To be very worried by MN's puritanical campaigning?

[1984looms]

I have just been reading the Scudamore thread and find it so worrying that MNHQ and some Mumsnetters are effectively stoking up a campaign against us having any sort of a private life. It is ironic, given that MN relies on anonymity, that there is no thought given to the consequences of demanding that people's private thoughts and comments be policed in the same way as our public behaviour. Can posters really see no problem at all with demanding that a person's private comments are hauled into the open and subjected to public humiliation? The logic of what is being argued here is that Mumsnetters could not be anonymous and even more, should be held to account by their employers for comments they make on the site. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Read this to see where this kind of mindless, sheeplike campaigning will take us. www.spiked-online.com/freespeechnow/fsn_article/policing-private-speech-the-new-inquisition
Mumsnet is becoming a significant cheerleader for a terrifying 1984 culture.

YES
(to all your questions)

The point that libertarians miss EVERY SINGLE TIME (it's almost like they don't want to understand it) is that rank prejudice of the kind revealed by those emails bleeds into people's formal lives and affects the group they're prejudiced against.

Of course sexist men aren't to stand up at an official Premier League function and say 'women eh? Bit of a waste of space but I don't half like the fuckable ones, woff woff woff'

You'd have to be fantastically naive to think that just because they're not doing this, their formal responsibilities for (eg) promoting the women's game aren't going to be pretty bloody seriously affected.

People can hold whatever attitudes they like, but if it turns out they're deeply prejudiced against a group whose interests they're supposed to promote, of course it's bloody relevant, however it came to light

There are going to have to be mass tribunals to sack all the people whose private views have occasionally leached into their workplace speech and actions...and also to evaluate exactly to what extent somebody's response to a silly joke can be interpreted as having affected their effectiveness at work (is there some kind of brain scanner/computational algorithm that can help make a truly scientific judgement?). I presume you will be applying for a position on the Committee of Grand Inquisitors? Although bear in mind that all your past correspondence, conversations, after work giggles, coffee room gossiping will have to be scrutinised first to establish your squeaky-clean purity credentials.

There are several issues being conflated here.

One is privacy - for one's opinions, beliefs and actions.

Another is right to or legality of holding opinions and doing actions.

A third is suitability for certain jobs.

So I have a right to believe that, say, white men are intellectually inferior. This may mean I'm not suitable for a job as a teacher, a manager or in HR, because my belief is very likely to impact on my actions in that job.

I still have a right to believe it.

1984 you seem to be labouring under the misapprehension that everyone is sexist, and that all of our " past correspondence, conversations, after work giggles, coffee room gossiping would necessarily include those things.

I can say for certain that mine don't. Amazingly, it's possible to be funny, have a laugh, engage in coffee room gossip without being sexist.

I am so amazed that a grown man used the word gash!

I havnt heard that expression since 1975 in the playground so the childishness and immaturity of the man astounds me.

He used works email for this so obviously he should be sacked, my dh certainly would have been as would I but actually not having the sense of humour of a year 10 we don't.

He has daughters too.

Since when has Mumsnet ever been in support of misogyny and sexism?

I dunno anything about Scudamore (currently outside UK), but agree that MNers are a very puritanical bunch.

I am so amazed that a grown man used the word gash!

I havnt heard that expression since 1975 in the playground so the childishness and immaturity of the man astounds me.

He used works email for this so obviously he should be sacked, my dh certainly would have been as would I but actually not having the sense of humour of a year 10 we don't.

He has daughters too.

It's amazing how confident you all are that your opinions are absolutely right for all time. Scudamore's views were completely mainstream when I was growing up, and it is an outlook I would have defined myself against in my teenage years. They have now have become deeply unfashionable (no bad thing and an outcome, in part, of women's completely different position in society compared to the 1900-1970s) but given that quite a lot of people still hold them, they are not, by definition, beyond the pale or unsayable. Someone could be a perfectly reasonable, competent person (a lollipopman for example, or a brain surgeon) but you would want them sacked in case their private banter somehow made them less good at their jobs of helping female children cross the road or cutting out a woman's brain tumour. Who is going to be left to do these jobs? Would you really want the skills and training of the brain surgeon lost forever because they told an old-fashioned joke in the scrub room? You can choose your friends but you should not be able to choose who runs the Premier League, not least because I presume most of you know nothing about how best to run the Premier League!

If being anti discriminatory and anti mysoginistic is seen as puritanical then ok that's fine with me.

If expecting a chief exec to act professionally then so be it. Puritan it is.

Having read the article, what Spiked appears to be doing is suggesting that what is said in private should remain private. The man is an idiot for committing his private thoughts to writing and using his work's email for doing so.

However, whatever one thinks of his private views, he is entitled to hold them.

I'm surprised anyone cares what he thinks. Isn't it about time, girls, we stopped taking offence quite so easily?

1984
It's amazing how confident you are that you are always right....
Yawn you've made your point....

1984 just because people hold a view, it doesn't make it ok. Are you really suggesting an "it's ok because loads of people say it" approach? Do you think we'd have got to the point that we are now re: the acceptability of this kind of language, if we all took that approach?

You're being deliberately obtuse -

1. it wasn't private. It was work email. It copied in another person at work. It was not private.
2. Yes, if people say things like that at work, then they should be disciplined. Because - and I gather you find this hard to believe - it's not actually very difficult to refrain from calling women "gash". Really, it isn't. In fact, I'd suggest that if a brain surgeon wasn't sufficiently aware of what they were doing to avoid that kind of language, they probably shouldn't be carrying out operations.

And why do you think they have now become "deeply unfashionable'' and why do you think women have a "different position in society compared to the 1900-1970's"- because people challenged those who held these ridiculous and ignorant views!

And why do you think they have now become "deeply unfashionable'' and why do you think women have a "different position in society compared to the 1900-1970's"- because people challenged those who held these ridiculous and ignorant views!"

^ This.

1984 me and dh are 50. Never heard any adult man or woman use the word gash. A child yes in the playground in the 70s.

My dss are in their twenties and one is an avid footi fan. He thought the comments were beyond childish.

I don't actually think a lot of people do hold these ridiculous views actually that's why people were so aghast that a middle aged man could be such an idiot.

Whatever you like to say in your own house is fine really I suppose but works emails are supposed to reflect the ethos of the firm. That's why it's incredibly sad he hasn't been sacked.

As an ex nurse I can tell you that if a surgeon referred to a female as gash in the scrub room he would be disciplined.

Are you in the UK? Are you scudamore?

1984 me and dh are 50. Never heard any adult man or woman use the word gash. A child yes in the playground in the 70s.

My dss are in their twenties and one is an avid footi fan. He thought the comments were beyond childish.

I don't actually think a lot of people do hold these ridiculous views actually that's why people were so aghast that a middle aged man could be such an idiot.

Whatever you like to say in your own house is fine really I suppose but works emails are supposed to reflect the ethos of the firm. That's why it's incredibly sad he hasn't been sacked.

As an ex nurse I can tell you that if a surgeon referred to a female as gash in the scrub room he would be disciplined.

Are you in the UK? Are you scudamore?

This is more like a culture of bleating complaint where swooning women point the finger here, there and everywhere and ask paternalistic (maternalistic?) authorities to protect them from the nasty men and their vulgar behaviour. Well, I am a bolshy, opinionated woman who is often very vulgar. I don't think Scudamore would like me, although I do have quite big tits. People like me will be as much under threat from calls for sacking and censure as people like Scudamore. And I wouldn't assume that 'people like you', who are apparently able to exist in this complicated world of ours without ever uttering a rash word, will be immune either. Let's also hope that you are able to create utterly banal children in your own image too, lest they ever say the 'wrong' thing or cause offence to somebody, somewhere.

Gosh posted that twice!! That will be my silly female brain after 4 children.

You are not allowed to write sexist or racist comments in a work email.

Or you can and contravene work place policies and risk getting fired.

Not that hard to understand (even if you don't agree with it 1984 surely?)

I too remember the time when such views were mainstream among men - and therefore socially acceptable - in the UK, and know countries where they still are.

They are deeply harmful to women and to business in general.

I can think of actual examples where a business had to decide whether or not to field its most competent person - because they're a woman, and the partner/client/contractor organisation is known to refuse to work properly with women.

I've been told that women shouldn't be appointed to boards, because the other members of the board are all male and rely on sexist jokes to bond.

What the actual fuck?

And you want me to be upset about the sacking of men like this? Whose professionalism is so poor they can't do their jobs properly without sexism?

Somehow I think the economy will do better without them...

People can and feel free to write utter sexist shit privately.

But not at work.

Work email is not private email. Everyone knows this. You keep everything tied to your job professional.

That said, even on a public forum, they can trace IPs if they so felt like it and track every single one of us down. So, don't put stuff on the internet or in writing that you wouldn't want linked back to you. Think of shouting something in a crowd wearing a mask. Most people won't know you, but if someone recognizes you, you were saying it in public. If you want it private, don't air it out for everyone to read/see.

Most of the stuff written on here is just personal embarrassment stuff, not anything that could end someone's career or make a juicy story. I really don't think anyone has anything to worry about. Honestly, if someone was stalking you online and gossiping, it says more about how petty and stupid they are than it says about you venting online.

But as far as private email goes, yes that should remain private. Just like phone calls, text messages, and anything else that is part of your personal life.

1984
You can be bolshy and opinionated and even vulgar without stereotyping half the population as a collection of sexual body parts wrapped up in a cloud of irrationality.

Its not as if he was expressing a reasoned point of view but rather some quite nasty prejudice.