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...

No problem. shewept. Well, not from my end.

Buffy
I've read many of your comments on FWR and find you intelligent, well-informed and measured.

I feel that my consciousness is true and your consciousness is false (a bit - not as much as many of FWR).

I don't know how to work out who is right but I suspect the truth is somewhere in the middle.

Posters on FWR talk about their lived experience. Mine is that the men I've know have been decent, the job I have is what I deserve and that my life choices have not been limited by my gender. Others have not been so lucky I know that. We are all the product of our experiences.

I see sexism in many places and it annoys and angers me. I challenge it, highlight it and fight where I can.

This thread is about why many people don't post on FWR. It's not because they don't support feminism. It's because FWR seems to attract some feminists who have an axe to grind - and I can't be doing with that.

I'm going to be told off for asking for examples again, but I do find it difficult when people say things like " this thread illustrates whay people don't post on the feminist boards". I really, really don't understand. There are more punch ups on AIBU every day than in a week on FWR.nhow come people suddenly get so fragile and unable to take part in a robust debut because its FWR? I have been marmelized on threads about mothers in law and grammar schools- far worse than anything that's ever hqppened on here! People talk about man hating, and saying that PIV is always rape, or that all men are rapists and all those old anti feminist cliches and I have never seen those views expressed on here. But if I ask for examples I get told I am being unreasonable.

d actually really like it if all the feminist posters on this thread who don't post in FWR came over and posted in an informed and engaging way about their views. I don't want to educate you and I can't promise I won't disagree (and if I do I will tell you so and explain why) but I'd really appreciate the opportunity to learn. I'd start a thread, if people want to join it?

I think all my views would take far too long and be a bit boring (plus I'd forget a few) but if you started a 'introduction thread' with a few snapshot questions then I'd answer.

I have not RTFT yet, sorry. FWR was where I started on MN (under a different name) and I found it a breath of fresh air, to be honest. A lot of things I thought were just me, nope, they were to do with inequality
But somehow amidst the threads about rape, abuse, consent, I started to look closer to home - and yes, some of it was my indeed own situation.
Then I went from FWR to relationships and I L'TB which took what energy I had left
then I started rebuilding my life and in that whole time I didn't go back to FWR. I rarely go back to relationships. I have PTSD and an anxiety disorder; I work in a male environment; I work to facilitate gender equality; I bring my children up myself; I am tired.
At one point I did go back to FWR and scrolled back to the last threads I was on. There is one I posted on when I knew what was happening in my own marriage and it was most strange because I could remember over a year later where that post was and everything else around it, and it was all there, untouched by time. And there is something about that, knowing now what I was not aware of then, dealing with stuff on a daily basis, where I just cannot discuss it any more.

Hak if lots of people are saying the same thing, did we all get together and come up with that opinion?

Are you ok Romey?

FWR seems to attract some feminists who have an axe to grind - and I can't be doing with that

Do you mean that some feminists highlight issues that require some sort of response, issues that effect women?

I used to post a lot but haven't much recently. Actually sometimes for the reason above. I tend to avoid the implicitly individual lived experience type of thread despite understanding how to multiply the individual to the collective. Sometimes I do find threads repeated, where the same issue is raised again and again by different posters. An example of this might be the sort of casual sexism one encounters on a day to day basis. However the fact that the same is said time and again, the same or similar experiences recounted suggests that there is a structural/social problem with the issue raised. It is not a few individuals with an "axe to grind"

Hakluyt :) But if I ask for examples I get told I am being unreasonable.

Perhaps its so endemic people just cannot come up with specific examples. There is a tone to the FWR thats very unpleasant and rather than make people want to sit up and listen to whats being said its more inclined to make the average poster think - Im out of here.

You have to be fairly robust on AIBU sometimes, but the only threads that I tend to avoid are feminist ones- generally because moderate people are frightened off. There is also very little humour- it is always deadly serious.

I don't understand the term "moderate" in that context mehitabel. For example what would the "moderate" feminist viewpoint around say, sexual harassment be?

There are some threads where people with moderate views aren't welcome.

Sexual harassment probably isn't one of them.

'Perhaps its so endemic people just cannot come up with specific examples. There is a tone to the FWR thats very unpleasant" Gosh. Wow. Not sure what it says about me that I find it challenging, interesting, thoughtful, entertaining, enlightening, irritating, and irresistible.......

Buffy, that makes a lot of sense. We did an exercise during team building at work where we had to rate the morals of five theoretical characters and it was fascinating to see different opinions due to personal attitudes and experiences. There was one character who agreed to do a woman a favour if she slept with him and ratings varied from him being the 'worst' because you never ask that of a woman, to 'best' because he was up front and kept his side of the bargain.
We do definitely all see the world through different eyes.

But what are moderate views? Could someone give an example of a moderate view and a not-moderate (extreme?) view?

haklut

Do you think the trans debates are full of people with a range of opinions and that people with alternate views to radical feminists are able to post without facing a lot of hostile views?

I suppose that depends on what the moderate view is. If the moderate view was to ask whether or not any sexual harassment had actually taken place, then that may or may not be an appropriate thing to ask. Assuming before hand that it's inappropriate is the type of policing that I've come across before on the boards. In some ways that's the problem. Coming to the argument with views about who can and who cannot express opinions and on what subjects is the problem. It's one avoided by not going there in the first place.

The tone? well we are used to having to listen, we are brought up to speak quietly, not dissent, to express disagreement only when we prefix it with an apology, and to laugh off and make light of the hundreds of ways in which women are said to be equal but somehow at the same time amusingly inferior to men. Yes there is much to laugh about.

cailin

Transwomen should be treated as women/

Transwomen are men pretending to be women/

I would say that is a moderate and extreme viewpoint.

A moderate view is that feminism = choice.

cailindana, thank you, I remember you as a poster. Yes, I am doing better, but emotionally certain things are difficult still. I guess I was trying to say sometimes lack of engagement is not disagreement, nor apathy, just not being able to.

I just was thinking about the ways in which women are silenced and I think maybe that is what has happened to me in many ways. It is a thought I will follow up. Good wishes to those fighting the good fight

"If the moderate view was to ask whether or not any sexual harassment had actually taken place, then that may or may not be an appropriate thing to ask."

So you think in some contexts it is appropriate to assume a poster is lying?