MN needs a closer watch of FWR

[BodegaSushi]

There is a concerning growth of posts with racist undertones cropping up on these boards, all under the guise of being proudly 'anti-woke'.

Apparently diversity is 'woke' and worthy of derision.

This is the thread I'm referring to here.

Disney went woke now they're going broke www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/4836570-disney-went-woke-now-theyre-going-broke

Mumsnet needs to looks at why that board draws such types of posts, and why posters feel so comfortable openly airing their racism.

Maybe I'll just post "hiding" and why on every thread with the stupid obsessive posters making every topic into a sexism issue. Not sure what will be left on my feed. Kittens?

Starting here.

HIDING DUE TO RIDICULOUS OBSESSIVENESS WITH SEXISM

Nobody cares what you hide. Good grief.

... but FWR is being exploited by white supremacist organisations/far right organisations who are actively trying to exploit GC women's concern for the rights of women and girls' safety as a cover for far right ideology, and that includes active white supremacy.

I read FWR far far more than I post, but I don't recognise this at all.
In fact I get the impression that most posters on FWR would be Labour voters if it were not for Labour's position on womens rights.

It's obvious a lot of posters don't want kids being taught anything about LGBT at all and that includes the LGB part. I've seen comments like, kids shouldn't be taught that same-sex relationships exist until they're older because it's forcing it down their throats. That teaching kids that same-sex relationships exist is inappropriately sexualising children. That kids can't possibly know that they are gay. That teaching kids that same-sex relationships exist is a form of grooming and could convince the kids that they are gay too when they're not.

Again I can' say I've noticed people saying that about the LGB part. within FWR. It certainly isn't anywhere near a majority view (or even a large minority) and I would expect it to be robustly challenged. Where people are concerned is teaching gender as fact not a belief, or telling children that if they like things stereotypically associated with the opposite sex then they must be T.

Unfortunately LGB aren't 'allowed' to be separate from the T. Look at all the problems the LGBA have had with being taken to the Charity Commission by Stonewall.

I've been on Mumsnet for a decade and had a thread deleted - wasn't in the spirit of Mumsnet apparently, despite many far more vitriolic posts frequently allowed about the person I was commenting on. OK fair enough. Mumsnet can do what they like as it's their site, but a little more consistency in their rulings would be appreciated. Sad to see that there is persisting "be kind" attitude even in Mumsnet - which is what got us into the trans mess in the first place.
Guess it's not the site for me any more as I can't buy into that. I'm probably (definitely) too old for this "be kind" stuff I guess. But it's been a great decade.

You know this is an internet forum not a member's club.

Anyone can post.

And in general there's a huge purity spiral there where if you show the tiniest bit of critical thinking or say something they dislike, they viciously turn on you. I'll give an example. Someone edited Frances Barber's Wikipedia page to add some nasty comment calling her a transphobic bigot. A few FWR posters went to Wikipedia and started writing responses, but Wikipedia has really strict rules that govern ALL editing. A couple of people got banned - not because they were GC but because they hadn't bothered to take the time to read the site rules. And of course they enjoyed whipping themselves into a froth about how "Wikipedia is anti-women and has fallen to TRA! I am being oppressed for my feminist beliefs!" Then a poster who actually was a regular on Wikipedia and thus knew the rules stepped in, got the nasty comment about Frances permanently removed, got the TRAs banned, got the the page locked so TRAs couldn't vandalise it in the future, and posted a polite comment on FWR saying "fyi you were not banned from Wikipedia for being GC, you were banned for breaking this rule, the people posting TRA stuff were banned from Wikipedia too." She did not get a good response, even though she was the one who actually got the "transphobe" comment deleted and got the TRAs banned. Other posters were enraged at losing their moral high ground, so they didn't thank but were angry at the woman who had actually successfully combatted TRA

Thank you for providing an example. Is this the thread that you’re referring to? I couldn’t see another one. However, I’m struggling to see any posts either enraged at losing the moral high ground or angry at the woman (jeminapuddlegoose) who explained the editing process. Actually, several posters thank her for explaining the process.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4613211-is-anyone-here-able-to-edit-wikipedia?page=3

I would think it's already the most watched board on MN and is constantly policed by people who would rather it didn't exist at all.

This actually is a good example. Yes fear of being thought racist was definitely a major factor in how badly the poor children in Rotherham were let down by the authorities (though class also played a part) but the majority of grooming gangs in this country are actually white.

Whenever this is pointed out, people get very upset.

It's pretty obvious that some (not all but some) posters don't give a shit about raped and trafficked kids, they just want to exploit abused kids as an opportunity to give brown people a good kicking.

There used to be a poster who'd grown up in care and survived sex trafficking and she got treated really badly and pretty much driven away because the grooming gang who trafficked her were white British and posters didn't like to hear that.

The media rarely report on children and girls who are victim to white grooming gangs (and when they do it'll just be a tiny item stating that four men were convicted today for x and y, with no mention of their race, and certainly no media shitstorm trying to whip up hysteria and racism) so those victims get overlooked.

Jemima (who I'm pretty sure was either black or biracial) got bullied off FWR and then off Mumsnet shortly after that happened. There were some really nasty things said about her.

Examples of responses to the poster explaining the wiki editing process. Perhaps there were angry responses that got deleted?

deeperthanallroses · 18/08/2022 16:20
Thanks @JemimaPuddlegoose very informative!

ErrolTheDragon · 18/08/2022 16:22
Thanks Jemima, both for reporting and for taking the time to explain. As you say, it's not obvious to newbies how (and how not) to interact with wiki.

Where are these nasty responses now?

Jemima (who I'm pretty sure was either black or biracial) got bullied off FWR and then off Mumsnet shortly after that happened. There were some really nasty things said about her

Okay, I haven’t seen those other threads and that’s horrific. In the case of the wiki editing thread, responses were positive.

I would absolutely agree with you TeenDivided.

I am a furious ex-labour voter, now politically homeless.

I also have deliberately sought out older editions (around 10 years old) of sex education books suitable for my primary aged children as they cover the LGB sensitively and very well but the T isn't mentioned anywhere. When they are more sexually mature they can love and have sex whoever they want.

There is no way I am going to teach my children (especially the one vulnerable to gender ideology as they are neurodiverse) that they could have been 'born in the wrong body'. I am not going to risk mutilation and all the horrors that come with trans ideology.

We do talk at length about trans issues as there are boys (again with ASD) in one school who are wearing dresses and identifying as girls. However many of the younger children in the school seem to be much clearer about the issues than many adults. They know it is a boy in a dress not a girl and will say so, at least privately.

It's not comments within the thread but how the posters who got banned from Wiki and wrongly assumed it was because they were GC reacted to being told they were wrong behaved afterwards.

If you say anything they don't like or disagree with, you're no longer one of their gang.

I once contradicted someone who was a popular and frequent poster on FWR, nothing was said within the thread, but there was a VERY noticeable shift in attitude towards me whenever I posted in FWR after that. Everything I posted was either ignored or generated hostile responses until I namechanged when things went back to normal.

I've seen it happen a lot. (Not just on FWR, to be fair.)

There are several threads from black posters (which will be archived somewhere, possibly in Black Mumsnetters, but maybe in other parts of the forum) detailing how once they mention the fact that they're black, their experience of Mumsnet changes and they start experiencing hostility and being made to feel unwelcome. I'm not black but I distinctly remember a lengthy post from someone who said they had two usernames and that they didn't use different posting styles for either, they challenged racism from both usernames, but one username they'd admit to being black and the other username they'd let people assume they were white, and the white username got a very different response to the black username when they were posting the same stuff.

I used to have a username that could be interpreted as support for GC and while I was using it, certain posters would noticeably go out of their way to back me up and be friendly even on random threads about school lunchboxes. Obviously because having that username made me part of the clique. When I changed it that stopped.

Mumsnet is very cliquey.

... but FWR is being exploited by white supremacist organisations/far right organisations who are actively trying to exploit GC women's concern for the rights of women and girls' safety as a cover for far right ideology, and that includes active white supremacy

You don't credit FWR posters with much intelligence if you think they are capable of being exploited by far right and white supremacist organisations.

Yeah, which is why I think some posters are just racists who have latched onto GC because they're right wing/anti-woke.

It's just gaslighting for anyone to deny the endless racist comments all over Mumsnet, and the constant and tedious obsession with being "anti-woke".

Any thread about combatting racism, even innocuous things like black actors being cast in TV shows or movies become ridden with posters ranting about "wokeness" and soon enough someone will come along and try to make it about trans people.

That's the kind of exploitation I'm talking about.

You can barely mention racism or even the existence of black people (outside of Black Mumsnetters) without someone trying to derail by shoehorning in something to do with trans people and try to use the existence of TRA into some kind of "why all wokeness/diversity is bad."

Just blatant racism and exploitation of our (GC feminist) beliefs.

Look at this thread. It's supposed to be about racism but got almost completely derailed with people shouting about men in toilets and children being mutilated.

Clearly the agenda here is to silence anyone trying to speak out against racism or even try to discuss racism.

No, see, nobody is "shouting about men in toilets". That's your disingenuous framing of perfectly civil comments.

And the thread is only "meant to be about racism" because it is using the common tactic of piggybacking on issues that are widely accepted to be "bad" - racism and homophobia - to whip up the desired outrage because the charge of transphobia has lost much of its power to shame and now mostly gets eyerolls.

.. but FWR is being exploited by white supremacist organisations/far right organisations who are actively trying to exploit GC women's concern for the rights of women and girls' safety as a cover for far right ideology, and that includes active white supremacy.

Well I think that wins today's tin hat/desperate reaching award.

You can report racist posts or threads. The idea FWR needs to be ‘watched’ by mnhq is pointless (and authoritarian from some)

It’s up to posters to report what they think is not within guidelines

Does anyone not realise that white supremacy and women's rights are generally at odds with each other ?

The idea that women will cosy up with the a group which has no respect for women's rights just because they know TWANW shows a huge disrespect of female intelligence

Deary me this is all rather predictable isn't it.

I just wish people would be honest about the reasons that they want FWR more closely watched.

It's fairly hilarious that a group of mostly left wing women are being accused of being far right, homophobic and racist. All because we don't think humans can change sex and because we won't be pressured into believing that men are women if they say so.

Because, as others have said, there is far more racism on the Royal Boards and no one is asking those threads to be closely watched.

I agree :)
Look at the excuse I was told

On popular boards such as AIBU, it’s not always possible to have a nuanced, informed discussion with people of differing viewpoints. Especially on powerfully topics such as racism. A good example is the current thread in AIBU on the racist elderly neighbour. I think there’s a good discussion to be had in there on racist getting old vs losing cognitive powers, and I’d love to hear from medics and carers on how they balance the professional requirements to provide care to all, and the impact of numerous micro aggressions. But there are so many posters saying “Racism is never acceptable” (true) but ending the conversation there it makes a nuanced discussion impossible. And anyone exploring the topic further is then labelled an enabler or excuser of racism.

FWR has become a place where difficult discussions can take place, and grey areas explored. Absolutist statements can be challenged. That is why previous posters have praised it, because the quality of the arguments have challenged their own thinking. I can understand why that could be seen as threatening in some quarters.