What really matters

[Kimonolady]

I’ve been a poster for a while, but have only ever lurked on the feminism chat threads.

I’m so, so angry at how fucked up society is. How violence towards women is so widely tolerated, and seen as the norm by many. Reading about Theodore Johnson in the news yesterday and John Warboys today has made me feel so angry and like nothing is changing.

I hate though that when I come on the feminism threads, the issue of violence against women is barely discussed. All I see, again and again, is this obsession with trans issues.

Look at the top threads in this section right now: complaints that a trans woman is on the cover of Vogue, trans women and the Hampstead Heath Ponds, lesbians having sex with trans women, GRA, Lilly M, Jamie the Musical, Mermaids. Why the fixation?

Im so mad about what’s happening in the world that I want to scream.

OP I tend to post about violence against women on other boards because so many posters say they don't read the Feminist board and think we're all mad. (this dates back to way before the trans issues).

so alleged professional cricketers attempting to kill their wife and getting nothing, Ched Evans - all those things that concern me, I post in Chat mostly as it's probably more used than Feminist Chat.

Both these cases are horrendous - and I believe both topics in Chat yesterday and today? Better to give them more exposure rather than less.

this isn’t a helpful response. Rather than just tell me that I’m like a toddler with a 2 piece jigsaw, maybe try and explain why to me?

Every day people on here are pointing it out.

Here's mine:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/3123667-to-think-that-Ian-Huntley-is-most-definitely-not-a-woman

Try reading some of the threads that are expressing the concern that women are being put at risk by men (not genuine trans people), using the potential new law to get access to women. You can't help but trip up over the threads in here that point it out in great detail.

Be very careful what you are ignoring, it WILL be affecting every woman in the very near future.

Worries about trans ideology and activism has rather taken over feminism (at least what I would recognise at feminism). On the one hand it IS at the expense of other issues but on the other hand we have needed to fight this. It’s not through choice. I’d rather never hear anything about trans ideology or the GRA ever again but it can’t be ignored and it’s not unrelated to male violence anyway. The main reason I object to trans ideology is because I can see that from TRA perspective male violence is invisible. The proposals for the GRA have been made by people who have no understanding of how violent and predatory men operate in the world. Or if they do have understanding they are willfully ignoring reality in order to push their agenda.

The only feminist ideas that are meaningful to me are those based in practical reality, daily existence, fighting for improved lived experience and quality of life for women and girls all over the world. Male violence contributes to so many problems for women and I think people get tired of hearing about it, and maybe they think there’s nothing can be done, that it’s a fight we can’t win, that’s why it’s not a popular subject. I refuse to believe that the state of things is the way it’s got to be. It’s not a natural state of affairs and it can change. We mustn’t give up, though it really feels today like it’s not worth going on after the news about Worboys and Theodore Johnson.

OP I hear you. But trans ideology (i.e. the idea that 'woman' is a social category you can opt into or out of, rather than a material reality) represents a serious, in fact existential threat to all forms of feminism and activism that centres women and their interests. That is why fighting this ideology is the priority for many at the moment. I don't believe that the focus on this is in any way disproportionate - if anything there is not enough awareness of the consequences of adopting this ideology in law.

If you don't have a name for the class of people who are of the sex who can produce eggs and give birth, you lose the ability to generalise about them as a class and to analyse and name how they are globally disadvantaged/oppressed/exploited. You lose the ability to fight the sex-based oppression of that group, because you lose a whole raft of policy tools that previously helped you to do that. You can't define women in law any more, so you can't write legislation that adequately protects women from a wide range of sex discrimination. You can't channel public resource towards specific women's health/safety/education/justice/economic issues any more, because you can no longer a) define the problems that you are trying to solve and b) target resource appropriately. Of course this suits misogynists right down to the ground which is partly why this ideology has gained so much traction.

Here's an example from international development. Female genital mutilation, or FGM, is a form of violence which is both extreme and is only ever practiced against girls, mainly in low and middle-income countries. There is no analogous form of violence against boys which is anywhere near equivalent to FGM in terms of the severity of the resulting life-long health impact. FGM survivors, feminists and international development people fought a long cultural battle to get the term 'FGM' into general use, rather than the previous 'female circumcision', because it highlights both the severity of the violence and the fact that it is a women's issue. Naming the problem in a way which is specific and which communicates the impact has really helped this issue shoot up the policy agenda. It allows funders and policymakers to create initatives and legislation which target this form of violence effectively. And yet I have seen commentary from supporters of trans ideology saying that using the term FGM is cissexist because it promotes a definition of womanhood that excludes transwomen. They would like us to stop making reference to the sexed bodies of women - and yet that is what enables us to tackle problems like this effectively. If the idea that FGM is a 'bad' word ever gained serious traction in the policy world, and we couldn't name this form of violence any more as a women's issue, or even identify it as a policy priority any more, that would be an enormous setback.

On a tangent, my sad prediction for 2018 is that this will be the year in which we will see serious efforts from trans rights activists to obstruct international development and global health funders from funding women's health and women's rights initiatives.

To go back to the original point, if women's condition under patriarchy is normally like a building in disrepair, then the current situation is that the building is on fire. Radical feminists and others are trying to put the fire out so that we can then get back on with the task of fixing the building.

My outrage over Worboys and Johnson is indescribable.

But it's the bloody impotency which is almost worse.

The sure fire knowledge that society does not give a single flying fuck about women. It's so obvious.

YY. It's exactly how I felt. I nearly cried when I read about Worboys.

And to me the whole trans agenda and the slavish pandering to it just rams home completely that "couldn't give a fuck" attitude that society has towards women. Our safety, our dignity, our privacy, our boundaries, our feelings.

Suck it up women, you're meant to suffer, not like the real people. The fact that society treats trans identifying men the way it does absolutely convinces me that everyone sees them as male. There is no way they would prioritise women's rights issues like this.

To be fair we had quite a long thread about Johnson - I started it.
The trans threads tend to be faster moving so towards the top of the board but we do discuss a lot of other stuff.
The other big issue is if you go off trans topics and onto VAWG for example, you get jumped on and derailed by MRAs doing whataboutery.
It is infuriating.

tbh I think if a man wanted to perv on women there are much easier ways than going through the whole process of identifying as a woman to get access to a female changing room to do it

Except men have hid in septic tanks before now to access women. And there is no "process" if self ID comes in, and even without it if organisations don't respect women's rights enough to use the EA exemptions. Not sure what you're having such trouble with.

I think from my point of view I would have agreed with you except that when you focus on women's issues...

Women's march and pussy hats yay: NO that's transphobic.

Women got the vote 100 years ago yay: Paris Lees who would have had the vote in the article.

Michfest lovely women's festival: shut down transphobic.

#MeToo: what about men and transwomen?

Germaine Greer feminist hero: no platformed by activists.

Just trying to be a woman and a feminist is not possible without either centring or choosing not to centre transwomen. You can not organize, talk, buy a book, attend a women's event, hire a worker, go on social media without picking a side. I fervently wish (and all the trans people I know do as well) there were no sides. But feminists didn't do this.

tbh I think if a man wanted to perv on women there are much easier ways than going through the whole process of identifying as a woman to get access to a female changing room to do it

It's already happened though, men have already done this. In areas where changing rooms have been opened up to men the incidents of voyeurism and abuse have gone up so it happens. This isn't something women are inventing, not a bogyman, it has happened a lot. They won'y need to identify as anything as all women as all areas that are segregated by sex will be open to men. Women's safety chucked under the bus to give men greater freedom.

I wonder how many incidents is acceptable to people who don't see it as an issue?

I wonder how many incidents is acceptable to people who don't see it as an issue?

If 100 rapes, or two murders doesn't keep a man in prison, then what exactly will?

Nothing -VAW / sexual violence the world over is not really something that society cares about, is it.

We've seen it with the reaction to #metoo, immediately women were told to shut up as it made men feel bad.

Am with you Kimono, can’t believe how the epidemic of violence against women isn’t given top priority, not necessarily on MN as such, but just in every day life among the decision makers of our country, it’s a fucking disgrace and just seems to be escalating

You're right OP. I very rarely post on the feminism section anymore as it's just a trans section. The transactivists must fucking love it. They love being talked about. I agree with a PP that it is an important subject that we can't ignore but frequently when something really relevant to FWR happens in the media I look for it here and don't find a thread or I find a thread with two posts because it isn't about trans and I give up.

I think there are three issues, one that the trans activists did a very good job of convincing people that anyone who disagrees with trans ideology or who is genuinely transphobic that that person is a "radical feminist". I see people posting about their radical feminism who are barely feminist let alone radfem.

two You've also got lots of admitted non-feminists from other areas of MN who just think trans ideology is nonsense and who post here because that's where the trans threads are. So they have no specific interestest in the other FWR threads but do bump the trans ones.

three I also see a lot of people who came on the board through other forums because they saw that the conversation was happening here. So for them while they support all feminism and probably do other stuff in RL this is sort of their pet feminist issue.

three I also see a lot of people who came on the board through other forums because they saw that the conversation was happening here. So for them while they support all feminism and probably do other stuff in RL this is sort of their pet feminist issue.

Perhaps the point is that there are many, many places it's possible to discuss other feminist topics but very few where trans topics aren't heavily moderated with users banned for expressing gender critical views? I mean, it's here or the subreddit, basically.

As I mentioned earlier on the thread, I'm personally highly active IRL on the gendered aspect of austerity. I actually do a lot of practical grassroots feminist work - none of it relevant to trans issues. I'm sure other posters do similar.

But with trans? Want to confirm that your heretical thoughts aren't just you? Want to discuss it with other women? Want advice on anything practical you can do? Well, places to do that are few and far between because they've all been targeted by TRAs and mostly have surrendered. You can't even post a gender critical comment on a Guardian article without it being deleted, FFS.

So, that is why this board seems a one issue board. Only Mumsnet has been prepared to allow gender critical women to congregate and discuss these matters.

So really - rather than asking why the Mumsnet seems so focused on trans issues, it would be better to ask why Mumsnet is pretty much the one place where critical discussion of trans ideology is even allowed.

Every feminist I know is all over VAWG issues IN ADDITION to working to shore up and protect women's rights.

So this reads like a request to stop discussing trans issues.

You cannot acknowledge that there is systemic VAWG perpetrated by men and then argue that any man who declares himself a woman is somehow suddenly harmless. Declaring oneself to be trans doesn't act like a magical baptism that reduces ones risk to women.

In fact, there is hard fact behind the evidence that there is a huge over representation of transwomen imprisoned as sexual offenders.

I'm capable of campaigning about more than one issue you know.

Why don't you restrict yourself to the threads that discuss the topics you are interested in, and avoid the ones that bug you, instead of asking other posters to dial down their concerns?

There's a huge thread on Worboys already.

I very rarely post on the feminism section anymore as it's just a trans section

This is what i mean - do you really think anyone gives a shiny shit about genuine trans people? How many times do we need to spell it out - this is about MEN not about TRANS. Wake the fuck up.

If the GRA goes ahead there's nothing to stop John Warboys walking into any women only space.

There is a lot of focus on trans issues. But I understand why, as this is the biggest issue womens rights have faced in a long time...if such a threat has ever came up before. Its literally removing all of womens hard fought for rights in one swoop, if this change to the GRA goes through. The behavior of a lot of 'transwomen' is also a huge show of male entitlement in action, as such I see why its discussed a lot.

It really is fundamental for feminism and women's rights, IMO.

It's because the rest of the boards are safe enough to discuss other aspects of violence against women.

You can post about Worboys, Johnson, the pay gap, FGM, abortion rights, porn (well, sometimes), prostitution, domestic violence, financial and sexual abuse etc on all the boards on mumsnet. You cannot post about Trans issues anywhere else but FWR.

So they stay here, where we're allowed to talk.

The reason I am so angry about the whole TRA political ideology is exactly for the reason you are angry. It's the core misogyny at the absolute root of how women are treated, how it is ok to treat women, how it is ok for men to be given a sense of privilege and entitlement over women.

Male violence, domestic violence and 2 women murdered a week by their partners, rapists and the utter lack of any real justice anywhere in the process plus people lining up to explain why it's not that bad a crime really, the inability to see the link between the man who rapes a stranger in a dark alley and the man who rapes his non consenting partner in her own bed at home because he 'didn't realise she really meant no', twats setting up cameras to secretly film women, men insisting on their right to be in women's intimate spaces and their right to carry out smear tests on women even if the women clearly don't want them to because only their feelings matter - it's all the same root thing.

It's about the core internalised beliefs that men are raised with in this culture, about their own rights and about women's rights. To give way to the TRA lunacy green lights these beliefs and values openly, with full political support at the highest levels, and it's appalling. It makes an utter mockery of women's rights to safety, to freedom from violence, and will remove society's freedom to point out, talk about and criticise toxic masculinity and misogyny. It's silencing women so they can be more conveniently abused.

This does read like 'ffs 1, stop wittering about silly pet issues like trans identity politics, just let that happen and 2, worry about the real stuff affecting women'.

1 is the biggest, most serious threat to women's rights, political, social and cultural identity in my lifetime. It's the whole issue of women's lib in microcosm, it's a concerted attack of a men's rights and mens sexual rights movement to control and reduce the power and even the language of women, and to enshrine in law the right of feelings and wishes of men to overcome ALL legislation around women's consent, privacy, dignity, safe spaces, even the basic right to gather apart from men. It's fucking terrifying. It legislates women into second class citizens with women protesting or even discussing alternative views about this being fucking hate speech. The whole agenda is driven by men who hate women .

2. • well that battle's pretty much lost for good once 1 gets into the statute books. We won't even be allowed to have real statistics about men's violence against women once 1 is achieved.