I've tried .

[stillvicarinatutu]

I've really tried to engage in the fwr board but it's so hostile.

I really wanted to explore more but I just feel attacked whenever I speak my truth.

I don't know what came of the Caroline what's her name thread because I hid it . I really wanted to try and understand what was happening there and try to offer insight and engage from the perspective of a woman in the police .

But I just can't get through the "your all bastards , Wayne cousins, watching me , agenda , trans rights , you're all bastards cos some forces are talking bollocks stuff .

I agree with most of everything but when I'm trying to engage and proffer my support all I get is you behaved badly because you said police should patrol at nigth and have the audacity to LOOK at a woman out at night . The. WC gets brought up like the majority of the police force men and women are some physical threat - when he was the absolute definition of exception not the rule.

I get insulted time and time again and I still tried . It's just turned me off the whole topic because no one will actually talk rationally with me .
And if I ask why all I will get is sulky replied about how police are all shit with some anti feminist agenda when I work in a drive that has never ever had that agenda - no stonewall training , no lanyards with rainbows or cars with stickers - yet when I say this is not my experience while respecting it may be yours - I get told I must be a man .

Last night I posted in a thread and asked what is the issue with police patrolling at night and looking at people who are out ?

Result : your behaved badly . You said it wasn't an issue . You said that's what police are meant to do . (It is actually! Police patrol at night because that's when most crime happens like burglary and car crime )

The reason I'm posting before anyone says something really witty like do t let the door hit your arse on the way out
Is because I wanted to engage and be included in chats that involve women . No
Matter what their job is . I have no trans agenda - I have always said and always believed you are born with either an x or a Y chromosome and that determines your skeletal frame , and your sex . And that cannot be changed.
I'm horrified by the tales here of thought police and wrong think .
I'm in that job and I could actually raise this . The more I learned the more ridiculous it seemed . But I can't even talk about it without jibes or civility.
The fwr board is really really hostile . As a woman I feel unwelcome to even discuss anything .
This will cause more offence and a round of fuck offs. But I really wanted to learn what the issues were around fwr and policing . Its like an exclusive club that no one can gain entry to unless you absolutely comply with the narrative- and I don't even know what it is !
I really wanted to try and understand and learn and possibly - possibly try to raise some of the issues from within .

Anyway - please please don't pile on - this is constructive criticism.
And I won't engage . I've hidden the fwr board now because I don't feel I can be included or add anything of value .

Please don't prove me right by being vindictive or abusive .

I just wanted to learn , help , engage.

I really wish you luck in what ever you hope to achieve .

None of that makes much sense tbh. FWR threads are generally sharp, fast and to the point, and this above is rambly and incoherent, so if you’re posting like that you probably aren’t keeping up with the discussion.

But if you don’t like the board, don’t post. Don’t read it if you don’t like it. Hide it, don’t hide it, whatever. Why do we need to know?

So what exactly do you want to learn
?

I read that thread. You werent particularly kind to a woman who was trying to tell you of her experience and why it upset her. You kept telling her she was wrong.

Unhide it and keep reading. You don't have to post. Just read.

As I remember it, the patrolling police car passed the poster 5 times within 3 minutes, going progressively slower each time and it was 2.30am. If that had been any car other than a police car, would you have been ok with it if it was you out walking the dog alone?

OP "I'm horrified by the tales here of thought police and wrong think .

I'm in that job and I could actually raise this"

I haven't seen the threads you refer to. Have you raised this at work, about sending officers to arrest for "wrongthink"? I'd be interested to know what sort of response you got.

i'm off to bed now but will look in the AM.

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/mar/16/institutional-misogyny-erodes-womens-trust-in-uk-police

Sounds like, going in, you feel a bit defensive and have a set agenda?

I didn’t read the thread that @Pixiedust1234 refers to - can you recognise what she is saying?

Certainly it would be amazing to have a woman police officer sticking up for women’s sex based rights from the inside, so I hope you don’t give up on us just yet!

I read that exchange and the problem you came up against is you were pursuing a thought experiment at the expense of the poster's lived experience.

Those are two separate ways of looking at the world. You can learn to pick up on MN where a poster is at, are they just wanting to share their lived experience or is it a more general discussion?

It's bad form to post general discussions or thought experiments in response to a personal disclosure. It comes across as denying that poster's reality. You will always get ripped apart for that and rightly so. MN is one of the few places women can write about their lived experience and find solidarity. Be part of that solidarity if you can.

I think you are exactly the type of person we need to stick around and become a fierce ally. Please keep reading and learning about women's very real fears and experiences of intimidation and hostility - by all forms of (oft captured) organisations be it in education, social care services, the police, the NHS etc.

I am very happy to read that the rainbow lanyard mob is outside of your force - but they are within many other forces. You are uniquely positioned to oppose this. Please don't throw the towel in because of one thread.

There are many many other police forces and officers who do not fit that stereotype.

There are any number of reasons for a car slowing down - they could have been listening to an incident coming in on the radio , the passenger could have been reading an incident on the work phone , or they might have just wondered why someone was out at 2.30 in the morning. Slowed down , saw it was a woman walking a dog , drove on .

I am a guardian reader . I'm also left leaning politically.

I had no experience or knowledge of this "wrong think" or how police are being used by trans activists to harass women .

That's what I was interested in . My force is one of a few that have not signed up for stonewall training. Common sense to
Some degree is maintained where I work so this was quite shocking to me .

I was trying to engage but it feels hostile and that I am somehow the enemy of women (despite being one )

I can't engage with people who constantly attack me without any foundation to attack ME as an individual because of the job I do .

Anyway I've hidden all the threads. I post here mainly on my own time . I try to help people when they've hit dead ends and I think my advice from being a pc can help as well as the usual mundane chit chat that most mums come here to enjoy and partake in .

I really wanted to try and understand what the issues were around policing and womens rights and how they are being undermined.

I'm maybe very fortunate in that I work with a decent split of men and women , from all walks of life , gay and straight , different backgrounds, different cultures .

I just feel totally unwelcome on the fwr discussion boards . I'm just saying how I feel . It's totally put me off trying to engage or discuss anything. I don't think it helps to be so combative. I have enough of that at work . That's all I'm trying to explain.

OP I am really relieved to hear there's some normality out there

in terms of wrongthink, this is long but really worth a listen

I have looked up the threads and can't agree with anyone driving so close so many times but that's separate.

also, post lockdown, where here the police patrolled the park with a megaphone telling us we were only allowed out to exercise, though who can sit on a taped off bench anyway, I cannot apologise for being scared of the police, or feeling differently than I did before.

No I think that "the police " as a whole are so way off the mark in public perception now it's a massive issue.

I aren't surprised at the hostility.

We are getting it so so wrong !
But that's my frustration. I'm agreeing and asking for information. I appreciate that no one can discuss particular cases publicly.

I've just seen a thread or two on JK Rowling - and I absolutely agree with her ! She's a force to be reckoned with and I love that she is standing firm .

But I'm really new to all this - I've no experience of this happening where I work .

It bothers me that there are now younger recruits coming through without even a basic understanding of spelling or grammar - let alone the law .

Mal comms wasn't even crime recordable until a couple of years ago.

Now it appears that this offence is being used by people to incite arrests that simply wouldn't have happened 2 years ago .

I'm as pissed off at my colleagues being "used" in this way as the rest of you who are pissed off at the injustice of it .

Posters are wary @stillvicarinatutu and not just because you are a member of the Police. The FWR Sex and Gender Board is monitored extensively by people outside MN because it is one of the few places on the internet where discussion on these issues is allowed, MN has been subjected to attacks to harvest data on posters, there was an intern working for MNHQ who passed on details of posters to TRAs, screenshots of comments are taken and posted on Twitter with the urge to track down and dox the poster, women are being targeted by the Police, afraid of losing their employment, ending up in Court which they have to crowdfund to defend themselves - the list goes on and on and on.

Women have been routinely harassed and sent rape and death threats online, reported them to the Police to NO avail, is it any wonder that they no longer trust the Police? JKR, for example, has received enough rape and death threats to paper her entire house, have the Police done anything? Or even said anything? The answer to both those questions is NO. Yet Police find time to investigate and arrest both men and women for saying something that 'upsets' a TRA that isn't remotely in the league of the threats received regularly by women.

There are strict rules regarding what can be said/how it can be said/what form of words is acceptable on the FWR S&G Board that do not apply to other areas of the site and there is a three strikes and you are out policy for falling foul of those rules, rules that were instigated due to the TRAs hounding MN.

Bearing all that in mind can you perhaps understand why posters on there who have been in this debate for years, some at considerable cost to themselves, are somewhat combative?

There is a hell of a lot of background information to the Caroline Farrow story BUT it would be impossible to detail it in on that thread as there is a very litigious element in the wings which posters and MN are wise to.

It's been going on a lot longer than 2 years @stillvicarinatutu

OP - it was the wrong place to do that discussion, it would have been better to start your own thread. Many people view those who try to derail a thread as suspicious as that is a means to getting the whole thread deleted (and therefore the women silenced), which could be why the posts come across as "spiky".

It is a strange area of mn which is why so many posters there lurked and read. For months. Any links get posted go read them otherwise you won't "get" the discussion. If you read you won't need to ask basic questions (and therefore keep the thread on topic). Unlike it and read.

I also admit that I've been in the job so long that it's easy to forget how unnerving it could be to feel a police car has slowed down to watch you ....

I used to get nervous if a police car was behind me when driving .

But now I know that police are just people, like me , not scary , not looking to unnerve people - just patrolling and doing their job - especially at night when crime takes in a different agenda.....

I probably am complacent at times and because I know how unthreatening I am - even in a uniform in a marked car - it's easy to think "oh get a grip " - which I apologise now for because to most people I guess "the police " are unnerving if you're simply walking down a street at 2.30 am minding your own business.

It's just that I know what my colleagues are like now and the vast majority of them are absolutely lovely people. But yes I concede in a uniform , in a marked car , we all look the same and without that knowledge it's
Probably quite intimidating.
It's easy to forget .

And I do pride myself on being a very human easy to talk to and relate to person in or out of uniform- it's easy to forget most law abiding people don't ever come into contact with us unless they've been a victim of crime - it's just the finer details of the job aren't always black and white . When people are saying god your all shite because I know xxx did this to my car or whatever - were evidence based so while 99. % of the time people are right we can't act without hard evidence so we get a lot of flak for being shit when it frustrates us just as much .

But having posted advice in a couple of threads lately it's clear that what should happen does t always happen - we aren't helping ourselves PR wise .

vestofabsurdity thank you for explaining that . That makes more sense to me now .

vestofabsurdity- is it possible for me to engage though on that board or would I always just be regarded with unease and suspicion?

I admit I have hidden all the threads today. I can lurk .

The Police are part of the repressive state apparatus, they will never be on the side of women's liberation.

Thanks for proving my point . That's exactly what I'm saying . Thank you .
Is there any point in my trying when this is the response? I appreciate the other posters explaining . But THIS is exactly what I'm getting at . This comment- right here .

I dont want to get a Kicking when I'm not even getting paid for it .

Mn is enjoyable for me. That's why I feel unable to engage in the fwr board. This is just one such comment - whenever I try this is what happens and not just the odd comment. It just put me off trying . Sorry. x

OP - The FWR women are some of the most intelligent, informed and funny posters I have come across, and they have been fighting against this for years.

As a PP said, do a good bit of lurking in FWR. Read threads and follow posted links. I did this for a while before I began to post.

Once you get the hang of it, you will find a supportive community of women that are a joy to engage with.

Firstly, I’ve been around for years, under many names, and I’ve recognised you for many years in that time. You help a lot of posters, and I’ve seen you do a lot recently on one particular thread. You’re one of the very good parts of MN.

What @VestofAbsurdity says is true. It’s quite a scary and dangerous time for women at the moment, particularly GC women. So you’ve sort of come in during the middle and things have been taken out of context I think, but please stay. On MN and FWR. We really need women and police officers like you!

On the particular point of the woman walking at night, I can see why she was scared. I imagine at the beginning, she thought, ‘oh it’s just a police car’ and ‘there it is again’ and ‘here it is again and it’s slowing down’ and ‘again, this is uncomfortable and I’m on my own and I don’t know why they’re doing that’ and then on and on. Instincts are powerful, it’s recently been the WC time. You’re right that hopefully he’s a rare case, but we could say that about a man walking behind you in the dark - it’s not all men but.. this one is making me feel scared and I’m vulnerable. If it was an unmarked car, maybe you’d call the police, but…

Anyway, I love how you’re hear and listening and how you share the police officer side, particular the female side. I would be really sad if you weren’t. I hope you stay in FWR, but beware, it’s absorbing and eye opening!

Like uninpeachablebravery you mean?

Thank you . But I don't find thst comment a joy to engage with, I'm regarded as the enemy I think .

That's really kind of you - thank you . It is eye opening and absorbing and that's why I want to know more - yet can I just simply say comments like the one I've highlighted here seriously make me shrink back and feel so so unwelcome to speak. It's really difficult to try and engage when that kind of hostility is aimed at you - I'm grateful she posted because it shows exactly what I mean! I find it really difficult- it's such hard work and I engage in hard work daily so I really don't want the same when posting recreationally.....hope you understand ? The advice I give I do for nothing because I want to help but it's generally well received and I actually feel like I'm of use - so that's why I do it. But I do t just want to be made to feel shit when I've done nothing personally to warrant it....I hope you can understand that. x