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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

AIBU to think that Mumsnet is becoming increasingly less feminist and that this..

857 replies

BertrandRussell · 29/11/2019 11:33

..is a bad thing?

OP posts:
DirtyWindow · 29/11/2019 16:55

Top 12 threads on FWR are trans related. The utterly horrendous Ohio abortion bill is down at no 13.

I count myself as a feminist but "Mumsnet feminism" really doesn't do it for me.

Andysbestadventure · 29/11/2019 16:56

Started with the nethuns invasion didn't it?

Blakes77 · 29/11/2019 17:10

I think that when women are younger, with everything supposedly available to them, and when they have young children plus a husband and feel they want to be at home, then the idea of being able to become a CEO or getting a good pension seem kind of irrelevant.
In my 20s I thought I was free and equal. In my 30s I was bring up kids as a single mum, and now in my 40s I am floored by all the ways I have been effectively hobbled and have less than almost all the men I know.
I have also started to come up against the ageism in my working life that particularly seems to affect women when they are no longer young and pretty, and have realised just how much being young and pretty had to do with the fact that men were generally nice to me.
There has definitely been a push accross the world in general to put women back in their box, to tell us we have enough, that women are just as violent as men, that we are asking to be abused, that we dont really want economic freedom, that our bodies are not really ours, that being female is a choice, that we don't want or need the things men can expect as their right.

Young men still don't wonder if they can have children AND a career, and young women still make excuses for shit, lazy and entitled behaviour from their male partners.
I don't know that I want women to be front and centre. I just want women to be regarded as equally deserving of freedom, safety, dignity, financial freedom and opportunity. People might claim to want this, but actually they still see males as the default human.
So yes, maybe MN is less feninist than before, or maybe it just seems to be now that I have moved into a different and clearer-eyed life stage.

kateandme · 29/11/2019 17:14

Goddess help us really?

cosima1 · 29/11/2019 17:22

The “feminist” board should be renamed the “anti-trans” board now. There is a clear agenda and it’s an echo chamber now, which alienates most people - male, female, feminist or not. Just odious posters that make the same point ad infinitum and cannot tolerate dissent.

The feminism on AIBU follows the lead of a few key members of MN royalty (I hope you don’t mind if I include you in this number, BR). They believe they have everything covered with the adages,”You can be a feminist yet not always make feminist choices,” and conversely, “Feminism is choice, but not all choices are feminist.” Fair enough, but sometimes the feminism on here sounds a bit like a seminar of earnest A-level students who think the text book covers the syllabus and that’s that. It doesn’t take into account that the issues facing women today are not the same as fifty years ago, or even ten years ago. It doesn’t take into account that women across different socioeconomic groups; different cultures and age groups will be seeking different objectives because their personal belief systems will vary as will the spectrum of choices they are faced with. One woman’s “liberating career” that defines her life will be another woman’s hell, one that she may look back on with regret because she missed so much of her children’s early years. Yet the MN brand of feminism tells us that we “should” have wanted the career above all else, even in spite of ourselves, because our individual choices inevitably translate into the feminist cause at a societal level (then the stages will be quoted). It’s the same with other issues - we are told how we “should” want to date; that we “should” feel this or that. It’s all a bit absolutist for some of us and as such, this MN rhetoric has become a bit of a blunt tool imo.

cosima1 · 29/11/2019 17:24

adages, not “stages” will be quoted!

BovaryX · 29/11/2019 17:27

Grasspigeons
That’s an interesting comment about AIBU. I think you’re right about that, they encourage a robust response! I think perhaps the FWR board can be a bit intimidating, but there’s some interesting stuff on there.

DirtyWindow · 29/11/2019 17:33

@cosima1 you are far more articulate than me!

rocketmen · 29/11/2019 17:49

I pretty much gave up at the obsession about trans women and how they're all out to be predators or something. I'm trans myself (non-binary) and a lot of the "feminists" here think I don't exist or that I'm a woman in need of help to rediscover my femininity, so I got sick of it and decided to leave well enough alone.

rocketmen · 29/11/2019 17:51

Pretty much everything cosima says covers me, actually!

Blakes77 · 29/11/2019 17:59

Er..rocketmen..the FWR board seems to be full of women vying with each other to be the least feminine, at least in terms of dress and attitude..
What, are you saying you go there and they try to give you make up tips ? I don't think so!Grin

Pinkblueberry · 29/11/2019 18:04

The “feminist” board should be renamed the “anti-trans” board now. There is a clear agenda and it’s an echo chamber now, which alienates most people - male, female, feminist or not. Just odious posters that make the same point ad infinitum and cannot tolerate dissent.

This sums it up pretty much. If you have strong opinions about transgender people then ok, we’re all entitled to our opinions, but there is something very cheap and unconvincing about having to hijack the concept of feminism to validate your views.

DioneTheDiabolist · 29/11/2019 18:06

I do wish that back in the day women who are now old Crones like me has thought more about motherhood and caring responsibilities.

They did. My mother who is older than you Bert did. Many older feminists did. Do not use your age as an excuse.

thefluffysideofgrey · 29/11/2019 18:06

The trans thing is done to death. It becomes a parody of itself at times- see the ru Paul thread and the drag agenda... utter maddness!

If you disagree with Mumsnet royalty they call you a troll and imply you're stupid.

Whoever described them as a level students was spot on- a little education is a dangerous thing.

DioneTheDiabolist · 29/11/2019 18:07

There is a clear agenda and it’s an echo chamber now, which alienates most people - male, female, feminist or not. Just odious posters that make the same point ad infinitum and cannot tolerate dissent.

Yep.

Pinkblueberry · 29/11/2019 18:13

Also when someone posts outside of Femism about their child possibly being transgender and asking for advice - a helpful poster will ‘kindly’ say ‘I suggest you take a look at some of the information on the Feminsm board, I’m sure you will find it very helpful and enlightening Smile’. Creepy AF and almost like the start of a grooming process.

BowermansNose · 29/11/2019 18:15

Started with the nethuns invasion didn't it?

Nothing says feminism to me as mocking women I perceive as less educated than me

BertrandRussell · 29/11/2019 18:18

You misunderstand me,@DioneTheDiabolist. Nothing new there.

OP posts:
PeterRouseTheFleshofMankind · 29/11/2019 18:24

I think the feminism board is much more accessible these days than it used to be. It used to be a very small number of women talking about academics and theory and I found it very intimidating. It's much more 'normal' these days, probably because there is a wider range of people posting on there.

And I'm not surprised that transgender issues take up a lot of the Feminist board at the moment. How the fuck are you supposed to campaign for the liberation of women if you are not allowed to define what a woman is?

Duh.

BowermansNose · 29/11/2019 18:24

[trans issues] is the single largest active threat to women and women's rights we currently have globally

It really isn’t, by a long way. Not that I deny there’s a problem, but I have a friend who works to study communities in Subsaharan Africa who sell fish for sex, and risk HIV infections. I don’t imagine they’re too worried about trans issues.

JacobReesClunge · 29/11/2019 18:25

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DioneTheDiabolist · 29/11/2019 18:30

How have I misunderstood you Bert? Childcare, keeping house and being financially dependent on men are feminist themes going all the way back to first wave feminism. They didnt just come up in the 90s.

PeterRouseTheFleshofMankind · 29/11/2019 18:30

It really isn’t, by a long way. Not that I deny there’s a problem, but I have a friend who works to study communities in Subsaharan Africa who sell fish for sex, and risk HIV infections. I don’t imagine they’re too worried about trans issues.

Why don't those women just 'identify out of their womanhood' then? Problem solved innit. After all, we are told that biological sex means nothing apparently its all about your 'gender identity' so if those women feel like men then they won't have to sell fish for sex anymore will they?

JacobReesClunge · 29/11/2019 18:31

It really isn’t, by a long way. Not that I deny there’s a problem, but I have a friend who works to study communities in Subsaharan Africa who sell fish for sex, and risk HIV infections. I don’t imagine they’re too worried about trans issues.

I expect they're not, and I don't define it as the biggest global threat myself. But the ideology of defining by gender over sex as pushed by the trans movement has the potential to have a negative impact on work like that being done by your friend.

Blakes77 · 29/11/2019 18:33

I'm assuming you mean sell sex for fish? Unless they have loads of fish and are really sex starved!

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