I'm just going to squat here for a wee while, that ok?

[DamnSummerCold]

Seriously WTF is going on here at the moment?

I settled down with a drink to spend a few minutes (hours) reading MN. At least half if not more threads have contained the most amazing sexist bullshit!!! And while normally they'd be crushed within a few comments and ignored the amount of agreeing is shocking.

There's one in relationships where the OPs partner is blaming her for his delayed organism, while several posters have blamed 'death grip' & porn, they've been dismissed. she's been advised to research different positions...and to watch porn with him and incorporate it in to their sex life. And what's wrong with porn anyway???WTF?

One where a single woman arrived home to find a strange workman in her private garden,(having climbed over a locked gate) asked him to leave, no the (male) neighbour gave him permission. She pointed out he couldnt do that, asked him to leave again, No, so she told him to get the fuck out.
The amount of posters telling she was aggressive, should have made him tea blah blah was scary.
Admittedly there was some cracking posters going WTF and being very eloquent But really??
6 months ago people would be advising 101. And saying she was silly to confront him, now she should be making tea…

There's a few others with the Oh that's men for you, and 2 obvious shitstirers dropping their pearls of manly wisdoms over various threads…

Has there been a smarter than usual MRA invasion??

This feels like the only place of sanity…

And no there's nothing anyone can or should do to stop it but doesn't mean I'd defend people's right to do it

Agreed.

Honestly, I missed both of those threats, so my opinion is uninformed by those.

My ire is that everywhere I seem to see weird tinkly anti equality stuff coming from women, (if indeed they are) who genuinely seem to think they aren't misogynistic. Or that they are the nice feminists, and that anyone who isn't being compromising hugely is one of those rabid nasty men hating feminists.

Or wearing massive blinkers to parts of their arguments. It is like they don't want to think things through because it might hurt. Obviously we can't do a thread about thread, but one earlier about drag had folk dismissing the "fishy" insults and sexualized names, the character femme appearance; and genuinely thought this was a rejection of misogyny.

It's incredibly important that we safeguard the bodily autonomy of pregnant women, even when they are making decisions that are harmful to the health of the foetus and themselves.

USA Health of pregnant women being jeopardized by punitive laws

Part of treating women like grown ups is to allow them to make bad decisions and poor choices, precisely because they are adult humans. To restrict all women because some might make bad decisions is wrong.

I didn't see the smoking thread but my position is that I would defend a woman's legal right to bodily autonomy - even if that means smoking in pregnancy, but I wouldn't defend her morally. Although if it was a situation where she had stopped doing worse, and replaced it with smoking then I'm aware that complicates things.

I do see all sorts of misogynistic stuff on here, as you say Bird, presented as the reasonable position.

Also grown ups are accountable for their actions.

Part of treating women like grown ups is to allow them to make bad decisions and poor choices, precisely because they are adult humans

I'm really uncomfortable with this. The bad decision is not actually affecting the mother. I am not sure how one would deal with it but it is a repugnant decision to make.

I see addiction as a health issue, not a moral issue.

For the addict. Their actions affect others. legalising all drugs would not just affect the user.

At what point do you give the unborn foetus/baby personhood, and make actions that harm it illegal? The current abortion limit, or earlier? What actions against the unborn foetus/baby would warrant criminal prosecution?

I don't know and I don't have the answer.

For the moment all I'm saying I'm very uncomfortable with the idea of just crack on , do what you want, bodily autonomy and all that, we won't judge you.

There are many things that aren't illegal but are also not ok.

Nobody's talking about legalising all drugs. It's the difference between trying to get addicts into treatment or dealing with them via the criminal justice system.

The feminist issue here is that there was a thread full of people saying it should be made illegal for pregnant women to smoke, thus criminalising pregnant smokers.

• It would erode pregnant women's bodily autonomy, making them subject to laws which do not apply to anybody else
• It would discourage pregnant smokers from getting help, or even antenatal care for fear of being caught
• It would be totally impractical - around 10% of women are still smoking at the time of delivery

Nobody thinks smoking in pregnancy is a good idea. Criminalising it is also a very bad idea.

Why are the only alternatives some people can imagine judgment / criminalisation on the one hand and telling people to just crack on and do what they want on the other?

At the moment, HCP do their best to identify pg smokers and refer them for support to quit. Both of these steps are opt-out, not opt-in, in order to identify and support as many women who need help as possible, so CO tests offered to everyone and automatic referrals for all identified smokers.

It's not perfect, in fact ASH have identified some serious shortcomings in current training. One thing is clear though, judging and shaming don't work.

I'll stop now because I don't want to turn this into yet another smoking thread

I smoked heavily while pregnant with my first child. I don't think it's a feminist issue unless you are discussing it in context of criminalising women who do it.

What I don't like are the threads on the Relationships board in which women in abusive relationships are told in no uncertain terms that they absolutely MUST leave at once. Often they're harangued until they abandon the thread they started for support.

Similarly, threads in which rape victims are told that they have a moral obligation to report, or else be responsible for any further crimes the man who raped them commits.

"I think smoking while pregnant is a very shitty choice, but I will fight to death for a woman's right to make that shitty choice. "

It's senseless polemic pseudoprinciples like this one above which have caused the demise of so-called feminism.

Care to say what your own view is on this?

I would fight for the right for all to be given a decent enough education that they don't make 'shitty choices' or indeed to need others to fight for them to continue to make shitty choices as this keeps them enslaved.

Would you want smoking whilst pregnant to be illegal, alongside educating women out of the situations they would otherwise find themselves in?

Do you think women are incapable of acquiring knowledge to make informed decisions from choices without the threat of the law?

Do you?

I would fight for the right for all to be given a decent enough education that they don't make 'shitty choices' or indeed to need others to fight for them to continue to make shitty choices as this keeps them enslaved

The 2 women I mentioned were a teacher and a legal secretary so one educated to degree level and the other to at least the exam level of whatever 16 year olds sit, plus a working environment surrounded by other educated people. Do you seriously think they , or for matter, anyone could have missed the message smoking is harmful to a foetus?

They made shitty , selfish choices . The teacher was also an exclusive and extended breast feeder so was passing nicotine on to her child in her milk. She also smoked whilst feeding.

The only women I know who continued to smoke heavily throughout pregnancy were a teacher and a legal secretary, both in long term committed relationships- not vulnerable.

And the ones I know weren't like that. They were street-involved, very young and coming out of extremely abusive relationships. And had given up worse drugs. One young woman I knew was genuinely one of the best people I have ever met; she was kind, loving and special and all the professionals that knew her wanted the best for her. I won't go into the details but what she had gone through in her young life... and she smoked in pregnancy.

I don't like the idea of smoking in pregnancy or drinking or taking drugs. But one of the best indicators of a bad outcome for a baby is DV in pregnancy. And NO ONE talks about it. It's all about controlling the woman. Why aren't we banging men up for it, going on about it, offering incentives for women to leave? Because it's not about the baby, it's about controlling women's bodies.