Distinguishing between the two "Feminist" forums

[MsAmerica]

You really need to clarify the distinction between the forums. One is called "Chat" and the other has "Chat" in the subhead. I have no idea what the difference is supposed to be, and I suspect I'm not the only one.

Before Glinner and JKR there was Fair Play for Women, doing the very first leafleting campaign in red T-shirts back around 2017. Although back then nobody had much idea what we were talking about.

@EmpressaurusKitty of course, all the amazing women and organisations too such as LWS, Sex Matters etc

Ah, I remember leafletting and chatting to people on the streets about the proposed changes to the GRA. And indeed, most people had no idea what we were talking about…

Special shout out to Transgender Trend!

And Man Friday, and A Woman's Place.

In a weird way, also to the Women’s Equality Party, because I think a lot of MNers peaked during one epic thread about the WEP’s explicit support of violent men being allowed to serve their sentences in women’s prisons.

If we're going down that route, thanks to Monroe Bergdorf!

And names too numerous to mention

It doesn't help that MN recently added 'intersectional feminism' to the header of the Sex & Gender board. And there's a contingent that argues that 'trans inclusion' (by which they mean inclusion of transwomen - i.e. men) is intersectional feminism; rather than it being the intersction of being female and [whatever the intersecting factor is].

when the board was created, mumsnet was still often the first place women were coming across real heavy hitting discussions around Feminism, and sometimes even feminism as more than a nebulous concept, and newbies wanted somewhere to chat/dip a toe in the water, understand it as a whole concept, without tripping over the more established, educated and well versed feminists who used MN as a discussion forum for more advanced stuff who didn't want to discuss the 'fluff' and kept telling the newbies to go read/research stuff and come back.

The original idea of the 'chat' board was somewhere more light weight where feminism as a whole could be discussed without the more complex discussions around Sex/Gender/Trans.

It was never about stuffing anyone in a corner/out of sight, despite the persistence over that point from certain posters.

Your recollection of the history is at considerable variance with mine.🤷‍♀️

I don't think the threads made at the.time would support that narrative.

I was told I wasn't to post on the 'Chat' board, for example. It was supposed to shut some of us up.

And yet, we have had posters who were part of the group who actively supported the split confirm that they wanted it specifically to keep Sex and Gender discussions off the other board fairly recently. To put all Sex and Gender discussions together and get them moved there if they were started off the board.

Is there two different splits being conflated into one?

I remember the discussions at the time the Sex and Gender board was started, and I agree with Errol. It may have been the intention of creating a 'chat' board vs discussion board previously. But the Sex and Gender board discussion, if I remember correctly, was only about corralling the sex and gender discussions.

The splits of the original FWR were around general chat vs theory etc I think. That was a long time ago.

I thought that was the case. I remember there was an earlier split and then there was the sex and gender split.

There was that sort of 'feminist book club' board for a bit, that was virtually never used.

This makes sense! Was this not OP's issue then? It fits with OP complaining they're both described as 'chat'.

Having the link to the other Feminism board at the top of each one was a sort of compromise to help us being able to flow between them (iirc). Because we thought it was a bit ridiculous to try and split them.
I can see why it looks like a subheading though.

This is the way I see it:

Feminism: Chat - general chit-chat among like-minded folk.

Feminism: Sex & Gender discussions - tiresome wittering about who can or cannot be called whatever gender and by whom; and the constant debate about whether or not someone can demand to be considered a woman if they only have one X chromosome but like wearing dresses and using womens' toilets.

"Constant debate" is a refreshing change from accusations of "single-view echo chamber", and more accurate!

PPs are right, there was originally a Feminism Theory board. Would be interested to have a bit of that again, but I feel MN as a whole is a different place now.

"Tiresome wittering" is a bit dismissive when the discussion has been about safeguarding women and children, drawing attention to the mutilation and sterilisation of children, teenage girls being subjected to double mastectomies, female rape victims being denied safe rape crisis services and domestic violence refuges. Is protesting about women being locked up in prison with convicted rapists, or confined in psychiatric wards with men claiming to be women "tiresome wittering"?
The misogyny expressed by some posters is really shocking.

Women discussing their rights and the law has ever been dismissed and sneered at. 'Tiresome wittering', indeed.

Although tbh 'chit chat among like minded folk' sounds far fucking worse. You can have any opinion you like so long as it agrees with mine, amirite? God forbid anyone rocked the boat, or took the government to court, or anything.

there likely is.

i was one of the ones that originally suggested the split in the middle of what was a massive hoo-ha about the board, the posters on it, the attitudes on both sides, and all the arguments therein.

I know what my motives for the suggestion were, what it turned into/became once others took up the idea was something different.

It pisses me off endlessly that it turned into the divide it did, and the opinions of what it became persist as the overall reason that get's remembered.

that may be what i was remembering, i've been here a loooooong ass time xD