To leave MumsNet because it's becoming RadFeministNet?

[SigmundaFraudina]

Had enough of their agenda being forced down my throat whether I want it or not. Major recruitment drive going on lately, and serious opression of other posters views. Just gets worse and worse. This was not what I believed MN was supposed to be about.

I'm off.

lovedaypan

yes. Have come to the same conclusion. Lifes too short.

Yes I am the same Pan who started the 'defence of dittany' thread. (!) And it was a good one, and right to do so. She was being maligned.
< am also allowed to disagree at times tho'>

I'm off to bed. OP yabu to leave an internet forum because people with different views to you are on it. That's the whole point of the thing.

catgirl

I think you're completely missing the OPs point.

She's not against a difference of opinion.

She's against the stifeling and manipulation of debate.

"There really is no point discussing things with people who are not prepared to examine thier own views and look at things from a different angle."

Yes well, I don't see the prostitution/porn defenders ever being able to examine their own views and look at them from a different angle even when faced with mountain of evidence that proves their happy hooker myth wrong, so I quite agree it's a pointless discussion. Like I said it makes quite a few of them furious when they come up against some serious opposition, opposition that they won't face in real life generally, because most people have been bullied out of criticising the sex industry.

I don't think the OP is against stifeling and manipulation of a debate. I am pretty sure she is over-whelmed by a strength of opinion against her views, and doesn't like it and so is lashing out at a whole goup of posters, collectively and individually, to make herself feel better. Not much more than that.

I don't see catgirl missing the point at all. How patronising.

Only just read this but Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha and on and on you fruit loop

She'll be baaack < channels Arnie >

I think I have only ever seen one radical feminist on mumsnet and I don't think she posts any more. It's all rather vanilla IMHO. Unless you think believing that women have a right to self determination, are not responsible for men's behaviour and are exploited by the sex industry are radical views....

lovedaypan

Oh well. Having seen it happen on numerous threads with and without the OP I think you're wrong too. It's all getting a bit boring now.

A perfect example was the Amsterdam thread where the overwhelming majority of posters thought the OP was being completely unreasonable. That didn't stop the usual suspects , a small minority in relation to the thread, from taking over the thread.

It's not about 'strength of opinion' it's about who shouts the loudest. And I know for a fact that is the OPs biggest gripe.

And I agree with her.

But hey, dismiss me as patronizing / a mysoginist / a mouth piece of the self entitled. I couldn't give a monkeys anymore.

Mr gin you know full well I know exactly what the ops point is. She would BU to leave for those reasons. If you feel bullied, oppressed or unheard as she does then leaving is not the healthy thing to do. she should stay knowing she has as much right to her viewer as anyone else on here and, if she is subject to any attacks or bullying, she should deal with appropriately

Thanks LineRunner :-)

This crap about us being not open-minded -well, no, I'm not open minded about the idea that women's humanity and right to control their own bodies, is up for debate. I'm not going to turn over in my mind, the suggestion that maybe women's sexuality being co-opted and exploited by patriarchy, is just a bit of fun. I'm not going to consider whether women's human rights are less important than everyone else's.

If you're open minded aobut that, bully for you, good luck keeping your brains in.

I have come to my opinions, precisely because I have been open-minded - I've been willing to challenge my own very dearly held (but unconsciously held) opinions and found myself feeling very uncomfortable about the logic of my opinions. And at a certain point, I had to change my mind, because I found my unconscious opinions, were incompatible with my conscious ones. It's a really uncomfortable process facing up to that, so I do "get" why people hate us so much - we make them feel as uncomfortable as I did when confronted with my own double-think.

But the idea that we're not open-minded - sheer bloody projection. I'd guess all rad fems have arrived at their opinions, because they are more open-minded than average - you have to be, if you embrace ideas which are not mainstream. There's nothing open minded about kneejerk kicking a new and strange idea into the long grass, instead of seriously considering it.

Off to work so not being rude if I don't respond.

The problem is a lot of posters seem to equate any view that differs from their own as automatically being in favour of prostitution or porn or the exploitation of women, even when there is nothing at all being said to support that view. When people see such knee jerk reactions, a desire to discredit any view they dont like or don't understand and unwillingness to listen to what is actually being said, I think they feel at best they are talking to people who dont really have a lot of ability to understand and at worst who really don't want to. The Amsterdam thread was a good example. A poster would say that the op didn't have the right to know what her co workers did in their spare time. Some posters would then accuse that person of supporting the sex industry, which made them look rather foolish. I think its examples like that that people find frustrating. Where posters ascribe views to others that they just haven't expressed and then seek to discredit them on that basis. in that instance saying it was not the ops right to know did not suggest one way or the other what someone's views of the sex industry were and those seeming to assume that it did came across very badly.

"A perfect example was the Amsterdam thread where the overwhelming majority of posters thought the OP was being completely unreasonable. That didn't stop the usual suspects , a small minority in relation to the thread, from taking over the thread.

It's not about 'strength of opinion' it's about who shouts the loudest. And I know for a fact that is the OPs biggest gripe."

Ok. Here's what I genuinely don't understand. How can "a small minority" take over a thread? That could only happen if the huge majority stopped posting, surely?

And "who shouts the loudest". How do you judge who is shouting the loudest? What does that look like on an entirely written medium?

Oh, and this open mindedness thing. In my experience, people generally accuse others of a lack of open mindedness when they persist in disagreeing with them!

And what basilrathbone said.

"when there is nothing at all being said to support that view"

Apart from small things like calling for the legalisation of prostitution or repeating "happy hooker", "women choose it" myths, you're right there was nothing to support it.

If you (general you) support the legalisation of prostitution then you are supporting men's commerce in women's bodies.

"A poster would say that the op didn't have the right to know what her co workers did in their spare time. Some posters would then accuse that person of supporting the sex industry"

We're accused of not being open-minded but we're not starting threads to complain there are people on Mumsnet who hold different views from us.

I think the OP shows a distinct lack of tolerance to other people's points of view.

I am also slightly puzzled as to how you can take over or stifle debate by shouting loudest on a forum like this where you will only get banned for a few very specific offences.

Unless by shouting loudest we mean using capitals, the only way another poster can shout louder is by arguing better, or more passionately than I do. In which case, what exactly is stopping me from coming better with an even stronger and more passionate defence of my views?

I was ambivalent about the Amsterdam thread, but that doesn't make it the fault of the people who were not ambivalent; it means I have to think more carefully about what I do mean and why. It is not manipulation of debate if other people argue more eloquently than I do; it just means I have to up my game.

Basil. I don't think I've seen anyone apart from the odd loon argue that there shouldn't be equality, or that women aren't objectified in our society, or that women have been supressed throughout history. Etc

But there are issues and topics around this that are open to debate. You may have come to a conclusion on all the issues , that doesn't mean it's the definative answer.

Some posters use feminism as a shield. A shield that protects you if you are rude and hurtful towards other posters.

it's ok to do this under the guide of feminism that somehow it isn't ok to do under the guise of politics or indeed anything as a wider subject.

It's not your POV it is your delivery of that POV.

There is no debate, education, re-education or learning. There is shouting.

I am woman hear me roar so loudly that i refuse to listen