In wanting Mumsnet to help Judi Dench and Joanna Lumley

[GiantBranch]

Last week, Israel banned 37 international aid organisations from operating in the strip, including Oxfam, Save the Children and Medicine Sans Frontieres (MSF). MSF delivers one in three of Gaza’s babies, and experts warn that immediate action must be taken to prevent a catastrophe.

It has prompted more than 100 leading members of the arts, including Dames Judi Dench, Imelda Staunton, Joanna Lumley, Sienna Miller, Suranne Jones and singer Paloma Faith, to sign a letter urging popular online platform Mumsnet to join them in demanding urgent government action ensuring maternity care is accessible in Gaza.

www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/gaza-israel-baby-birth-judi-dench-letter-b2896981.html

Reposting with some added context in editorial brackets:

All of you [PP on the FWR thread] who described it as bullying and manipulative are on the nail. I struggle with the language surrounding social interactions [FWR regulars know that this is because I am autistic], so all I could identify was "this feels bad" and take a stab as to a possible underlying motive.

I am reminded of "if you're not with us, you're against us", which is always a threat. I am also reminded of the perennial virtue-signalling student union motions to condemn <thing>, where <thing> is usually the fault of a foreign govt who doesn't even know that Smalltown Former Poly even exists, never mind pays attention to what its SU committee thinks. The SU motions about Palestine/conflict minerals/gay rights in Russia/etc are not only pointless, they distract from the task of representing and supporting the students. I'm lastly reminded of Catch-22's Great Loyalty Oath Crusade.

"When they voiced objection, Captain Black replied that people who were loyal would not mind signing all the loyalty oaths they had to. To anyone who questioned the effectiveness of the loyalty oaths, he replied that people who really did owe allegiance to their country would be proud to pledge it as often as he forced them to."

It feels like there's a subtext of "if you don't cosign this, you must want to hurt babies", when that's not the case because there are plenty of other reasons not to cosign it.

One of those reasons being "why is anyone trusting or supporting Oxfam after sex-for-aid?" Another being "we don't know the full story based on this letter alone". A PP explained about Israel wanting to vet aid workers and the charities in question not cooperating, which is strangely not mentioned in the letter.

The First Rule of Misogyny is "women are responsible for what men do". Justine and the women of Mumsnet are not responsible for what the man in charge of Israel does, and it's misogyny to claim that we are or should try to be, especially when he is ignoring everyone else.

I don't just post on FWR. I spend a lot of time on Relationships as well, usually telling women to LTB. It took me a while to realise that the reason why this letter "feels bad" is that it's an attempt at coercive control by setting expectations amongst the public to manufacture Justine's consent, just like when an abuser sets expectations in the kids that he knows his victim might not want or be able to keep (e.g. saying "Maybe Mum will get you a tablet for Xmas" to an eight year old). I didn't recognise it immediately because it's outside of a family context and was carried out by women.

Agree meeting before letter would have been better than meeting after letter but agree wholeheartedly with aim of campaign

I suggest that a course of action we can all take, that is within our gift as the main decision-makers about household purchases, is to boycott goods made in countries that behave in ways we find unacceptable.

• Israel, if you are appalled by how they treat Palestinians.
• China, if you are appalled by how they treat Uighyurs, especially Uighyur women.
• Anti-choice US states, like Texas.
• Anyone else you think is out-of-order.

Unlike the open letter addressed to Justine, this post doesn't coerce you into a boycott. You can do so completely privately. And it hits these countries where it hurts: in the treasury.

As usual, the champagne socialists achieve nothing but stirring up more division. They are protected from dangers unlike the rest of us. Their arrogance and delusion doesn't wash with me. Dench has recently shown her lack of common sense elsewhere and in a very serious situation. Once again, its not something that affects her. Although it should as she's part of the category who was targetted in those vile extreme tweets. Jokers with Far more money than sense.

I object to this public forced teaming.

Yes, and how does Mumsnet decide which campaigns to support? By surveying users or post analytics.

And virtually all of the campaigns are around improving life in the UK. Maybe that makes us selfish or just a reasonable recognition that as a UK business with a significant number of UK users therefore the politicians we can influence are UK.

Juliet et al haven't made any effort to understand how Mumsnet works or why Justine is sometimes interviewed by media about Mumsnet users views and instead are trying to bully and shame a female business owner to support their current pet cause.

How many users would still be here if Justine and MNHQ started telling us which causes they were going to support without consultation?

Every man and his dog have asked politicians for years now to act. It hasn’t worked. Not one bit. Pro-Palestine activists need to think of a new direction as sadly sometimes lobbying is completely ineffective.

Well said. It feels as if these very privileged women are trying to piggy back on Justine's reputation and business in order to promote their personal priority political cause.
I suspect that none of these Dames, actors etc are regulars on the Aibu, Style & Beauty or Relationships boards. They've not contributed to any of the Mumsnet campaigns for safer maternity care, women's health, children & social media etc let alone supported Justine & Mumsnet when Justine was swatted or needed to set up Premium membership to counter financial issues.
Yet they decide to publicly target Mumsnet with this odd letter & position Justine as having as navigate a challenging political issue because it suits them and their reputations. No interest at all in who or what Mumsnet is.

Privileged virtue signalling.

This is absolutely spot on. One poster has already accused someone of hating women and babies in Gaza because they isn’t a Joanna Lumley fan, such is the poor tactics of bullying half wits who employ the Captain Black stance. It’s utterly embarrassing

Then they should have addressed the letter to UK politicians. ..
We quite literally elect our government to represent us on the international stage. Our politicians also have access to advisors and skilled specialists who understand all the nuances of international diplomacy
It just feels like bizarre strong arming to write the public letter to Justine like this. As others have said corresponding with her privately to see if she would promote the campaign would have been one thing.

But I wish these well connected and in many cases wealthy celebrities would understand that mumsnet already does so much for women and that shouldn't and doesn't mean that it has to do everything for all the women in the world at all times. There are far better placed organizations to campaign on the international stage. Particularly on matters that involve complex geopolitics.

The First Rule of Misogyny is "women are responsible for what men do". Justine and the women of Mumsnet are not responsible for what the man in charge of Israel does, and it's misogyny to claim that we are or should try to be, especially when he is ignoring everyone

Just quoting this again because it's so important people reflect on this.

Right, I really don’t understand the alleged defeatism of some posters, you have to keep trying or nothing ever changes. Campaigns can take years and seem like they won’t bear fruit, took the suffragettes years for example.

The situation of Gazan women could quite easily improved by simply
a) letting the mobile maternity units currently held at the border in, along with other aid that is being restricted

b) allowing respected aid agencies to continue their work so not breaking Israel’s obligations under international Law
MSF is respected around the world

i don’t care how wealthy or not the people are who
lead this campaign, it is a very good cause.

wealthy people for example JKR often lead campaigns as they have the wealth and time to do so, think suffragettes were predominantly wealthy,

It took me a while to realise that the reason why this letter "feels bad" is that it's an attempt at coercive control by setting expectations amongst the public to manufacture Justine's consent, just like when an abuser sets expectations in the kids that he knows his victim might not want or be able to keep (e.g. saying "Maybe Mum will get you a tablet for Xmas" to an eight year old). I didn't recognise it immediately because it's outside of a family context and was carried out by women.

i totally agree with this too. And nonetheless I would feel that an open letter to you a prime minister or someone who has responsibility for matters of international relations as part of their job description would be a reasonable tactic if other efforts had failed. 9 but in this instance it just looks like bullying. And poorly targeted bullying at that

No one is saying that they can't campaign literally no one. The point is they already have the means and connections to run the campaign they don't need to bully Justine into running it for them

Indeed

However I suspect that actually putting anctual effort - like the FWS have done at great time expense and personal costs - it
is not something most people are willing to do. Doesn’t quite chime with the virtue signalling approach of saying how appalled you are but doing nothing tangible for the cause

Did JK Rowling use her public and financial capital to coerce private companies to lobby on behalf of her campaigns, or did she put her money and energy into making it happen?

When she was giving money to the Labour party or setting up domestic shelters for women, it was the latter.

It certainly wasn't just a signature to manipulate a website to do the hard work for them. If these signatories have put in their money and graft to mobilise politicians to solving this problem, then they should lead with that.

I'm not sure JKR coerces others to take part in her endeavours. As far as I'm aware she actually funds and establishes numerous charities (Lumos, Beira's place, Volant Charitable Trust, Anne Rowling Regennerative Neurology Clinic) and others sign up to support. Practical personal activism if you like rather than writing letters to persuade others to act on your behalf?

💯 this.

Mumsnet could do a poll and say their members don’t support ? ?

Exactly, it should have started with asking MNHQ to do a poll/ host a guest post/ anything that actually asked Mumsnet users whether they want to support this campaign rather than emotional blackmail of the business owner.

But maybe they just thought it would be an obvious cause for Mumsnet to support? Why are you presuming Justine would not support their campaign?

Have they written an open letter to Mark Zuckerberg asking him to say all Facebook and Instagram users support their campaign?

Mumsnet is involved in campaigns around maternal health so not an unusual ask .

Re the “Well the FWR board soon leveraged political changes why can’t MN do the same for Gaza”…I think to most people, a country on the other side of the world where you only get a glimpse of what happening if you watch it on the news, feel pretty foreign. There’s nothing wrong with not consuming news of every bad thing happening around the world. At the very most it can be seen as being slightly ignorant to not know or care.

But men being in our spaces is a thing that so many of us experienced personally. Having the fear and emotions of squirrelling your young DD out of a safe space because there’s a man in it - and knowing if you speak up or object you could be called a bigot or even arrested - is something very real and tangible. If affected all of us on a personal level. What’s happening in other countries doesn’t. It’s easier to fight not only because we can actually make change on home soil, but because it’s happening to us.

I'm not presuming one way or the other to say what all Mumsnet users think.
The letter writers (and you) seem to presuming that because we're "all mothers" (not everyone is) that we all think the same as you on this topic and would unquestionably support it.