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

Outs yy I realise you consider it to be your name. I think I did say in my earlier post that I thought you had defined the context of your decision and your comment. I understand them. That doesn't mean I agree with them.

It doesn't change my view of the issue of naming although I respect how you frame the debate and how you reached your decision iyswim? I am aware of that feminist approach to naming as I'm also aware of the view that we should all surrender surnames to be truly feminist! My own opinion sits somewhere in the middle and my reality is an uneven mix of names depending on which domain I am in.

Garlic I think your points are clear sorry if that sounds patronising. I couldn't think how else to phrase it

I feel a bit frustrated because in some ways I think FWR should be my natural home. I don't remember a time when I wasn't a feminist. I've studied feminist theory and the history of feminism. Professionally feminism has been at the core of many of my roles. Yet we're over 800 posts in and I can't shake the opinion that there is an underlying view that 'all waves of feminism are equal but some are more equal than others' and that makes me uneasy.

Perhaps that's my issue but it does mean I'm more likely to lurk and occasionally post than become a regular. And, it probably goes without saying, that's not a point I would have brought to anyone's attention if the original poster hadn't asked the question.

Heads up, Buffy, I'm about to post a quote from you to the 'genderless' thread. I'm doing this because I'm extremely tired and picking up tools where I find them, not as a personal comment on you.

I think the stuff about whether one is the final arbiter on feminism or not, goes without saying. I mean obviously no one died and made me, nor anyone else, into the god of feminism. So why do we all have to say "in my opinion" before everything we say, like some version of Simon Says? I mean I wouldn't say it if it wasn't my opinion; and obviously, I may be wrong, and / or you may disagree. So what is the point, what is the actual semantic content, of saying "in youropinion!" as some sort of rebuttal to something you don't agree with? OK, so you disagree. Why? And what do you think? It's when you say those things that we are having a conversation.

but is that what people want of the FWR board? If everyone just said "in my opinion" as a prefix or a suffix to everything, would that do?

I mean mn is full of strong opinions. And some of them place unrealistically high demands on people who are going with the flow and living a normal life. We have for instance the infamous phrase that "cereal is shit in a box." I know what this means, and it does not mean that if your child eats cereal you are a shit mother. I think everyone else knows that too.

In my opinion you are correct, rosa.

Does everyone preface their posts with in IMO in AIBU, or wherever? In the main, it is discussion, where posters are posting their opinions. I'm not going to apologise for feeling at home in FWR, or that a lot of FWR posters' opinions fall in and match with my own.

And I bought 'Fruit 'n' Fibre' at my dc's request today (because they had no weetabix )

DD likes Coco Pops. Dry.

I'll get my coat.

There was an epic coco pops thread some time ago - who'd have thought mothers people could come to such blows over stuff that turns the milk brown cereal??

A few years ago there was an epic and hilarious thread about stuffed pasta

Actually (she says, intellectualising) it goes to show how emotive feeding children is and how instrinsic it is to the role of mother in our society

Living the feminist way is both difficult and complicated.

for instance. I once sat and said nothing while men senior to me made horrible sexual jokes about the only woman in the company at their level. I am ashamed of that, on one level. It was not a feminist choice. On the other hand, I know I am only in the position that i am in because certain people are comfortable with me. More comfortable than they would be with a person who picked them up on things like this. I have learnt to fit into corporate life in a way I simply was not capable of doing in my 20s, and I was always getting let go and bollocked and quietly sidlined. Anyway, this senior woman doesn't need my support; has a lot of very real respect for her work (which is exactly what makes these eejits uncomfortable and feel the need to engage in that snickering puerile "humour" behind her back); if I hang on to my job and even get promoted, this company could be a very different place for women in 5 or 10 years time.

So what is the feminist choice? I actually believe, having said all that, and having rationalised why I felt I needed to do what I did to fit in - I still believe that what I did in that moment was not feminist. And I know why it worked for me and why doing something else would not have. I am ok with that and I am ok with continuining to call myself a feminist anyway. Others might disagree.

Life's hard, you don't get to be a feminist about everything all the time and get everything you need, let alone everything you want - or sometimes, it seems, anything you want. I am fine with admitting that. If I apply the sort of analysis to myself that Outs applied to someone else, does that make it seem any better? Let's be clear. I have been in situations repeatedly through my life that have made it apparent that what is often in tension with my feminism, is actually earning a living, or material survival. this is far from a unique position. whether you want to come out and stare down the barrel of that bleak situation is up to you. but it is what we are all up against.

Ok you rampant feminists, your last chance to convert me before I throw in the towel and sign myself up for Stepfordisation.

My book club wants to find the ultimate Feminist Novel for our next meeting. What is this??? I can only think of Marilyn French and reading her stuff wants to make me pull out my own intestines.

What seminal work of feminist fiction would you recommend? Is there even any?

You performed femininity. We all, women and men, live under patriarchy and have to play by its rules to an extent in order to survive. This extent, ime, changes throughout life and according to our circumstances. A dark-skinned employee listening to the same jokes about a dark-skinned director would have made similar choices.

There's a truism that we must thoroughly learn the rules in order to break them effectively. I suppose each woman's take on this will be different, I just hope enough of us are pulling together.

Rosa, I get what you're saying. This is what life is like. It's like the old 'in the back of the taxi thing' - taxi driver says something overtly racist/sexist and you have the choice: Enter into an argument with him, or nod along non-committally, whilst rolling your eyes and huffing a bit for the journey. Will either option actually change anything?? Maybe you should always do the the former - but hey, you're out for the night, and this is gonna seriously put you in a bad mood about the whole thing... so you do that thing... you let it slide...

Hahahahah at the thought of a Stepfordised Spero

The ultimate feminist novel's a bit of a tall order, innit? Don't they like you??!

How about going back in time, and doing Fear of Flying? Or A Room of One's Own? Zipless fucks or house servants, take your pick

I read my mum's copy of fear of flying at about age 14 (she didn't know - I read every book in sight). It was quite eye-opening at that age!

I also read my mum's Fear of Flying at 14! Because she told me not to.

I read my mum's Fear of Flying aged around 14 too

Feminist novel is def worth a thread of it's own. I'm not at all qualified to answer it - I've read some novels in the recent past that wouldn't be classed as "feminist' but that I think are strongly feminist - in that they have strong female characters, have a real feminist subtext:

Things like - Kate Atkinson, Maggie O'Farrel, Margaret Atwood (obv - I'm still catching up!). JK Rowling's books had a strong feminist leaning - the ones she wrote as R Galbraith - I read them on holiday and I loved them.

That's interesting. I did like Fear of Flying - read it as a youngish teen too - but isn't it all focusing soon much on finding a man, having sex with a man, ergo validating yourself by your relationship with men?

Is there a feminist novel that doesn't revolve around shagging men?

Margaret Attwood's good :) Just realised I read The Female Man when it came out. I was very taken by the character Janet. The story may have looked a lot different to a 20-year-old in 1975 than it would to a grown-up feminist in 2014, though, I don't know.

Spero - I'm not sure I'd class FOF as a feminist novel now- maybe groundbreaking in terms of women's sexuality. Which is good also, obviously.

She seemed to talk about WASPs a lot - and at the time I didn't know what WASPs were - me and mother even had a conversation about it. I eventually looked it up and found it was white anglo saxon protestant - so was she Jewish? I've always wondered?

The Women's Room

Yes, she was jewish.

She was Jewish wasn't she? She used a lot of yiddish terms in the book as well (although I didn't recognise that at the time I read it).

xpost, garlic.