Women's rights general conversations

I agree with you MissLawls about Greer. I'm very slightly younger that you and read the Female Eunuch first in the mid seventies, but a lot of it resonates so much now. I probably ought to get it down and do a proper re-read.

We are very used to formatting fails here.

Whole chunks of text sometimes appear to be struck out if they've been c&pd and happen to include some dashes. And higher education threads are beset by inadvertent bolding if A* grades are being mentioned more than once.

In 2006, at the time of the Ipswich murders, I spent a lot of time on the BBC news message boards insisting that they should refer to the victims not as 'prostitutes', but as 'women who worked as prostitutes'. It was obvious that it was being female that made them vulnerable - male sex workers weren't on the at-risk list.

I recall when Peter Sutcliffe murdered a number of women in Leeds in the late 70s and early 80s the coverage changed when he murdered women who weren't working or alleged to have been working as prostitutes. The coverage actually as good as said it was much more frightening now he'd moved onto "respectable" women. Joan Smith is very good on this.

We seem to have collectively forgotten what horrible, insular, clique-driven, boys’ clubs they were

It must be a big shock for men who come here expecting the usual treatment who then find that, actually, women run this place and we don't do that here.

Even the primogeniture clause is the GRA assumes women will use the to act to deceive and gain financial advantage over their male siblings, this clause was felt necessary despite it applying to a tiny number of the population, and yet we keep being told that male predators would never abuse self ID despite evidence that predators will capitalise on any loophole which provides them with opportunity

That is very very interesting to me and I didn't know this, thank you for sharing.

We seem to have collectively forgotten what horrible, insular, clique-driven, boys’ clubs they were

Great extract there. Thanks @NeighbourhoodWatchPotholeDivision

I think most of life is like a clique-driven, boys' own club. I think it's merely replicated online but it can seem more stark there. I think Germaine Greer had it right, as she so often does, when she said women live in the house of enemy. And yes, I know NAMALT and many women don't want to see men as the enemy. But the fact remains it's their world and even the nicest, kindest, most understanding men gain huge benefit from that.

One of the very few advantages of genderism is that it has revealed the extent of misogyny to some men:

twitter.com/douglaskmurray/status/148462044470779085

And exposure to that misogyny is what is fuelling that rise in female anger imo.

www.bbc.com/news/world-63874001

I'm not impressed by the interventions from the bloke yesterday. Maybe there could be a conversation around that somewhere (I'm not keen) but not here, not now, not in that tone.

In 2006, at the time of the Ipswich murders, I spent a lot of time on the BBC news message boards insisting that they should refer to the victims not as 'prostitutes', but as 'women who worked as prostitutes'. It was obvious that it was being female that made them vulnerable - male sex workers weren't on the at-risk list.

A lot of the other posters were very indignant, (the Beeb did eventually start to change) - the twin ideas that that's what women are there for, but also that we deserve what we get because we're whores trope runs very deep - see the objections to Hallie Rubenhold's excellent book about the women murdered in London in 1888. Women first, problematic 'job' title second.

and why women would get into the habit of placating male users. I did it myself, especially in MMORPG guilds.

@NeighbourhoodWatchPotholeDivision I have spent a fair portion of my adult life placating men, mostly in the context of abusive relationships, despite having called myself a feminist for the past 10 years. Placation was a survival strategy, to not rock the boat for fear of the consequences it would bring. I have excused countless despicable behaviours to my own detriment (but never when those behaviours directed at other women, for some reason) because the man was ‘damaged’ or sad or lonely or had a difficult childhood or whatever else. Last year I decided to free myself of all that and finally come to my senses that I am not here to be an emotional support human for men and I am not responsible for their wellbeing nor their shitty behaviour. I’ve known it for years of course and I just wish I’d been able to put it into practice sooner. I still feel myself slipping from time to time and have to give myself a good talking to.

We are very used to formatting fails here. And typos (some of which are hilarious).

I have found the new update formating to really be a bit unforgiving so resort back to the old methods ^ for italics and * for bold.

One of the very few advantages of genderism is that it has revealed the extent of misogyny to some men:

twitter.com/douglaskmurray/status/1484620444707790856

I'm going to quote a man here, Andrew Pope, humorist and a fantastic man for explaining safeguarding in small words. In a blog about Mastodon, he jogged my mind about the early internet, and why women would get into the habit of placating male users. I did it myself, especially in MMORPG guilds. I gradually shed these habits on MN, and have now graduated to telling arseholes in person, "that was incredibly rude". A friend is terrified I will get punched. She probably has a point.

By now a load of Mastodon fans have skipped to the comments section, to tell me that this is all a feature, not a bug, and that they like it this way. I’ve even seen a few people say that the Mastodon experience reminds them of the web forums of the 90s and early 2000s, and say that as if it’s a good thing.

We seem to have collectively forgotten what horrible, insular, clique-driven, boys’ clubs they were. Women were welcome, of course, so long as they were gamer chicks, or biker chicks, or nerd chicks, or cool chicks, who’d laugh off (or oblige) the ubiquitous ‘TOGTFO’ comments, and be the kind of chick who wouldn’t complain she’d just been called ‘chick’ five times in quick succession. And so many of those forums were convinced they were “nice” places, because they were run on ‘Just be nice’ rules, where the people enforcing the rules decided what was nice.

Mastodon, though, really seems to go the extra mile in adding a layer of earnest humourlessness on to the top. There’s a “We’re all mad here, us,” energy to the humour that does slip through, followed by a reminder that some neurodivergent people can’t immediately recognise humour, so all jokes should have embedded humour tags, so as not to exclude them, and should link to an essay explaining the joke.

What the last few years on Twitter have taught me is that for the men’s-rights movement that hides behind the trans colours to succeed it needs people not to talk about it. It needs women with strong voices silenced. It needs po-faced acceptance of the absurdities it insists are truths. In Mastodon it seems to have found its perfect partner.

Andrew's blog

Not a finger slip, pike was trying to format in the way we did for years at the other place and it made me smile.

And that is supposed to end with two asterisks. *

Me messing up the formatting of my previous post to Neighbour. Sorry, am going back to lurking.

Sorry. Cross post.

the 'b' neighbour?

Bold???? or a finger slip. I am always sending text from my phone with a 'b' at the end. And find the new bolding interface on the update unreliable so still use the * *

Helleo, in the old place putting in a line break and then 'b' before a word would bold it. You get so used to doing that stuff that, on a similar looking forum, it's easy to repeat.

What is?

It's not maleness that is the problem. It is misogyny. Unfortunately misogyny maps closely onto maleness. How can it not, when we swim in it? Some men manage to see it. There are plenty of men who actually listen and can, if they concentrate some of them, actually centre women in a discussion. But the ones who have already decided that they are "good men" (in my experience they believe they are good men because they read the Guardian and are "left wing" and get angry at Tories) are often pretty impregnable to the idea that they might be a misogynistic git too.

I may be being ungenerous. I am still very unimpressed by the display of contempt we experienced last night.

Classic rookie mistake!

b Neighbour

Arf!

But I've been online since 1995, dialup and Internet Relay Chat. And I've always had the feeling it was far more male than female.

The first online discussion of feminism I ever participated in was ~1984. I was the only woman involved. At that time - a chemistry PhD student - I was an I'm All Right Jill who thought women had equality.... Fortunately, the discussion made me realise it wasn't all about me. So I'll never be someone who wants to exclude sensible male allies.

I guess if some of the people who left that other forum want to support sex trade apologists, they could try the Feminism Chat board. Whether blokes who treat women as support humans will get an easier ride there I can't promise.

Thank you
b Neighbour
for your post and the link to the article on the female price for male pleasure.

Yes, and I wonder if women coming from the other site are used to having to placate the men to some extent, if that site was majority male or 50/50.

I don't know the stats @StellaAndCrow but going partly from how popular the football threads were on there (and yes I know women like football too - I'm a huge football fan myself) I'd say it was much closer to 75/25 or maybe even 80/20. I've got to meets where women were in the minority; never equal numbers.

I'd love to know what the percentage was but judging by the way our exodus was pushed and then cheered I'd say the vast majority of the posters are now men. And while many did not join in calling us bigots, scum or hateful I think they were relieved when we left so they could get on with doing what they wanted to do most without us pesky Women With Wrong Opinions getting in the way.

I think the male majority may be true of many places online. I've no idea how Twitter splits along sex lines or Facebook. But I've been online since 1995, dialup and Internet Relay Chat. And I've always had the feeling it was far more male than female.