Women should lead and direct the women's movement

[tabouleh]

Taking inspiration from this quote from Finn's speech at FiL:

But however men are involved in this movement, I suggest one place they should certainly not be is in the leadership, because I believe that women should lead and direct the women?s movement. And this is a political stance, one all too often reduced to so-called ?man-hating? by those who do not appreciate the grand scale of woman-hating that goes uncommented and unchecked in our society on a daily basis.

And in order to not further derail this thread I am wondering why the Mother's Union has a man as its Chief Executive.

I expressed my point of view on that thread that the mother's union should have a mother (a woman) as it's CEO.

Someone asked "Why does it matter whether the chief executive is a man?"

Well I feel saddened that with millions of mothers in this country as possible candidates a charity called mother's union chose a man.

Looking into some of the history of the charity from their website:

Mary Sumner, the founder of Mothers' Union and herself a mother of three, was all too aware of the burdens and responsibilities of parenting; of the feelings of inadequacy that could swamp young mothers.

1876: When her daughter, Margaret, had her first child Mary took the initial steps in founding a society for the support of women in their role as mothers. Mary recognised that good parenting was more than providing for the physical needs of the child, and she believed that the primary responsibility was to raise children in the love of God.

1896: The Central Council of Mothers' Union was formed and the first Central Constitution was agreed unifying members across diocese, into a national union with Mary Sumner as President. Members agreed objectives and a central vision that marriage, parenting and prayer were key to the future of families.

1900: Mary's connections within the Anglican Communion led to Mothers' Union branches quickly being established in Wales, Ely, Exeter, Hereford, Lichfield and Newcastle, followed by branches overseas in Dublin, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Canada, India and Madagascar. By 1900 the Mothers Union had nearly 170,000 members.

So it seems to me that it was set up by a mother, for mothers...

I also think that feminist movements should be run by women and I'd be interested to see whether any have this enshrined in their constitution - eg Fawcett Society and whether that falls fowl of any equality laws .

Thoughts anyone?

And anyone with info on the constitutions of various organisations and how this fits in with the equality act etc.

I do think the name is misleading,and I have said so already(unless that was in a post I wrote and didn't post!)

I also agree with you,HerBeatitude,about that sentence from MUcom.I think the point though is that while women still do a lot of the work in parenting it isn't the womans role in the way it was in 1875.
Since I got onto this thread I've read a lot about the MU,thinking it may have changed a lot from what I remember - but that doesn't seem to be true.So yet again - I don't think it is fair or correct to say it isn't connected to women's/mothers' issues.I don't think you can judge the entire work of a group from one post on the internet - if you have looked at its work worldwide and still don't think it is connected to women's issues,fair enough.

My other problem,which I can't clarify one way or the other is that because of the way the MU is structured,I don't think the CEO can be called its "head".I think looking at it as an (originally) womans organisation headed by a man is misleading.

Anyway,I'm stopping as we aren't going to agree,are we?

Are there other organisations that could be discussed?

The post earlier came from their comms team, so will have been written by a PR professional type person (unless it was a troll and I don't believe anyone gets that bored!) so I think it's fair to take it at face value, as representing the current views of the mothers' union.

Does anyone know under what circs contact takes place at children's centres,after divorce? I thought it took place there if the non resident parent wasn't allowed to be alone with the child - or something? Anyone know?

I just re-read the thing and it seems funny the way it's put how this bloke spends his time.

Yes usually contact centres are for men who are not allowed to have sole contact because they are a danger to their children.

Now why would that be an appropriate thing for a mother's organisation to focus on?

"in the little free time he has he volunteers in child contact centres to try to bring together families torn apart by divorce"

this is what I was wondering when I reread it, if the contact is happening at a children's centre isn't it likely that there is a good reason the family has been "torn apart by divorce" and doesn't really need bringing back together...

Well lots of people think divorce is much worse than DV.

Not generally people who claim to speak for mothers though, or children.

There are other reasons contact centres are used, but that tends to be one of the major ones.

I am starting to feel more than a little about all of this, and once again and rather sadly am coming around to agree with views on here that I initially understood but thought were a bit strong IYSWIM.

I was uncomfortable with the contact centre thing too.

Especially coming from a religious organisation that seems to put so much emphasis on 'family values'.

Isn't it just a little predictable that the MU, with a man at the head, is now busy focussing on fathers' rights and 'bringing together families torn apart by divorce' ie telling women to suck it up and that they won't get hit if they just obey their husbands?

Mind you, it's also entirely predictable that the LGBG campaign has attracted this sort of support. It will be overrun by Fathers Protecting Their Daughters' Purity (eg creepy fuckers who think their daughters are property and should not even think about sex until they are married. Unless it's with Daddy of course.)any minute.

Very predictable; very very predictable

Why oh why have these people, who admit themselves they are interested in helping fathers, been asked to represent mothers as a group?? It's not too much of a stretch of the imagination to believe they don't mind riding roughshod over mothers in order to further the interests of fathers.

The TOries are a bunch of c*s

sorry, that was harsh.. it's just that I know they know that this group has nothing to do with the interests of mothers, which is exactly why they've been asked to head the enquiry.
And the MuCom himself stated that they're going to look into the effect of LGBG on boys and how this affects boys

Hmmm yes rereading the post talks a lot about fathers, and boys. Little mention of girls. What she says is "yes yes girls wahetever but let's think about the boys here" and then talks about them. Could give the benefit of the doubt and think that they are talking about males as this is MN and so they think we have the ideas about what matters for mothers and girls covered. But OTOH...

OK,total failure here to step away from the thread - but in the interests of accuracy this is how the Mothers Union is run.The board of trustees is entirely female.There are 3.6 million members worldwide,and those are still mostly women.Isn't this a womens organisation?

The Trustee Board is elected. The Worldwide President, Unit Coordinators and General Trustees are elected by a simple majority of the Worldwide Council, a forum representing the worldwide membership. The All-Ireland President and the Provincial Presidents are elected by Diocesan Presidents in the areas they represent and the Provincial Representative Trustee is elected by Provincial Presidents outside the UK and Ireland, also by a simple majority. All Trustees are elected to their position for an initial term of three years and may stand for re-election for a second term.

The Trustees meet about five times a year to agree broad strategy and areas of activity for the Charity, including investment, reserves and risk management.
Day to day work of the Mothers' Union is delegated to the Chief Executive and his staff team of approximately 47. Affiliated to the central Mothers' Union are 68 separate Mothers' Union charities in the UK and Europe plus many more in other parts of the world.

I can see why you object to the name.I can see why you might think they should have remained an all female organisation.I can see you might object to their aims because of the christian element.And you are free to disagree with how Reg Bailey spends his time.(Don't contact centres exist to provide a safe place where children can have contact with non custodial parents and other family members when the courts say this has to happen? So presumably they have to be staffed somehow?)

But to say "this group has nothing to do with the interests of mothers",when you hadn't even heard of the organisation until now is a bit much,sakura. Do you actually know anything apart from what has come up here about what they do?

Pogleswood, my beef isn't with the name, the membership, their aims, their christian ethos, or even the private passion of their chief executive.

It's their assertion that mothers are no longer the primary carers of children. That assertion tells me that they really don't know (and therefore care) very much about what mothers do. And an organisation which has the word Mother in its title, really ought to, IMO.

Male Head and a flurry of female underlings is my beef with this organization.

POggleswood has made it clear on other threads that she belives males and females are interchangeable. Okay then, give me, 3 examples of organizations/companies/institutions with a female head and flurry of male underlings.

I rest my case

1. The monarchy

1. Er...

Good try, HB. Not quite a flurry though...

The underlings have to be exclusively male with a female head...

hey hang on Sakura - what makes it a 'flurry'? I would think that was a sexist word if it was a man using it, y'know

don't worry, it was used tongue in cheek- that is not actually how I see women and mothers [I see them as whole humans, hence my objection to the people who have implied this guy was the best person for the job- something I can't quite get my head round].

BUt people who think that one male head and lots of subordinate females is okay are likely to defend the set up because they see females in terms of "flurry", "gaggle"