Feminism boards

[Believerinbiology]

Can the decision to split the boards be revisited? As I'm sure you are aware many of those who were very vocal about wanting and needing the split do not post. The chat side seems to receive very little traffic and as such some important threads get missed. Posters asking for advice often don't get answers as nobody sees their questions whereas the same question on the other board would get multiple responses. Scrolling through the threads there is not one that I can see that wouldn't fall under "sex and gender" as all the issues women face are due to their sexed bodies, how they are treated because of them, or expectations/restrictions based on perceived gender.

Agreed.

It's such a horrible toxic board and you can't hide it on a phone. App

Agreed

Yes, because women discussing how they can try to persuade people to keep men out of women’s changing rooms, sports teams , prisons and hospital wards is just so ….toxic .To whom , I wonder?

But you can chose not to click on it and read it.

I would prefer to be able to talk about things like the terrible rape conviction rates. Pornography and the harm it is causing young girls in relationships. Domestic abuse

I don't see how all the trans stuff can really compare to these things, it's just not as important to me. Unfortunately on MN it only seems to be about trans issues which actually hardly have an impact on most peoples lives where these other things do

I like having them separate.

I would prefer to be able to talk about things like the terrible rape conviction rates. Pornography and the harm it is causing young girls in relationships. Domestic abuse

Start a post then. All of these things have always been regularly talked about on the feminism boards. None of these things can be addressed adequately without clear language around women and girls and without identifying that one sex is responsible for all of those crimes and injustices and that moving them into our sex class is further injustice against us. This thread is about reversing a decision lobbied for my people who never used the board for these issues. It’s not about what you think other women should prioritise.

Procrastinating tree...nobody is stopping you from talking about that and it is actually the lack of traffic those type of posts receive when placed on the chat thread that partially prompted me to write this. There are many women on the sex and gender board who have a wealth of experience both personal and professional in the areas of violence against women and girls. They offer huge advice and insight when these topics are posted on that board but they are missed on the chat board. All the issues you raised are predominantly perpetrated by men and boys against women and girls so how is it not a sex issue? If you start these issues on the sex and gender board without scolding women for focusing on other issues too or recognizing how they intersect there will be engagement. These issues are difficult to view entirely separately from "the trans issue" as women's supports and safe spaces are being eroded by this movement eg rape supports, prisons, safeguarding oversights and so contribters to a thread may raise them.

Hi @Believerinbiology - thanks for your thoughts. Back then we had feedback from those who wanted to discuss various feminist issues but wanted to avoid sex and gender discussions. We do understand your point about everything coming back to sex in the end but we do believe that having two boards works for now at least. We always review things periodically in any case and tend to make changes, where possible, based on what MNers want.

Agree totally. It was never about those vocal posters having an area to chat about their kind of feminism. Now it exists, no one posts. And you still get posters like @procrastinatingtree complaining that no one starts threads on their preferred topics! Start your own, and keep it active. That's on you, not on other posters.

@YetAnotherBeckyMumsnet How much of that feedback was from ploppers and targeted reporting/posting who have not then set up this plethora of new threads they said they would when given a separate board? Look at the posting history of the procrastinating above who at least under this user name has never started or engaged with a thread on the matters they say they want to discuss as an indication. Many of these people don't actually want the thing they claim to want but do want to stop women from discussing their concerns freely.

Nobody is forcing anybody to click on a thread they don't want to.

I think we just need to use the sex / gender board for all our feminist posts and over time it will be the main board and the other is there for the minority of people that believe TWAW and don't perceive a conflict of rights

But I posted yesterday in the chat one. And I don't believe TWAW at all. Just the issue wasn't a trans one.

@Believerinbiology I think you’re probably wasting your time here. MN knows, clearly, as everyone can see that those lobbying for the separation were never frequent users and chat doesn’t get used by them or anyone else. MN decided to protect their brand by creating separate spaces and reducing the traffic deliberately. This is the way they’ve decided to do things, they don’t want the feminism board dominating. That’s their choice. I think grassroots feminism works best offline personally.

When the boards split, posters with known GC views were told to 'fuck off back to your own board'.

The multitude of threads people apparently wanted to start in a safe space never happened and the women who would have been interested had been told to fuck off so all those conversations (effects of porn, domestic violence etc) take place on the actual FWS board and the Feminism:Chat board is a irrevelance. It seems to be used for much less high traffic duplicated threads of something already being discussed on FWR.

Don't worry I'm not expecting any changes, only started posting recently but have been here years and watched all the discussions about the board split, feminism board special rules and moderator differences at the time. Just wanted to highlight again as was brought up on a recent thread. I check in on the chat board every so often and feel it must be very disheartening for posters there to get next to no response on threads. There are also threads directly about sex and gender which I wonder if posted by those unaware of the split (not posted by regulars to the discussion looking to highlight the issue on other boards).
Buggered fair enough you wanted to post in chat. I think part of the problem is people interpret what is a sex and gender issue differently. If that rapist had raped a man, had a string of previous convictions and another 8 different men had not molestation orders against him I think the judge would have recognised he was a risk. Women and children who he was encouraged by the judge to seek out are simply expendable.
@buggered

Sorry about the @...tried to delete and it wouldn't let me

I agree, one board would be better and for the reasons mentioned. I posted something in the sex and gender board (under a different use name I think) which MNHQ moved to the chat board without request or discussion and ignored me when I asked them to move it back to where I started it.

It’s such a bad look for a mums forum to treat the feminism section and it’s users like they’re a problem because misogynists complain about it. AIBU is a brutal board with nastiness every day, including to vulnerable people and with threads that probably do belong elsewhere but there is little moderating of it. Ridiculous.

I don’t know. The type of threads apparently getting lost were largely being ignored anyway. I see more threads in ‘active’ on the feminism boards now than before the split.

And yet you took the time and effort to go onto a thread about it (that you could have easily ignored) just to tell us all how horrible we are...

You can post anything on the sex and gender board...however they sometimes do get moved....but again it's very inconsistent and you can ask for it to be put back, which again may or may not get a response. I've never seen anybody told they should have posted in chat except for in the early days when the watchers were active or if the original poster objects to anybody commenting on the crossover of concerns with the breakdown in safeguarding.