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Original poster

Distinguishing between the two "Feminist" forums

88 replies

MsAmerica · 30/04/2025 22:56

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.

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Kreepture · 05/06/2025 09:34

definitely isn't meant for chit-chat between like minded people.. it was meant for more generalised discussion about feminism as a whole concept for people new to it/dipping toes into the idea, and more 'traditional' feminism as it was 15+ years ago.

I think the others are right, it was something like chat/theory split originally, then more recently it got turned into 'put all the sex/gender discussions on one place so we can ignore it.

Original poster
MsAmerica · 07/06/2025 01:12

porridgecake · 30/05/2025 09:22

Trans rights activists and their supporters were very keen to stop women raiisng awareness of the attack on women's rights and the abuse of children. Some people just didn't want the subject discussed at all, for a variety of reasons.

Show quote history

I also have encountered people who wanted to shut down various discussions/opinions, but then I'd still like it clarified very prominently in the forum. I'm on one website that blares out "NO POLITICS!"

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Original poster
MsAmerica · 07/06/2025 01:13

potpourree · 04/06/2025 23:50

"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.

That would make sense to me: "Feminist theory" for the serious scholars and then something else that would be for news items, funny stories, or workplace tussles.

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Original poster
MsAmerica · 07/06/2025 01:16

ErrolTheDragon · 30/05/2025 09:03

long ago there was one board, ‘feminism and women’s rights’ (hence FWR and the url ‘https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womensrights’ still persisting.

Then it got split into lots of categories such as feminism theory, books etc because some people thought that would be a good idea but most of them were tumbleweed so it got tidied back into one. This was before genderism arose - pre 2015 roughly iirc. All strands of feminism were covered including a strong strand of Gender Critical feminism - which had bugger all to do with transgenderism and everything to do with not boxing kids in with stereotypes (Toys will be Toys etc).

And then, unfortunately, the attacks on women’s rights geared up and as MNHQ rightly rejected #nodebate (albeit with firm guidelines) this became one of the few places women could discuss the issues.

roll forward a few years and a few people asked for the board to be split so they could avoid those discussions. But the new board hasn’t been used much, and some of the threads on Chat ‘should’ be on FWR but get overlooked, as do other worthwhile threads.

I really think the time is ripe to return to just having one ‘Feminism and Women’s Rights’ board.

Edited

I guess no one agree with me that there should be a more prominent Politics forum, and "feminism and women's rights" would be naturally be a sub-forum of that?

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Original poster
MsAmerica · 07/06/2025 01:18

ArabellaScott · 30/05/2025 09:11

This thread is a great demonstration of how confusing it is to have two boards that appear to be arbitrarily split. Longstanding members understand the history, newcomers don't.

I'll partly agree, but also add that it's confusing to have two boards without an adequately clear distinction.
I'm sorry that I seem to be the dunce here, but I'll add that I looked into both forums, and even then any distinction wasn't clear to me.

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Original poster
MsAmerica · 07/06/2025 01:20

SnowflakeSmasher86 · 30/05/2025 09:20

We were very much policed and bound by rules about what we could and couldn’t say for a while there.

There was a ‘3 strikes and you’re out’ rule for anyone eg calling a trans identifying male a man/TIM or saying he instead of she.

We were being watched and threads were screenshotted linked by TRAs so that they could pile in and tell us what terrible bigots we were for correctly recognising someone’s sex, we’d be reported for wrongthink and get posts deleted left right and centre.

Thankfully once MN realised that these idiots were making a mockery of this site they eased up a bit, but not before some prolific feminists were banned from the site.

During this time some feminists who believed in the TWAW mantra said they wanted the option to hide threads that talked about female biology in the context of trans rights.

In fairness most posts around that time included discussion of the impact of the trans rhetoric on women.

So MN created a separate space to talk about “sex and gender” i.e. that women’s female anatomy presented specific life experiences that meant we didn’t want to be conflated with TIMs.

We had to keep all discussions mentioning trans people in this section so that posters could hide the topic if they didn’t want to see it. Any post added to chat or AIBU was moved there too, so it really was the only place not only online, but on MN that we were allowed to discuss it all, albeit with some limited language.

Now that we’re allowed to say that transwomen are men again, it all seems like some fever dream, but I’m thankful that MN gave us this one small safe corner of the Internet to gather and talk, to realise we weren’t all losing our minds when confronted with the batshittery of it all!

Okay, that's not all clear to me, especially as I don't know what most of those abbreviations mean, but I should stay the hell away from anyone persnickety about wanting to fuss over pronouns.
:(

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Original poster
MsAmerica · 07/06/2025 01:22

KumquatHigh · 30/05/2025 09:38

So all of this was akin to there being a Style and Beauty board and some posters saying they didn’t want to read posts about wide leg jeans even though that was a hot topic as it was in the news, important and relevant to a lot of posters so MN made a whole new board that people had to use if they wanted to talk about wide leg jeans?

Lol. Love that.

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SnowflakeSmasher86 · 07/06/2025 02:28

MsAmerica · 07/06/2025 01:20

Okay, that's not all clear to me, especially as I don't know what most of those abbreviations mean, but I should stay the hell away from anyone persnickety about wanting to fuss over pronouns.
:(

Show quote history

MN = Mumsnet

TWAW = “trans women are women” - shorthand for people who believe in a gendered essence that is separate from ones biology

TIM = trans identifying male (ie trans’woman’ ie, male person who presents himself as what he imagines is a woman, using clothes, hair, make up, surgery, mannerisms, name, pronouns etc)

TRA - trans rights activists - those who believe gender is more important than sex and that transgender people’s comfort is more important than women and girls dignity and safety.

You don’t need to stay away from anyone, but if you want to be able to speak freely about what you see with your own eyes, this was one of the very few places you’d have been able to do so for many years. Hence posters are quite defensive of it.

SnowflakeSmasher86 · 07/06/2025 02:36

As for the original question about the two topics. It seems clear to me that one is for general feminist chat and the other is for gender stuff. pic attached which will hopefully show in the morning.

Politics is at the very heart of all feminism so doesn’t really need its own section and there is also a politics board where I imagine most questions pertain to women’s experiences of politics, being a mainly female site.

Distinguishing between the two "Feminist" forums
Original poster
MsAmerica · 18/06/2025 20:16

Your choice of handle makes me dubious, but thank you for taking the time to list the abbreviations - although I'm sure I won't remember them.
I'm not sure exactly what you mean by being able to "speak freely," but if you mean simply having a post stand, even with people who find it unpleasant, it's my impression that you could do that on Craigslist and Reddit. That's assuming the post is rational, without being vicious or incoherent.
I just meant that I'm fed up with toggling back and forth between the two sub-forums, trying to decide which is preferable if I want to post a news article, and just giving up because they seen alike to me. Some websites show comparative numbers about which is more active, but MN doesn't seem to.

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Alaoaa · 18/06/2025 20:21

it's my impression that you could do that on Craigslist and Reddit
you cannot, Reddit banned a lot of feminist and gender critical subs as well as posters a couple of years ago.

NoBinturongsHereMate · 18/06/2025 21:30

Is Craigslist still going? I'd completely forgotten about it (not that I've ever used it)

If activity level is your main concern, then the sex and gender board is much more active than the chat one.

Original poster
MsAmerica · 19/06/2025 01:01

NoBinturongsHereMate · 18/06/2025 21:30

Is Craigslist still going? I'd completely forgotten about it (not that I've ever used it)

If activity level is your main concern, then the sex and gender board is much more active than the chat one.

Craigslist is indeed still going, albeit diminished - but it's my favorite forum. I can't understand why more people don't use it: It's streamlined, there are no ads, it doesn't require personal information, and it's well laid-out. When I wrote a long memo to MN, it included some suggestions that they incorporate some features of CL.

It's not that activity level is my main concern, but sometimes if there are similar forums, I might look for the more active one.

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