to hide the feminism topic?

[CerealOffender]

the thread titles are all so serious and worthy and make me feel frivolous and unsisterly.

I didn't think we were being sneaky either, several regular posters from the feminist board have been on and engaged in dialogue.
I also feel than not naming individual posters that some find a bit scary has contributed to this thread not becoming vitriolic and personalised. It has allowed some fairly like-minded people to chat together without feeling stressed or worried about getting it wrong.
Saying that you don't feel comfortable on the feminist boards and how it makes some feel threatened and pressurised to conform isn't meant as an attack by most of the posters here I think.
It's just an explanation of why we are here and not there.
SGM managed to put her points and stay calm and confident on the Academic feminism thread, putting her opinion across against robust opinions. Some of us aren't that confident or articulate and so didn't contribute much or at all. Even though it made excellent and informative reading.
I have no wish to upset people whom I feel are heading in the same direction as me, albeit on a different path. There are enough individuals blocking my path to take up my energies.

The notion that the nasty, men hating, patronising, smug, name calling, book reading feminists would ignore anybody who dared disagree with them is utter bollocks.

I know because I was the poster who originally suggested that we ask MNHQ for a feminist section.

What really happened was this: during the discussion about whether it was a good idea to have a feminist section some posters expressed their concern that a dedicated feminist section would attract trolls. This was said because some posters have this experience with feminist sites/blogs. There was a short discussion over whether it might not be so great to have this section on MN as we get enough trolls anyway and we didn't want to be the cause of attracting any more to MN.

The conclusion of this discussion was that we were all grown ups who could ignore the odd teenager troll coming on and telling us that we were nasty, ranting, men hating, patronising, and name calling (and trying to derail threads with such misinformed stereotypical, prejudiced nonsense).

What we didn't expect was to get similar treatment from actual mumsnetters.

Everyone is welcome on the feminist section of course. Like any other section though it is kind of expected that posters have a bit of interest in and respect for the actual topic. I wouldn't go on camping threads and tell them they are all putting their tents up wrong whilst declaring that I have never been camping because it is only for saddos. If I did I would expect to be told to go elsewhere. It is the same with the feminist section - it is there to discuss feminism/women's issues - the regular posters there (I'm not one through lack of time) are very happy to explain the vocabulary used/references made/basic tenets of feminism to new posters who express an interest. What we are not so happy to do is have to justify feminism/being a feminist in a space that is dedicated to the subject and therefore intended to be about the subject itself.

That does not mean that we do not want to debate/explore different feminist ideas and opinions. There is plenty of debate, lots of very informed voices and lots of voices of posters who are not well read or do not spend much time on feminism.

Feminism is a political movement - it does help to have a little bit of background knowledge about the politics and the recurring subjects that come up and the arguments for and against them in order to get the most out of a discussion. However loads of posters come on and say that they have not read any feminist works but that there are interested in the subject and want to talk about it - everyone is welcome.

The discussions do tend to be robust however and when posters repeatedly come on and express ideas that are rooted in misogyny they will be challenged and generally given pretty short shrift. Being a woman does not automatically mean that all one's ideas, opinions and choices are feminist ones.

I can well understand that the feminist section is not for everyone as lots of people are not interested in discussing feminist topics and issues.

Try to have the decency not to slag us off behind our backs though. Disagreeing with our opinions is one thing but declaring us all nasty man haters is ridiculous and just name calling (and a massive cliché).

Have you read the whole thread with all the different posters?
How many individuals on this thread have called all Feminists on the board nasty aggressive man-haters? Not me for one.
It's a very sweeping judgement to make.

Perhaps not you BeerTricksPotter but such opinions have been expressed on this thread.

I have not seen any ridicule on the feminist section.

What I have seen is posters come on and introduce ideas that are challenged because they are misogynistic or derailing.

Yes I have read the whole thread and was pretty dismayed by some of the stuff said - I'm not saying everybody has expressed those opinions but there have been plenty on here.

agreed.
I was reading a thread about raising children with feminist principles where you (LG) said that your son wanted a skirt to dance in, and you were fine with that. Then it turned out that he thought you needed a skirt to dance.
That sort of insight into how a child sees the world is fascinating to me. It's only be analysing that you can change children's perceptions effectively.

As a primary teacher, it's one of the interesting things about helping children grow in their own understanding of how the world works.
They come into the system with the experiences of how their own families, homes and cultures work, and then they get flung into a bewildering mix where other children have different ways of seeing things, and so does the school.
You can't lay down the law on many things, being over-emphatic startles them or makes them confrontational. So you have to open the doors of perception in other ways and challenge their stereotyping and limited understanding appropriately. It's a lot of fun and I also learn to listen and think before leaping in with both feet and judging.

I think a lot of people have issues with the way society has constructed the roles of men and women. To break down the 'roles' of women, one also has to break down the 'roles' of men. I don't see that as a bad thing.

TSH you know the reasoning behind leaving men's issues out of feminist discussion spaces - the reason you know this is because it is constantly discussed with you when you repeatedly raise men's issues in the feminist section of MN.

I quite like this article's take on it - no doubt you are familiar with it TSH but it could be of interest to MNers who are interested in the feminist section.

What?s wrong with saying that things happen to men, too?

BTW why did you claim that those who started the feminist section agreed that they would ignore posters who didn't agree with them? It was perfectly obvious to anyone who was around on that thread that we were talking about outside trolls who came to MN to deliberately cause trouble in the feminist section. No one was talking about actual real MNers. It is just stirring up trouble to try to spread rumours like that.

What worries me is that some posters on the feminism boards are very extreme/radical in their views. I would not want someone to read what they are saying and think they represent all women's views.
What they do, I feel, is talk about women's issues as if all women are one group. I do not want to be represented/ have my issues as a women expounded be people whose views I do not agree with.
Te be quite honest a lot of the conversations or even thread titles in the feminism section make me as a woman very very uncomfortable.

For Lenin.

some of the metaphors on here are bonkers.perhaps thing to take from this thread is that sometimes the feminist board is shouty,abrasive and name calling.certainly that is what posters are describing.i will continue to participate and post.i dont expect to be called antifeminist or troll or derailer for participating,or expressing divergent view.the feminist topic has considerable scope for interesting discussion.there is room to robustly discuss all views and experiences. and most topics can withstand heated debate,in fact a wee bit frisson adds something

Yes, really.

the original thread

"I like the idea, but I suspect a dedicated "Feminism" area would lure every mouse-wielding Misogynist Avenger on the Internet to troll it. Just look at the Guardian's CiF board or Salon's Broadsheet blog to see how many dedicated trolls they have, keen to jump over every topic and launch shrill attacks on authors for being "anti-male." It's often blindingly obvious that they're posting without actually reading or engaging with the topics and are responding to ye olde feminist strawman."

"I'm not talking about regular MN users - I'm talking about people who put a mildly alarming amount of time into looking for places where feminist thinking is signposted on the Internet and then dedicate themselves to trolling it."

(Hope sprogger doesn't mind me quoting her.)

Trollery is just disruption though, in essence. So if you post with the aim of winding up and provoking, there is a fair chance that many users will see that as trolling.

im uncomfortable with antifeminist putdowns. but then i dont get the troll patrol either,find all that are you newbie,dont get strangers round these parts a bitty hysterical