To be a bit dismayed if 4 million women visit this site,why are there so few posts on the feminism threads?

[Scarletohello]

Ok so I know there are lots of lurkers but if there are really millions of women who go on MN, why are so many threads on the feminism section consisting of so few women? It doesn't make sense to me as so many issues that
women post about on many different topics are actually feminist issues when it comes down to it...

I'm too busy running the world to read the feminist boards.

To be serious, I haven't RTFT but I don't read FWR because they seem to be too linear in their approach to feminism ie they follow one sole doctrine to which I do not necessarily subscribe.
For me they are too caught up in minutiae ie disentangling the feminist stance on parent/child parking spaces. (I did just make that example up in case anyone pulls me up on it).

I am a feminist, but in a pragmatic day-to-day way.
My DDs have been brought up to be fair to everyone, that's how it should be IMO.

Whilst FWR are all chatting I see little change in some of these things which I consider should be the main focus of feminist discussion/action:

• The gender pay equality gap. Still, after all these years.
• The casual use of women as nothing more than adornment; page 3, F1 pit girls etc.
• Women's health & access to services.

Those would be the first things I would want to change, I don't give a shiny shite whether or not David Cameron wears a T-Shirt saying he's a feminist.

Think my response is coloured by experiences on the FwR board years ago when they went through a phase of shouting everyone down with 'What about da Menz'

There really was a sort of board orthodoxy which was quite off putting and then suggestions that if you are not up to date with your feminist theory perhaps you should read x, y,z before you posted.

I think there was a feeling that those not up to scratch should have their own thread so they could be schooled in feminism 101z.

But I see plenty of feminist thought, choice abd action throughout mumsnet, I see women genuinely supportive of others through horrid times .
So I think FWR is fine left to the people who v done all the reading etc

That's as may be Buffy and I'm sorry if she's upset but she hasn't responded on the FWR thread either. I'm sure you can see that people do feel somewhat used. Although personally, having not been around for this type of thread before I've found it very interesting.

No, it's still going strong. If it was deleted, it was reinstated. It's a very interesting read.

I don't 'know' the OP and I accept that her intentions were not bad ones, but it might have helped if she had come back to it.

Buffy, it is a standard response on all the boards here to take exception to a thread starter who doesn't have the courtesy to return to a thread they started and bother replying. I
t's ill-mannered, no matter how many hankies and BFFs she needs to suport her doing it.

It was deleted, MyEmpire, but MN Towers listened to the reasons why it should be reinstated despite being a TAAT and reinstated it.

I understand and like what you are trying to do, and I realise that she may not have intended to make so many people feel like they were unwitting elements in an experiment.
But adults take responsibility for their own shit, and if you upset and offend a lot of people, then you apologise and explain. Especially if the harm was unintentional. So she should deal with her own mess.

shh, because I don't see people in terms of gender, we're just people. I get militant about my religious rights, also about my right to bf (I don't really see that as being a feminist, it's about the rights of my child to eat with the rest of his family), I'm not striving to shatter any glass ceiling as I'm an SAHM.

See, I think that's part of the problem with discussion about feminist theory: so many people end up arguing from their own experience which is of course understandable but sometimes a bit frustrating as there IS a Bigger Picture to continue.

It does not matter that I personally have not experienced FGM, have never been sexually assaulted, don't live in an abusive relationship etc etc: all of these still remain feminist issues.
And even I (!) live within the constraints of the patriarchy: I work part-time (by 'choice': it would have been much, much harder for my DH in his profession to do this) and struggle to get DH to fully grasp that child care arrangements are as much HIS responsibility as mine etc.

I like thinking about the Bigger Picture although how it affects me may be very different to how it affects a 14 yo girl in Kenia. Or my neighbour for that matter. Or any of you.

Buffy

I think it is intimidating far too serious and one tracked not everything has to be a feminist issue up for debate and to be dismayed and dismissive of poster s who dont post in a certain section is insulting and condescending imo

Only skimmed this thread but I rarely read/post on FWR due to the narrow minded attitudes others have mentioned. I recently posted and had to hide the thread before I got sucked into a side-tracking rant

Actually buffy that was fairly spikey of me and more than a little unfair. The op should have stated she wanted to discuss it on the board, posted a link both ways inviting discussion etc. It felt underhand because the responders on this thread only found out long after the event and not because of the op iyswim.

Tbh I don't think the other thread should stand. We have a thread already to discuss this issue, this one. There's no need for two other than to signpost people to a discussion they may be interested in but would usually miss because they don't venture off board. What annoyed me was that the views here weren't represented well. If you appoint yourself go between you need to be prepared to be balanced and fair.

This is what I posted on the mirror thread on FWR.

Re the question of not posting on the feminist board I agree with someone who said the levels of mental masturbation and academic posturing left them cold; me too.

I hate the expression "women in the real world" . We're all in the real world and it's just a lazy way of attacking and dismissing someone who is different from you. But I'll make an exception for most of FWR. Much of what I read on there doesn't strike me as having a connection with the real world.

There's a painfully earnest thread about "feminist baby clothes" with suggestions of baby wear bearing "empowering" slogans. Really what the hell is feminist baby wear? Pink on a girl is presumably verboten on there but beyond that the simple answer is it's a baby - buy what you like the look of and avoid clothing made in sweatshops.

That thread and another thread discussing whether it was inherently a non-feminist act ever to have a male partner had me rolling my eyes.

Going back to being relevant in " the real world" I've seen plenty of threads in AIBU dealing with real, live, practical issues of everyday feminism and sexism as opposed to the intellectual posturing on the Feminist threads.

The latest Ched Evans thread on AIBU for example was thoughtful and enormously uplifting.And many of us didn't have to go through intellectual hand -wringing debating the niceties of feminist theory to reach the conclusion that Evans' girlfriend and sister are both nasty pieces of work in their own right.

It is pretty off that she hasn't engaged with any of the responses here having invited the discussion - however I can understand why she didn't as things developed

I read the first posts on feminist baby wear, what a load of bollocks. Just as bad as pink head to toe. She will probably rebel and be a barbie look alike
I made the mistake of posting an issue I was struggling with and asked for a feminist perspective
I was accused of trolling and horribly abused. It upset me greatly. I have never used mn for anything serious since. I float around not discussing anything meaningful to me