Biggus Titus of Oxford University

How would the creation of such a group be greeted by students and staff?

My guess is that it would involve a protest comprising performative sadness and giant rubber boobs.

Women and feminists and Oxford academics don't all think alike.

Is there a women only society at Oxford that doesn't doesn't admit men? How would the creation of such a group be greeted by students and staff?

I feel like I should start a bingo card now. I've actually been on MN for years. I'm so old, I used to post on the feminism threads before they changed and became dominated by the trans issue.

I've posted under different names over the years, but now whenever I post on the feminism threads I can tick off the following comments on my virtual bingo card: 'Not a woman.' 'Not a feminist.' And now that I picked the name oxfordfeminist, I'm getting the comments, 'Not in Oxford.' 'Not an academic.' This is super predictable and happens on thread after thread. If I don't think the way women are supposed to think (according to the implicit 'rules' on the MN feminist threads), I'm not a woman! It's just an example of inflexibility and unexamined assumptions.

There's no way of proving that anyone on MN threads are who they say they are, unless they decide to out themselves (which we're not obligated to do). So people can think what they like, but maybe if you think someone like me can't possibly be a woman or a feminist or an Oxford academic, you need to expand your ideas. Just because someone disagrees with you doesn't mean they don't look remarkably ordinary in real life! Or remarkably like you and the other MNers posting on this thread.

Women and feminists and Oxford academics don't all think alike. This is partly why it's so difficult to make change happen at Oxford. The uni is literally run by the academics and staff, who vote in Congregation. They say that achieving consensus at Oxford Uni is like herding cats, and they're not wrong.

If the thread were more sympathetic, I'd stick around to debate, but it's not. I just want to make the point that there are plenty of decent women in the world who don't share the majority view on this thread. If I met you in person, I'd be happy to have a robust one-on-one debate, but not on threads like this, where it feels like an enormous echo chamber.

Cutted-up pear, Sistine chapel, Mexican house thief. LTB, no is a complete answer, did you mean to be so rude?

The only allegation people can legitimately make is that I spend far too much time on MN. Sometimes I go against my better judgement and jump into the anti-trans threads. I need to stick with the vast sections of MN where women don't attack and dehumanise each other.

Wishing you a nice day.

I feel like I should start a bingo card now. I've actually been on MN for years. I'm so old, I used to post on the feminism threads before they changed and became dominated by the trans issue.

I've posted under different names over the years, but now whenever I post on the feminism threads I can tick off the following comments on my virtual bingo card: 'Not a woman.' 'Not a feminist.' And now that I picked the name oxfordfeminist, I'm getting the comments, 'Not in Oxford.' 'Not an academic.' This is super predictable and happens on thread after thread. If I don't think the way women are supposed to think (according to the implicit 'rules' on the MN feminist threads), I'm not a woman! It's just an example of inflexibility and unexamined assumptions.

There's no way of proving that anyone on MN threads are who they say they are, unless they decide to out themselves (which we're not obligated to do). So people can think what they like, but maybe if you think someone like me can't possibly be a woman or a feminist or an Oxford academic, you need to expand your ideas. Just because someone disagrees with you doesn't mean they don't look remarkably ordinary in real life! Or remarkably like you and the other MNers posting on this thread.

Women and feminists and Oxford academics don't all think alike. This is partly why it's so difficult to make change happen at Oxford. The uni is literally run by the academics and staff, who vote in Congregation. They say that achieving consensus at Oxford Uni is like herding cats, and they're not wrong.

If the thread were more sympathetic, I'd stick around to debate, but it's not. I just want to make the point that there are plenty of decent women in the world who don't share the majority view on this thread. If I met you in person, I'd be happy to have a robust one-on-one debate, but not on threads like this, where it feels like an enormous echo chamber.

Cutted-up pear, Sistine chapel, Mexican house thief. LTB, no is a complete answer, did you mean to be so rude?

The only allegation people can legitimately make is that I spend far too much time on MN. Sometimes I go against my better judgement and jump into the anti-trans threads. I need to stick with the vast sections of MN where women don't attack and dehumanise each other.

Wishing you a nice day.

I feel like I should start a bingo card now. I've actually been on MN for years. I'm so old, I used to post on the feminism threads before they changed and became dominated by the trans issue.

I've posted under different names over the years, but now whenever I post on the feminism threads I can tick off the following comments on my virtual bingo card: 'Not a woman.' 'Not a feminist.' And now that I picked the name oxfordfeminist, I'm getting the comments, 'Not in Oxford.' 'Not an academic.' This is super predictable and happens on thread after thread. If I don't think the way women are supposed to think (according to the implicit 'rules' on the MN feminist threads), I'm not a woman! It's just an example of inflexibility and unexamined assumptions.

There's no way of proving that anyone on MN threads are who they say they are, unless they decide to out themselves (which we're not obligated to do). So people can think what they like, but maybe if you think someone like me can't possibly be a woman or a feminist or an Oxford academic, you need to expand your ideas. Just because someone disagrees with you doesn't mean they don't look remarkably ordinary in real life! Or remarkably like you and the other MNers posting on this thread.

Women and feminists and Oxford academics don't all think alike. This is partly why it's so difficult to make change happen at Oxford. The uni is literally run by the academics and staff, who vote in Congregation. They say that achieving consensus at Oxford Uni is like herding cats, and they're not wrong.

If the thread were more sympathetic, I'd stick around to debate, but it's not. I just want to make the point that there are plenty of decent women in the world who don't share the majority view on this thread. If I met you in person, I'd be happy to have a robust one-on-one debate, but not on threads like this, where it feels like an enormous echo chamber.

Cutted-up pear, Sistine chapel, Mexican house thief. LTB, no is a complete answer, did you mean to be so rude?

The only allegation people can legitimately make is that I spend far too much time on MN. Sometimes I go against my better judgement and jump into the anti-trans threads. I need to stick with the vast sections of MN where women don't attack and dehumanise each other.

Wishing you a nice day.

"Trans exclusionary feminism" 🙄

Look. Female bodies exist. Whether you call us "women" or not, those of us who have female bodies from birth still exist, and we are still half of humanity.

And whether you call the physical and social consequences of having a female body "women's" physical and social consequences or not, they still happen, and they still happen to the same people. Because when it comes to the consequences of being female, changing the labels changes nothing at all.

It's the historic oppression of those people, the ones with the female bodies like me, and how that still puts us at unfair risk and at unfair disadvantage today, that I care about. That's what I call feminism.

But if you tell me it's not feminism, because feminism is about "the womanly identity or some such guff"... so what? Does that change the people I care about and the reasons I care? Am I supposed to blindly follow a word rather than my conscience?

No. Whether you call us "women" or not, and whether you call our social and political fight for fairness "Feminism" or not, it's still real and it still matters.

Sure. As you can see from my responses earlier on the thread I support the right of women to single sex spaces when needed for their safety, privacy and dignity and also when required for fairness - eg for things like sports. However I also think that freedom of speech and belief is essential for a pluralistic, democratic society (question 9 on the list).

Edited for typos but also because it's not my answers earlier on this thread that state my position on women's spaces, but on the sister thread about trans women in women's bathrooms (big, fat no).

It’s the putting Men’s wants before Women’s comfort and safety that’s makes her a traitor to her own sex.

But seeing as you brought up different opinions, maybe you can be the first to answer the question asked on the attached thread?

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5402604-5402604-jkr-asking-similar-questions-to-what-i-have-been-asking-for-years-on-here

Last time I checked women were not a collective or a hive-mind and were allowed their own opinions.

Last time I checked women were not a collective or a hive-mind and were allowed their own opinions.

What a lot of words just to say you are a traitor to your own sex.

I feel like I should start a bingo card now. I've actually been on MN for years. I'm so old, I used to post on the feminism threads before they changed and became dominated by the trans issue.

I've posted under different names over the years, but now whenever I post on the feminism threads I can tick off the following comments on my virtual bingo card: 'Not a woman.' 'Not a feminist.' And now that I picked the name oxfordfeminist, I'm getting the comments, 'Not in Oxford.' 'Not an academic.' This is super predictable and happens on thread after thread. If I don't think the way women are supposed to think (according to the implicit 'rules' on the MN feminist threads), I'm not a woman! It's just an example of inflexibility and unexamined assumptions.

There's no way of proving that anyone on MN threads are who they say they are, unless they decide to out themselves (which we're not obligated to do). So people can think what they like, but maybe if you think someone like me can't possibly be a woman or a feminist or an Oxford academic, you need to expand your ideas. Just because someone disagrees with you doesn't mean they don't look remarkably ordinary in real life! Or remarkably like you and the other MNers posting on this thread.

Women and feminists and Oxford academics don't all think alike. This is partly why it's so difficult to make change happen at Oxford. The uni is literally run by the academics and staff, who vote in Congregation. They say that achieving consensus at Oxford Uni is like herding cats, and they're not wrong.

If the thread were more sympathetic, I'd stick around to debate, but it's not. I just want to make the point that there are plenty of decent women in the world who don't share the majority view on this thread. If I met you in person, I'd be happy to have a robust one-on-one debate, but not on threads like this, where it feels like an enormous echo chamber.

Cutted-up pear, Sistine chapel, Mexican house thief. LTB, no is a complete answer, did you mean to be so rude?

The only allegation people can legitimately make is that I spend far too much time on MN. Sometimes I go against my better judgement and jump into the anti-trans threads. I need to stick with the vast sections of MN where women don't attack and dehumanise each other.

Wishing you a nice day.

I don't think this bloke has said he's trans, has he?

This thread is about misogyny and harrassment of women via the manifestation of a fetish in the workplace.

No. And it also overlaps with the marketisation of mental health that exploded with so-called positive psychology (those facile posters of glowing sunsets and bridges stretching into misty lakes...) The early warning signs of our obsession with self-actualisation - "You can be whatever you want to be!"

They irritated me even then. No, I/you really can't be! Not everyone is born or able to become an Olympic skier / CERN physicist / happy mother of three etc.

It struck me as a deeply unhealthy narrative even then, and I think research has since really confirmed its potential to do some serious damage when misapplied.

It's exhausting to life in a world of endless choice and opportunity, particularly when much of that is illusory: advertised, but not accessible. As long as you can be whatever you want to be but aren't managing this... you're a failure, resentful of society and/or disappointed in yourself.

I think trans ideology represents the awful zenith of a very self-destructive trend. It doesn't get more extreme than "you can literally choose your sex".

And it all always, from the very start, ignored the paradox that if I "can be what I want to be" (ie. have the right to absolute self-actualisation), others have to give way to some degree. Because society only functions through compromise and negotiation. All rights and no responsibilities means... no rights either, in the end! Or rights for the more powerful, able and motivated to assert their superior worth (but not the plebs).

Which, again, we see in the way this movement takes hold more strongly in the aspirational educated middle-classes.

It really is a fascinating sign of the times. Some kind of tragic metaphor for future historians and writers.