Safeguarding girls and protecting women post Jimmy Saville & #metoo

current thread:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3313753-Its-a-sad-day-when-pie-has-power-on-mn

previous relevent thread:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3237699-Thread-on-twitter-The-paedophilia-plan

Offred and prawn stand til the end. What you say might end up with you being banned but you can still get a vital point across. Even if this takes bans we can work ways through it. It is very possible with some willing to lead the way for others to deseminate what you say, pick it apart and then look at what's being said and done ideologically and construct counters which do not refer to trans issues at all but at how populism in general is attacking frameworks which protect us.

I actually think there is a wider danger presented here by the parallel forces from left and right, and whilst we busy ourselves with one we are in danger of ignoring what else is going on behind our backs and recognising that trans activism does not ride this current wave of politics alone. It is very much characteristic of a wider threat.

I'm really concerned Offred & Prawn that you might also be 'struck off'.

I can't reconcile this possibility with the fact that there are some other posters still here posting freely.

I hope you will challenge it.

I've learned so much from women such as you both on this board.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/site_stuff/3297067-Mumsnet-moderation-response-to-yesterdays-feedback

Materialist

The only bit of the eastern block (well, not really full-on eastern block) I used to visit regularly pre-fall-of-communism was the former Yugoslavia, which had always been slightly more open and less repressive than its Soviet satellite counterparts. But even then, it was a dour place, where you were aware that you didn't want to step out of line.

Ditto Beijing which I've worked in - you're constantly aware of an undercurrent of "things you do not say." I particularly remember people, when they got to know you really well, hesitantly admitting to being Christians, with this sort of reflex glance-over-the-shoulder to make sure no-one else was listening. (Though arguably, Beijing is doing a stellar job of creating a deeply capitalist society bolted on top of an incredibly authoritarian, repressive regime, and packaging the whole thing up as "Communism" - maybe this sort of western "identity politics faux-communist" would feel really at home there, could set up in charge of the garment factory making the "I'm literally a communist" t-shirts, then report anyone who complained about the 16 hour shifts to the authorities as a "dissident".)

Offred I hope you don't go too but also understand.

If you do go or especially if your voice is censored from mumsnet with a ban for raising child safeguarding issues, whatever you do don't go quietly.

Keep copies of the posts that were banned, and any justification and communication.

Talk to a journalist like Andrew Gilligan or Sanchez Manning. Britain's leading parenting site banning and censoring concerned parents for raising safeguarding issues is quite a story.

If mumsnet banned someone for posting about children's safety concerns it could be just what is needed to highlight the serious concerns most parents aware of the issues have about the combination of some seriously dodgy practice in things like official guidance given to schools, and an environment where questions being asked are shut down.

Oh yes, another adding to the chorus of "please don't go if you can face staying, Offred ."

Back on point for the thread - any ideology, no matter what that ideology is, and how "on the side of the angels" the ideology is perceived to be - should be used as an excuse to weaken child safeguarding, because if you weaken child safeguarding, sexual predators exploit those weaknesses.

I speak as yet another woman on this board who has seen first hand the devastation that the "keeping secrets" aspect of grooming and child sexual abuse has wreaked within my own family.

When you have adults saying "keep this a secret" even if the motives of the adults are good, it creates a culture where bad shit can happen.

Case in point (entirely unconnected with trans issues). I'm part of an online hobby community, female dominated (think crafting, or similar). We have adults and teens chatting about harmless stuff like where to get cheap yarns. One of our adult members was having a tough time and it was decided to have a whip round to get her something nice - a new sewing box - to cheer her up, and as a tangible reminder that there were people out there who cared.

Of course the adults could donate via paypal/bank transfers. But the teens (who liked this woman too) could not. So one of my friends arranged to meet one of the teens (aged about 14) in the cafe of a local shopping centre to pick up a couple of quid donation towards the gift.

I went ape-shit with her. It didn't matter that her motives were totally innocent - she was behaving in a way an adult should not behave towards a teen they only know online. And that teen, having had this happen once and it turn out totally okay, would then think it was okay to behave this way towards other strangers on the web.

What my friend should have done was said "can you send me your mum's email?", let the mum know what was going on, then said "is there a convenient time I could meet up with both of you, if you're happy with your daughter contributing a couple of quid? If you aren't, don't worry, I'll let our mutual friend know that she's very much in your daughter's thoughts."

Hopefully this illustrates that even totally innocent activities from the best of motives can stuff up child safeguarding if they encourage an attitude of keeping secrets from the adults responsible for the child's welfare.

I hope you don't go, Offred. I'll miss you. I too am on 2 strikes, though my second email didn't say I was at risk of not being able to post, which I gather others have had in their second.

One of the strikes made some sort of sense because I identified someone who was under 18 at the time, though they had voluntarily appeared on TV at the time to discuss it.

The other one was, I feel, unjustified and I'm going to appeal it.

Well, my gast is well and truly flabbered reading this stuff this morning (having not come across Sakar before).

I've had many an argument with fun feminists so fun that their grasp on the feminist bit is incredibly tenuous to say the least. The argument usually goes them: "who are you to police what feminism means? Feminism is a broad church and a woman (or indeed man or small green furry creature from Alpha Centauri) is a feminist if they say they are..." Me: "words have meanings. You wouldn't take someone seriously if they said 'I identify as a communist, but I believe in a small state, private enterprise and individual wealth - who are you to tell me I'm not one'. Likewise someone who says 'I identify as a feminist, but I think it's just fine to watch eroding maternity protections, giving men a say in whether women can have abortions, allowing differential pay rates by sex driven by market forces, violent pornography being used as an instruction manual, the closing of women's shelters, victim blaming...' can call themselves a 'feminist' all they want but they aren't one."

I've used this analogy for ages on the basis that surely no-one would be so stupid as to buy into that self definition of communism...

But it seems that they are. And, surprise surprise, there's a huge overlap between being that stupid about what communism means, and that stupid about what feminism means, and generally buying into believing half a dozen impossible things before breakfast.

Ash - you're not a communist, you're a free-market libertarian you numpty. That's about as "total opposite of a communist" as you can get.

twitter.com/HWGYoungLabour/status/1020009994471854081

twitter.com/brunskellevans/status/1020711400388349952

See Rose of Dawn's YouTube channel:
"Radical far-left activists often co-opt unrelated movements to enforce their ideology on others. Here, I take a look at this phenomenon taking place in the trans community.

Follow me on Twitter: twitter.com/Rose_Of_Dawn "

What Does Co-Opting The Trans Movement Look Like?

Like Little Owen Jones and Laurie Penny, Ash is mostly interested in creating a brand for herself. I don't think any of them say much that's sincere - the moment any of the causes they currently champion go out of fashion they'll shift to new ones, and expect everyone to forget what they supported before.

Ash Sarkar was part of the panel on GenderQuake Debate:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3243464-Channel-4s-Genderquake-Debate-is-heavily-criticised-boycotted-by-prominent-transgender-activists-allies

Also part of the Novaro interview with her friend Shon Faye.
thread discussing this:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3251869-Shon-Faye-Ash-Shankar-review-of-Gender-quake

See also Jess Bradley (NUS trans / Action for Trans Health) featured in Sky segments on GRA, Lily Madigan, Owen Jones, Eden Ladley etc

twitter.com/HWGYoungLabour/status/1020009994471854081

relevent current threads:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3311038-Sky-News-9-30am-today-re-GRA

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3309758-This-never-happens-male-offenders-in-female-prisons

previous threads:
NUS Trans18 (allocating women's loo as gender neutral in hotel & subsequent occupation)
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3237230-NUS-Conference-breaks-down-after-the-UK-Border-Force-Arrive

Workshop at NUS Women's 18
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3222263-Slide-show-on-How-to-Deal-with-TERFs

Sisters Uncut
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3257491-Strong-words-from-feminists-unhappy-with-trans-exclusionary-ideology

Douglas Murray Spectator article 'Does Teen Vogue understand what it means to be ‘literally a communist’?'
(extract)
"[Ash] Sarkar and her colleagues are now (and I refuse to link to this) even trying to monetise their communism. They have already made t-shirts available for purchase with the hilarious slogan ‘I am literally a communist’ on them. I suppose capitalism must have its uses after all. Perhaps in due course we will be able to see people wearing these casual moral insults. That they will worn by the same sort of people who have spent recent years telling everyone else that they must ‘call out’ fascism wherever they sniff if and should actually punch Nazis whenever we think we see them raises the interesting question of what attitude the rest of us should take should we see anyone wearing one of these obscene communist t-shirts?

Of course the wearers will have an advantage of a kind. Which is the advantage of ignorance. For alarming though it is, many people when they hear ‘communism’ do not think of the NKVD and the knock on the door. They do not think of the graves of tens of millions of people all across the globe. The millions of wasted lives, from the wastelands of Siberia to the blackened piles of human skulls in Cambodia. They do not think of the witness of Alexander Solzhenitsyn. Nor of Anna Akhmatova, whose husband was executed in a mass shooting and whose son was later sent off to the Gulag. They do not think of her testimony of the Yekhov terror, when she spent 17 months in the prison queues in Leningrad:

‘One day someone ‘identified’ me. Then a woman with lips blue with cold who was standing behind me, and of course had never heard of my name, came out of the numbness which affected us all and whispered in my ear—(we all spoke in whispers there): ‘Could you describe this?’ I said, ‘I can!’ Then something resembling a smile slipped over what had once been her face.’

None of this comes to their minds. And why? There are only two possibilities.

The better of these is ignorance. Though it is not a simple ignorance. Rather it is an ignorance on such a scale and of such a catastrophic obscenity that any person becoming aware of it would hide away from shame. There to educate themselves. To inform themselves. To try to make better human beings of themselves. In a word to ‘redeem’ themselves from an ignorance that ought to be personality-shattering when it is recognised.

As I say, that the is the happier explanation. The unhappier one is that anyone able to say ‘I’m literally a communist’ actually does in fact have – at the very least – an inkling of all of this. Or is merrily on board with atrocity. It means that they are happy to explain it away, diminish it, minimise it or otherwise excuse the horror. This possibility takes a range of forms. Like some of the far-right after the war, some are hoping to argue down the death-tolls caused by their own ideology or pretend them away as exaggerated or proclaim that they were invented by their ideological enemies. They do not bother to contend with the facts or the testimonies of Solzhenitsyn or Akhmatova, because they consider that witnesses such as them in some way let the side down. Sure some bad things happened. But you can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs. And why concentrate on all those tens of millions of broken shells when we can keep working on this foul, unworkable, blood-drenched omelette?" (continues)

blogs.spectator.co.uk/2018/07/does-teen-vogue-understand-what-it-means-to-be-literally-a-communist/

Well here's a tweet and a half

Jimmy Rushmore @ jimmysecuk
Ash Sarkar is literally a classical liberal who thinks she's a communist

Great post Materialist

That poster "don't worry. They know better than you do" was creepy to the max - as well over-riding The Gift of Fear, it was as patronising AF. I read it as "don't worry your pretty little head about it" - where have we heard that before? From men. But you are so right, the grooming element is even more sinister.

Hope your post stays, Materialist.

Everyone knows that we are talking about men, males, the half of the population that contains the majority of predators and murderers.

When you switch from saying men to saying people everyone can see the switch and most understand why you conflate men with women when you want to tell women we are being unfair to men.

This year in the UK there are more transgender murderers than murdered.
False claims of transgender victimhood only carry you so far. Then people start to fact check you and they get angry when they find out they were lied to. Black prostituted transgenders die at a shocking rate at the hands of men.
That simply bears out the Feminist position that women and girls need their rights to privacy strengthened, not weakened.

As for insinuating that transpeople, Transwomen in particular are a danger to girls and women, that’s speculative at best based on ignorance of the facts. Transpeople in general are more likely to be the victims of an attack rather than the perpetrator

Really?

Really?

Really Really?

Really truly?

Your statement is false.

It's absurd not to be skeptical of a movement led by adult males that argues for relaxing the safeguarding of children around males.

An incredible abrogation of responsibility.

Floorplan, if the battle for rights is lost, history won't give a shit. What MNHQ did or didn't do will simply be erased. Those who bare witness will not necessarily be free to speak. That we assume we will always be free to give testimony to the annuals of history, is a weakness in itself. Denial of the past and rewriting of history are political tools to distort the politics of the present and future.

Great post Materilalist

Don't go Offred

I will stand up with you in asking MNHQ why they are deleting people for asking questions about male behaviour towards women and children.

We are watching and archiving for history @MNHQ on which side we will be in the right of.