'Girl' skipper shame

[MontyGlee]

I have a variety of thoughts about this, but at the moment I'm just so bloody incensed that this story starts with calling her a girl.

www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/royal-navys-first-girl-skipper-3916423

Yes, thank you Outs, you explained so much better what I was and continue to be accused of bullying for.

Anyway, I'm out.

Well yes; again may I make my points about clique dynamics and why people might feel excluded by group-think.

I completely understand why you feel you need to defend yourself; I've been a bit harsh. But I don't see that you've added anything new in that last post. In fact you've underlined the problem by acknowledging that there IS a double standard and reaffirming that your opinion is based on what you believe to be helpful to women. That's confirming my suggestion that your starting position is a reality that doesn't exist followed by one that seeks to subjectively mitigate. One needs to give an honest appraisal of a situation and not fudge a response that is politically convenient. Sorry, that's just my opinion.

So suggesting that we challenge damaging perceptions for women is arrogant? I am really struggling with the logic there. Or do you not think the double standard and added burden of representing all womankind is damaging for women?

My honest appraisal of the situation is you are holding this woman to a damaging standard. If people like you wouldn't say she should be a role model and wouldn't insist she carry the burden of your standards, which you do not apply to men in her position, the world would not be so sexist. You could choose to do this differently but instead you come and insist I should accept your double standard, which I do not. Many others don't; this is consensus and not as you so rudely suggest, group think. You really must entertain the idea that lots of people with similar positions might actually be onto something. Why not just answer my question: if you see that this woman is being unfairly held to a double standard, why are you joining in with that rather than challenging it?

And with regard to your points about clique dynamics, a lot of people disagreeing with you is not a clique, nor is it bullying. No one has spoken to you with the withering and dismissive tone you insist on speaking to everyone else in.

ABland and Capt were being supportive of me because it was clear I was getting irritated because of your refusal to engage in my actual point, which is, just to really clarify it for you: You are the person peddling double standards then claiming with wide eyes you are only representing society. It's massively disingenuous to say you recognise an inequity but feel forced into standing by it by what you perceive others to believe. If you think she should be a role model then you have simply revealed yourself to be sexist and if you insist on holding her to a higher account than men in her position then you are literally fighting for the patriarchy in which case, why choose to fight for them in a space, a tiny little space of the internet, which is avowedly feminist?

"if you see that this woman is being unfairly held to a double standard, why are you joining in with that rather than challenging it?"

Yy to this.

Monty, you seem to be recognising the problem that the role model expectations are unjust. But, instead of recognising your immediate reaction of these expectations is unfair and trying to change it to be part of the solution, you seem to be recognising that it is unfair but wilfully sticking with it. What's more, you seem to be telling others who either have a different reaction or who think twice about their immediate reaction that they are lying to themselves.

The standard is this: we demand that women are represented and so when the first women breach the patriarchal walls they fly the flag. In future years we celebrate these vanguards, recognise the challenges they face and applaud them as being different from their male peers. This, to me, all makes sense. But, on the odd occasion that these extraordinary women turn out to be just as fallible as their male peers, suddenly they aren't the flag-bearing heroines any more. Suddenly we change our tune and they're just the same as everyone else. No, they were never the same as eveyone else.

I do wonder if, two years ago, i'd posted about the first female major warship commander and what a wonderful achievement, you same people. taking me to task now, would have posted that, in fact, she was just the same as her male counterparts and deserved no special credit.

But... Enough of this. I despair of the 'commitee' that deems itself arbiters of what's 'feminist' and what isn't. It smacks to me of a bf I used to have whose whole life was governed by what was best in the interests of Arsenal. Close ranks, close ranks, close ranks.

There's no committee, Monty.

"We" do not demand that these women aren't fallible in order to recognise their achievements as part of the vanguard. You may, but as I've said, that's discriminatory. What I think of Cmdr West is that she's achieved a great deal in her career, it must be tough to be breaking all those ceilings, I bet her peers weren't unequivocally supportive. These ALLEGATIONS may well be part of the way she is discriminated against. But even if they are true, they are no more shocking than those men that have been caught out in the same way, according to someone I spoke to yesterday, shagging is a naval wide problem, this person is connected to the armed forces. I see no conflict here, except that you, Monty, want to insist her whole career is worthless if these allegations are true.

Monty, why not just engage with the actual azrguments instead of trying to undermine people's positions with sniping about bullying and group-think

"Again it's naive and false to not acknowledge the consequences of being a role model."

Since you posted this (which sounded like you were calling other posters naive and false, though perhaps you didn't mean it that way), six posters have replied to you, of whom two have written but one post. Is that "group think"? Really?

I said her whole career was worthless? I said we shouldn't challenge sexist stereotypes? I haven't engaged with the actual arguments?

Right. I'm not sure what's going on here, but it's not an honest exchange of ideas; I'm out too.

Crikey, monty.

You call people 'naive' then insist you're a poor little newbie and everyone else is being mean by disagreeing with you - what did you think would happen?

I do get that it is sometimes difficult to realize how rude you're being on the net. You come across as someone who's accustomed to being right, and accustomed to explaining patiently to others why their views are simplistic. Ok, you perhaps can't help that.

But surely you can see why it's going to get people's backs up?

It's not really compatible with claiming you're being unfairly treated, either.

Aaaaanyway, I find this mind-boggling. I think a big lurking issue some people have, is they simply don't like the idea that a woman in a position of authority might be sexually attractive to her juniors. That's surely part of it, isn't it? We're used to people implying that men in positions of power are sexy. Women in positions of power must not be sexy.

Here's the (short!) In The News thread Grimble mentioned.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/in_the_news/2143224-Female-Navy-commander

That thread on chat is sort of brilliant - straight into the issue - and sort of depressing, from the pov that we are having such a retrogade discussion here.

I think that's unfair and a misrepresentation LRD. I've made relatively simple points (•that role models are burdened with the hopes of those that support them • that we, as feminists support high-achieving women • that when they let themselves down, they also let the cause down). These points haven't really been fought against logically, but rather decried for being anti-feminist as if a dynamic can be ignored or changed. I find that duplicitous and perverse. I also think that being told that my natural reaction is bad for society arrogant.

I also think there's six of one and half a dozen of the other here. Sure, I'm blunt. But I've also been misquoted with wild exaggeration and told I'm acting in isolation as if a straightforward dynamic about role models is some crazy delusion I alone have. And yes, I think it's relevant that I'm the only one (arguing) HERE - but this is a very singular forum - but only insofar as the majority view gangs up on the minority and tells them that they're the one being odd or volatile or whatever. It's a bit like gaslighting. I almost expected to be told I was being hysterical at one point.

And 'retrograde'? Yeah - there we go. So feminism wrote the party line long ago and who's this challenging it at this late stage? This is so dumb.

monty, calling people 'naive' is never likely to get you far.

You think your points are simple. We think they're simplistic. Arguing that you're right, you're still right, and why don't we get it, is not really going to get far, is it?

You're talking bollocks about the 'gaslighting' and 'hysterical' bits. Is that plain enough for you? Or would you like to make more veiled woe-is-me hints?

'Gaslighting' is a term for when someone is misled into thinking their worldview is subtly other than the way they perceive it, to force them to lose faith in their own thought processes.

It is not an euphemism for flat-out disagreement that you happen to dislike.

(I will say, I'm sure you simply didn't know, but you will get on people's wrong side using 'dumb' as an insult. I didn't report because I suspect you didn't know, but you might as HQ to change the post.)

YY, agree with that buffy.

It's not as if we don't know women are held to higher standards. We do know. We just don't want to be part of that system.

"but only insofar as the majority view gangs up on the minority and tells them that they're the one being odd or volatile or whatever."

Again - six posters (seven now counting LRD). A
Seven posters on a feminist board hold the position that a woman in a position of power doesn't have a duty to womanhood as a whole to be better than a man in that position. I don't understand why you think that could only happen through some kind of group think.

Do you think posters have been ruder to you than you have been to them?

Did you read the other thread, Monty? It's short and to the point. This feels retrogade by comparison because there is a simple acceptance that this woman be treated in this affair in the way her male counterparts might be, whereas in this discussion that basic equality has to be argued for.