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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To be seriously disappointed that the women on Mumsnet are not talking about What is happening to women in Afghanistan, right now?

227 replies

Quarks69 · 16/08/2021 23:37

Seriously, look at the unimportant stuff on the chat list today. Am I the only one who is thinking about those poor girls?

My daughter was born just as we entered Afghanistan and removed the Taliban. she is now 20 at uni and loving life (despite COVID).Her peers in Afghanistan as of yesterday were doing the same. Herat Uni has over 50% women studying in it.

As of today they have been told to go home, cover up, hand in their car keys and wait,,....for what? To be forced into marriage and forget their dreams?

I can’t help imagining how my daughter would feel..what could you say as a mother?it is heart breaking.

OP posts:
gardeninggirl68 · 17/08/2021 00:10

Our less important ( to you) issues still deserve to be posted on and read!

The world still turns

paepoyrol · 17/08/2021 00:11

Why is this the responsibility of 'the women of Mumsnet?' and not the predominantly male world leaders who are allowing this abomination to happen?
There is no place for that logic!

SpindleWhorl · 17/08/2021 00:12

Ok fair play, OP, but please join an existing thread and help bump it up the active list?

gardeninggirl68 · 17/08/2021 00:13

I must be special then as I can worry about work and post on a thread as well as wonder what's for dinner so look up a recipe AS WELL AS worry about the girls and women in Afghanistan

It's not an all or nothing issue you know!!

Are we supposed to all sit in front of sky news all day posting on ONE dedicated thread on mumsnet and not think of or do anything else?

Cos that's going to help all the women isn't it!?

AnneLovesGilbert · 17/08/2021 00:14

You’re not doing the women and girls of Afghanistan any favours by having a pop on here, or using them to give you perspective. You also have no right to suggest other people can’t use a massive international forum to discuss things they wish to because of recent news coverage.

Millions of people, women, men, girls and boys are suffering and living in torment every second of every day.

Do you go around telling people they can’t worry about their elderly parents, their jobs, how they’ll make ends meet, an argument with a friend, because North Korea is a living hell or Boko Harem have kidnapped yet more innocent children?

Post what you like, expect other people to do the same. Everyone I know is worried and upset about what’s happening in Afghanistan right now but if I stop living my life and think about it 24/7 I’ll crack up and I have a toddler who needs me sane.

urbanbuddha · 17/08/2021 00:15

Charities which are trying to help, and petition - linked on this thread, OP.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/4324025-AIBU-to-ask-how-to-help-women-and-girls-in-Afghanistan?msgid=110006600#110006600

tattymacduff · 17/08/2021 00:16

@Quarks69

Ah well if there was a delete button for a thread I would hit it.😳...but I still find it strange that this huge event doesn’t put some of our rather lesser Mumsnet gripes into perspective, and to see pages of the usual ...To maybe be a bit more thankful for living in this country at this time.🤷🏻‍♀️
For god's sake OP, you seem to want to use the terrible situation those women and girls are in to make yourself look better than all the rest of us.
AbsolutelyPatsy · 17/08/2021 00:16

i couldnt find one either,
i have hidden feminist and AIBU

SchrodingersImmigrant · 17/08/2021 00:19

@AbsolutelyPatsy

i couldnt find one either, i have hidden feminist and AIBU
You are currently on aibu...
Nachthex · 17/08/2021 00:20

As others have said, there have been threads about women in Afghanistan today. I think it's a mistake to try to equate the number of threads or posts with interest in a topic. Some things we just end up saying the same things 'oh how awful', 'those poor women' etc. One of those threads for me was about a 12 year old girl in Liverpool who committed suicide after being raped by a boy in her school and nobody seemed overly concerned about the rape. What do you say about something so horrific as that? After 10 comments along the lines of 'this is so shocking' - what then? Everything sounds hollow.

So we need to do something to help the Afghan women & girls, not sit here on our keyboards emoting. Follow the links people are posting with ideas about helping out, look locally to see if any refugees are heading your way and get involved there.

LifesNotEnidBlyton · 17/08/2021 00:22

What exactly should we all be saying? Because this sort of thing us happening to millions of women every day. It's wrong and it's sickening, but every day millions of women in some countries are treated like this and are abused, murdered, bullied and kept like slaves to men. Talking about it "in chat" isn't going to help them. Some women on here have seen their family go out there in the war and try and help the civilians. But our forces can't just stay out there, sons and daughters, mothers and fathers dying out there and sending out a fresh batch every few months because when we leave they do this. So if you want more threads, because there are threads already, then what is "expressing sympathy" and talking about these women going to actually do to help them? Because Mumsnet having an active thread about it all day every day of women saying "Yes, it's really bad, someone should do something" isn't going to stop the Taliban, and given two of the strongest armed forces (us and the USA) have tried to help already and lost hundreds of lives doing so it's going to take a bigger move to actually help these women so anyone with any ideas should be writing to the UN, not being "disappointed" on Mumsnet.

SpindleWhorl · 17/08/2021 00:22

I've bumped the AIBU one into Active now. No excuse. It's there.

AbsolutelyPatsy · 17/08/2021 00:23

@SchrodingersImmigrant
i found this in Trending

Kinneddar · 17/08/2021 00:23

Maybe next time it might be an idea to use the search facility before you start a thread 🙄

youshallnotpass9 · 17/08/2021 00:24

@Quarks69

Ah well if there was a delete button for a thread I would hit it.😳...but I still find it strange that this huge event doesn’t put some of our rather lesser Mumsnet gripes into perspective, and to see pages of the usual ...To maybe be a bit more thankful for living in this country at this time.🤷🏻‍♀️
I am very capable of feeling pain for the woman in Afghanistan and talking about it, playing with lego, wondering what the fuck I saw on twitter earlier and how the hell it was allowed on there, when the starting age is 13.

Along with cooking dinner and doing the cleaning and wondering what is going on with my neighbours across the road.

SpindleWhorl · 17/08/2021 00:25

@AbsolutelyPatsy

i couldnt find one either, i have hidden feminist and AIBU
How are you on here then? Telepathy?
TableFlowerss · 17/08/2021 00:26

I’ve thought about them all day. I would love to help but waft can we do?…

WorraLiberty · 17/08/2021 00:29

Seriously, look at the unimportant stuff on the chat list today. Am I the only one who is thinking about those poor girls?

How on earth do you have the brass fucking neck to turn what's happening to those poor women and girls in Afghanistan, into something all about you?? Angry

Catch yourself on. Your post is disgusting.

orangejuicer · 17/08/2021 00:29

It is desperately sad but why is it our responsibility?

FrangipaniDeLaSqueegeeMop · 17/08/2021 00:31

@DanielTigersMummy21

Why is this the responsibility of 'the women of Mumsnet?' and not the predominantly male world leaders who are allowing this abomination to happen?
Because women are to blame for everything and they are responsible for everything
PastMyBestBeforeDate · 17/08/2021 00:32

If the whole of active conversations was filled with threads about the Afghan women and girls, it would make no difference.

sst1234 · 17/08/2021 00:33

What’s the point of this thread? To validate outrage which is already shared by posters on their threads of the same subject.
On a serious note, there are hundreds of commentators on the new cycle making a living out of this professional rage. No doubt by next Saturday everyone will have moved onto the next trending story. Let’s not kid ourselves that Afghanistan has been some haven for female advancement in these last 20 years. Culture change doesn’t happen in 20 years, maybe 200 years if your lucky. The rage should have been expressed when coalition tax dollars were being pumped into Afghanistan to create the most corrupt government which plundered the country. It is a lie that things got better in the last 20 years, structurally they got worse. The return of Taliban was inevitable and the time to protest and express rage was during the last 20 years, not now. Because guess what, the Taliban don’t give a toss about your outrage.

FrangipaniDeLaSqueegeeMop · 17/08/2021 00:34

@Quarks69

Ah well if there was a delete button for a thread I would hit it.😳...but I still find it strange that this huge event doesn’t put some of our rather lesser Mumsnet gripes into perspective, and to see pages of the usual ...To maybe be a bit more thankful for living in this country at this time.🤷🏻‍♀️
FGS OP

It's all relative. There's an active thread at the moment where a woman was strangled by her husband and is scared. Another where the OP has such a useless husband who is financially abusing her and trying to get her to move across the country away from her family. Really fucking unhelpful to tell people to 'put things into perspective' when that's their real life they are going through.

And if other people want to post about the price of fudge, or the silly thing they said at work, it doesn't mean it's the only/the most important thing on their minds. I imagine, like many women, those people also care deeply about women in Afghanistan, they just happen to have the ability to hold more than one opinion/thought at once

AbsolutelyPatsy · 17/08/2021 00:40

clever @SpindleWhorl
it was on trending,
and this precisely is why i dont go on AIBU

WorraLiberty · 17/08/2021 00:41

I imagine, like many women, those people also care deeply about women in Afghanistan, they just happen to have the ability to hold more than one opinion/thought at once

But they won't care as deeply as the OP obviously...