To be alarmed at the number of women who are throwing support behind causes that are clearly anti-woman?

[DorothyGaleFromKansas]

With the recent threads about flags/immigrants and Charlie Kirk etc, there seem to be a bewildering number of women supporting causes that directly go against their own interests, and it’s baffling and frankly a bit disturbing.

Reform have voted against tougher laws on stalking, sexual harassment and upskirting, against clamping down on revenge porn, and against further protections in the workplace. Farage cited Andrew Tate as “an important voice for men”.

Then you have Trump, who was found to have committed rape, forced himself into changing rooms where teenagers were undressing, made sexual comments about his own daughter, not to mention 34 other felonies, and that’s before we even get to the Epstein files.

Charlie Kirk said that women should only vote if they were voting for the candidate chosen by their husband, that women shouldn’t go on to higher education unless it was to find a husband, that women should have to submit to their husbands, and that little girls as young as 9 or 10 including his own daughters should be forced to give birth to babies conceived as a result of rape.

What has happened to us that there are so many women willing to endorse attitudes like this? And how do we fix it?! How have we sunk so low that there are women who think this is what we all deserve? It’s terrifying.

Yep, all of this.

What is in women’s interests fundamentally/basically/from a survival perspective?

Is it to find men to protect them from the other very fucked up men who will take any and every opportunity to harm them? I think for the majority of women in the world the answer to this is yes.

Society is aspirational how things should be but people have to live day by day and minute by minute in their own homes and for a huge chunk of the female population of the world they have to live in survival mode protecting themselves from the number one risk factor across the world for women - men.

In order to do this they use very primitive defences against the reality that men are such a threat to them denial, rationalisation etc etc. The number 1 fundamental survival mechanism for women is fawning (fight-flight-freeze-fawn) and that is what you are alluding to here.

I would guess because it's an entire group of men that people who are actually supposed to be on the side of women are drawing a circle round.

Of course it makes no sense that they run straight into the arms of another section who are drawing the exact same circle around white men.

None of the parties have a position on women’s rights that I’m happy with.

it’s not obvious that having a rapist as leader is worse than men being in women’s prisons and raping women.

Nowhere have I said we need to shut down opinions, I have asked why women are endorsing them.

Because if you can’t define what a woman is, how can you defend women’s rights?

I suggest you look at the stats on “transwomen” in jail for sexual crimes. Guess what! They’re mainly straight white men too.

Absolutely this! If men can be women, what are women’s rights?

It's impossible to engage with that laundry list of strawmen.

I think you are trying to say that right-wing and conservative views are always anti-women. Or why not mention, say, Peter Mandelson's links to Epstein?

I didn't agree with Charlie Kirk on some things and I did agree on others. I think, for example, that his anti-prostitution and anti-surrogacy views are pro-women; I don't go so far as him on anti-abortion but I think progressives underplay the extent that women are drivers of the pro-life movement; I think it's a shame that our society denigrates women choosing family life in their 20s and presents it as a low-class option; I think many women today are in 'jobs' not 'careers' and would prefer to spend more time with their children; I think some of our social norms lead women who would have wanted to have a family to not get to experience that.

I agree with Reform on some things and not others. I agree with Trump on some things and not others. For completion I agree with Starmer on some things and not others! There is no "women's council" that decides on the approved positions. Life is about compromises.

I have asked WHY women would support those causes. Nowhere have I said they aren’t allowed to. But the fact that they do is clearly symptomatic of something going wrong and that’s worrying.

My MIL is fairly misogynistic,
despite having 3 daughters and Inhave always found it bizarre but she’s in thenUS, churchgoing and been a SAHM most of her life, and I feel that she’s like that because of the pressures around her and the fact she feels the need to justify her own choices in life by judging others… all 3 daughters have families AND successful careers with genuinely supportive partners but she’ll still say dumbass things like men make better bosses’, women are too emotional, and clearly favours the male grandchildren ( ‘sweet, lovely boys’ ) over the granddaughters ( ‘tricky, difficult, bitchy etc).
The reality is the girls are lovely and the boys are often in trouble.

Sadly I fear this is it in a nutshell :(

I think many just believe what they get told to and are probably completely unaware.

The racial mix of UK rape statistics is rather skewed by the fact that religious minority women are not in a position to walk into a police station
and then testify against community members at a rape trial.
Honour killings happen in the UK.

I don’t want to have to find a man to protect me. I just want to be left alone.

Very few people agree with all the policies of any specific political party, voting for them does not mean they agree with all of then. Any of the parties could be seen as anti women. For example, labour removing warm home allowance (I know they put it back but under duress) is anti women - women live longer and much more likely to live longer, often on their own - and these women will often only have a small pension from working- too much to allow them to qualify, not enough to live comfortably. Their nhs and education cuts disproportionatly affect women working in these sectors. Their immigration stance disproportionately affects women who may feel threatened by groups of men hanging around, making comments towards them. They don't seem to have a desire to protect women only spaces.
But do we call any women who votes for labour anti women? Of course not! Each person finds the option they identify with most, that doesn't mean they agree with all of it, often it's a case of picking what they perceive to be the least worst option. Which is a sad state of affairs

Ok.

The vast majority of sexual assaults are not reported in ALL communities. You are complaining they are skewed because they don’t show exactly what you want them.

Mumsnet used to be a much more liberal and feminst place.

Now we have posters who seem to support the whole MAGA suite of beliefs, with the level of debate you'd expect.

The threads on Charlie Kirk were really illuminating, with the MAGA supporters flat out denying the abhorrent things he said, or claiming that the left were responsible for gun violence, when it's the right wing in America which insists on no gun control. It was such gas lighting.

The truth is not something they seem at all bothered about, they're angry (at what? Equal rights?) and lashing out. So many Americans are voting in ways directly opposed to their own self interest, their savior Donald Trump is stripping rights and benefits away, and rewarding not his voters, but his billionaire cronies.

Charlie Kirk was deeply offensive about women, blacks, Muslims, gays, he supported an armed insurrection against the American government etc etc - yet we're told to 'be kind'.

And I know that some brillianly witty Trump/Tommy Robinson supporter will be along to tell me that I'm sheeple and probably a man in a dress.

You do women a disservice if you think they’re incapable of deciding what’s in their own best interests. I can decide for myself, I don’t need other women to do it for me.

I'd rather that than what the OP describes, tbh.

It’s not ‘terrifying’ and people can think what they like (I can’t stand Trump or Tate, had never heard of Charlie Kirk. Can’t stand Farage).

I actually find a lot of the misandry and trans stuff on here very unpleasant.

But… democracy.

This is exactly what happened in Germany and how the Nazi party came into power, people ignored the bits they didn't like because Hitler promised to create a better economy and stronger Germany, look how that turned out!

How about we protect the women and girls from the English white men that attack, rape and harass them on the daily!

If you're criticising the left over Mandlesons links to Epstein, aren't you ignoring the big orange elephant in the room?

I don’t need to be able to define anyone else’s position as a woman except my own - if I know I am a woman then causes that tell me I am not supposed to go to university, have a job over a family, have equal pay are all causes that affect ME, and I should therefore vote and give support in my best interests.

I don’t understand why people are so desperate for political parties and commentators to define women so they can make sure that their trans ideology is followed that they are willing to ignore the fact that they only want to define a woman and women’s rights so they can take them away.

Dont be daft. MOST women don’t think that, but hey, build up that myth if it helps your cause, why don’t you!