Who else would really appreciate a polite discussion of gender issues and the concerns of women at the jess Philips webchat on Monday?

[StealthPolarBear]

I posted on the webchat thread:
Since the questions have already been asked I am not allowed to repeat similar but I want on record that self ID, its potential abuse, protection of vulnerable young people from those who promote transition which can sometimes include puberty blockers, the protection of natal women's rights and the importance of teaching biological facts in schools are big concerns to me.

MNHQ have said they don't want any more comments or questions about gender issues on the Web chat thread which I can understand. However what I do want to make clear is the number of people who may share some or all of my concerns. Otherwise any questions about gender issues are of an equal weight to all others and in fact others, which can be repeated in a different form, may seem to gain more weight.

Aaaand, mine have been deleted and I’ve been threatened with a ban

I've just joined the labour party specifically so I can vote in the elections and hopefully be one more GC woman helping to steer it towards women-friendly policies.
I haven't decided yet who to vote for yet but the erasure of womens rights and the abuse of women who object is my biggest political concern. It will be my primary focus in deciding who gets my vote.
Jess Phillips interview with Juno Dawson was extremely concerning and indicated she didn't understand the issues although I did feel she was phrasing her words carefully. I'll be watching this with interest.

Because they covered contract law and remind me of the others?
Maybe we should just ask mnhq what we are allowed to ask

It would be quicker. A nice list of pre-approved topics.

MNHQ could just write the questions for us. Save our pretty little heads from the bother. Questions could include - who is your favourite pop star? What lipstick are wearing? Do you prefer tea or coffee? Throw in some fawning sycophancy and that's plenty to fill the half hour.

I haven't explicitly said StealthPolarBear but please include me in your list if you haven't already.

I haven't read the whole thread yet, but I'm in agreement with the op.

The thing that bugs me with deleting any later posts, is what happens if a later post asks a "better" version of a question that is related to the forbidden subject, or even just words the same thing better? Iyswim?

JP (or whoever is having another web chat in future) is potentially missing out on a very clearly worded and important question, just because whoever gets in first "wins".

Add my name please. This (along with climate change) is the most compelling topic around. The impact on kids is likely to be catastrophic, the impact on women's rights is terrifying. I agree that the relative importance needs to be reflected in the session. So many ramifications.

Add me too please stealth

My concern is that by making her state her position (which is hopefully pro-women) it opens her up to a pile-on by the trans activists

However all that means is that the trans activist pile on is so successful in punishing people into compliance that things like integrity, public duty, democracy and other people having rights too has been abandoned. It's a classic one in serious case reviews identifying professional failures: professional did not do their job properly out of fear of provoking a difficult adult involved, who would then punish them for it.

A professional's job is to deal with this behaviour. Not run away from it.

Add me too. My Labour MP refuses to listen to women and is one of the big cheer leaders in the party for self-ID.

I feel dismayed that some (pushy obsessed LOUD) MNers are so obsessed with 'gender' and self-id and insist their black-white view is the ONLY right view. Which is why this thread exists and is so long. It's very offputting. I think I'd have to warn anyone about it if they were asking me whether the community here was worth joining. It makes MN look terrible and full of extremists.

"genderists" FFS

That poor researcher (NFP surveys) got hounded off the other day will be telling her mates for weeks about what loons are found here & she'll never come near the place again. She'll be warning her mates to avoid MN too. That's a whole generation of young people being put off.. but then maybe they'll view MN as like FBk, only for the oldies anyway. Oldie extremists, actually.

Adding my name.

Also threatened to suspend me if I don't follow the webchat rules (which I don't think I've broken).
I saw your question Tinsel and no, you didn't break the rules. It's ridiculous to suggest that your question was the same as those which were allowed to stand.

To be fair, at least half the objections to that researcher were because she was equating 40 year olds with 80 year olds.

I think what MNHQ are doing is pretty poor. If they absolutely have to delete multiple questions about the gender religion they should at least leave the deletion message (deleted as questions x, which has already been asked) which means that the responder can at least see which questions are the most important to MNers.

Also deleted and threatened with a ban. I asked how vulnerable female prisoners would be protected. If that's not in the spirit of the site or against webchat rules or not something a politician can be expected to answer then what's the point of any of it?

If people are concerned about a particular issue then that should be reflected in the nnumber of people asking quesitons on that topic. This will also give the MP doing the webchat something to measure the interest in that topic by, and they can then decide whether they want or need to campaign on it.

The webchat is not just so we can ask questions, but also is a way of letting those with power know the depth of interest in aspects of their potential lawmaking. If no one mentions anything to do with, say, fox hunting or animal rights, then the MP knows that these are things which this section of the population which we are supposed to be representing don't currently matter to us. Conversely, if almost aall teh questions are on one issue then the MP knows that a lot of people are very worried.

Whether an MP takes the MN webchat as representative of any sector of the population is down to them, but why would someone busy with a leadership election bother to come and do a webchat if they didn't think that it mattered at least a little bit.

MN is not giving a true representation of its membershp's cpncerns by squashing free speech in this instance. They are selling an MP a lie and if they do that often enough then there'll be no point in doing webchats, will there?

I saw your question Tinsel and no, you didn't break the rules. It's ridiculous to suggest that your question was the same as those which were allowed to stand

MNHQ have now replaced my question with Tinsel’s, as we asked, but it’s still under my name.
I’ve emailed again to ask them to change it to Tinsel’s name but then I realised they probably physically can’t do that. They obviously still have her question though so hopefully they’ll unvanish it.

Agree entirely with the OP.

MN webchat moderation reminds me a bit journalists claiming 'balance' where they give equal weight to the person who thinks the earth is flat and to the scientist who provides evidence that it is round (well technically an oblate spheriod). It matters if you're the only person on earth interested in something or whether, say, 50% of the population are interested.

It MATTERS how many people ask the same question. The fact MN are suppressing this information is extremely dodgy.

Exactly that
Or one doctor and one anti vaxxer both presenting their evidence

Me. I'm gutted that I don't feel any sort of pull toward any of the candidates, so far I'm thinking of not voting at all, because none of them really speak for me.

Flat earthers is a striking analogy. With the scientific evidence of not being perfectly spherical being used to "prove" that planet shape is a social construct therefore a 2D shape is just as valid as a 3D shape. If a planet identifies as discworld it IS discworld. Sorry that was a bit stretched wasn't it. There's something there though...

The questions are all being posted in advance.

They could all be collated - all questions on a certain. Topic reposted as one post. You’d find maybe 4-5 topics, therefore 4-5 posts.

And no one is silenced.

Simple.

I would like some answers from ALL politicians regarding the ROGD enquiry that was promised.

It affects our family personally and it’s a massive issue in many of our children’s schools.

Yep. Some summary of content and numbers would have been perfect

What's rogd? Will add to list

Hello LemonGingerCakes,

We are getting in touch about your deleted post on the Jess Phillips webchat thread today - which we don't think followed our webchat guidelines and which we reiterated in the OP of the webchat thread itself.

There are good reasons why we have guidelines around follow up posts and not repeating the same question over and over, or allowing the discussion to be hijacked by a single issue.

First, it turns off other Mumsnet users from participating - meaning that the webchat as a whole stops representing our users in the round. (We've received plenty of representation from other Mumsnet users on this point in the past year or so and we know this is why many of them have stopped engaging with webchats.

Secondly we're finding it increasingly hard to tempt politicians onto Mumsnet because of fears they'll simply be harangued about this single issue and shouted at for not providing the desired response - which ultimately means no one will get to ask any of these important questions to our policy makers.

So we're emailing to ask you to please follow our webchat rules. We don't want to have to suspend your account, but we will do so if you can't stick to them.

Best,
MNHQ

Forgive me for not knowing EVERYTHING that’s posted on every Webchat ever.

I posted in good faith.

My question was about Brexit. (Although I did bristle about being told! 'that's enough' and I did agree with another poster who was later deleted.

If someone wants to be the leader of a party (and potentially the country) what does it say about them if they’re scared of questions (albeit difficult ones).