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

Aspects of feminism are about choice, and about freedom from a prescriptive male view of 'woman' but I don't think the name-changing discussion earlier on this thread was arguing 'if I choose to take my husband's name then it's a feminist choice by simple fact that I am a feminist'.

Personally I don't think that either taking your husband's name or keeping your father's name are 'feminist' choices but I recognise the inherent difficulties in rejecting both those options.

I guess I struggle with the need to spend one post (never mind six or more) critiquing someone else's choice because ultimately they have made that choice already; they have shown in the reasoning that they shared that they are already aware of the arguments around whether it is feminist or not and my reiterating my viewpoint is not actually adding to anyone else's knowledge or furthering the debate*. That's not to say it's not valuable to express your viewpoint but then what? Surely we have more to add to the debate than a critique of another posters' choices because ultimately that poster never started a thread asking us to critique their decision making process.

*apologies if that's exactly what I did here too

Buffy, my personal view is that this ability to separate theory from the critique of individuals may come naturally to academics and especially to social scientists but it is not necessarily how most people react to it.

Thank you for this explanation, that actually made a lightbulb come on for me.

It's an issue that's come up in counselling for me, that I totally disconnect emotions and understanding. So I always tend to look at things from a really stepped back POV, and genuinely struggle with understanding when others don't. I just cannot wrap my head around people getting offended by it, hadn't actually twigged that I was doing the same thing here. So apologies to anyone I've offended, will make a conscious effort from now on, do prod me if I forget though.

Thing is, though, Outs, you're objecting to choices which you think harm women as a class. They might not all, or always, be un-feminist. Neither you nor I is the arbiter of What's Feminist.

Shaving & surnames are fairly easy to discuss, but what about bigger and harder issues like abortion to term? I defend it. Not every good feminist does, not by a long way. It's not for me to say "all limits on abortion are un-feminist", only to argue my case and listen to others'.

i'm struggling to see how many feminist issues can be discussed really without upsetting women at all. i appreciate that the language used can be more or less strong, but the meaning will still be there and people will still be upset by it. i mean, i don't actually want to go around upsetting women, it's not a goal of mine. but this is upsetting stuff. when i've understood that something i've said and done actually harms other women i've been upset by that. it doesn't fit in with how i imagine myself, and i can think of myriad reasons why i undertook whatever it was, but the fact that other women may have been harmed by my actions is a distressing thing to contemplate. e.g. i can think of an absolutely twatty thing i said to a female relative less than a year ago, which after the words came out of my mouth i realised i had voiced the same stupid crap that women hear all the time in terms of the expectations placed on them. i still feel like shit when i think of it and i hope she dismissed it as the bullshit it was. but i can fit that into a wider picture not to excuse myself, but to understand the complexities of what is going on here and why those words came so mindlessly to me such that i was basically parroting patriarchal crap when what i was trying to do was reassure her. but unless there are some subjects that are simply off-limits on this board i can't see how some people aren't going to be upset by this kind of discussion

Garlic - I get what you're saying, I think - but say you did vehemently feel that abortion to term was a strongly feminist issue - with regards to women's right over their bodily autonomy - should you have the right to argue that on this board? I would say that you would.

And vice versa.

If posters want to, in their opinion, proclaim issues as a feminist issue - should they not be able to on the fwr board? Or am I missing the point here?

Bookaboo, I think the idea that you either can have "either you husband's or father's name" is patriarchal, it's MY name as much as it is any of my male relatives'. The idea that men have names which they bestow on female relatives is at the heart of this whole issue.

No, I agree, Sabrina, the purpose of this board (and quite a bit of Mumsnet, as it goes) is to discuss those issues. On the boartion thing, I do strongly defend it as a feminist issue. But I'd be quite a dysfunctional adult if I couldn't respect the strength of other people's different views, and if I believed my opinion was the only possible right answer. Though it is, of course.

Buffy, I'm not inferring anything about Outs. I quoted this: "I feel it's important to be able to object when people claim choices as feminist which I think harm women as a class."

Actually, I am giving up again for now. I seem to be persistently failing to get my thoughts across when I reckoned I'd been clear and unambiguous. I must be speaking the wrong language ...

"Thing is, though, Outs, you're objecting to choices which you think harm women as a class. They might not all, or always, be un-feminist. Neither you nor I is the arbiter of What's Feminist"

Did you read the post in which I said that Garlic? Because I did NOT just say: That is not a feminist choice. I made a series of posts in which I:

described the context in which I felt it possible to say what was a feminist/ not a feminist choice.
Then I said, "In that context, I think it is fair to say, that was not a feminist choice". Even there, I am equivocating and not being definitive or setting myself up as an arbiter of what feminism is.
I also invited debate around the criteria for which I was making that assessment.

Could you please tell me what you think is so unacceptable about that ^^? And why it is I am not allowed to analyse something as feminist or not feminist? I agree we may differ about what constitutes harm but that agreement was itself in the initial exchange.

Garlic - I agree. I suppose nobody's opinion is definitively "right" - specifically on the subject of abortion - one person's feminist issue of women's bodily autonomy is another person's, er... well we all know what pro-lifers argue. But's that's not to say they're not allowed to air their opinions here - MN have said over and over, this is a topic to discuss feminism - everyone's views are welcome (except those of trollytrolls who have an anti-women agenda- HQ now take a hard line with them.)

Wow this thread moves fast! Don't suppose there's any chance of MN conversations supporting threading any time soon? ??

I should mention that I haven't read any of Olds posts that resulted in the statement "that is not a feminist choice", so my views are on that phrase in isolation.

Whoever said that the crux seems to be that statement being interpreted in two different ways is right I think - some people are dividing all choices (made by anyone, or just women?) into feminist and not-feminist, whereas others are considering choices to include feminist, anti-feminist and irrelevant to feminism. While I'm one of the latter, the phrasing of "that's not a feminist choice" doesn't sound like it means irrelevant, more like it's intended to mean anti-feminist.

And yes, most women who would think of themselves as vaguely "of course I'm a feminist cos I want to be able to vote/get contraception/whatever" will take suggestions that they aren't feminist to mean "opposed to what I think of as feminism, which means basic stuff like not raping", ergo I'm being told I must be in favour of rape.

Actually it reminds me of reactions where people are pulled up actions that were a "bit racist" and overreacting or going into denial because "racism is apartheid and lynching" therefore if I'm doing a bit of racism then I must be that bad, brain does not compute.

Buffy - great posts and will look again later, but I was wondering if you missed out 'not' or a similar word in your post on the cotton ceiling, as it didn't make sense to me when I read it quickly?

Also, as I have already said, did not describe anything as unfeminist, but said a choice was 'not feminist" There is a difference, which we have already discussed. I have not said anyone was unfeminist.

Bella thanks for that -- I can also be a bit detached and so it's a realisation that took me a while myself, after some accidentally hurtful conversations with people.

Er, yes buffy. Emphatically. The cotton ceiling thing is immensely uncomfortable to me - because (if I understand it correctly) it's demanding that women who are not wanting to be penetrated by penis sexually, consider being penetrated by a penis sexually. And calling them bigots if they don't want to.

There is something wrong with that.

Ah, right - the only definition of 'cotton ceiling' I was familiar with was along the lines of the glass ceiling, ie discrimination against trans people preventing promotion etc.

In the situation you describe, I completely agree that no-one is entitled to sex and they can be turned down without any reason at all. I would only add a caveat that if the lesbian used as a reason "I only shag women and you aren't a woman", that would be unreasonably hurtful.

Well, as long as accept that it's the the same level of insult if a gay man wouldn't want to shag a woman, yes that's fine, I guess. Or if a heterosexual man wouldn't want to shag a gay man.

*or a pre-op trans woman.

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