This board is the most frightening .

[fangbanger]

Apparently.

I am a little saddened that a forum mostly used by women, has decided that the feminist boards are the most frightening of the forum.

Why do we feel that is? What can be done to prevent people from feeling so intimidated that they are too scared t post?

I lurk here a lot and find the threads very interesting. I think I've commented a couple of times when a good link has been posted.

My problem is I don't think I have anything to contribute as I am not academic and have done very little reading.

I am very encouraged by this thread and am going to try to join in a bit more.

Yes, why are the people who post in the feminist topic held to such high standards You can be a feminist and a human at the same time

I have seen what Reality talks about happening. I know that the subject matter makes people angry and I can see that it's frustrating when people post thinking they are being supportive of feminism but actually missing the point (arguments such as "Feminism is about choice and women can choose to work in porn if they want to" etc) - but I don't know, it just seems they get short shrift, aggressive responses etc much more than in other areas. I know it's frustrating to have to explain the same thing again and again but why assume others have seen previous threads? There are going to be people reading every thread who have never come across these thoughts and ideas before. And it is possible to say something thought provoking without getting aggressive, I have seen it happen on threads, and those are the ones which have really challenged my assumptions and made me think.

On the subject of trolls as well - I wonder if someone is challenging a troll whether they could make it clear they are doing so, because if you don't get much chance to come here it's sometimes unclear who is a troll and who is just a newbie, especially when the OP is cleverly worded. So to see someone come in and get immediately ripped apart (not knowing they are a known troll) makes it intimidating to think about posting a question.

I'd be interested in a fem-lite thread :) I'm just crap at keeping up with chat threads, they move too fast for me. Actually that's another thing I sometimes find frustrating about the feminism threads - sometimes I'll read something and have a point to add but then by the time I've come to the thread it's several pages back, an argument has ensued about something else, and if I do post about it, it gets ignored. So I think the threads can be a bit too fast moving at times to encourage lurkers to join in. But I don't know that fast-moving threads are a bad thing.

If it was "palatable to a wider audience" it wouldn't be feminism.
It be lovely if we could just make feminism palatable for everyone, men included, then everybody could be a feminist and there'd be no more need for feminism.

We need the fem-lite section. We do.

X-posted (see, too fast moving for me ) - perhaps then the fem-lite thread could have a specific agenda to be accessible and it would separate the others into purely discussion threads and people wouldn't feel so pushed out?

Start the fem-lite thread, Hully, I'll come and post :)

x posts with BertieBotts.

well I don't think this board is scary, although have avoided it after some heartbreakingly long threads detailing incident after incident of sexual violence. I don't know how anyone can read those and find the feminists frightening rather than the state of things generally.

fem-lite thread sounds like a great idea

sakura, that is not true. It is not about making the tenets and constituents of feminism "palatable," it is about making learning manageable.

You wouldn't throw a dissertation at a five yr old and tell them to get on with it, would you? You have literacy hour with nice stories and love and then you build on it.

What we are seeing here is that there are a lot of women who do want to learn and be empowered, surely that is something to embrace and facilitate?

Hardcore discussion still has it's place.

Hully, this thread is moving too fast. My post was in response to Prolesworth's
"It's almost as if there's a perception that the regulars here have a duty to make feminism palatable to a wider audience or something. I'm really mystified by the idea that this section has some sort of evangelist agenda. It's just another discussion forum on MN, that's all!"

There is a difference between wanting to learn about feminism and not quite knowing where to start and wanting to diss feminism and blaming the Women on The Feminist Topic of Mumsnet for feminism not being palatable to them. There's a really obvious difference between the two.
LOts of posters have de-lurked and said they'd be interested in learning more about feminism. That's brilliant.

yes. To both.