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

[BertrandRussell]

..is a bad thing?

@PeterRouseTheFleshofMankind

“What rights do you believe that trans people don't currently have? What rights do you believe that women are trying to remove from trans people?”

What rights do you believe that women don’t currently have? What rights do you believe that men are trying to remove from women?

I don't believe all men are evil.
I do believe I am a feminist.
I do worry that the transgender issue dominates.
But it's bloody hard to have any conversation about women's rights when the word women now means " woman plus any man who says that's how they feel at the moment" .
And transgender will also dominate when most of the direct attacks on women and women's rights are coming from that community. Boring but true.

“Apologies, perhaps I used a bit of hyperbole”

Saying that gender critical feminists want transwomen to have no rights at all is “a bit of hyperbole”? Fuck me....

The rights that women look to lose are rights to dignity, privacy and full participation in society. For example, the girls in USA who lost funded college places because a male person won their sporting event and so qualities for the girls funding.

Rights to be recognised as fully human and yet not Male. The right to equal pay for the same job, the right to be given the job in the first place, the right for these things to be monitored until equality is achieved. Which is we redefine women we can't do...for example think how difficult it would be to show that sex offences are primarily carried out by males when so many sex offender are all desperately trying to be reclassified as women ( uk ) . Think how that might affect our approach to solving sexual violence

What rights do you believe that men are trying to remove from women?
The right to single sex prisons
The right to single sex refuges
The right to single sex hospital wards
The right to single sex sports
The right to name themselves as female
The right to be lesbian
The right to not have male crimes recorded as female crimes.
Just off the top of me head!

What rights do you believe that women don’t currently have? What rights do you believe that men are trying to remove from women?

The right to single sex spaces where women will be vulnerable, so places like changing rooms, prisons, refuges etc. The reason I believe that women have a right to single sex spaces in these circumstances is for their safety and privacy and dignity, given that its a fact that 98% of sexual offences are carried out by males. Single sex spaces are safer for women, and help to relieve trauma for female victims of male violence.

So again, because you haven't answered it, you deflected the question - what rights don't you think that trans people have?

Oh I cross posted there!

Sparkling - oh yes, the threads where women are told that wearing an engagement ring is essentially an anti-feminist choice because it marks them as chattel. Again, maybe it did in 1819, but come on - surely we all see this tradition now for what it was, in it’s context, and we also are fully confident that we’re past that now. These days we can own the choice to have a ring and it can mean whatever we want it to mean to us on a personal level. This is because we have evolved! The status quo has shifted. Now there are different challenges for women. We are in a different time, so there no point in rigidly banging on about choices that women are largely now in control of. The struggle has shifted into a new context and will continue to do so.

The way I see it, there is a tipping point. There is the stage where feminism is a valid and relevant struggle towards a particular freedom/equality. Then there is the stage where that freedom/equality comes to be taken for granted - or internalised. Cultural consciousness then shifts accordingly - it is now possible to regard behaviours that were once “expected” as individual “choice.” The tipping point is when feminism fails to recognise this or fails to adapt its dogma accordingly. This is the tipping point when “internalised misogyny” that women must do/feel x,y,z is simply replaced by a certain type of “internalised feminism” ie that women must now instead do/feel x,y,z. This is the point at which the type of feminism espoused on here is at risk of alienating people because it’s too narrow and fixed.

Even my children's robustly public schooly boys' school has issued statements against transphobia. How in the fuck is Mnet not catching onto this? So an institution that exists to perpetuate male privilege advocates an ideology that privileges males. How many transboys have they welcomed in?

I'm on FWR all the time and I wear an engagement ring, changed my name and had my dad walk me down the aisle.

So what?

Well I think that they may be rights that transgender people don't have. They have full rights to their sex based rights, but given how men often view none conventional males, that may be insufficient

Those that are on hormonal treatments have no natural home for sport participation

They may well have additional reasons to be fearful of Male sex spaces, and yet rarely are third spaces provided ( fully private such spaces tend to be more costly than shared spaces ( privat vs shared ward) for example

The rights to have data collected fairly so that any systematic bias agaisnt them can be identified and rectified

None of that point to accepting transwomen as women however , and tends not t9 be the focus of feminists in general ( being transrights not women's rightS)

You will be booted out now @PeterRouseTheFleshofMankind

I’ve never seen an engagement ring one. I have seen loads of threads where women are very unhappy and putting themselves in a vulnerable position because for whatever reason they feel that they have to wait for a proposal before making any plans to protect themselves and their children legally and financially. I think that is a serious feminist issue.....

Those that are on hormonal treatments have no natural home for sport participation

They may well have additional reasons to be fearful of Male sex spaces, and yet rarely are third spaces provided ( fully private such spaces tend to be more costly than shared spaces ( privat vs shared ward) for example

The rights to have data collected fairly so that any systematic bias agaisnt them can be identified and rectified

Most TRAs aren't campaigning for those rights though are they? Because they don't involve the full capitulation of women.

Can someone please define transphobia...because I thought it would be relate to hatred of transpeople. Refusal to accept a transperson as a woman, whilst being totally happy to accept them as fully human, is not transphobia,

It was eternity rings that seemed to cause a bit of a problem for some reason.

In other words, telling women that they don’t have to wear a ring is fine, but telling women that they “shouldn’t“ want a ring because “feminism” is replacing one restrictive mindset (patriarchal expectation) with another. Telling women that there is nothing stopping them pursuing any career they want is most definitely progress, but telling women that any other life choice is essentially “unfeminist” is simply replacing the guilt complex that was once fuelled by misogyny with another guilt complex fuelled by feminism. This is what I mean about finding the tipping point between progress and restrictive dogma.

Ah. I have a bit of an issue with eternity rings. But it’s more about exploitation of people through marketing than anything to do with feminism.

Well no you are right a lot seem to be not at all bothered by improving trans rights. Which is interesting don't you find? there clearly are problems, yet so many people don't want to talk about them and solve them. They are simply trying to remove women's rights.

I can’t help with engagement rings because I don’t think I’ve ever expressed an opinion on them!

Btw I agree that Mumsnet is less feminist than it used to be but I think that's because women of an age to be having babies now have grown up with liberal feminism and don't see how cockcentric, corporate and unchallenging it is.

@Baloonphobia You can see why nobody has come my defence on that thread, it’s brutal isn’t it? I’m going to have to counter the medical misinformation though.

I think there is space for a sensible debate on the matter, just not on that board.

Well no you are right a lot seem to be not at all bothered by improving trans rights. Which is interesting don't you find? there clearly are problems, yet so many people don't want to talk about them and solve them. They are simply trying to remove women's rights.

Exactly. All the 'you lot are such transphobes' brigade never seem to actually be bothered about helping trans people campaign for things like third spaces.

It's all about having a go at women for not 'being kind' and refusing to budge over to accommodate everyone else's needs.

Pretty much PeterRouse...

Exactly. All the 'you lot are such transphobes' brigade never seem to actually be bothered about helping trans people campaign for things like third spaces.

I have actually written a letter to my MP about this on behalf of a patient who did not feel she could use either space comfortably or safely whilst transitioning. The reply was that whilst she fully supported the idea it was not on the agenda for parliamentary debate and she would question the cost effectiveness that such legislation would cause for smaller businesses.