Why a lot of women don't come on the feminism threads...

[Scarletohello]

So I posted this question earlier, why don't more women come on these threads ( considering how many women are on MN)

The replies saddened me. Are we doing something wrong? I remember a thread some time ago asking how many women lurk on the feminism threads but never post. I was shocked by how many women read these threads but didn't feel able to join in. I don't think feminism has to be particularly intellectual and I would like to be able to educate more women about feminism, how it affects women in many different areas of their lives, offer support and talk about what we as women can do about it.

Please have a read of this thread and tell me what your thoughts are. I want us to be as inclusive as possible as it affects us all...

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/2222959-To-be-a-bit-dismayed-if-4-million-women-visit-this-site-why-are-there-so-few-posts-on-the-feminism-threads

I do think there is a "house style" feminist perspective in FWR.

Re the namechanging thing, I think people who think of things like this as entirely about their personal choice are failing to notice that however empowered they personally felt by making the choice, they may be having a detrimental effect on other women. If you choice has a negative effect on women as a class then it can hardly be considered feminist, right? Even if the person it is ostensibly empowering is a woman. If that empowerment comes at the cost of other women's empowerment, how can you argue for it as feminist?

well Yoni, that is Caitlin Moran's definition isn't it?

So if I don't subscribe to her definition, as the rule of thumb, then I don't subscribe to her particular brand of feminism. But only her brand is allowed on these boards.

But the whole name change thing.
It was something my dh and I spent a long time talking about, but I guess that thinking about it and talking about it doesn't count as a man having to do it in your book.

You see here is my take on it.

My name was my fathers. So it is already a product of a patriarchal society. I have grown up in a family with a warm close relationship between my parents. The family was a unit together.

For my own relationship I wanted the new family unit we were creating to have one name. It didn't matter to me which name. Mine, his or a brand new one. I wanted all of us to share a name. To me, if I kept my name and he kept his, then our 2 different names are tying us back to our former families, rather than allowing us to declare a new unit. I hate the idea that my child would have a name different to mine, or that his child would have a name different to him.
The best option I think would be to have a new name for this new unit on marriage. I hate double barreled names (and my dhs name is dutch and therefore 2 words long anyway) We didn't like any of the new options we came up with, so we then went back and forth between us both taking his name or both taking mine. For a variety of reasons we chose his.

To me this is not about conforming to a patriarchal expectation, it is about creating an identity together.

Ha ha, thanks for the TV nominations. Obviously, I'd be gushingly pleased to stand next to LRD on any platform (with my face restfully enquiring of Paxo et all: are you some sort of idiot?)

CM is definitely not the defining voice of feminism for FWR!

But as a rule of thumb on whether something involves sexism, don't you think it's reasonable?

(I accept your post and your reasons, as no doubt you'd accept mine for not changing.)

Ah, this topic again.

I certainly haven't read the whole thread but I just wanted to chime in and say that the last time I contributed to a thread like this (short version: the only place I have really felt bullied and belittled on mumsnet was by a self identifying feminist) I got some responses which simply confirmed my negative views.

I particularly dislike the kind of amazed contempt that any women wouldn't identify as a feminist.

It seems that quite a lot of women don't wish to identify as feminist. I agree this is sad, but it also points to the reality that the feminist movement is having some real and serious problems with getting its message across.

What I find particularly disturbing is some of the responses I read on the web generally about men transitioning to women - so much energy and so much hate from self identified feminists, directed at denying people their choices.

My experience of FWR coincides a lot with what Arch said above.

There are a lot of feminists of one particular persuasion here, namely radical feminists. The first discussion I ever waded into was on transgender, and the transphobia expressed by a lot of posters was, frankly, mind-boggling to me. I still find it disturbing. Yes, there are some hateful transactivists out there, but they are a tiny minority among transgender people, and the amount of time and energy certain MN feminists devote to condemning them is a mystery to me.

I also learned that lots of MN feminists find terms like 'cis' and 'gender identity' offensive and oppressive. That surprised me also.

It was my first encounter with radical feminism outside of books (I'd read Dworkin, MacKinnon, Chesler, etc) and while it was educational, the transphobia in particular really put me off, as I said.

I also believe that prostitution and pornography are complex phenomena, and that radfem views don't often take this complexity into account.

My feminism is very important to me and I can imagine engaging more with the FWR threads if I had more time (I would probably just avoid the trans threads). But I would also be tempted to engage more if FWR were less dominated by the radfem perspective. I certainly don't blame radical feminists for dominating FWR; I mean, anyone can post there, and if feminists with different perspectives did want to post, there's nothing to stop them from doing so. The radfems are clever and articulate and I can find plenty of common ground with them... it's just that I don't normally read an FWR thread and have a sense of coming home, IYKWIM. There are a few regular posters whose perspectives seem much more akin to mine, but they are definitely exceptions.

Nevertheless, as others have already pointed out, you can find feminism in action virtually everywhere you look on MN. Some of the relationships threads are amazing.

I will retire now in the hope that I haven't alienated all the FWR posters forever.

x-post with spero. I totally agree!

Great minds!

I recall Suzanne Moore's comment 'cut your dick off and call your self more feminist than me' ??!!!??

Really??!!??

Its the hate I don't like. And the waste of energy.

So yes, I would identify as a humanist, not a feminist because there seems to be a significant and toxic feminist minority which deals in the language of oppression. I have yet to meet a humanist who refused to allow some people to come to conferences because they once had a penis.

39, I totally see that you made an equal decision with your husband about your name. I do not think you personally were oppressed by taking this decision, you had an equal say with your husband and made a joint decision, fine.

However, in terms of the public realm, your decision reflects and condones and supports the idea that men have family names which they bestow on their female relatives. You did not view marriage in that way. But your decision supports the cultural perception of it as such, whatsoever your intentions. No one is questioning whether you personally were oppressed or empowered in the decision making process. They are saying the decision itself has a societal impact, and that impact is that people continue to think women as either having their father's or husband's name - i.e. they are not people in their own right, but have existence through their relationship to men. In this context, I think it's fair to say, your choice was not feminist.

Yoni - yes as a definition CM is a reasonable place to start.

As I said in an earlier post, the point for me is that women have the freedom to choose. So of course I respect your choice.

I am amazed that people think that there we lots of radical feminists on these boards. I can only assume that they have never actually met a radical feminist.

your choice was not feminist

I need say no more.

"It seems that quite a lot of women don't wish to identify as feminist. I agree this is sad, but it also points to the reality that the feminist movement is having some real and serious problems with getting its message across."

I'm not so sure about that. I suspect it's because being a feminist is actually pretty bloody difficult. And it involves putting your head above the parapet and dealing with the flack. And I am not at all surprised that many women don't want to do it. For many women the status quo is a comfortable and happy place to be. Why on earth would you want to change that?

"your choice was not feminist

I need say no more."

No? So do you think that any choice a woman makes is a feminist choice, simply because it's a woman making it?

Its the hate I don't like.

Same here. I don't believe in fighting hate speech with hate speech. Don't engage, don't stoop to that level!

For example, there are supporters of Cathy Brennan on MN who were talking about how transactivists had vilified her, tried to 'no platform' her, and so on. I had never heard of Brennan so I went straight to her own twitter feed, where I found the most vile, transphobic stuff. I had just read on MN that mainstream feminists had been turned against Brennan by the propaganda of sexist transactivists. Well, guess what, I am a (mainstream?) feminist who turned against Brennan all on my own, because I read her own words on her own webpages ... that was enough for me.

your choice was not feminist

Exactly, spero.

"Sorry, sir, your actions are incompatible with your choice of religion. We don't allow you to make those choices"

Actually a Catholic can have an abortion but it would be incompatible with their religion.

They're still Catholic though.

I am a feminist, ,I changed my name. I have at times, waxed my fanjo, shaved my legs, worn make up, put up with sexist comments, welcomed sexist comments, probably made sexist comments.

But I still see those things are not feminist. Just because a woman makes a choice doesn't make it a feminist choice. Feminist means equality for women and if women are assumed to be the ones who will change their name it's not equal is it? If a woman says I will change my name because it is really my fathers name anyway that's a problem. Because why isn't it your name? You got it from a parent just as your father did. WHy would your bother say he had his own name but you just had your dad's?

I have seen some people on FWR make nasty comments about people changing their names. It's silly most posters don't agree. But we aren't a homogenous mass and we have different ideas about things.

What would feminists like myself do, I wonder, without the help of MNetters like hakluyt to help us know what are feminist choices and what are not?

So do you think any choice a woman makes is by definition a feminist choice?

"Your choice was not feminist

I need say no more"

Did you read anything else I'd written there? Is every choice a woman makes automatically feminist? Because that just sounds like sexist bullshit to me. It literally positions women incapable of doing harm or completely beyond rebuke. Is it that you think choice itself is the ultimate good?

I have at times, waxed my fanjo, shaved my legs, worn make up, put up with sexist comments, welcomed sexist comments, probably made sexist comments. But I still see those things are not feminist.

Well, that is your opinion. I beg to differ. Items 1-3 on this list are not the same as items 4-6. There is nothing NECESSARILY unfeminist about items 1-3.

See? Not all feminists think the same thing.

But it is the radfem view I am most interested in, on the threads I am most interested in. So I suppose that shapes my view of FWR.

The arguments over whether feminism is about the freedom to choose whatever you fancy, meh.

No no no, of course any choice a woman makes is not automatically a feminist choice! Who ever implied that?

There is a world of difference between saying someone's choice isn't feminist and that they are not feminist.

I mean if someone said they were a Christian and that they chose to go to the cinema, that doesn't mean that going to the cineme is a Christian choice. And saying that that doesn't make it a Christian choice also doesn't mean that the person making the choice isn't Christian.

I wear high heels and pretty dresses - that is my choice, it is not a choice that is made because of feminism, it is also not a choice that is beneficial to feminism. So it is not a feminist choice. It is a choice made by a feminist, but it is seperate to my feminism.