The Angels Forum

"Men are scared women will laugh at them, women are scared men will kill them" - (thanks Margaret, but you forgot to add that Trans people get the crappy end of both deals). Fear of ridicule is still fear. Could a feminist respect a fear that seems (to her) to merit laughter?

Quod
Erat
Demonstrandum

anyway - to sweary

of course i googled the fucking Erin pizzey's dog thing again

I forgot about Erin Pizzey's dog!

Cor - that were when I used to lurk here, and up again and fucking agin would pop another poster banging on about that terrible woman

I can't even remember the details - and i googled it at some length.

Wow Sweary

@MadBadDaddy ... eh?

"Men are scared women will laugh at them, women are scared men will kill them" - (thanks Margaret, but you forgot to add that Trans people get the crappy end of both deals). Fear of ridicule is still fear. Could a feminist respect a fear that seems (to her) to merit laughter?

MRAs - like herpes, but the process of acquiring them is less fun.

I think he's a recurring theme here, kittens - he bobs up every few months wanting to shout at feminists about why only 9% of women are feminists. He has a few sub themes about female violence, conscription and Erin Pizzey's dog that he'll throb on about, then he gets deleted and peace reigns.

He's like malaria or a stubborn fungal infections- we'll have a relapse soon

Like our young friend who works in finance the other day who wanted to talk about...I don't think he was sure himself, honestly, it just definitely wasn't tea.

100% agree on the knowing manipulation of female socialisation being an absolute red line on a feminist board. You're spot on, sweary and lang - it is a common dynamic and I've been sucked in myself. I've never had the concern I've shown reciprocated. It's water off a duck's back, when women share our stories - it doesn't register.

I've seen it done here by a number of different trans posters (little acid test for you: if you've the self awareness to wonder "is it me?", then it almost certainly wasnt!)

I'm all for debate, and welcome it. There are people who I won't see eye to eye with, but I want them to have their say. I would actually rather that the ridiculous MRA & TRA threads stayed right where they were rather than being deleted, so we can all see what's been going on.

"If we sit there engaging politely (pointlessly)..."

I agree this is one way to show we are willing to engage, but there is a danger that the thread fillsup/dies and the topic of the thread stops being discussed. This is a chat forum, so I don't expect theads to stay on point, but is important to keep in mind that derailing is a silencing tactic.

Mumsnet is seen as an echo chamber because it's women taking, and often not centring men. Nothing we can do will change that. Unless we encourage more men to join and we talk about whatever they want to talk about.

Yes yes but I'm talking about consciousness raising! Reaching the widest possible audience. That's the reason I care about 'forum etiquette'

(Trying so hard to be impersonal!)

But disagreement wasn't the issue. Sea lioning wasn't the issue. Trolling wasn't the issue. I think most of us are fairly well-aligned on all of this stuff.

The issue was deception and manipulation by a community member who had gained the trust of other community members and then abused it.

These are not similar things.

Avoiding what happened here in the future isn't a matter of forum etiquette. It's a matter of feminist consciousness raising. Apples and oranges.

disagreement wasn't the issue here, was it?

I'm including attitudes that need calling out under 'things we don't agree with'

E.g., (an indirect example in order to play balls not people) if we spot a sealion or whatever and instantly go 'right you're a sealion I'm not engaging with you' people less accustomed to sealioning tactics get the impression that we won't engage with reasonable questions, this is an echo chamber etc etc. If we sit there engaging politely (pointlessly) away, lurkers start delurking to say 'hold on, this person isn't in good faith and also now I understand the radfem position much better'. We've all seen this over and over. But it takes patience and courtesy to have that effect otherwise we lose the lurkers along with the sealion.

Of course I'm not saying everyone should always do this, who can be arsed. But it's good to do sometimes and good to maintain an atmosphere where it can be done.

I'm fully on board with welcoming people with dissenting viewpoints - I'm not going to engage with the extensive me-railing that we've seen from certain posters.

I think it's really good to make people we don't agree with welcome (within reason), even if they are doing it for all the wrong reasons.

Yes. I agree. But disagreement wasn't the issue here, was it? It was something else altogether.

I think it's really good to make people we don't agree with welcome (within reason), even if they are doing it for all the wrong reasons.

It gives us something to talk about (this matters: we need reasons to keep talking even though many of us have said it all a million times already)

It allows us to demonstrate our arguments and to take theirs to bits without turning off the undecided

It's good for our reputation wrt the 'echo chamber' accusation

I have such total confidence in our reasonableness and in the brilliant women on this forum that I am certain that anybody stirring trouble will do more harm to their own cause than ours.

I've read through and it's a mea culpa from me. I understand it's not the point of the exercise, however doesn't sit right with me not to acknowledge the situation. Learning all the time.

Or angels

The day we all agree is the day we've been taken over by aliens

I'd given JC sympathy, and then when I realised what had happened offered Sweary an apology, which she very kindly waved away as not the point of the exercise. I am a bit cross with myself for being misled and also for falling into female socialisation, but also a bit happy that my basic default is to engage with everyone on MN, whether they are a woman or not, in good faith. (Which I also recognise is all well and good when it's only me who is affected, but is a bit of a different case when it affects others, as here.)

I also think it's OK for us to massively disagree on all kinds of things, and I don't ever think we should fall into the TRA-cult behaviour of deciding for each other who is an appropriate friend or not.

At the Bloomsbury Place meeting, there was quite vehement disagreement on several points, and while some of it was quite awkward in the moment (eg the chair apologising to Debbie, Miranda et al for something that had been said, and other women being cross at the apology being given at all), when I thought about it afterwards I thought, actually, that's better than some sort of unity rally. We desperately need different viewpoints - from women, not from men coming and telling us what to do and how to do it - in order to work our way to the best possible outcome. There was so much solidarity and joy at that meeting, but there was a lot of differences, too, and I think that was a good thing.

kim is a different poster

She was very helpful in answering a personal question i had

I have seen her under one name change but not another

If she choses not to post on the trans topics then i don't this she is particularly recognisable

Unlike xenia

Rosenberg there was at least one another poster from angels who posted on here a few years ago, using the same name here and there, but I can't remember who or when exactly. They were older though in their 70s, claimed that they passed (a doctor even gave them a pregnancy test) and their posts were very long.

I think Kim is a different poster who still posts.

But what do I know, I don't claim to be miss Marple.