FWR

[MarsScarlet]

FYI: I've name changed for this to avoid a pile-on.

This post is about the overwhelming negativity and hostility with the FWR board that new posters and posters with a differing viewpoint face if they attempt to use the board.

There is a persistent group within the board that are, to put it simply, hateful towards others. Despite posting there on and off for more than 4 years, I have never felt welcome, despite not holding any particular extreme views or being abusive to others. Without exception, I am accused of being another poster, or a man, a TRA, or some kind of paid activist. This occurs again and again until I leave a thread in frustration.

I’ve seen this happen to many other new posters. Few return. Why would they? Such an acidic atmosphere doesn’t encourage healthy discussion. I’d just like to discuss women’s rights, but this board makes discussion impossible.

I’m not exactly sure what the answer is, except for @MNHQ to request the board to tone down the rhetoric a bit and back off on any new names they may see on the board. Let people engage with you rather than actively drive them away.

I think that we are expected to be self regulating. I suspect we are expected to see a question has been asked and to not engage with that particular poster.

Of course, this is a very busy forum and it doesn't happen that way.

And it's an issue on every thread (AIBU is the worst for this), so I don't see why FWR should be singled out.

Just to point out though, that all of this, the whole of the FWR sex and gender board, all the moaning and groaning, all the flouncing, all the cries of 'bigots', all the 'educate yourselves', the whole rotten lot of it - is all because some women, not all, see men as men. And want to apply the same safeguarding to men who say they aren't men, as to men who don't. That's it.

And they are battling against such a huge behemoth of institutionalised 'men can be women if they say so', some have lost jobs, family members, friends, income, housing, kids - just for saying 'Men are men'.

It has been an unholy tax on time, on money, on effort, to help, support, mentally pick up, escort, attend, tweet, type, listen, record blah blah blah all just to be able to say 'men are men'.

I don't think any of 'us' do this for shits and giggles. 'We' do it because if we won't, who will? Everyone seems to have a boundary that is different to everyone else, and many of us have those boundaries due to our own history and experience and in many cases, exposure to men who have stepped over ours. So we can see what is going on.

We constantly get 'if you knew any trans people'...yes I've known trans people since the 1980s. I get it. I also get the risks involved in just allowing any man any access to female spaces and I've paid the price many times for standing up and saying so. Many of 'us' had to manoevre our way through the workplace to wangle some semblance of 'sex based data recording' whilst trying to stay employed. For some of us, we did it for years and just couldn't do it any more.

We don't button up at the back. We come here with a huge range of experiences and have well thought out arguments mainly because many of us had to do things, to protect women and girls, in our real life jobs.

And we have to do that here walking a tightrope, and it only takes one TRA to report us for quite marginal 'errors' and that's it, we are gone.

So some of us are blunt because we've typed the same old stuff out a gazillion times to the same people who return time and again pretending they don't know what a woman is. It is painful, but we don't do it for them, we do it for the lurkers who are still trying to work out what on earth is going on.

And woe betide us if we share a recipe or teacake in moments of utter despair. Yeah, what a nest of vipers.

@BobbyPeruLikeTheCountry

But how would that work? Only one poster at a time allowed to ask you questions? It's a form people post as and when they come across something they would like to address. It's just not practical.

I don't know. That's the conundrum.

I see.

Thank you for your input. You don't believe that making a point of someone's behaviour on a thread about hostile behaviour, then performatively apologising with a 'maybe you will now learn' statement is bullying.

I understand that you don't see this as your own bullying behaviour. And I understand that you see your behaviour is justified.

Sorry, but this is too much. You endlessly bully people on threads, and now you completely mischaracterise this as bullying and make yourself the victim? Unbelievable. You constantly bring up DARVO. This is classic DARVO.

No, that's a meta DARVO. You namecheck and now sling an unfounded accusation of bullying at Helle and accuse her of bullying you for pointing it out? Give over 🙄

Because we are supposed to be feminine in our approach? That is what I take from this thread.

Just to point out though, that all of this, the whole of the FWR sex and gender board, all the moaning and groaning, all the flouncing, all the cries of 'bigots', all the 'educate yourselves', the whole rotten lot of it - is all because some women, not all, see men as men. And want to apply the same safeguarding to men who say they aren't men, as to men who don't. That's it.

And they are battling against such a huge behemoth of institutionalised 'men can be women if they say so', some have lost jobs, family members, friends, income, housing, kids - just for saying 'Men are men'.

This is the heart of the matter.

I think it comes down to just having more resilience at the end of the day. Most of us have had our arse handed to us a few times or had tons of people asking us questions at the same time to the point of overwhelm. You just have to deal with it or move on. It's the way of internet debate for better or worse.

Thats understandable that you’d rather not feel bombarded with lots of ‘what about this’ type questions but I think it’s unfortunately quite hard to achieve that on a forum where people can all post simultaneously. It happens in other busy boards too - post on AIBU and you could easily have dozens of people telling you you’re being ridiculous within 5 minutes.

I have wondered whether an ‘any questions’ type thread might be helpful as a place where newer posters can post questions they might feel a bit nervous to make a whole thread about or to put elsewhere. However as you aren’t a new poster and it sounds like you want to discuss topics in more depth that probably doesn’t help you.

As I said in a previous post, while I totally understand that a lot of questions from a lot of posters feels overwhelming or intimidating, it isn’t coming from a place of wanting to be hostile. If your points are something different to the norm, then I think most individual posters will be asking out of genuine interest or to try and understand better. Sure there might be some who are less sincere, and if what you say is something that appears often, there might be some eye rolling or impatience. But I’d really urge you not to feel discouraged, as hard as that is. There are posters there who will want to genuinely discuss with you.

It's the way of internet debate for better or worse.

Exactly. It's not in any sense unique to FWR. Try going against the prevailing view on any site.

No it is not unique to FWR. I am always surprised though that some people, individually, feel that a site should adapt to suit their personal preferences. It is a remarkable thing to see in action.

I had a deep clean and routine check up at the dentist this morning. Having come out with full marks for my healthy mouth, I obviously celebrated at the nearby coffee shop with cappuccino & berry cheesecake. Fruit AND calcium.

So some of us are blunt because we've typed the same old stuff out a gazillion times to the same people who return time and again pretending they don't know what a woman is.

They Always know what a man is though, don’t they. Strange that.

For what it’s worth, I would also enjoy wider discussion on other feminist topics, and what a PP said about intersectionality would be really interesting and beneficial for me too. I feel like I’ve learnt loads from FWR and the women there, both about the GC / GI debate but also about more general topics like boundaries, tone and why women are often expected to have a different tone etc.

I would really enjoy such thorough discussion on a wider range of topics too, but the feminism chat board is a bit of a ghost town and I’m not sure that it’d be okay to start non sex & gender topics on the FWR board.

Perhaps OP, we should make more effort to use the chat board and make that a bit livelier?

I don't know. That's the conundrum.

There's no conundrum. Either you want to post on a board or you don't, no one is rolling out any red carpet for anyone. Just like if you were to post about how all cats should be indoor only cats on the Litter Tray. You'll no doubt get some people who agree with you secretly thanking you because there is no way they're going to come out and say anything on the thread, but I think you'll also get some rather robust disagreement.

Have you tried feminist chat?

Aaand there we have it - you deem Hellofabore as bullying people on threads and that is why you targeted her. So all your previous claims for just picking her name out as an example were dishonest.

Using knowledge, experience, evidence and proven facts is now bullying, well I never.

Why would that be? I don't know her, and neither do you.

You have no idea who I know or don't know.

Not yet, but I will! I’ve a few things in my head I’ve been thinking about for a good while, so at some point, I will.

Give it a try.

But Pepe, quite often people will post stuff that is general feminism on FWR because it does interest many there. So, if you want to try posting there first, you might find it gets heaps more traffic and is then a better discussion.

Try going on the Litter Tray & posting about wanting your cat to have kittens.

FWR will look like a playpen.

Is it thinking that the site should adapt to their personal preferences or more that FWR posters should be compelled to comply with their personal demands? I suspect that it's the latter. It's been a fascinating threas and remarkably revealing.

It's worth remembering that we're facing one of the largest child safeguarding scandals of our time, precisely because proponents of the trans ideology started with #nodebate and embedded that throughout society - disempowering women, parents, families, safeguarding authorities and others while attempting to imposing a narrow belief on society that's doing massive harm to the young.

I see most of the demands for women to censor our speech on this thread as unreasonable and controlling. The same sort of control that #nodebate demonstrated - but more #debateasIsaynotdo .

I post quite regularly on the FWR.
And I frequently disagree with the woman on there about feminism.

I find it predominantly identifies as a left wing feminist space which you can see with the 'we' are not right wing objections, when they are now frequently accused of being right wing.

But I think that feminist theory purity has been diluted over the past ten years as the fight for women and children's safety has become real and urgent.
And I'm there for that.

I have had a few experiences when I've gone against GC feminism 101 when I've felt personally attacked & it quite shook me.
I sometimes wonder why I keep coming back when I don't fit in and have concluded it's because it's the only place I've found where I can think through my positions get challenged and develop.

So basically you take the rough with the smooth.
You are not wrong but if it doesn't work for you don't use it.

There are a lot of people who hate that FWR exists at all. They don't like us being able to talk freely about our concerns over GI. They also don't like that we actually have answers, facts and logic. It makes it harder for them to obfuscate and push their "just be kind, it doesn't affect you" agenda.