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.

Peach
And
Rum
Daquiri

(optional extra)

Olderyetwilder... I think PARD is 'polite and reasonable discussion'.

I think we should have PARP as well... 'pointless and relentless prattling'.

Is the sun over the yard arm yet, LineRunner? I'd love a Dacquiri...

Sounds lovely, may I join you for a dacquiri?

The strip club thread could be equally at home in FWR or in Chat - what's the issue? Yes it is a subject that feminists will have strong views on - but it's not just a feminist topic is it? Anyone may want to discuss it - men that use strip clubs, women that object to a strip club opening nearby, women that have been to strip clubs/don't mind that their partners go to them etc etc.

The threads I've read have generally contained reasoned and eloquent opinions and arguments from feminists such as Basil, frothy, SGM and many others, I have never seen these posters name-calling. I read the feminist boards a lot, and have learned a lot from them - I rarely post there, just absorb. IME it is the feminists who end up defending themselves against such attacks as 'fat, hairy man-hater'. It must be pretty frustrating to have have to constantly defend yourself against these attacks, as well as the constant influx of 'what about the menz' comments (often from gloating MRA's from Pistonheads, often from posters liked the op).

And Chaz is absolutely right about Sigmunds conduct on that relationships thread.

Ooh, pour me one and chill for later will ya ?

As it's Lent I'll not be drinking til after I've been ashed

(Only half joking as there's a 5 O'Clock service I may get to with the children - if they can be pursuaded - Have to say they're more up for the Shrove Tuesday pancakes !!)

Rhino, I am interested to understand what you are saying.

Its all very well saying "Ask for PARD" but the evidence is ALL OVER this thread.. they dont think they're doing anything wrong in how they're doing it now. They dont CARE that they're insulting and upsetting people.. so they think its still ok to shove their agenda down our throats

Could you give me some examples from the thread so I can see where you are coming from?

Rhinos so are you saying, as an example

There is a thread in news about, I dunno, a woman being attacked somewhere and there are comment saying that as she was pissed and went home with him then really what did she expect - that people with an idea that women are never responsible for being attacked should keep their traps shut?

Not a very good example probably. But it's not a "topic" it's a perspective that affects the way you view lots and lots of things. Like being fundamentally a right-wing or left-wing person, you can't separate it out from the rest of your personality.

Or like when there is a thread in relationships where a woman has been asleep and her OH has had sex with her, and sadly there are lots of those threads, and lots of people say that it's not rape and lots say that it is. Is it that people people who say that it is rape should not be allowed to express that opinion on the thread? But surely that needs to be there to counter all the people saying it isn't.

i don't see how it can be compartmentalised that way.

"Not all men are the enemy."

Nobody said they were. Strawfeminist.

"Most women do OK under western patriarchy, as opposed to middle eastern patriarchy."

Agree it's worse for women in the middle east, but given the rates of domestic violence, rape, sexual assault, child abuse, the vast disparties of welath and power that still exist between men and women in the west, I'd disagree that we do OK.

"Not all sex workers are abused."

Nobody said they were. There are exceptions as in everything. The exceptions don't make the institution of prostitution acceptable given the enormous harm it causes to women.

"Some women actually like being 'objectified'."

Again, nobody disputed this. But so what? Some women liked not having the vote, some women liked being uneducated, some women like being submissive wives. It doesn't excuse any man from behaving in a sexist manner towards women.

"Non-feminists are quite capable of rational thought, and are not mind controlled by by the patriarchy."

We're all affected by the patriarchy, it's the world we live in, and it does affect our attitudes. It's like claiming that the language you speak is completely natural and springs from yourself, and has nothing to do with what language the people around you are speaking.

"Male DV is as important an issue as female DV. One is not worse than the other."

Feminists have every right to focus on male on female violence. It is a huge issue compared to the amount of domestic violence men face (mainly from other men in fact). If men want to work on this issue they can do it themselves, the same way women have.

"PIV is not calculated murder."

It can be in some parts of the world. For exmaple one in seven women in Niger will die in childbirth or from childbirth complications. Who in their right mind would put a woman at that kind of a risk?

But seriously, these are your views along with some you've misattributed to feminists. Why do you think you have the right to insist that feminists accept your opinions and get so angry when we disagree with yours? So angry you start a thread about it to have a go. I hold very strong feminist views but I have never demanded that someone agree with mine. I may dislike their views intensely and argue strongly against them but in the end, it's up to them if they hold them. If you're talking about dogmatism and forcing your views on people, your list is a very good example.

No, Sardine Queen, Obviously it can't (be compartmentalised like that)

• Good examples

A bit like AIBU is not the only place to discuss whether or not someone is being unreasonable

Prostitution is the oldest profession. Historically the only autonomous "asset" of value that a Woman had to sell and that men wanted to buy.
It's only when we change all Womens' minds about porn, prostitution, LDC etc. will we see a real seed change.
As far as I see (aged) feminist; we're going slightly backwards; but we're a young movement in terms of years .
Young Women demand the right to behave as badly as men, mirroring the "bad" behaviour and emulating. That for me is not equality or liberation and is not what I envisaged, when I marched, petitioned.....
I don't want my DD drinking herself stupid or going on hen nights to watch the Chippendales or lap dancing clubs to see others of either sex.
As a Mother, Wife, Feminist, I would feel that I'd failed.
Feminism for me embraces our rights; whilst recognising and accepting the opposite sex.
It also colours my life, the way I talk, the way I interact with my DD, her education,my relationship....
I'm very much heartened by this debate. There just wasn't the arena outside of active politics 30 years ago.
Thank God we're moving forward.

Sigmund, bloody hell, I thought you were leaving ages ago. The door is over there >>>>>>

what is the point of that Kritiq?

It does sound rather divine - I'll have to give it a try sometime, as well as grabbing one of yours (gracefully and gratefully of course) to chill for laterLineRunner

How absurdly excluding it is to say that feminists ought to stick to threads in the feminism section. One of the things I dislike about this site is that it has a section that is called 'Feminism/Women's Rights' because it implies that Feminism is all about women, is discrete and separate and doesn't have an impact right across the piece. A bit like having a 'Women's' section in newspapers, which is another irritant of mine . About the only argument I can see for having a separate place is so that women can have a safe space to discuss some crap things that have happened to them, without some idiot turning up to blame them for being a victim. But as I understand it, the section has instead become a magnet for wankers like that who have even personally targeted regulars.

Feminism is about everyone. People posting from a feminist perspective are in fact far more valuable when they are posting in Relationships, or Chat, or AIBU - all the most frequently visited boards. If posters lack the intelligence or the debating skills to challenge issues on a thread, that's their problem, not feminists'.

Starting separate threads to whinge about it and misprepresent what happened on the threads where they lost the debate (mostly by reducing the quality of it by their own snide remarks as far as I can see) is incredibly juvenile.

Hully, it's simple. On most message boards, it is frowned on for a member to make a song and dance about leaving. It's generally a ploy to get folks to beg them to stay and/or to create a platform for them to have personal digs at other members they don't like or have disagreed with. It tends to draw other people from the woodwork who relish the chance to burn a few people at the stake, cyber style. It's basically just stirring things up for the sake of it, or the equivalent of a small child stomping their feet, frowning and trying to make everyone else miserable because they haven't got their way.

It serves no purpose and certainly isn't conducive to constructive discussion. As I said before, I've seen it on message boards elsewhere and I don't like seeing it regardless of whether I agree or disagree with the OP generally.

Basically if you aren't happy with the situ on a discussion board, but no site rules are being broken, you can either put up with it or bugger off. OPs who start threads like this don't want to do either. They just want to stir up alot of crap and do the big "me me me" thing. Some sites delete threads like this because they are against site rules. Wish it was the case here.

ah.

I thought she'd just got all cross but then not left.

Oh and this media feed about a rigorous, academically-valid evaluation of the effects of the laws in Sweden, that took place 2 years after the article Sigmunda posted, provides much more reliable information than a journalist asking a couple of former sex workers for a soundbite, four years ago.

Well if that was the intention, it hasn't worked for the OP very well on this thread. There's not much sympathy that i can see and a pretty good discussion actually.

I didn't actually realise there was a 'flouncing corner' here on the site... wonders will never cease.

Not all feminists hold to the same view - something that gets a bit lost sometimes when someone posts a statement along the lines of 'Feminists believe X'. This kind of statement does sometimes crop up in MN feminist discussions, and tends to make me just a bit when it does, because it presents as fact the notion that all feminists believe X, while also suggesting that if you are unconvinced by X you are not a feminist.

In reality there are plenty of disagreements within feminism. You only need to look at the 70s/80s Feminist Sex Wars to see that. Andrea Dworkin vs Pat Califia: both feminists, both passionate, and very much at loggerheads over pornography and BDSM. The prostitution debate is also still divided, between those that view it as patriarchy in action (the broad consensus on this board) and those who include the possibility of sex workers having some agency, etc (a perspective that has also been argued by some on MN).

There may be a consensus among a smallish group of MN Feminism regulars about core feminist beliefs, but in the wider movement this isn't necessarily the case. Radical feminists take a different position to cultural feminists and these again take different views to liberal feminists. So it's a bit frustrating when it feels as though feminism is being presented as a single set of views; in reality there is quite a lot of diversity within the movement.

It's absurd to suggest that feminists should only ever discuss things within FWR. Personally I love it when feminist discussions pop up on Chat or AIBU, as the energy and diversity of views always makes for a great debate. But I also feel that we need to acknowledge the possibility that there may be diversity of views among self-identified feminists posting on a thread, such as (for example) cultural feminists, liberal feminists and radical feminists while acknowledging that we're all broadly on the same side.

When this diversity gets erased in favour of 'Feminists believe X, if you don't believe X then you are not a feminist and possibly even anti-feminist' - even if there are actually a number of feminists who have argued precisely this point - then a number of people who might otherwise enthusiastically join in the debate may find themselves choosing to stay on the sidelines.