Oh dear. A split.

I took Malaga's post as asking what society would look like if it was built entirely around what's best for children. I don't know the answer, and what's more I've an uncomfortable feeling I might not entirely like the answer, but, if that's what she was asking then I think it's a valid question.

It really is high time feminism thrashed some of this stuff out. It's been festering for decades and the longer it's left, the bigger the row's going to be.

I am of independent mind and not easily persuaded by anyone telling me what I should think.

Rather a lot like PP. Sometimes people who reflect something about ourselves back to us piss us off.

It's alien to them.

I think Malaga makes some good points. It is an issue that feminism is not comfortable with. Perhaps the problem is that feminism centres women only but in a family women are one piece of a puzzle. What is good for a woman is not necessarily good for a family and for a child.

Feminism seems to have been keen to give women the same role as men without taking into account that this leaves either a woman doing two jobs(home and work) or the children left with less emotional care. I think feminism hoped that men would step into the gap and share but apart from some lovely exceptions it hasn't really worked like that.

Both parents do need to put children first and sometimes that will conflict with their own wants. Of course we should sacrifice our wants for our children's needs. Making a family is a fine balancing act which neither history or the modern world has got right.

We need more discussion about area of women's lives.

'women who believe men can become women unless they're connected of a sex crime'

Where did Ruth Serwotka say she believed that?

That tweet says she believes, as a minimum, that any social recognition of 'womanhood' should be barred to rapists. Not that she personally believes men can turn into women.

She might think they can, but that tweet doesn't say so.

I hate bloody Twitter. Too brief, too easily overinterpreted.

HephzibahGreen: and that's why we can't talk about it.

You accuse me of sneering or blaming single mothers. I did neither. You put words in quotes I never used.

I just talked about the data that we know, about what works for children. Which is having involved mothers and fathers.

And you're right single motherhood doesn't work for women either.

I'm not blaming women. I'm pointing out a problem which I don't think feminism has provided women an answer for.

But when even saying it doesn't work well is seen as an attack, we can't talk about it.

It's definitely not a split. More a slight flare-up of an ongoing issue.

I've never had the sense from Posie that she minds people disagreeing with her or that she's not capable of changing her views on issues. I agree with her on many things, not all, and I recognise what a brilliant campaigner she is.

I really object to that "domesticated zombies" line and Sarah Ditum liking it. Maybe she didn't intend for it to sound contemptuous of mothers but that's the way it read to many women. It's true, as PP said, that she's been attacked by feminists for the way she looks, her parenting, her intelligence. It's not acceptable.

Regardless, both of them do a great deal to campaign for women's rights and that's where the focus should be. Leave the purity spirals for others.

It's really bloody weird these days that some people genuinely think you can't disagree with someone else and still remain calm and unruffled and even still rate and like them.

It's also worth noting that just about everybody disagrees with transactivism, before they even fully know what's going on.

And only more so, when they are informed. When you get 90% of the population understanding that sex matters, you're obviously going to get wildly different opinions, politics, attitudes in just about everything else.

And whether you disagree with Ruth Serwotka in this case (I do), or not, despite the way she sometimes goes about it, she is pro women. And so is Sarah Ditum.

And this thread is very interesting, too, due to the conversation about motherhood. Someone has to look after the children. And it should never be to their detriment. It's very interesting to hear different solutions.

I'm acutely aware of that uneasy relationship with "homemakers". I have 2 teen boys with SN so I've ended up dropping a career that I was admittedly struggling with to be there full time for them. Spent a lot of that time picking up the pieces of other people fucking up with them. It's put me in a financially vulnerable position but needs must.

Yes, there is a differnce in opinion.

No. Shit. Sherlock.

Which one did you think was our 'Leader'?

Sorry to disappoint. Some of these women might act like Head Girls, but we are not in school anymore and we can tell them to fuck off.

Seriously. Fuck off.

"Two women disagree with each other" shock.

But maybe it really is a shock to transactivists. Women can disagree and even quarrel without either of them threatening violence or trying to get the other one fired.

What has saying poor single mothers don’t mix with “ proper” families have to do with sex mattering exactly??
The endlessly demonised poor single mothers are generally poor because the fathers fucked of and don’t pay up. That’s not a moral failing by the mothers, it’s a society willing to allow men to take no responsibility.
Sex matters in that women ( yes even poor single mothers) consistently pick up the slack, put food on the table and work to make families where a lot of men just don’t. Take your sneering and preconceptions somewhere else.

It's not just unrelated males who pose a danger to children in households.
Unrelated females do too.

Sadly recent news events, stats, & archetypes & tell us this.

And the biggest resiliency factor in not knowing your bio father? Being within a community of kids who do know their bio fathers.
Lots of lesbian couples probably provide this as a resiliency factor.
Lots of poor single mothers probably don't.

We know what works for kids.
We just don't want to talk about it.

Sex matters.

"SPLITTERS!"

Honestly, The Life Of Brian covered it all.

For my part, women who act like unelected leaders can fuck off. The arrogance of these two women, talking about 'domesticated zombies', while writing articles about men on a jouney to womanhood and men writing as part their agp novel writing. MEN. Not women

And yet you speak this way about women?
Read the fucking room.

Children do fine, actually better than average, when raised by lesbian parents

Stepfathers/unrelated males are a risk, and single parenthood is unsurprisingly harder than when two adults are contributing

I think the evidence proves both your points. Lesbians are no different than any mother who is raising her children without their bio father - it depends on how children feel and how they are connected to their bio dad. Some resent having him gone, some are ambivalent and some are grateful he's not in the picture. From the donor conceived websites, it's clear children do care to have knowledge and insight on their bio parents. We can't pretend children don't need this knowledge and/or connection. It's true for adopted children as well. Everyone deserves to know where they came from.

Personally, if my DH died or left me, I'd never date or remarry while my DDs still lived with me. Too dangerous for them to have an unrelated man around.

I get confused when women say they are for women's rights but they aren't feminists. I can't separate the two as I've no idea the criteria of each camp. I don't expect any woman who calls herself one or the other or both to agree on all policies and issues, but to me women's rights and feminism are synonyms.

As to Posie, sometimes I love what she says and how she says it. Sometimes I don't. I have no problem criticizing some of her ideas (as an American, I completely disagree with her on loads of issues regarding our politics but I also think she's out of her depth there), but I don't think that's the same thing as criticizing her personally. On a personal level, I'd probably love hanging out with her.

Children do best when raised by their biological parents (on average statistically etc). Having a step parent in the home is a significant risk factor in many ways.

Children do fine, actually better than average, when raised by lesbian parents.

Stepfathers/unrelated males are a risk, and single parenthood is unsurprisingly harder than when two adults are contributing.

You might be half right in that it’s bad for children not to be raised by their biological mother. That would be consistent with the evidence. I guess we will know for sure once the great surrogacy experiment has produced some results.

They're connected =they're convicted

It's not hateful to tell the truth.

"Ranting"

What's next OP?
Frothing?

I agree with the many great posts above pointing out feminism's blind spots. One can support women's rights without being a feminist. Not only is feminism uneasy about motherhood, it also seems uninterested in women's traditional roles, contributions and ways of being. Feminists seem to value the male world more than the female world. Everything women did is trivial but everything men did is important. I think there is much to be learned from how our foremothers successfully lived their lives.

supporting a journey to womanhood for those born male

That's a misleading quote. In simple clear language, RS's tweet meant "rapists with GRCs shouldn't be in female prisons".

[quote Redlake]Kellie Jay ranting against feminists.

What an interesting thread this has turned out to be - despite the OP's original hopes. Feminism has always had divisions and differences. The glaring divide between the fairy dust journey that some argue men can make towards their version of womanhood versus so many women's insistence that the sex class of women must never include the oppressor group of men is stark. Navigating this is going to be a challenge.