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

is a way we can still have the feminist theory/academic stuff but without alienating users who do not like it?

I've been pondering this as I write my RL stuff (and believe me, this thread has been very interesting for helping me think in my book chapter, so thank y'all seriously)

I wonder if we're in danger of getting a jumble of terms? To me, there's a difference between "academic" (not a word I use except to describe my job) "theory" and "abstract"? Theoretical/theory is not the same as abstract. And for neither is it necessary that they are "academic" or spouted by academics ...

Hmmm. There's a long history in feminism (the word only emerges in the 1890s but I'll be anachronistic and throw it back to 1792) of theory and practice egging each other on. Take Wollstonecraft's Vindication of the Rights of Woman. A foundational bit of theoretical writing (well, she was a philosopher) but it came from her own activism & experience in the French REvolution, and it fed into activism and theory over the whole of the 19C. WE could see the Pankhursts' focus on the problem of heterosexual marriage and male sexuality 100 years later as influenced by Wollstonecraft.

So I'd really want to argue passionately against a separation or a hierarchy of theory and practice. They are mutually developmental -- an ever circulating spiral perhaps?

Apols for history lesson, but it's important not to forget our history, I feel.

actually sorry the green sitting room is not a good example, as it is more strongly feminist-neutral than some other issues like name changing.

still, the point remains, that "saying that is not a feminist choice" is not

• judging another person's feminist-ness
• or value as a person
• or womanhood.

Sometimes I think people get really upset at thinking they are being told "you are not a good feminist" because they hear also "you are not a good person" and "you are not a real woman".

i'm not sure how a separation would work in practice anyway - would you have posters asking MNHQ to move threads between different sections, or people saying "not on this thread - this is a practical thread". there is of course the feminist theory board which isn't very well-used - most people seem to post everything here. occasionally old threads in the theory section get bumped by trolls and confuse us all (well, me)

even the "small and big practical stuff we can do" thread, which by definition included lots of brilliant practical suggestions, ended up with a few detours into some theoretical stuff as people's views on SAHM-dom collided (for example)

i bet you speak to the dog like that too

Didn't she cohabit Chimney? (hope i'm not muddling my early feminists). Very very radical in her private life as well as her writing? So a true frontrunner. Isn't she an example of how practice (almost inevitably) lags behind theory by quite a margin? Or do you mean in her own life? (See I already feel woefully uninformed )

Well, exactly, Petula if we're at all self-reflective or self-aware, then we're to a certain extent of course doing theory or even epistemology that's why I find poss which argue for the valuation of practical activism over theory (or dismiss "intellectualising") troublesome. Because I think we act and think, or think and act.

(I could start to talk about Austin & speech-act theory, but as my grasp on that is only good for 2 1st year lectures, I sha'n't)

I wouldn't like to see the threads separated. Who gets to determine what should be posted where ? - it just leads to another thing to get snippy about, imo.

As for definitions, it baffles me that 'gender abolition' is seen as something that needs to be explained whereas the use above of 'queer' isn't ? And yet I doubt very much that the general use of queer is what feminists/queer theorists/etc mean by it.

Seriously what's wrong with just asking on the thread if you don't understand ? There isn't, to my mind, a prevailing attitude towards harassing new or unfamiliar posters but I take on board that some do feel that to be their experience. I can only say that I will make more effort to ensure that I don't respond in that manner.

This is actually how I talk. To people. Honestly

Me too, Buffy, me too. Be out & proud!!

Blistory - I asked on the thread.

I also asked, what is the deal with FWR that the Op, who didn't understand it either, it transpires, didn't feel that she could ask a straight out question?

I felt like I was a thicko. And I'm definitely not. But, feminism is not my area of academic expertise. I'm doing a Masters. I have plans to do a PhD. I simply have a different area of academic interest, and the language that is used in feminism isn't one I'm familiar with.

I was just pairing words up Buffy

But i'll try to justify it for sport if it's bugging you.

I know you asked on the thread but that particular thread isn't really representative of how things generally go.

In any event, Bella's now on the thread you refer to and as the poster who raised the issue of gender abolition, she's probably better placed to answer any queries you have about what it means.

And, sorry for the double posts, if there is an undercurrent of "you have to know the language before you can post" (which I DEFINITELY feel there is) then that's an answer right there to "why a lot of women don't come on the feminism threads". And it's hardly inclusive and welcoming to do that. I'm robust enough to stick around (for the moment) but I have felt like walking away.

And, sorry for the double posts, if there is an undercurrent of "you have to know the language before you can post" (which I DEFINITELY feel there is) then that's an answer right there to "why a lot of women don't come on the feminism threads". And it's hardly inclusive and welcoming to do that. I'm robust enough to stick around (for the moment) but I have felt like walking away.

I'm also worried that this 'too academic' is going to become a stick to beat some posters with

But yes I can see that concern. Maybe drop the word academic and just think about specialised 'jargon'?

And oh fart my computer managed to post my double post twice.

Though I reckon a disputed hegemony™ is what's happening here right now

That kind of thing would work. I'd like it better applied to the old school tie or something TBH

I think its all getting a bit complicated.

I picked on the phrase 'that was not a feminist choice'; it wasn't directed at me but it encapsulated my annoyance about what I think goes wrong here.

Its the dogmatic assertion of some posters that they do indeed hold the key to what is feminism. There was no room for doubt in that phrase, no room for opinion, nuance, no attempt to open up the conversation and keep it going, explore WHY that poster or this poster may have given their individual choices an enormous amount of thought, so that being dismissed in so short a way is actually quite difficult to stomach.

For me, it is but a short step from 'that is not a feminist choice' to 'you are an awful person who supports rape and human trafficking'. Because both are examples of a dogmatic mindset, that does not welcome challenge and debate. Because what is said must be objectively true (porn isn't feminist, prostitution can never be feminist etc) any challenges to that objective truth must be aggressively dismissed as some kind of deliberate attempt to provoke because the poster couldn't possibly have any legitimate argument or genuine need to explore/debate.

I am not saying that this is what individual poster whose phrase I referred to was doing. I am saying that is how it seemed to me and it seemed that way to me because of my previous experiences, to which I have already referred at tedious length.

Frau, I think what a lot of people are missing is that posters on FWR are feeling their own way a lot of the time and using each other as sounding boards.

I can't think who the poster is but there is someone whose view of feminism is very much shaped by Marxist theory and believes that the root of oppression stems from capitalism ( obviously this is my interpretation of what I think was said ), there are others who subscribe to a more radical feminism, some who insist the only correct approach is to consider intersectional feminism, other who ascribe to x wave of feminism as being the purest form and so it goes on and on.

Do you really think that all of us who post on FWR understand all of this all of the time ? But when there is a degree of familiarity, it's much easier to pop in and say, oi, slow down, you're peeling back the onion a bit to quickly for me. I'm pretty sure the Feminist Pub came about as an attempt to provide an easy intro - not to feministm but to the women and men who post on the boards.

It transpires that my type of feminism is one that can't even spell the word. If I had the energy, I'd be embarrassed.

Blistory - this thread is "why a lot of women don't come on the feminism threads" and I'm telling how it seems to me, from my personal experience.