Why is no one here?

[EclecticShock]

Not a useful topic? I thought it would be very educational. I would post but don't really have much in depth background in feminist theory.

I'm here! But on a different timezone.

OK - I'd like to discuss the ideas I'm reading about in 'The Frailty Myth', which I was enjoying very much, until I discovered that 20 pages were missing.

So much from '2nd hand, good condition' from Amazon.

I didn't even realise this was here, or that fwr had changed to 'chat'.

I'm here from Monday. Until then, I'm doing my best to stay off MN as I have felt a bit wrung out yet strangely addicted by recent events and decided a short break would be a good idea.

Probably quite a few people are taking a bit of a break.

I hope this section takes off. I'm reading Beauty & Misogyny and will probably have a question or two.

Because Mumsnet doesn't feel like a safe place for lots of posters atm.

Also because you have to go to the list of topics to find out what the new MN feminist topics are and people can't be arsed to do that, only click on it if it's up in active conversations? That's how I discovered this place was here.

I miss the regular posters. They were so straightforward, honest and knowledgeable (sp), I learned a lot. Glad to see some of you have come back.

So true Basil but it was good of mn to give us more topics I do hope once the dust has settled everyone who wants to post will do so again.

So, having been 'given' this space, what do we want to do with it?

I've loved some of the past discussions, e.g. the one on cognitive dissonance, separatism, and and some others.

There are some questions about things I'd love to talk about, but not sure if they count as 'chat' or 'theory' (or just real life). e.g. why is the thread about lovely voices almost ALL male voices - I think I'm the only person who suggested a female. Linked to that - why do I notice that the teenage boys at our local pool just seem not to hear the female lifesavers giving them instructions, but always hear the male lifesavers?

Another question doing the rounds in my brain - if separatism is the only way for women to have autonomy and feel safe, then how do we raise children? I'm assuming that there would be sufficient co-mingling with men for children to still happen, but how should they then be raised. In fact, if family IS all about patriarchal control, how should society be organised instead?

See, to me, both those topics are open to general chat, e.g. anecdotes/thoughts, and also some 'real' theory about them. So where do I start these threads.

And I won't be posting in radfem, btw, too scared.

20 pages missing? That's awful!

I know, so now I have to try and pick up half way through the next bit of the argument.

Kickass I think that was 1 of the objections to this section. Theory sounds high falutin and intimidating to lots of posters, but " feminist chat" will probably be a space where a whole load of people can claim that every choice that is made by a woman, is by definition a feminist choice without having that POV too strenuously challenged because challenging is unwelcoming

Challenging is not unwelcome, the point is to challenge politically rather than personally. I think chat is quite personal based on people's experiences. Theory is not personal but based on political analysis. Not everyone wants to discuss both at the same time.

I have been away for a week. But I am very unhappy at the way FWR has been divided up.

I'm sorry to hear that Eats. It's a shame that some posters are unhappy with it. Can't disparage the fact that many many more people are posting.

Yes there are lots of new names - but they may be NCs? Often happens after contentious threads say in AIBU, lots of NCs. But in terms of actual postings, it seems very very quiet. Feminist theory, Radical Feminism are both pretty dead. And even FWRChat isn't that busy.

Hi Nina

I think you should be on this page:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/media_nonmember_requests

Good luck with your research. To my mind, women who don't identify as feminists don't know what feminism is! Probably stuck at the Sheila Jeffreys camp!

I was brought up by a determined mother, who had three girls before me. There was never any question in my upbringing that men and women were equal, in every respect. Feminism is an assertion of those equal rights, and which (as a bloke) I find it rather depressing have to be asserted. I find it even more depressing, and embarrassing, that men still don't 'get it'. But it is also depressing - and interesting - to see many women apparently subscribe to the male world view. Kickassangel raises some of the consequential issues arising. My own view (and apart from loooong experience, I have mixed twins who are sooooo different) is that there is no reconciling the differences, but the mistake is to treat some features - between the genders - as 'good' or 'bad', when the focus should be on persons as persons, irrespective of gender, ethnicity etc; people are different, and the fact that they are different because they are a woman (or a man) is no different from having brown hair or blond hair. I would recommend Catholic Social Justice (not the nasty old Catholic church) for an articulation of the principle. People are people, and all are equal.

The problem is it simply isn't true that men and women are equal in every respect. To suggest so is far to simplistic. There are and always will be differences. This is not a bad thing.

I think the reason so many men find it distasteful is for the simple fact that men are largely excluded from the discussion. They are dismissed and patronised, called names and made to feel ashamed when they highlight an inaccuracy or a misunderstanding. We are not allowed an opinion in feminist discussions as we are largely the topic being discussed.

Also because the world is slowly becoming feminist in intent it has done so at the expense of men in many ways. Its now a social faux pa to even mention when feminism has paved the way for inequality for men. Which is a shame and has to a degree cheapened the true intent of feminism. It has had such a large negative effect for men that groups like the MRA etc have sprung up to counter the movement.

While I agree with most of the feminist sentiment there is still a lot of work to be done, but at the same time I think the term feminist has been polluted far to much by radicals. This has also cheapened it.

Its for these reasons that myself and a great deal of many others are now starting to shun the term feminist and instead use the moniker or Humanist or Egalitarian. Those two names more accurately describe the position that feminism was once heading in.

No, they don't.

Feminism is and always has been about liberating women from patriarchy. You do seem to be very ignorant of the basic principles of the movement.