Just posting from Radfem 2013 with the MN feminists - couple of interesting comments :-)

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

I'm just posting because I'm at a conference with a few MN feminists. We've just been to a panel about feminist parenting, and the others are chatting with other feminist mums.

I've been listening in on the discussion mostly on account of not having any children - which is why I'm posting on MN instead of talking - but a couple of women mentioned the old stereotype of MN being full of anti-feminist middle-class white mothers who only talk about nappies. And a couple of FWR regulars were saying that we're actually quite nice. So, I am hoping maybe people who were at the conference will come to check out this section.

Or maybe they won't, but if they do - hello! :-)

[TunipTheVegedude]

PromQueen, I have a Nigel too. Many of us there did.

I didn't feel in the least bit unwelcome as a result. You do feel a bit marginal rather than the norm when the driving force behind the whole thing is lesbians but that's probably healthy.

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

Much simpler!

It really is complicated, I think.

But then on another level, it is extremely simple: I want to have freedom from the expectation that, because of my sex, I will behave a certain way, and I deserve to be treated a certain way (ie., often discriminated against).

kim wants freedom from that too, if I understand her right.

So does Cathy Brennan.

The patriarchy wants to push us all into a tiny little space and have us fight over who has the rights to it. That is what they are doing and it is working beautifully.

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

Ah, I dunno. I've not read the blogs.

Something I did think was obvious, was that people can come across very, very, very differently online and in person. And there is also that miasma of public opinion and gossip that hangs around some people. So you go to these things expecting to see scary radical feminists who spend all their time yelling abuse at men and stomping on male babies, then you see Julia Long dancing around with someone's toddler and it is a bit more difficult to take the 'man-hating' image seriously!

(Actually one of my favourite things about this conference was all the cute babies being passed from woman to woman. It was very sweet. )

[TunipTheVegedude]

One reason I left a particular radfem facebook group was because there were a number of discussions about whether a hetero woman could ever be a proper radfem. Some people do say those things.
But for me it comes back to the point I mentioned earlier, about the importance of the movement being tolerant of differences, and as LRD says it is different in RL.

I was pondering on the RL/online split recently. One reason I love Mumsnet is because of the multidimensional view we get of each other - the thing where you argue fiercely with someone in one topic and support them equally passionately in another. In RL that happens more automatically, but when you have a single issue Facebook group, that rounded understanding that leads to tolerance is harder to achieve. It's one reason why MN works and why RL activism matters.

[TunipTheVegedude]

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

It would be lovely to meet you too.

I did enjoy meeting everyone.

I also came away feeling very proud of MN for the same reasons.

I think it helps too that lots of us come to feminism from other things - like starting a thread where we think we're just having a quick rant about a minor issue, and then from the comments we start realizing there's a bigger picture. Or that was some of my experience at least.

[TunipTheVegedude]

I was sad we never got a chance to tell people about the Small Sexual Assaults thread.

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

Ooh, yes.

I did feel sad we didn't get much chance to talk about some of the stuff on here. I wanted to mention the 'Let Girls Be Girls' stuff as well, and the 'We Believe You' campaign, but it's tricky to have time.

I should say, something that is really unfortunate was that because the last session was a bit rushed and miscommunicated, I don't think we got across that Mumsnet is actually quite feministy. Someone was taking notes in the session where all of us had been talking about MN, but she got mixed up between netmums and mumsnet, and ended up saying maybe rad fems should hijack sites like mumsnet with feminist ideas.



It wasn't anyone's fault that she'd got confused but it did make me groan a bit. But then there's so much of that in the ordinary media as well - everyone seems to think MN and NM are exactly the same. It really surprises me when I come across that attitude because I'm so used to MN I forget how people perceive it generally.

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

I don't know, actually.

I may be being very unfair to NetMums. I just reckon we're fairly feministy on here.

[TunipTheVegedude]

I did feel a complete idiot when I kept hissing in her ear 'Not Mumsnet! Netmums!'

That Netmums is less feministy was illustrated rather alarmingly by that Netmums thread a few months ago with the convicted rapist and domestic abuser who wanted access to his children and a scary number of Netmums posters were on his side on the grounds that whatever he had done, he had a right to see his kids.
I doubt there is a feminist section.

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

Yeah.

Ah well. To be fair, I've seen threads on here that shocked me. Both sites are just so big, that there is going to be a huge variation in opinions. But IMO that is what is so lovely about being on here, that we do all get to chat about a wide range of things. I can be furious on here about whatever it happens to be, and then go chat about old-fashioned roses on another thread and find the same poster is telling me about her garden (this is a made up example btw, I've never had a row with any of the posters on the gardening threads so far as I remember ). It's quite hard to stereotype people as 'horrible mean feminist' or whatever, if you also chat to them about all the other stuff.

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

Gah. Obviously I am grinning at you hissing in her ear.

Not at rape apologists.

Sorry.

[Hullygully]

wot tunip said

[TunipTheVegedude]

This article is good

[MalenkyRusskyDrakonchik]

Oh, I spoke to her ... she was lovely (the woman who wrote it).

[bunchamunchycrunchycarrots]

I think there is a feminist thread somewhere on netmums. No actual section though. I used to frequent there years ago before I saw the light and discovered MN, and can remember the almighty stooshie that occurred when someone tried to start the debate over feminism off. The words 'lead balloon' spring to mind. I like MN and it's feministyness

[BasilBabyEater]

Fab time at RadFem2013. I was late on the Sunday so missed Femi and Sheila, really hope they will post their talks online somewhere.

I just love my new keyring which I bought there. It says "Sisters before Misters".

[MalenkyRusskyDrakonchik]

I wore my Radfem2013 sticker on my jacket all the way home, and, lo and behold, a seat to myself on a crowded train.

[marfisa]

I just looked at Cathy Brennan's twitter page (twitter.com/bugbrennan) and found it full of gems like these:

'Trans activism consists of thinking of new ways to insult women'

'Let's talk about how much hate transwomen have for women. Sorry about your dick. It's not our fault.'

'Nothing confirms that transwomen are men quite like meeting with women only.'

Then l looked at her blog (bugbrennan.com/) and found it full of articles about "stupid queers" and "violent queers".

Sorry, but this person is really obsessed with verbally bashing transwomen and "queers" (whoever she thinks queers are - I'm not exactly sure). And I can't help but wonder, why is belittling these other groups of people so crucial to her feminist identity?

I'm totally repulsed. She's welcome to her woman-only space but no thanks, it's not the kind of feminist space where I would feel at home.

[MalenkyRusskyDrakonchik]

I wouldn't say those things myself, but I get why she's saying them. Have you see some of the things said to her? She'd be a saint if she never retaliated.

Btw, by 'queers' she means people who're identifying as 'queer' in the queer theory sense (if I understand it rightly). This is something that bothers me too, quite a lot. I'll go into what was said at the conference if anyone's interested (because it is interesting, and gets into postmodernism as well). But in a nutshell, it's pretty easy to erase lesbian identities by using queer theory.

I do feel really uncomfortable with reading this stuff, and I want to say it's unacceptable ... but then I read the other side of it, and I look at the fact that there is so little we're allowed to say at all, and I can't help seeing why she does it. It's trying to make people notice what is going on.