Has anyone else noticed that Mumsnet seems to be becoming more regressive on women’s rights?

[CurlewKate]

There are a lot of threads, on big issues and small, that seem to indicate a drift in that direction. Women shouldn’t be police officers. Marriage is wonderful. Changing your name on marriage is a good idea… And, most significantly, many conversational, this happened to me type pro life threads. Do we need to be even more vigilant, in the face of America’s lurch to the Right and the rise of Reform in this country?

Women are basically not putting up with the "having it all" meaning, doing it all in greater numbers.

They don't want to stay at home and look after children and a house full time. But many men don't want to even do that part time (you know their fair share).

It's less of a loss for a female to not clean up after a man, they will do their own domestic tasks, for men they will then have to do all of theirs.

There are fewer females around to do the caring for family members. So sons/brothers, now have to do it, which is thankless, endless and unpaid, or pay for it and they don't like paying for things that aren't just theirs.

So as society is run by men they want women back being dependent and thankful, poor with sex on tap, so the men returning to holding all the power and can strut around how they like.

So if you get rid of reproduction rights, disability payments, equality at work laws, these are steps you can take to get women back under the thumb.

Honestly the men can fuck right off. They can live alone, look after their own parents, never have children, wash their own socks, buy their own toothpaste. Who wants to live and look after someone who has utter contempt for your entire gender?

Yes it's a nudge theory to get females back in the kitchen and bedroom. Hopefully not many will fall for it.

I don't think you can simplify things to the extent of saying Georgians - anything goes, Victorians - strait-laced. The Victorians introduced the age of consent to try to eliminate child prostitution. The Georgians had public executions and capital punishment or transportation to Australia for theft, poaching and shoplifting. The Victorians reined a lot of that in. The Victorians were the ones who introduced the Married Women's Property Act and extended the vote to more male citizens than ever before, which was a step on the way to giving the women the vote. Slavery was abolished in the UK just before Victoria came to the throne. A lot of Georgian wealth had been founded on the slave trade. The Victorians introduced compulsory education for children and started trying to do something about slum housing. Trade unionism was allowed, whereas the Georgians had done their level best to suppress unions.

It's always two steps forward, one step back (at best). Look at what happened in the 1960s and 1970s when we saw huge social changes across all the rich countries of the world. Many good things - gay men allowed to have sex, abortion decriminalised, divorce laws liberalised, equal pay for women, statutory maternity leave and pay, nothing like as much stigma for having a child out of wedlock. But there was also a very determined effort to get people to accept that children should be allowed a sex life too and that it was oppressive to enforce the age of consent. Obviously this was an attempt to persuade people to accept paedophilia. It took a shamefully long time for some very progressive people to wake up to what they were being asked to accept. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-26352378

@Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g

My stepson and his wife lived together for 26 yrs before deciding to get married. His wife's brother became seriously ill and had been living with his partner for about the same length of time.

The brother lost capacity and the partner realised that she had absolutely no rights. The partner and SS's wife applied for joint guardianship and got it in the end, but - apparently - it would have been easier if the brother had married his partner.

Yes please @Sskka let’s have a couple of British specific human rights that exist today that you think potentially should be removed under certain circumstances.

The actual Farage quote:

“I am pro-choice, but I think it's ludicrous, utterly ludicrous that we can allow abortion up to 24 weeks. And yet, if a child is born prematurely at 22 weeks, your local hospital will move heaven and earth and probably succeed in that child surviving and going on and living a normal life. So I believe there is an inconsistency in the law. I believe it is totally out of date."

I completely agree.

Fair enough. You can think what you like. That does not detract from the fact that Reform wants to restrict women’s right to abortion.

Has he ever looked at the stats for 22 weekers? They mostly don’t survive and those that do have a huge chance of lifelong health problems. This is not “probably surviving and going on and living a normal life”.

Depends whether you think women should have a right to abortion up to any stage. I think most people would see that as unethical in the absence of a medical emergency.

That isn't the topic at hand. The topic is about viability. Being able to abort a baby that has the potential to viable is wrong IMO.

I'm as pro choice as it gets but there is plenty of time to terminate a pregnancy long before the 22 week marker, unless there is a medical emergency.

I don't see how what Farage has said is remotely controversial. It is simply because he is Farage.

I don’t want to go down this route on this thread. But it’s important to remember that there are very few 24 week abortions, and even fewer that are for reasons other than a baby with a condition incompatible with life, or a woman whose life is in danger. These extreme cases cloud the issue.

All very true, but you brought up Reform's stance on abortion and I have simply pointed out that stance isn't radical or controversial in any way.

Um, there’s loads? Should you be able to resist extradition because the crime is one for which you might get the death penalty? Should prisoners be allowed to vote? Should illegal migrants avoid deportation because they’ve built up private lives here?

It really isn’t outlandish to think we ought to be able to work out these matters for ourselves, rather than being prevented from doing so by human rights.

Making it difficult/impossible for a woman to access an abortion to save her life, or to save her from continuing carrying a dying baby is pretty controversial, surely?

Don't forget this case:
How chicken nuggets stopped deportation of Albanian man from UK – Firstpost

But Reform haven't said anything of the sort. What are you actually on about.

I'm not convinced MN has become less feminist, or at least not the usual MN demographic.
I've definitely noticed an influx of the type of posting you mean but I suspect they're travelers over from reddit or elsewhere and are just here to cause shit.

Well. Marriage is a good thing when it protects a woman who makes herself vulnerable financially by giving up or compromising her own income to raise the couples children. It is a good thing where is protects a lower paid partner.

So the fact that the gender pay gap still exists, that men are on the whole better paid, have bigger pensions, take on far less family and domestic work within the home shows us, perhaps , that we have so far to go towards equality and are still needing marriage as protection.

Families sharing a name: great. That the default and expectation is that it will be the man’s name: outdated and sexist. (Note , as default and expectation whatever an individual woman chooses to do one as or the other)

The deportation was paused-not stopped- for further review because the child, who was born in this country, has sensory issues.

The fact his son doesn't like certain chicken nuggets is not our problem I'm afraid. The fact this ludicrous excuse was even plausible enough to delay the case is a travesty and highlights the abuse of the EHCR.

Here is another disgraceful example:
Pervert Suleman Maknojioa who groped chest of 11-year-old girl spared jail because his wife can't speak English - The Mirror

Joshua Rosenberg recently”Unless a lot more evidence has recently emerged, it seems very unlikely that the right to respect for family life will prevent Klevis Disha from being sent back to Albania.”

You're missing the point. This type of crap shouldn't even be up for discussion.

The threads about female police officers and soldiers have been very odd indeed. Incredibly regressive.

The child has sensory issues. A brief pause to make sure a 10 year old does not suffer strikes me as being entirely reasonable.

No, I’m not missing the point at all.

You're ok with a judiciary that allows criminals to use chicken nuggets as an excuse to avoid deportation then?