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

Oh, I think trolls who want to mansplain objectivity deserve to be kicked in the kidney by sociology essays, then drowned in bibliography

How about a compromise? The regular posters promise not to use academic jargon. The people who complain about academic jargon promise not pretend to be unable to understand ordinary plain English................

Depends what you define as "academic jargon." Sometimes it's necessary technical language to refer to complex issues in a hurry.

I made what I hoped was an on topic post on an interesting looking thread earlier, only to find that I had stumbled into a private fight between what I assume are 'regulars' (I know at least one of them is due to my infrequent visits to FWR). I was ignored in favour of continuing the fight by all but one kind poster, and yes, maybe my post was idiotic and dull but still - I have been confirmed in my view that this section is completely exclusionary and thus irrelevant. It's a shame.

And the comments about posters needing therapy, and daring to be intellectuals, are why I don't post here.

Also, I have a book on feminist history to write ... Some of us are activists by being theorists

Your post wasn't idiotic and dull, rabbit, it was good,

When you posted, Arsenic had already started a TAAT in chat mocking the original thread. I don't know why she did that. But it made others pretty defensive, I think.

I hope you stay! Come to the feminist pub thread, it's generally relaxed!

Yonic - I want (wanted?) to engage in debate and have my horizons widened. I wanted to learn. I thought that might happen in FWR.

Instead it's full of sniping and regulars and non-regulars and a "party line".

How is that going to encourage anyone who isn't a regular to post? Someone who doesn't fit the party line to continue in the section?

Frau.... I'm sad. I don't really know what to do. I don't consider either DS or AS on those threads to be regulars so I think it's unfair that they get used as proof that "FWR is such a fighty place". But no one can stop people starting whatever threads they want wherever they want, as seen by AS's TAAT in Chat.

It wasn't supposed to be sniping at a non-regular by me - I had just been on another thread were someone (non regular) had posted something goady and man hating and another newbie had said "oh, I see what FWR is like then, I'm off"

I really don't know what to do. I can see that if a poster doesn't like FWR, now is a good time to post like that and disrupt any flow of newbies, I hope it was just a coincidence though.

I lurk (and learn) a lot.
post little.
tbh what keeps me off is the mra posters that keep derailing very interesting and enlightning threads.

hats off to the women who are able to patiently tear them apart respond. thank you so much for that!

(To be clear, I don't put DS in that category - he/she isn't party line by any means!! but think DS is here to discuss issues)

Yonic - you're very kind. Thing is, while I can see that AS is certainly just being goady mcgoadypants, other posters who I know to be regulars instead of engaging with what it turns out are the very few people who actually wanted to discuss the OP's OP, chose instead to ignore us and continue bickering among themselves, with the OP and with AS. That is what is exclusionary, not the fact that some goady person was goady.

While I'm at it - and not trying to be goady, just commenting on a post in my line of sight - 'daring to be intellectuals' and 'I have a book on feminist history to write' - those aren't exactly welcoming comments either. IME people who describe themselves as 'intellectuals' often...aren't. And I suspect many of us (including myself) have books to write, this is why we are titting about on the internet. Maybe not on feminist history (maybe - gasp - on a different subject) but actually - why does having a book to write make someone a better or more worthy person? I suspect my life experiences outside of staring at a blank screen and then thinking fuck it and taking a look at MN for a few moments to pretend I'm not trashing a deadline are more relevant to most threads in here than my publications (either the fact of them or their contents (especially their contents)).

"And I suspect many of us (including myself) have books to write, this is why we are titting about on the internet."

Off topic, but this made me laugh!

Rabbit, it's a response to being under attack. Which they are. The knowledge and insight that some of the more academic style posters bring to FWR is wonderful. Equally wonderful are some more eccentric or humour posters. There really is room for all.

sadly i think there are rather a lot of posters who only look at this section when there is another round of "what is wrong with the FWR section". inevitably at that time there are quite a lot of hurt regulars, critical regulars, critical non-regulars, and curious non-regulars, and no one is really seeing the section at its best when some people are trying to defend themselves and others are trying to work out what everyone wants and you get the odd goady one who likes to take the opportunity to stick the boot in while they can. so critical and curious non-regulars are put off for yet another period, until the round of "what is wrong with the FWR section" stuff comes up again and the cycle restarts

If I can chime in on the language used...

I'm an academic who spends most of my time with non-academics; even worse, I'm a social scientist, and our ability to take simple ideas and turn them into impenetrable prose is really unparalleled.

Over the years I've come to think of academic-speak as a kind of foreign language: it's lovely to use it with fellow speakers, but a bit rude and exclusionary to use it in mixed company.

Sometimes threads are really theoretical or take that turn, and then I think maybe it's okay to break out the academic stuff. But I just wanted to throw this analogy out there because I do think those of us who speak academic should be a bit more polite about it -- even I despair sometimes when an interesting thread goes off on an academic tangent.

I know I'm probably guilty of being too academic-y in the past and I echo the suggestion that people should feel free to tell us when we're being too abstract in an unhelpful way. It's not about dumbing things down, just trying to stick to the same language basically.

Yy Petula.

Good points, Petula & Dreaming :) Also, Dreaming, thanks for being bilingual enough to use 'abstract', which is the word I've been groping for a few times when I've written 'academic'!

Garlic yes maybe abstract is a better word... I don't think all the theorists here are academics, and not all academics do the theory talk.

I think sometimes we forget that the aim of theory is to better understand our world... too often it just obscures reality for its own sake.

My point about writing a book wasn't to show off, just to say that sometimes, being theoretical is an activist act, IYSWIM. And it's not meant to be exclusionary. It's part of what I do for a living. And I really do sometimes get pissed off with having to defend what I do for a living.

Posters upthread have been quite robust in making their views about the lesser value of theory in relation to feminist activism -- I was debating this, suggesting that theoretical work (like writing books) can be feminist activism also. We need to know our history, and we need to have thoughtful researchers and writers who aren't afraid to try to deal with complex and difficult topics. Sometimes this needs complex and difficult language. Sometimes that bleeds over into other aspects of writing, such as on messgaboards & discussion forums.

I'm not a regular here; if I had time, I might be, but as I said in my 1st post on this thread, the knee jerk reaction to me being straightforard about what I do, is really exclusionary & off-putting. I don't moan on about posters who use textspeak as off-putting or exclusionary.

Seems to me and this is NOT an original idea! that the problem is talking about a singular "feminism." We need to accept feminisms and feminists. Some will be on the street activists; others will be embedded in the patriarchy ("femocrats"); others will be like me, putting of deadlines tittng around on the internet (love that phrase it;s so so so true!), but when we're not distracted by this sort of debate, we're beavering away finding out stuff about women's lives, thinking it through, thinking about its implications for bigger narratives, and writing about it.

Live and let live and so on ...