Why are there so few posts on the feminism board? (Part 2)

[Jackieharris]

Since the last one filled up I though I'd start a new one as the conversation seemed to be mid flow.

Well FlorasFox I didn't intend it to be 'spiteful and ageist', I did mention a generational divide, yes. I still agree with radical fems on issues of patriarchy (but perhaps deal with it differently), bodily autonomy and a myriad of other issues, I simply reject the sex essentialism background they often come from with Greer and others. I can understand if I came of age in the radical fem period I would feel differently and I may not have the views I have now. I did say every online place, young and old, has downsides. The very young feminism spaces on other social networks can be naive and intolerant in different ways.

Quietly confident they were joking about the girls.....

Yes, of course they were joking! There was some inappropriate stuff going on that made me realise it must be pretty difficult to a women in that environment though, but the women seemed to handle it well.

But, seriously, would a woman get away with having a lot of noticeable facial hair?

Laurie yes if there were a medical reason for it and they went to the med centre for a letter, produced said letter explaining why removal would be irritating or so forth. It's not something a male senior would mention to be honest (probably out of fear) a female senior might enquire it it was seriously noticabke like a handlebar moustache or something, a few of the natural "whiskers" that women get wouldn't even be brought up in conversation to be honest, its a bit like pointing out arm hair.

And presumably a man would not be able to get such a letter (about why it's irritating to the skin to remove facial hair)? Obviously this conversation started because of the different expectations of what constitutes being 'well-groomed' when it comes to men and women. Clean-faced, clean-shaven (and yes, I do have two female friends who have ''confessed'' to shaving their faces because the cost, time and effectiveness of electrolysis doesn't work for them), clean hair (tied back if long)... But of course men aren't allowed make up (and probably not long hair unless in a turban) whilst women are obliged to wear it.

Is this too trivial a discussion point?

Laurie men can get a temporary letter for skipping shaving, but most of the skin conditions that would mean a man could not shave, he wouldn't pass the medical to get in.

Obviously having say pcos with no severe side effects only say facial hair wouldn't be a barr on the medical form. Though you do need to declare any genealogical conditions.

I know men who haven't shaved due to severe facial sun burn where the skin was blistered.

If so, how is that dealt with?

The same as anywhere else, if it's for religious reasons they're allowed to keep the hair.

Yes men with a religious belief like Sikhism can have facial hair and wear a turban instead of a beret. The beard must be clean and kept and not long in length that could jam in a piece of weaponry. A beard ripped out when caght in the recoil of a rifle I imagine would be rather painful. Also headscarves can be worn by women (I've seen Muslim nurses) however a full facial covering is not allowed I think.

Sorry - posted too soon.

There are allowances made for religion - as long as safety isn't compromised...

Interesting article about turbans etc. here - BBC Article

also I apologise I feel like I just majorly butted in .

LOL, I type sooooo slowly nowadays!!

This whole debate has come up so often, and to such unfeigned hurt and puzzlement from the FWR regulars, that I'm starting to wonder whether 'what's wrong with FWR?' isn't entirely the wrong question to be asking.

This might seem a bit apropos of nothing but it was prompted by a long train of thought while I drove to the airport earlier, about how the people taking feminism seriously are not necessarily the same ones who talk about it a lot on the Internet. There are plenty of serious feminists who aren't doing their feminism online all the time. So why are some people very involved in Mn feminism, or other online feminism, and others not - even if they have strong feminist views?

I think one of the types of work our postmodern culture asks of people is the creation and performance of our own identities. Now that we're not meant to be defined by age, race, colour or whatever, we have to decide what we are and then find ways of performing that. Social media is a major medium for that labour, which the. Becomes a product others consume and bounce off to work on their own identities and that can be used to sell advertising etc etc. (Bear with me, this is relevant.) I think it's in the interests of anyone with a vagina who doesn't want to be treated like crap to pay attention to feminist thought. But equally, it doesn't follow that everyone who pays attention to feminism then makes that a core plank of their identity as performed on social media.

To take a slightly crap analogy, most adults drive, but only a smallish minority are sufficiently into cars and driving that they want to hang out on Pistonheads. Most people just buy something affordable and fuel efficient and leave it at that. I think there's an equivalent attitude among women that yes, thanks for the vote and the right to choose and not be owned by your dad and so on, but right now I need to get the shopping done and not be late for my meeting so I don't really have time to be arguing about the Nordic model of prostitution. In other words, the fact that women aren't posting about feminism on the feminism board doesn't necessarily mean they don't care; it just means it's not a core plank of their identity. The. There are others, who are really into feminism and for whom the posts and discussions are about identity and a community of like-minded people as much as they are about the political viewpoint. Again, neither of these is wrong, but there may be some misunderstandings and differences of attitude and intensity when the two groups mix.

Incidentally, thinking about the performance of feminism as identity labour online left me wondering whether this might shed some light on the bitterness of the trans/TERF (forgive the term) debate. Transgender identity is IMO quintessentially postmodern in the way I've described and Butlerian ideas of gender as performance are key to the queer theories that support it. So if some rad gems are in a sense performing their own identity online, along lines that are radically incompatible with those of the trans community, it's no wonder the whole thing gets a bit heated.

But I digress. In my view 'What's wrong with the FWR regulars?' is not the right question and is in fact pretty unfair to those regulars. A more interesting question (to me at least) might be 'What is the impact on feminism and feminist theory of being performed online as identity work?'.

I know I'm a bit late to the thread, but I'd like to add that I really like FWR, even though I don't post often. I post when I feel like I can add to the discussion or (more usually) when I have a question.

However, when I was recently the victim of a rape threat I posted there because I knew I wouldn't get any victim-blaming. I got support and a bit of strength and it was really helpful.

Other topics that interest me (in no particular order) are

Is it possible to be politically right-wing and also a feminist and if not, why not?

That whole business about so called evolutionary biology, and pop science in general, and the way it gets used to justify the most reactionary bollocks.

The discourse around motherhood, and especially attachment, as it intersects with feminism. There was a cracking FWR thread about breastfeeding that touched on a lot of this stuff but so often is collapses into a stale SAHM/WOHM thing.

Perhaps I'll put my money where my mouth is and go start a thread or two

If you average pay, by work type, it wouldn't surprise me that there is a differential as long as maternity paternity leave falls mainly to women. The greasy pole is hard to climb when you're at home. But, I'm sure the pay of of Angela Ahrendts, Carly Fiorina, Meg Whitman compare well within their companies. Sometimes I find the women's pay/seniority argument rather like the black managers in football argument. Are there few or none because there aren't any, or are there none or few because people are actively trying to prevent them. To the extent that I'd rather that I had a great job which was superbly paid than you had one. I'm not sure that it's necessary to have the weight of self interest written out in a ledger for the benefit of social historians. I rather suspect that Trevor Phillips and John Barnes are both wrong and right about the greasy pole. If it was believed that they could win more games or win more elections, I think they'd be chosen whether they were green, red black or female. The problem with identifying the conspiracy is that a large part of it is so normal that it doesn't seem sinister at all. The assumption (because that is what it is) is that the prize can better be delivered by someone who happens not to be green, red, black or female. The conspiracy is that mundane. (It's usually referred to as a choice.)

I read FWR from time to time, but very rarely post as I'm generally not interested enough in anything that's discussed there (sorry!) Whoever said it used to be incredibly hostile but has become much less so in recent times, I agree - have the people who say they're afraid to post contrary opinions there been on within the last few months or so?

I have no real axe to grind in this debate, hence not wading in until 1200 posts in - I'm not particularly attached but I don't mind it. (It certainly allows for more dissent/discussion than my old university FemSoc, but on the other hand that's not saying much )

Manatee- I'd be interested in threads on those topics too.

"The conspiracy is that mundane. It's called choice'. - do you see no mechanism by which the sort of choices that mean people get jobs - such as aspiration, such as thinking about out of work responsibilities, such as the choices promotion and renumeration panels make - in which the circstances in which the choices are made, over which individuals do not have choice or agency, could restrict those choices?

The Fawcett Soc's recent research would suggest that those women you name may well be paid less than male peers.

It is also important to consider who is in a position to make the choices...

I don't think it's an age thing. I'm 40 and am one of the posters from the start of the thread who found the lack of intersectionality problematic. My stepmother is a feminist academic in her sixties who be shocked by the transphobia regularly expressed here.

I find the trans threads incredibly difficult and tend to just lurk on them. I'm not sure that I would dismiss the questions raised by all the posters as "transphobic" and I know that people get irritated when any and all discussion of the status of trans women is interpreted as transphobia. I also know the trans people posting get pretty bloody irritated by the discussion, too and think it's transphobic that it even happens, basically. But selfishly, I really like that those discussions happen, I think elsewhere on the web, those fiscussions are so polarised they either don't happen or they are shut down by death threats and people are no-platformed. So I really welcome that on MN there are still debates and they don't result in people being no platformed or having their work withdrawn or not printed. And death threats are against talk guidelines

I think the trans* debate is a good example of what I was trying to get at earlier, about the way there seems to be a difference sometimes between feminism and internet feminism. While I can see there are theoretical issues at stake in this argument about what being a woman means, in practical terms the debate impacts such a small minority on both sides that it puzzles me as to why it dominates so many discussions. Unless, as I was speculating, it's more about competing ways people use the internet to construct identities than it is about feminism (or indeed gender reassignment) as such.

I find the trans debates very interesting and challenging too. I am still processing my thoughts about it- my instinctive, gut reaction (please don't shoot me down for it- as I said, I am still processing and I know that I need to readjust my thinking on this) is that we didn't fight so hard all these years for women only spaces just to hand them over to men whenever they ask. I also get irritated that so much time and energy seems to be being taken up with an issue that affects the lives of so few when there are still massive battles to be fought in other areas. It reminds me a bit of the discourse between the women's movement and the gay rights movement in the 70's. There was certainly a sense that there was something interesting and glamorous about being seen to be involved in the gay rights movement that was a world away from the daily plod and grind of fighting for women's rights. Does that make any sense to anyone? I worked for The Terrence Higgins Trust at the beginning, and I was certainly given status simply by that fact that I had neither earned not deserved.

I also think that there is something ironic about the fact that whenever men feel discriminated against they expect women to sort it out for them - the whole male victims of domestic violence issue is a case in point- men want refuges and somehow it's women's fault they haven't got them!

O, my experience of that is a bit different, Manatee, because it has become important to events I've attended. It's also an urgent issue to organisatuins I support, lime Women's Aid. So it's an important real life issue to me.