this board and not about whether the board is welcoming to those not in the "clique" (still awaiting my invitation, by the way, you mean harridans ) I'm still keen to see all the examples of feminists man bashing that we've been promised. Even one would be good.

Still waiting.

I can add more without riling people further, so I won't.

Fwiw I am not riled. And I would appreciate it if you added more clarifications to the observations you have made so far (as opposed to more observations without much clarification iyswim).

I still dont see a huge amount of man bashing, only 2 examples have been given,, but theres plenty of women bashing that you are oblivious to.

This is something I find bizarre.

On FWR, people tend to be very precise, methodical, ask if they've understood - but that seems to be taken as an aggression, rather than as a genuine desire to understand. As if they think we're all just a load of passive aggressive women, maliciously mis-understanding them?

Compare and contrast AIBU where it escalates very quickly into virtual accusations rather than the slower approach.

I don't think I can add more without riling people further, so I won't. These are just my observations, for what they're worth.

I wish everyone a good day.

Thank you Mother.

I found this interesting.

I thought it was generally accepted that academia can struggle from existing in silos, just as people's lived-experience usually possesses little of the in-depth analysis of the former.

This seems to suggest that you believe that people who post here are in academia, which is not true and never has been, there have been some posters who were academics, but none of them in a field that could be described as gender studies. It further seems to suggest that people with lived experience cannot be academics, and vice versa. Is this what you meant to say?

a post that is plainly meant to antagonise

I have no interest in antagonising. I find it ironic that you are accusing other posters (as though we are borg) of lacking self-awareness.

if one is to have a movement dedicated to rights, it seems rather contrary to create spaces that possess all the same negative characteristics one is supposedly looking to change.

This is not really a 'space' is it in FWR, it in an open Internet forum where people of all opinons gather. And sadly some come with the specific intent of baiting and trolling feminists and feminism, or just to criticise feminists and feminism, or to disagree with feminists and feminism. Although you could say MN and their netiquette policies have 'created a (figurative) space', you can't say the same about the people in it.

Society is a clique

I don't really know what you mean by this - I think of a society as something that includes everyone in it, and there can be cliques within it.

the patriarchy is real

Yes

If you can understand that and consider it a bad thing, then why is it allowable here?

I don't think of FWR as patriarchal.

It is a microcosm of all that same stuff.

I honestly don't know what you mean.

I'm not suggesting that there aren't very good reasons why this wouldn't be a clique, why core members might not be partisan and aggressive - I completely understand why they might be - it's the lack of self-awareness that troubles me.

Then colour me un-self-aware - I've posted here under 4 or 5 usernames over the past few years (all unconnected - I have no PMs or special friends on mumsnet), I've had disagreements, I've had compliments, and I've never felt unwelcome.

I don't find FWR an unwelcoming or harsh place, or even particularly robust - especially not in comparison to responses I've had on other topics where people have leapt to all sorts of judgements rather than clarify what I meant when I've said things.

Its gone from debate to mean within a few posts

There is another poster that does this as well, i dont like to engage with them

DJBaggySmalls

Whataboutery.

Fair enough xenophile I see your reasoning.

I meant different, yet equal. I thought it was generally accepted that academia can struggle from existing in silos, just as people's lived-experience usually possesses little of the in-depth analysis of the former. The two can jar though, clearly, and any theoretical explanation of how stuff works needs to resonate. Where it doesn't, we should question why. Especially when the field in question is not a science, but a rights movement (meaning that the personal bias of the people involved apply to a greater or lesser extent depending on the topic). In brief, I was saying that people can be very dogmatic and dismissive.