Not all women

[phoolani]

Reading yet another feminism thread that didn't hit double figures replies before someone interjected with 'notallmen...' And the original post didn't even talk about all men, just about 'so many men...'
Have you ever seen an opposite example? Of men interjecting a 'notallwomen' in anything disparaging women as a whole?
I had a quick Google and came back with nothing.

Perhaps I didn't explain myself well, Josef. My point was that you wouldn't expect to engage in debates on any specialist subject unless you too were equally well informed. It's rude and intrusive.

For whatever reason, men quite often pop up on Feminism Chat, a space in which feminists chat (crazy, huh?) and start either asking us to explain ourselves or giving us the benefit of their lofty insight. It's annoying.

There are other boards for discussion of theory. There's Feminist Theory and Feminist Activism. This is Feminist Chat and, yes, we generally do agree on basics, though there are a range of views. The one thing we do agree on is that life's too short to give Feminism 101 courses to sceptical blokes.

I personally don't believe men can or should be considered feminists and am quite happy to defend that view. When a man proclaims himself a feminist I am suspicious why he wouldn't be content to be known as an ally. He could do just as much good as an ally. It makes me think that he will try to take over and I worry the focus will be shifted away from issues which really matter to women in favour of centring issues men think are important (as I think we are seeing in liberal feminism).

I accept that other feminist women (I don't accept that men should have any say in it) feel differently and I understand they have good reasons for that. Also NAMALT, natch. I think this is largely a semantic issue anyway.

But when the subject under discussion is men, then men ought to be able to contribute to the views being expressed. If you don't agree, maybe make representations to those that administer the site.

But when the subject under discussion is men, then men ought to be able to contribute to the views being expressed

Why?

Because they're entitled to have a say.

Perhaps I didn't explain myself well, Josef. My point was that you wouldn't expect to engage in debates on any specialist subject unless you too were equally well informed. It's rude and intrusive

Is feminisim a "specialist subject" ? As opposed to something which in theory should be of interest and relevance to 50% of the population?

There are other boards for discussion of theory. There's Feminist Theory and Feminist Activism

Which almost nobody posts on.

I lost track of this thread.
Is TAAT a thread about another thread? Sorry, not quite up on that stuff. This isn't really about another thread, more inspired by many threads which have something in common and I was asking about that. I don't think it's necessary to refer to any particular thread to comment on this thread.

Feminism is a specialist subject. The basics are not universally known and take some learning. Some seem determined not to appreciate that and piss everybody else off.

Yetanother - Reading this thread I'm appreciating your initial point.

piss everybody else off - Yeah, some only support free speech as long as it accords with their own views.

Nobody said anything about having to agree. Just about understanding basic feminist thought, whether you agree with it or not. But at least understanding what it is.

Yetanother - Reading this thread I'm appreciating your initial point

Phoolani - thank you for raising such an interesting topic for conversation. It took me a while to grasp quite what you meant, but when I did I realised how interesting it was. And the thread began with some interesting ideas and discussion from women too. However, where you say, I lost track of this thread I totally agree and I am so sorry that it has yet again gone the way of the trolls and their apologists. I did kind of predict that at the start because it happens so often.

The general pattern is

• interesting topic raised
• interesting discussion
• male poster appears pretending to be some sort of sympathetic ally pontificating his extra-special point of view which is always ever-so-slightly off-track or whiffy
• conversation turns to that post / poster and thread is derailed
• that poster generally asks stupid questions, delves into tangential theory and his own ever-so-special ideas to show us from his position of testosterone fuelled objectivity that we are wrong / doing it all wrong and if we would only listen to him and his special powers of manly objectivity we'd be doing ourselves a big favour (and can't we see where we've beeing going wrong all this time?).
• as the thread evolves the man takes his rightful place by nature as the centre of attention and women's energy is diverted into answering him (if they are being nice) or telling him to fuck off (if they are being nasty). Either way, he gets what he wants, which is to be the centre of attention and to sap women's energy and time and to divert what we want to talk about.
• sometimes the thread also attracts the more common garden misogynist who is clearer and more direct in their dismissal of women and feminism. Usually, this poster does not waste too much time - they simply post outrageous one-liners that posit the usual misogyny.
• the 'reasonable' troll then uses these posts to show that he's not a misogynist because he disagrees with this common garden stuff don'tchya know.
• the 'reasonable' troll usually reminds us that he has a view too and the internet is a free space, blah, blah, blah.
• sometimes because they play the hurt little boy or 'reasonable' man they successfully divide and conquer amongst women posters.

Why we entertain these trolls (or potentially one troll using different identities - they are all so similar it would not surprise me) instead of just ignoring them I really don't know. I do find it quite sad, though, because good conversation would be had otherwise if it wasn't all about them or being diverted to having to explain feminism 101 to men who are actually not interested at all or arguing against peurile latently misogynistic POVs that they think (or present) as somehow new and ones we are not already fed to the fucking teeth with.

I'm perfectly fine with male contributors to the board.

Contribution being the key point. A word that usually implies a positive addition

Cadno, you've goaded this board for years. No need to make representations to MNHQ for me to consider you've made not a single contribution in that time.

If a headline says "Father found with three slain children and dead wife" I always understood that the journalist is either signalling to you that the guy in the story did it - because they're not allowed to say so explicitly yet.
Or, they're just trying to get the point across that he did it in shorthand at the start, it's like tapping your nose, it isn't about the wife not being as important, I thought.

Similarly, I thought when they include details about him - "the quiet gardener who volunteered at the church" etc., it isn't to try to humanise him, it's to say - 'Look, this monster was hiding in plain sight! People said he was shy! The neighbours only thought of him as that badminton addict! But, he still did this terrible thing, nobody would've expected it, now think about what secrets all the other people in the world could have, people you know. Any one of them, seeming normal to you every day at work, they could be different, evil, to their close family.'
It's just titillation really, to make the story a bit scarier, so it'll stick in your mind more, so I assumed!

(Sorry! That was all off topic!)

On topic, no I've never heard a man say NAWALT. Heard lots of both men and women say NAMALT.

Probably you get women thinking about individual men more as exceptions, and wanting to stick up for them and defend general men, because women are taught and socialised to care about other people loads and to try to empathise and sympathise with others, but men aren't really.

Yetanother - perfectly summarised, thank you. Interestingly, it's nearly identical to a list someone posted many moons ago about BTL commentators on feminist articles in the guardian. The more things change, the more (some) things stay the same. It's so boringly predictable. Be careful, though, you may be dangerously near to being accused of (whisper) hating men. Depressingly, it's entirely plausible that they're not always men.

Meeep, it's an interesting interpretation. I'd suggest it's also a very unusual one. Most people who have given it some thought realise that the man is normalised to give credence to the woman being to blame - she left, she took the kids, she had an affair etc.

BTL?

Oooooohhhhh 'man hating'. As an aside, I always love it when a frothy misogynist defends their rights to porn, women's bodies, women's labour, women's space, women's energy and women's time, etc. whilst also defending DV, rape and other abuses and then as a final parting shot accuses us of 'man hating'. :)

BLT - below the line. As in: the comments BTL of any article on feminism justify the existence of feminism! It's a 'law' but can't remember which one.

I hadn't heard it before but it does resonate with what is happening here!

Feminism is a specialist subject. The basics are not universally known and take some learning

That presumably explains the take up of around 9% of women in the UK who say they are feminists.

It seems a rather self defeating position to adopt if it means that taking an interest in issues which affect women has to be treated as some sort of unpopular syllabus choice.

It seems a rather self defeating position to adopt if it means that taking an interest in issues which affect women has to be treated as some sort of unpopular syllabus choice

I've never seen rookie feminist women patronised or corrected here, though. What I have seen is women engage and actively learn, often though asking genuine questions or testing views. I've also seen male posters who think they know it all and / or ask 'innocent' questions that are designed not to elicit responses to learn from, but to provide a further platform for them to grandstand their latent misogyny and or 'BLT tactics' (yes, I'm so stealing that once).

Very articulately put Yetanother, exactly!

And here:

Why we entertain these trolls (or potentially one troll using different identities - they are all so similar it would not surprise me) instead of just ignoring them I really don't know

I don't know either, it's happening to virtually every thread lately and I've definitely been feeling it's a deliberate invasion and seems like one person with different names. Posting style the same, all over the board, but one at a time, you never see them together do you? i know someone said on another thread that they engage for the lurkers, to argue the points, but it is making many discussion threads on here pointless and unreadable.

YetAnotherSpartacus what is the difference between a man propounding a reasonable criticism to what is being asserted as feminist, and misogynistically trying to detail threads and draw attention to himself?

Or isn't there one?

It seems that you don't want anyone, particularly men, coming on here and arguing against the general consensus of the community. You want more of a forum for exclusively feminist women sharing thoughts and experiences. That's fine, but that should be clearer.

Because no matter how a man phrased any objections to what any of you are saying, or how faithful he was to the thread, he would still be accused of 'mansplaining' and trolling and derailing and everything else. I doubt someone could challenge any feminist tenets on here without eliciting that response.

You obviously do not want critical voices on here.

You are wrong, Josef.