So it would appear this topic is the Millwall of Mumsnet

[GothAnneGeddes]

Nobody likes us and we don't care.

I have to admit I lurk more then I post here, but to me, it's great being able to have everyday things discussed through a feminist lens, especially as most feminist websites are so US-centric.

It's just such a shame that so many women don't think that feminism is relevant to them. I just don't understand it.

I think it is true that for people who have been killed or murdered due to the discrimination against them, there is no hope.

Dittany BTW however much I might disagree with you on some things I do think that unapologetic feminism is important and I salute you (a lot of the time).

Aww this thread has gone full circle - you two made the first page too :)

OH I've had the death threats and the threats to call their lawyers and sue me for... for.... Rraaaaahhh! Not Respecting The Cock or soemthing. I just took the piss some more (OK they were all in the US and therefore couldn't actually turn up with an axe or anything).
(To be just a tiny bit fair, I did occasionally take myself uninvited into Mens' Rights discussion groups on Usenet and start the fights, so I do sort of hold back from overly excoriating some of those who do the same thing here).

But in a general way I do make it a policy not to apologise for having an opinion, nor for telling another person that s/he is wrong. If I didn't think that I was right and they were wrong, we wouldn't be having a disagreement in the first place.

Aitch just so there are no accusations of wimping out I'm going to address your point .

My perception of the way that thread went (and I wil admit to not having reread it) was that I expressed my opinion several times, however there was no debate I was simply told I was wrong, on factual points that I know to be true.

As I recall someone agreed with the points I made at which point they were told they didn't know what was talking about followed by the comments about me being a supporter of DV.

Then there was a comment along the lines of could we please have a feminist lawyer comment at which point I just thought do you know what why bother?

I wasn't up for a fight and besides how do you argue against someone prepared to accuse you publicly of supporting DV by virtue of being part of the criminal justice system?

I certainly didn't throw my toys out of the cot I simply stopped posting.

Well, I have changed my opinion, somewhat, having read this thread. I don't want the feminist section to seem unwelcoming, and yes in an ideal world we would all have the patience to explain a response every time. I would think more carefully about how I speak to posters on the Feminism section now, though.

One thing about an online forum is, you can't tell when other people are agreeing/disagreeing with you unless they specifically say so. So for example many of us have said "I often don't agree with dittany/sakura/SGB/MillyR", but it'd be pretty unfriendly (and impossible) to go through every busy thread saying "Sakura - agree, dittany - agreeish but I wish you wouldn't swear so much, ISNT - totally disagree". You just pick up a few things to comment on. Sometimes you read a post and may agree with a point but think "oooh, I wish you wouldn't be quite so mean/personal/dogmatic/OTT/theoretical" but you can't always say so, because it seems petty.

For those who have been put off - you should come back and try again. I don't want everyone to have to be aggressive - it seems hypocritical to me to be saying "women are conditioned to be quiet and hesitant about their views" and at the same time expecting everyone to magically be able to forget that conditioning when faced with an argument on the Feminism board.

i do think that you could have persevered, nancy. by the time i'd got to read what you had to say you'd already been and gone and it did look when i was reading it as if you just hadn't been prepared to engage unless there was a red carpet being rolled. you didn't want to fight your corner, fine, you say that's not your thing. but i don't think that it was beyond your ken to do so, so it was your choice not to. that imo is not something worth complaining about after the fact.

well, yes, I do find it funny/infuriating when someone (not talking about nancy because can't remember the thread) turns up and says something, somebody else disagrees and the first poster says "well, if that's how you welcome new posters then " and disappears. Why expect everyone to keep track of who's who? It's an anonymous board, people namechange, there is no welcoming committee and - sadly - no trumpets.

I've posted on the feminist board, in various guises, because I find it an interesting perspective. And I like some of the regulars who are intelligent and thoughtful.

I would say that there are times when it gas been upsetting. I was pretty much told I wasn't a feminist because I was a SAHM and not a captain of industry. That was on the 'feminist choice' thread.

Frankly I don't give a fuck now but it was infuriating at the time.

But apart from that gripe I kind of like it...

semicolon - It's almost funny because I can imagine e.g. Xenia saying that to you, and you taking offence (not surprisingly), but I know that the vast majority of posters on here have a totally different view, some are pretty radical SAHM in fact. I'm glad you don't give a toss now anyway

dittany - x posted with you. You are definitely right in some cases, but in others it sounds like women have been put off because Feminism regulars are not always ready to explain things to new posters for example. I don't want a community where people are ashamed to ask things. And people on here have been saying (in some instances) toughen the fuck up (or words to that effect).

The title of the disabled thread was "councils pay for prostitutes for the disabled". I posted about how this situation had arisen (because people with learning disabilities have been given a legal right to choice) and was told I was derailing. Which was plain daft. How can you have a conversation about people with learning disabilities using prostitutes without a discussion about people with learning disabilities?

I didn't get as far as discussing my views about the prostitutes involved - it was just assumed I didn't care about them. It seemed a rather pointless discussion.

Had the title been 'all prostitutes are trafficked and oppressed by men' then I wouldn't have bothered posting about learning disabled men (or women - I also posted several times about women with LD's but that wasn't picked up in the discussion). Bit given that the thread was about council support for pwld's it seemed odd not to mention them.

This is going offtopic, but I wanted to respond to SDMT

SDMT, I dropped out of that discussion because I think the issue for me is about council policies on services in general and not about either prostitution (which is better served by its own thread) or the choices of men with disabilities (as many, if not most men with any kind of disability will not have any involvement with a government body if they decide to access a prostitute).

The discussion was becoming about two groups of people with limited power. I would be interested in a discussion on a different thread, when all this has calmed down, on how government bodies, who have a lot of power, meet the requirements of specific service users (of all types, not with people with disabilities as a target) while also working towards gender equality, and indeed other forms of equality. That debate has no reason to focus on the sex lives of disabled men.

I suspect there is a problem in that many people who are disadvantaged don't receive a lot of help and may not be service users, but the ethos of most support workers (or people in similar roles) is to meet the needs of the client first (apart from the needs and safety of children which over-ride things like adult client confidentiality). This can create an overall imbalance with how government bodies meet the needs of everyone in society.

Examples would be:

A carer's needs may only be taken into account in regard to the needs of the person receiving the care. Who is there to meet the overall needs of the carer?

A homeless man may have committed, and have a high likelihood of committing further acts of domestic violence. The partner of that person has no support worker. The support worker of the homeless person may not be able to confront the violent behaviour, because management may feel it is not meeting the needs of the client to do so.

A female support worker may not be promoted because she does not work with certain challenging ex-offending clients. The reason that she does not work with these clients is because they have been assessed as posing a risk to women.

The council has a huge budget for supporting problematic drug users, who are mainly men. It has no budget for supporting people who self harm by ingesting toxic substances, who are mainly women.

There is obviously a conflict in a huge number of cases between the needs of the client and a wider goal of gender equality.

So no I don't think what is going on here is women posting "like men", I think this is women being opinionated, being challenging and thinking about things, and I don't think there is harm in that.

That was my phrase, and I agree with you that it's wrong. I didn't really mean that women should argue like men, per se. I meant only that the same behaviour, in a woman and a man, is perceived as aggressive in the former and forthright in the latter. So that being unapologetic about one's opinions, when you're female, is read as aggressive. Therefore even if you play by male rules, you can't win because you're female.

There's a study I've just failed to find by Googling, where the same face was shown to a bunch of observers, and when it was dressed up with female indicators (long hair, etc) it was experienced as unfriendly/aggressive, and when it was dressed up with male indicators, it was experienced as neutral. It was the same face. That's what I'm thinking about in terms of written expression.

Elephants, you make a great point that if I'm arguing the above, I should also acknowledge that social conditioning isn't easy to overcome, and to cut people a bit of slack when they can't just overcome it. Agreed entirely.

But I don't know how to express opinions without someone feeling attacked. People always hone in on the posts that disagree with them. People have said, on here, that "Feminists" have made them feel, variously, bad/nonfeminist for being a WOHM and a SAHM. I can't think of a clearer indicator that there's no party line on this one, but each of the people encountering a dissenting opinion are assuming that they've run afoul of the MumsNet Feminists.

Aitch I disagree. There was no debate to be had, simply a "la la la - fingers-in-my-ears- we're not listening" response.

Having said that if I had not been accused of being a suporter of DV I may have perservered, but actually I found that a hugely offensive attack, combined with the request for a "feminist lawyer" to comment, I will admit to feeling extremely unwelcome.

That has nothing to do with wanting the "red carpet rolled out" but rather comes from the position that I don't come on this area of MN to "fight a corner" I came to try and learn more about a subject which in theory feels like the most important issue in the world but in practise appears to be closed to all but the most ardent and knowledgeable of supporters.

the whole thing is a fairy-tale anyway, we ARE all individuals at a keyboard, no one of us can control the other. if someone sees something that they're not happy with, they just have to 'man up' and say so. they can't expect others who are not offended to take imagined offence on their behalf.

x-post with nancy. you took offence, and you left. there was plenty of debate to be had, dittany is not the only poster on here.

and tbh i would have thought that a discussion talking about the ethical problems of being a feminist while defending clients you know to be domestic abusers would have been genuinely fascinating. same must be said of social workers and many other jobs.