Why is Mumsnet so GC?

In fact, I asked copilot to compose me the opening chapter of a dystopian novel containing that text. This is the result.

What’s interesting is how well copilot has captured butterfly’s style.

Indeed. I think Parklife! is the only possible response

It's generally sightly more educated women than if you collected a group of women off the street, so less susceptible to being people pleasers for men.

The reactionary nature of the 'Gender Critical' identity movement alongside the behaviour and associations of its shadier supporters eventually proved too divisive, however, and it is currently in the process of collapsing under the weight of its own difference.

Fixed it.

I had a CompuServe email address in the mid 90s which was already passe by the time I got it, and getting a data inclusive phone line account was possible then if you knew where to go.

The world wide web software only became public in 1993 and finding anything was still blooming difficult.

The reactionary nature of the 'Gender Critical' movement alongside the behaviour and associations of its shadier supporters eventually proved too divisive, however, and it is currently in the process of collapsing under the weight of its own differences.

This reads like a paragraph from the opening chapter of a really piss poor dystopian novel published via a vanity press.

Thanks Eresh and 🍷 for you too.

I recall years ago on here refuting the idea that this is a "movement" or a "cause". It's too simplistic.

I find all perspectives of interest and understanding the motivation behind people's statements is integral to that. The tendency to labeling is a fascinating human thing that seems to generate millions of words but I find useful nuggets emerge from the conflicting positions that in the end advances understanding for everyone if we can use it.

I don't really feel negative about the fights because better understanding emerges from all the bashing about of words.

I've never been in this "gender critical" movement but I've managed to do a shed load of work heading off some bonkers identity ideas in real life!

I guess it's different ideas of what the gender critical movement is. I see it as a very loose coalition, I think a pp described it as an "anti-insanity coalition".

But your IRL practical stuff is very much needed.

*The reactionary nature of the 'Gender Critical' movement alongside the behaviour and associations of its shadier supporters eventually proved too divisive, however, and it is currently in the process of collapsing under the weight of its own differences."

I mean that's just wishful thinking isn't it?

I've never been in this "gender critical" movement but I've managed to do a shed load of work heading off some bonkers identity ideas in real life!

This hope that there's some sort of modern day Napoleonic army disintegrating in the bad weather is a very masculine trope isn't it?

All that online war gaming addles the mind.

And reactionary! That just makes me laugh. Its not complicated. I just think this whole idea that men can be women is a non starter... because it is.

Data from the USA shows more early users but anyone with home internet in 1995 was clearly very much an early adopter.

In case anyone is interested, the data for that starts in 1990.

The data for landlines is also interesting. Quite a lot of people lived in households without phone lines at all in 1995. And no, they did not have mobiles instead.

But in Butterfly’s alt-history of everything, everyone was 2020s-style levels of online in the 90s.

😂😂😂

Or a Big Boy plugged the internet in and ran away.

Maybe Butterfly’s Internet went to another school in 1995 and we wouldn’t know it Jackson 😆

This is world bank data for internet usage in the UK. That’s usage - not home internet (which will have been even lower).

Note how very unusual being an internet user was in 1995.

There is a lot of decidedly unearned incredulity here. My household wasn't an early adopter by any means.

It's not exactly surprising that behaviours and attitudes around sex are correlated with sex!

Not to us it isn't, but to some people it seems to come as a shock! There's an age element too, younger women tend to assume that everyone means well and we should all be left to explore and have fun .... us old gimmers know where that can end.

(shakes head fondly at younger self)

It's not exactly surprising that behaviours and attitudes around sex are correlated with sex!

One of the things that evidently can cause confusion is that on the one hand we reject gender stereotypes, but on the other we need to remain acutely aware of genuine sexed differences. Some of which are completely binary eg reproductive role, others are distributions at the population level eg height, strength, propensity for violence.

I'd say that women active in sexual (or gender) politics (like feminists!) tend to care more about protecting themselves and each other from abuse and sexual exploitation, while the men care more about sexual freedom and self expression. And that difference seems to be along the lines of sex not gender identity.

Yep.

That sums it up.

Even pre-broadband a few kids were online before their parents really knew what was out there. Ritchie Herron has talked about being online quite young, pre broadband. He was groomed online by older men even then. He's said he's glad that he couldn't share pictures.

So honestly, those happy little groups that ButterlyHatched talks about were lucky for some but unsafe for others. And not just online either. There was no awareness of safeguarding and organisations like the Stonewall Youth Project in Scotland (now renamed, under new management and presumably a lot more careful nowadays than it was pre-2005!) exposed some vulnerable young people to real harm, some of which has only recently come to light as historic abuse.

And to generalise... although feminists have campaigned around protection from abuse and also sexual freedom, I'd say that women active in sexual (or gender) politics (like feminists!) tend to care more about protecting themselves and each other from abuse and sexual exploitation, while the men care more about sexual freedom and self expression. And that difference seems to be along the lines of sex not gender identity.

Just catching up!

It's always nice to see the male perspective on things, it tends to prove highly informative!

And I can date my first "will you get off the internet I'm expecting an important phone call" to Autumn 1995 when the annoying lad with the computer and modem moved in. At that point you were still having to type in the whole https/wwwetc and the phone bills were horrendous!

Yeah. In the early 90s it was pay as you go and expensive and we did use it sparingly at home. Not only that it put the phone line out of action until ADSL was available.

It doesn’t matter what the access was or what the internet speeds were at that time, they could have been millions of megabytes per second, in 1995 BH was around 11 years old. The idea that they were at the vanguard of the online discussion around trans rights is pure fantasy.

So beautiful, so delicate, so discriminated against, so vulnerable . . . just trying to live its best life as its authentic self, flitting from flower to flower, sipping nectar, and not crushing or destroying anyone else at all.

Fair enough.

There's no way it'll fit my enormous arse me, anyway.

We got dial-up internet at home in 1994. But it was extremely uncommon, my parents only got it (having had it explained to them by me and my brother) because I was going abroad to university and wanted to be able to email me.

When I got to uni, I was one of the very few people in my cohort who actually went to the Computer Room, and knew how to use the Scary Internet Things.