to hide the feminism topic?

[CerealOffender]

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

Lol, this thread is hardly a paragon of virtue regarding name calling!

troll patrol are worse than any trolls.paranoic and accusatory.they roam around citing post history and mn lineage.as irrefutable proof of fuck all

dull dull

The thing is that some of the threads in Feminism deserve a wider audience because they are not really about feminism but more about law, politics, society, economics and how we bring up our children.

I post there occassionally because there are sometimes really interesting discussions going on. The rape threads are obviously going to be contentious and very raw emotion is expressed but I just dont go there.

There are one or two posters who take it too far and make it unpleasant but just ignore them and post selectively on interesting issues and it much like the rest of MN.

There are a number of posters on this thread who are complaining about receiving a negative reception on the feminist section. I actually tried to engage with their points on the threads in question and they ignored me because they were more interested in a bun fight with certain posters. So I think some of this thread is rather misleading.

While I do think there should be more space for liberal feminists on the feminist section, I don't think that means radical feminists should stop discussing radical feminism or that women should stop discussing their experiences of rape and violence.

I find it very disturbing that some people on this thread have said that women are not that oppressed and that there should be less discussion of rape because it makes them, as women, uncomfortable. Well it is easy to say women are not oppressed if you silence women and children who have had awful experiences!

But that aside, I do think one way to take this forward would be for people to talk about their views rather than saying that is wrong or that is unfeminist. So if person X says women only get unequal pay because they have kids, then rather than me saying they are wrong, I could say ' as a radical feminist I don't think mothers should be underpaid and the system needs to be changed, but perhaps your argument would be agreed with by liberal feminists. Do other liberal feminists believe that women are underpaid solely because they have children or do you all believe they are also underpaid because of other forms of sexism?'

Perhaps that form of arguing, where we can have different view points without people being labelled as sexist would work better. But it has to work from both sides! If people on here want to have a sensible discussion, they have to respond to other posters on the feminist section, and not just the most well known and opinionated ones.

TSH - fair enough. I would still like to know why you posted this though;

"During the um, inauguration of the Feminist board, I seem to recall that a general consensus was met by a few of the more prolific posters. It was pretty much agreed that opposing opinions would be ignored..."

As for the troll thing, there are posters in the feminist (and others)section who say that someone is trolling when they deliberately try to disrupt a discussion - the poster doesn't have to be new or a name changer.

MillyR, who said that about the rape threads?

Also, there is a world of difference between seeking to "silence" somebody, and simply choosing to hide threads that you dont want to engage with, for whatever personal reason you may have. Or is there an obligation now to post on, or at least leave visible in active convos, threads which upset you? That's not generally how I want to use mumsnet.

If I have got the wrong end of the stick about what you've said, please let me know, but I am the only poster I am aware of who said they often avoid thread titles about rape, and I've got perfectly valid reasons for that, which I thought I had made clear.

BOF, I wasn't referring to you. I don't read a lot of the rape threads just like I don't read a lot of other threads on MN. But people were objecting to the titles even being in the Feminist section.

BOF, you asked for an example. This was particularly awful from Crazycatlady...

'All the shouting and hand wringing about rape and abuse and the 'patriarchy' sounds faintly ridiculous coming from a bunch of women who are safe at home in their cosy houses with a steady income and happy life. And bleating on about the vote etc is just old news. It turns people off.'

What is that meant to mean? That if you have a nice house and an internet connection you have never been raped or assaulted?

I think that is echoing the feelings of other people on this thread. Someone else on the thread was talking about how they had a right to shout about their child getting in to mainstream education, but these feminists had no reason to shout. A lot of this thread does some to come down to wanting deny what a lot of women have been through, and pretending that women are really angry and upset about sexism for no real reason.

I am not saying that people should shout or be angry, be I think we should understand that many women, whichever side they are arguing on, do so from a position of distress and anger about these issues.

I see what you mean, yes.

Hi Milly

That comment was in relation to the fact that the feminism boards, on first glance from an outsider, paint a picture of this awful, nightmarish world that we women apparently live in, and isn't it all so dreadful, better blame the men...

This viewpoint just isn't the reality for most people, here in the UK, with comfortable lives (thankfully), so many might find the sheer volume of doom and gloom posts on the feminism board hard to relate to.

Clearly there's far more to it than that, but the discussion at that point in the thread was about why so many MNers don't frequent the feminism board.

But that isn't what you said CCL. You were not referring to the lives of most people in the country, you were referring to the 'bunch of women' who sounded 'ridiculous' for posting about rape. You have absolutely no idea what the lives of those women are like.

Frankly, I don't think anyone really cares if some mners don't frequent the feminism board, a lot do too, but I think people do start to get pissed off when those people start slagging it off for no apparent reason. if you don't like it, either say so at the time, or do hide it but do also shut up.

I was referring to MNers in general.

If someone has been raped and needs support, then MN is a wonderful resource, but I do find the continual talking about rape on the feminism boards in particular a bit much and that's one of the reasons I don't post there even though I am interested in feminism. Fair enough if that's what that board is about...

And in my post of Sun 29-Aug-10 11:39:14 I went on to explain:

"I know what you mean Apples. It's absolutely our business. But the feminism forum is so dominated by these themes. Even though I'm sure it's not meant that way it can easily come across to outsiders as just such a cliche - oh here we go, feminists banging on about rape, abuse and the patriarchy again...

It's great that the people who really want to talk about these things can do so freely on MN, but the tone is frequently more militant than is tolerable or relevant to a wider group."

And your point is TSH?

Skatergrrrl is quite clearly referring to the possibility of the feminist section on MN attracting new people who come specifically to disrupt (i.e. trolls).

I really do think you should have the grace to admit that you posted something that was untrue. This is getting silly now.

I only brought it up because I wanted to set the record straight on what was actually said.

If the prominent MN feminist posters had got together and planned to quash anyone who disagreed with them that would have been an extremely unpleasant thing to do. But they didn't. I find the spreading of rumours like this quite destructive.

Yeah, it's a lot about rape at the moment in the wake of a thread on the relationships board where a mumsnetter was told that she wasn't raped and didnt receive any support. It wasn't always like that and different topics will come up in time.

Ah ok, is that really what it was? How awful.

I must admit seeing 7 or 8 threads on the front page of the feminism board was a bit heavy...

Yeah I agree with you there.

I do think that feminism is going to have a lot of focus on women's negative experiences though. If feminism doesn't spend a lot of time dealing with the issue and experience of rape, who else is going to instead?

It is rather like Animal Rights people. I don't expect such a group to come to my house and right a report on what a happy life my dog has, in the interests of presenting a balanced view. I don't feel it is a criticism of me as a pet owner or a denial of my experiences if they keep pointing out cases of animal cruelty.

And it is because so many women do have a lot of freedom in the UK that we are capable of fighting over issues where there is further work to be done.

i think most of the points i'd make have aleady been made - namely

1. some people have been made to feel unwelcome in those discussions - even Scottishmummy who does not come across as the most senstive poster! On one thread i felt this too - I am not exactly hypersensitive either....so i think there is some truth in the 'people are being made to feel unwelcome' claim.

2. The subject matter isn't everyones cup of tea, especially if you are coming to MN for a bit of light relief

3. Also unappealing if you can't be arsed with doing a bunch of reading before engaging with the argument as it appears on the screen. Generally on MN arguments stand on their own merits.

however i also agree in answer to these points that -

a) if you feel ignored, shouted down etc, then it is to you to fight your corner on that thread, rather than complain about it elsewhere.

b) if you don't want that kind of discussion, then just hide the topic. just the same as you would any other topic you didn't find interesting.

On point 3) i think people generally should be prepared, if they are going to reference a book to support an argument, at least precis the argument/ evidence from that book rather than tell the other poster to P off and read that book. Some of these books are expensive, for one thing.

there has never been a good argument that couldn't be put in a few short sentences...