Feminist Pub IX. Newbies and regulars welcome - pop your cognitive dissonance down outside and have a gin.

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

Right, thought I'd better start a new pub. I warn you, my knowledge of Roman numerals conks out shortly after this one, so either buffy will have to start the next thread, or we'll have to go Arabic.

Everyone is welcome in - if you want to chat, or just jump in with a question/link/gin, please do. Especially if it's too small for a thread or you don't feel up to thread-starting.

The old thread has, at my count, about 9 posts to go, and it was here: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/2126791-Feminist-Pub-VIII-not-as-prolific-as-the-Swaggerers-but-there-are-cushions-and-consciousness?

We were just chatting about feministy light reading, and will doubtless meander onto other topics shortly.

Rant away!

Not sure if he was aiming for me to side against my brother. But he expected us all to calmly take this new development in our stride and accept girlfriend back into the fold as if the last 12 years of her being shitty hadn't ever happened. My brother actually dealt with the situation much better than me. I just felt sick and tense the whole time and realised I didn't actually want to meet her again because she'd caused so much hurt. Hence why I blew up when it all came to a head. A head, that they both forced on us all.

I should have just refused to visit him once I realised she was there. Problem was I didn't get much notice and the kids wanted to see him etc etc. I really felt caught between the devil and the deep blue sea.

Ah, I see.

I can completely understand you feeling like that.

Anyway the rest of the family is being brilliant about it and supporting me. My Mum is great, thankfully! So I feel for you with both your parents being hurtful about your divorce. You shouldn't have to justify your decisions and certainly shouldn't be accused of mental instability . It is completely misogynistic. But I can imagine you miss them too. It is horrible

Lots of irritating dads. Mine, too, sees no reason to discuss anything with me, I think it is his sense of hierarchy, like it would be undermining him to consider anyone but himself. LRD, scallops.

Someone I sort of know had her DH walk out this morning, she has two DC with him. He made his announcement and left and she's now panicking as as he can't afford the cost of childcare alone and also have did the school run, and she can't do it with her current working arrangements. I feel such rage that anyone could walk out of their home without thinking about and taking responsibility for the children. I'm not saying people should stay together but to just decide it's all too hard and fo without making arrangements is such entitled fuckery. It's so commonplace for men to do this that no one is really saying how unfair this is.

Oh, no.

That's horrible. And absolutely, it's not about staying together, but you could make arrangements. It happens the other way around too - my mate's husband had had an affair and was a useless sod, and she wanted a divorce but he basically just dug his heels in and refused to take any responsibility about the children, as if it'd magically sort itself out on its own and he could just decide to opt out.

Oh that's awful OutsSelf . She must be reeling.

And you are right about the sense of entitlement. Someone else's problem and all! Strange how it's always the woman whose problem it is. He won't ever be held accountable either. And she will feel obliged to paint him in the best picture possible to the children otherwise be accused of using them as pawns/obstructing/turning them against him etc etc etc. He on the other hand will be able to use any justification he wants about why he left. The system is stacked up against the woman good and proper!

4th October. Squeeee.

LRD I can relate to what you say. My parents are so pro marriage that they still talk about divorced women in hushed tones. One of my sister's friends left her husband after years if abuse, my parents have known her since she was 5, and they talk about it as if she was the odd one. Yeah, because the guy hitting her was totally normal

And don't get me started on how divorce settlements work out. How is half a house any good to a woman with 3 kids? The assets should be divided by the number of people having to live on them, not the adults. If men knew that having a baby really truly meant that they were liable for the next 21 years and no way could they get out if it, then hopefully they would think a bit more before having kids. Hopefully women would too.

And breathe.

and for all who are facing unsupportive family.

LRD I'm so sorry your parents are being so unsupportive of you. And coming up with crap reasons for things.

scallops sorry about your DFs ex being a wankbadger, but good to hear that the rest of your family are supporting you.

Outsself just bleah. Horrible for your friend. I hope she can work something out for the children. And no, there isn't enough of a discussion around men who can just walk away.

For the life of me, I will never understand the unsupportive families stuff. It's not like we've murdered someone! Most of the time, I hate to say, it comes down to selfishness on their part, fear of "what will people think" and messed up projections of what they think their children should be like/behave as.

The assets should be divided by the number of people having to live on them, not the adults.

Yes! Why don't they do this? It's never occurred to me but that would be so sensible.

Sorry to interrupt with something random, but let me share with you today's GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH! moment. Below is my conversation with a certain fitness app today, and the screenshot of the ads that prompted it:
_

Hi there

Two questions really. Firstly, do you have any control over the ads that are shown at the bottom of the Android app? Because I'm getting a lot of ads for Russian women and Asian women - I am very very uncomfortable with seeing women (probably forced into sex work) advertised as a commodity.

So the second question is whether you intend to bring out a premium version of this app so I can get rid of the adverts? Obviously I'd rather you weren't allowing adverts for women for sale on your app, but if that's something you can't control I'd like the option to pay to not see adverts any more.

Best wishes
Annie

_

Hi Annie,

Thank you for taking the time to contact us. We are very sorry to hear that you're disappointed with the selection of ads you are seeing on our site.

Unfortunately, we are only indirectly in control of the ads that do appear. We work with several ad-aggregating companies, and their role is to place ads that will (hopefully) be relevant to those who view them. To some degree these ads are selected based on the browser history of each user, which makes it even more of a challenge for us to have any direct effect on their content. It is often even a challenge to determine which of the ad networks is placing which ad. The ads are, to some degree, a necessary evil allowing us to offer our weight-management tools at no cost to our members.

There are certain broad categories of ads that we do request our ad networks to exclude, including politically charged ads, sexually explicit ads, religiously partisan ads, etc.

A few of the ad networks (including google ads) place a small icon in one corner of the ad which, if clicked, will take the user to a page where preferences can be expressed regarding the types of ads the individual would like to continue to see. Except for the cases of the few broad categories noted above, we tend not to filter other broad categories, such as food, because one of the strengths of our program is that any food, if faithfully logged, can be part of a successful overall weight-management plan.

It is definitely not our intention to present ads to users that lessen their chances of success, and we do hope you will continue to find value in our tools. Unfortunately, the fine-grain filtering of the ad content, beyond certain highly controversial categories, is not currently under our direct control.

We are currently looking into the possibility of having an ad free option available in the future. We thank you for your patience and understanding as we explore this potential.

In the meantime, thanks so much for using the app. Please let us know if you have any additional feedback or questions. We wish you all the success in reaching and maintaining all of your diet and fitness goals.

All the best,
Misogynidiot
Fitness App Staff

___

So apparently, not only do women basically for sale not fall into under their umbrella of morally questionable ads, but it's my fault I'm seeing them because I probably have porn in my browser history.

Although I also suspect I was pinged a standard response rather than them actually bothering to read what I said. Which is just as unhelpful. I have replied with much scorn.

ooh, show us your scorn! go on.

Oh dear, sorry to all on the family front. LRD that is awful. My mother was very unsupportive once when my ex was treating me appallingly ("you must have nagged too much" etc) - it's such a betrayal

I have been reading the thread about how it's obvious that lots of "nice" ordinary men must use prostitutes to justify their vast numbers. I feel quite depressed about it. Looking back, I know I've had friendships, and possibly even relationships, in the past with men who must have done this, and I feel so naive not to have realised. I am now with a "lovely, nice" man, I'm sure that he's not, but I could just be being stupid all over again. Does it mean that we can never trust men, really?

rosa, I used to know a young woman who worked in a 'massage parlour' and watched her change from a cheerful outgoing person to a cynical man hater in just a couple of months. She is one of the reasons I've never used the services of a prostitute. Is it consensual if a woman will only have sex with me in exchange for money/goods/services? I've never been sure of the answer, so it's not for me.

I understand why women would turn to prostitution to earn money but struggle to understand the men who buy them. I mean, is it really about sex, or is it about power/control/domination etc. If it's the former why is there an exchange of money? If it's the latter it sounds like rape to me. Maybe I'm just weird.

Upthread someone said that family is sometimes unsupportive because they worry about how it looks to others. I think there's a lot in that, but I think also sometimes some people are actually not purposedly being unsupportive - they are simply worried and therefore try to think of ways in which they and you could make the situation better (and therefore worse for you, counterproductively). I'm not sure if I'm making sense - I see this when DC complains about X or Y and I say "Why don't you do Z then" and then it all kicks off, while what I should have done is just to shut up and listen. But the instinct to say "if you only just did this or that it would all be OK again and you will be happy again" is sometimes overwhelming...

Mmm. I do see how there can be an element of that, upto. I think it's very natural to want to solve people's problems, as well. But I think with my parents, it's that they never quite realized what's normal. They're pretty socially isolated and don't have friends, only acquaintances, and I think they just haven't really cottoned on to how other people do family relationships. I remember my dad being really shocked (genuinely shocked) at the idea you shouldn't hit your teenagers, because I think his dad will have done than when he was a child in the 50s/early 60s, and he simply doesn't have a point of reference from seeing how other people parent children other than that.

I'm either going to be a terrible parent or I'm going to go the other way and spoil mine rotten. MN will have to rein me in.

doctor - I think maybe it's normalised? So that some people don't really question why they do it, it's just a thing to do? There's that site that tweets comments actual punters make, and they are really chilling - there are lots of them that are completely unemotional and businesslike, as if they're buying commodities.

I do think attitudes have only changed quite recently, too. I was struck the other day, reading a Joanna Trollope novel published in 1988, that she has a character claim to his wife that using prostitutes isn't cheating. Now he is not painted as a nice character, but given she writes fairly cosy, women's literature type books and her publisher obviously didn't make her take this bit out, I assume that wasn't something totally implausible for a married man to say at the time.

I can't see someone writing the same book now - it'd imply much nastier things about the man's character.

LRD it's interesting that you say that re your dad and what his parents did. Is it the implied criticism of his parents that contributes to his reaction? Those strong reactions to otters' actions often seem to stem from the idea that because you would have / did behave differently that other person is directly criticising your actions through their own alternative choices. It's a very self-centred view

FFS iphone is constantly correcting "others" to "otters". It's not like I talk about otters that frequently

I don't think many people have strong reactions to how otters behave

Any criticism of their approach does tend to go down like a cup of cat sick.

My mum is generally pretty feminist but totally 100% against divorce no matter what. Now I'm more aware of sensitivity yo implied criticism it makes me wonder about my parents marriage.