This is what Helen from Mermaids writes about MN feminist posters

She must've had pretty pliant kids to think that SAHMs generally have too much time on their hands...oh, wait..

Should add, if it makes a difference, that I also work full time. When a man does what I do day to day, then he might earn the right to call himself a woman.

I am a single mum with two DC, one with additional needs, and I have three degrees.

The idea that being Uni-educated is a put down and way of silencing legitimate debate among women is fairly sinister, I think. It harks back to nineteenth century ideas that if one educated a woman, she would become ‘manly’, her ovaries would shrivel and this was no good for the future of the ‘race’. So by calling us uni-educated, it chimes with an old discourse that educated women are not ‘womanly’. That was meant negatively then and should be read negatively now. Not proper women.

On the other hand, educating a woman was seen as a waste of time because they would just have children and waste their education. Women were meant to be in the domestic sphere bringing up children. So again, the SAHM comment aligns with ideas that (biological) women’s place is in the home and therefore she should not speak on matters of public import. Whereas TIM’s are read as male, even when they are doing their best to outwoman in an advertiser’s dream fashion (and I don’t mean washing the whites whiter than white, but with the lipstick and heels), they are not doing the shit wife-work because they are not that kind of woman.

The final point is that Uni-educated being a slur aligns with push to shut down debate on campuses. If we have been taught critical thinking in relation to sex and gender, it is much more hard for our academic peers to teach the same to students today.

3rd ruse of misogyny: Women speaking for themselves are exclusionary and selfish.

Haha .. but seriously, you are really transparently showing your politics with your handmaidenly put downs of women who don’t agree with you.
As it happens I work full time. I MN at work in breaks when I can for a little bit of sanity, much like women at home with their DC probably do too.

I think what pisses me off the most about this sort of thing is how easy it is to put women on the defensive. The conditioning of a lifetime is damn hard work to unpack and even when you think you are close to sorted you knee jerks to defensiveness.

Sally

Come to think of it, I know of no-one, in my RL, that uses MN. And I think they would be shocked/surprised/mortified if they found out that I do.

Get better friends, yours sound shit and ridiculous.

Reading the sneering about being university-educated quite frankly makes me want to go and sign up for a Phd.
Me too.
I dropped out of high school to go to work in 1962.

Helen, I actually think there is an element of Jeremy Kyle here. I am getting laughed at by friends and family over being outraged over politicians agreeing that men can get pregnant, being scared of tweets and gangs of TRAs hitting pans with wooden spoons wearing gimp masks.

I think of kids being steralised so can't see the funny side.

This will not end well for kids, the Trans community or politicians.

Water off a ducks back Turnip. I used to be the sensitive type but find that nothing they hurl at me dents the armour at all. Quite refreshing.

I have found if you just keep politely at your point and ignoring the silliness that one or two of them will actually start to engage. Until that is they realise that whoops they don't have any rational reason to disprove anything I've asked. The fall back position has been to say the idea of any nasty people misusing Self ID is "far fetched".

As for the toe rags that call themselves Mermaids, they have to be stopped before any other unfortunate child suffers.

I have been wondering for a while now how the people in authority like schools and police departments are going to respond when they find out the training Mermaids provided them is a pack of lies they are now violating the law on the basis of presentations by a gay child conversion therapy organization.

You can always rely on the men to take credit for every effing thing any woman ever did.

I actually joined MN on the advice of my childs school. I had gone along to the opening day type thing, and they had a screen presentation and that that was boring stuff tbh, but right at the end there were a few 'support' websites posted, and mumsnet was one of them. The teacher said that it was a great place to get support and advice and just..chat to other women. When I posted my first thread, in AIBU, I was slaughtered and I remember thinking its definitely NOT the place for support But I have really came to love the place. Its so odd, having a female focused space to chat. So different to everywhere else that I have found. So many intelligent posters, yes some trolls, but no more than on other sites.

The school endorsing MN made me think that a lot of the teachers are probably on here too. I find the thought of them swearing like troupers and being very blunt in answering people hilarious tbh

I'm delighted as I've clearly irritated them; they've called me a cunt on Twitter. Lovely how they can't present a rationale argument and so resort to pathetic insults isn't it

I, for one, participate in MN only because I don't have a television but still need my daily dose of Jeremy Kyle.

Hope this helps, Sally.

*It never crossed my mind that 'educated' women would use this place.

Surely not? Why would they?

Come to think of it, I know of no-one, in my RL, that uses MN. And I think they would be shocked/surprised/mortified if they found out that I do.

So I tell no-one. No-one.*

This has got to be the funniest post I have ever read on here!! Cheers for the laugh, Sally!!😂😂👍👍

Occam’s razor is that the most simple solution is the most likely/ best one to take.

CertainHalf - thank you!!!

So, @sallyandherarmy are you planning to become a regular poster on the Jeremy Kyle-esque MN? Or are you popping onto a trans thread with a put-down try and never coming back?

We (Mumsnet; sanity) are winning this thing. Sure, TRA had the upper hand for a while. But no longer, because in the end evidence and science will win the day.

Bloody love MN.

what's the word for "if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck" etc.

Do you mean Occam's Razor?

Mermaids needs to think about how representative people on this board are of the general public (because we’re a fairly good cross section of women).

Exactly. And so do any government wonks scouring these boards to gauge the flavour of opinion. MN is diverse. And pretty much United on this (more so than any other issue I’ve ever seen raised.)

We are half the voting population. Don’t try to strip our rights away or you’ll be out the door quicker than you can say ‘six point drop in labour membership.’

Pathetic. I work fulltime and have kids. But why would you sneer at someone who's at home with their kids? What a nasty sexist thing to say, belittling that job. She will spend the rest of her life defending her decision to castrate her 16 year old son, just pathetic.

It's completely impossible for her to ever extricate herself from the rabbit hole. She'd have to accept that she's enabled a loved one to mutilate themselves.

YY. I actually feel pity for them, and for Jazz Jennings parents too - a few years down the line there is a good chance that at least one of these parents will realise how badly they have fucked up, and I can't even imagine how terrible that will feel.

Imagine the pressure of trying to keep up this illusion of the Emperor's new clothes when you know that when that illusion fails you will have to face up to what you have done.

I suspect we might all be frustrated TiFs, yes.