Are feminists getting played?

My thread, btw, if anyone's interested

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3649056--1-Lets-talk-about-Feminist-issue-policies

What I mean Maniak is that from my reading of the thread we already are discussing what you want to discuss.

If you want to discuss why MN is at the centre of trans issues, why many feminists centre trans issues, and what other issues are as or more important than trans issues, there are 400 posts on this thread already doing just that.

If you want to discuss those other issues specifically, you should start a thread about it. Or engage with some one else's. I posted a thread myself yesterday to discuss the different political party manifestos from a feminist perspective. Only one of the people saying on here that we only talk about trans stuff bothered to come over and post on it (your input was appreciated btw).

The question of why women are centring trans issues, and whether that's a valid use of feminist energy, is a worthwhile one, but we are having that discussion. That's this whole thread. 400 posts of women explaining why they think the answer is yes. So it seems like when people say "you aren't letting us discuss this" what they really mean is "you aren't agreeing with me that other issues are more important".

You can't make people agree with you about that, all you can do is try to change the balance of topics posted and engaged with on this board by posting and engaging yourself.

If none of those things are what you're getting at then I have to ask again what you want from this thread, because I honestly am not getting it.

There are so many women who don't think war is gendered. War and nuclear disarmament is a major feminist priority because it's men who build nuclear weapons and its men who bomb. It's not women.

It isn't that I don't think war is gendered, it was that I had not made the immediate connection that feminism had any influence on it. I had not realised you were referring to using feminism as a means to influence a deterrent. My misunderstanding what you wrote, that's all.

And, I think this could be an interesting discussion.

But if we are not allowed to define what a woman is then how can we discuss anything from a feminist perspective?

Whatever the main topic, we should always be welcoming of people asking x,y or z has to do with feminism.

It isn’t sad. It is one of the best things about this board - that women can ask about an issue they are unfamiliar with, and someone else will share knowledge.

It is the exact opposite of the social justice ‘educate yourself’ that goes on elsewhere.

In fact I would say one of the the feminist issues that makes me the most angry is the cries of WDIT when it comes to war crimes and genocide

The fact that a GC feminist doesn't understand how terrorism, war and conflict can be discussed from a feminist perspective really saddens me

There are so many women who don't think war is gendered. War and nuclear disarmament is a major feminist priority because it's men who build nuclear weapons and its men who bomb. It's not women.

WDIT

I have another theory.

I think that the left, traditionally the female friendly wing of politics, in its support of the welfare state, in particular its support single mothers and the disabled, is now starting to look infinitely ridiculous to women, because they seem to be the main supporters of trans.

Women are starting to think the Tories look sane.

And considering most transwomen are middle class white men, it is insane that the left is supporting them when it's supposed to support the working classes.

Trans is making the left look ridiculous and I'm so angry that the men on the left hate women so much that they would rather lose our vote than put pay to the trans madness.

I want the left to return to its support of single mothers like it has done in the past

The fact that a GC feminist doesn't understand how terrorism, war and conflict can be discussed from a feminist perspective really saddens me. These are exactly the sort of issues I think are getting drowned out at the moment.

@Endofthedays and @SuperLoudPoppingAction

Thank you ... I understand that now.

Trans may not be the most important issue in feminism, but it is an important issue, and this is the core UK forum for discussing it, because so many places ban talking about it! MN doesn’t need to be at the forefront of every single feminist issue. It does need to be at the forefront of this one.

Leymah Gbowee in Liberia did amazing work recently. There's such a good film...
I think it's called Prey the Devil back to hell

Jacky, the greenham/aldermanton etc campers were fighting militarism from a feminist perspective.
Women in Black do the same.

I think most things can be discussed from a feminist perspective but war in particular has a long history of being discussed in this way.

Jacky, lots of ways. Women involvement in a peace process, for example, increases the chances of a peace being acheived.

Feminism has always been like this. There had always been some kind of group pushing to get rid of women and girls’ boundaries, and feminists have always had to put a huge amount of effort to protect those boundaries - running to stand still.

After trans, men will find a new way to try and destroy boundaries.

Feminists will always have to devote a large amount of time and attention to maintaining boundaries.

But there are other just as important, if not more important issues in feminism. Off the top of my head, men's propensity for bombing the shit out of things

I am at a loss here how "men's propensity for bombing the shit out of things" [presumably meaning terrorist activity] relates to feminism in any way.

Please could someone explain?

I honestly don't know what you want to discuss anymore Sakura. You seem to be asking "why are people putting more energy into trans stuff than other stuff" and people are replying "because we think it's the most important issue". And then you're saying "well I don't think it is the most important issue, I think X is the most important issue" and people are saying "great, that does sound important, why not start a thread discussing it". Then you're saying "no I want to talk about why you all think trans is so important" and people are saying "x,y,z" and you're saying "no I think it's for these reasons, why can't we discuss this?" So if I'm following the debate correctly you don't want to discuss the issues you think are important, you don't believe people when they tell you why they think different issues are important, and you're cross that people won't discuss at length and ultimately agree that they're really motivated by the reasons you think they're motivated. Is that right? Look, you've asked why people are centring trans issues, and they've told you. If you don't agree/ believe them/ think those reasons are valid then fine, agree to disagree. If you think other issues are more important then great, lets discuss them. For what it's worth I actually agree with you that environmental concerns are the biggest threat to women (and humanity in general) because whilst we can't fight for feminism without feminist language, we can't fight for anything if we're all dead. So I'm very happy to have a thread, or lots of threads, centring that. But I honestly don't know what you're trying to get from this thread anymore.

I think the notion of male parasitism (see Marilyn Frye's Separatism and Power where abortion and women-only spaces are discussed and also lots of Mary Daly's work) and necrophilia in the sense of a love of death and violence (Mary Daly again) ties a lot of aspects of patriarchy together quite neatly.

One aspect might be more of an issue than another at any given time but if we can't meet as women without our oppressors present I think it's much harder to strategise

I disagree with you Sakura. If we are not allowed to be clear in what a woman is then what is feminism ?

Why do people derail this topic onto the subject of "why don't you start your own thread?" .

It's almost like this is one of those topics that at not allowed to be discussed

Nobody is saying trans isn't important or omnipresent, or that the language issue isn't important and so on.

But there are other just as important, if not more important issues in feminism. Off the top of my head, men's propensity for bombing the shit out of things, which is totally unrelated to trans.

And I don't think "well what are you doing about it?" applies. First of all we are allowed to discuss feminism and feminist theory , why is this being blocked and prevented?

I've given loads of reasons below why I think trans predominates in feminism, which is the topic under discussion .

And no, I dont think genderism is the biggest threat to women and to feminism. It is a great threat, not the biggest threat, but gets almost all feminist energy.

I have theories why this is, but because we're not allowed to discuss this topic apparently, those theories are being overlooked

Exactly Jacky.

A pertinent reminder from Andrea Dworkin:

Far right women are also, you know, women. And allowed an opinion.

*... which makes me suspect that you have a couple of far right sleepers on here who aren't quite who they claim to be.”

Like this? www.theguardian.com/world/2016/may/07/discovered-our-parents-were-russian-spies-tim-alex-foley

Even if we FWR really does harbour far-right sleeper agents, or even lightly napping lib-fems, I’m not clear what you think they will achieve in an anonymous forum of unruly women.

If Gavin the tousle-headed UKIP agent is posing as JanEyre4eva, and dropping suggestive PMs into inboxes in the hopes of seducing women to vote for them, I’d suspect we’d hear about it.

Since FWR is apparently the Hellmouth, or at least a radicalisation portal, we’re all a bit busy. Gavin might need to bide his wiles, at least until the cheques from the Illuminati arrive, (if you’re reading George, I didn’t get paid for the last demonstration either).