This is what Helen from Mermaids writes about MN feminist posters

[AssignedPuuurfectAtBirth]

"If you’re a Mum and on mn that often to have time to engage with ‘feminist’ forums, you’re more likely to be a ‘stay at home mum’. These are bored middle-class women putting their privileged Uni-educated thoughts to oppressing a small, vulnerable, oppressed sector of society"

Nice bit of sexism going on there

twitter.com/mimmymum/status/967731110322036736

Ah yes, feminism, that movement well known for being all about being a stay at home housewife and living off your husband's income

I'd just like to say a cheery fuck you to the person who posted this on the first page of this thread.

@BetsyM00

Yep I saw the back and forth between her and MY on Twitter.

It takes about 10 seconds to find out who she is (including pictures of her and children) on google.

For someone having such outrage at her child's identity being public she's done a pretty poor job of protecting that on the internet.

Upshot she's probably unwittingly referenced her various online "handles" by posting across forums so it's easy to go from twitter to another popular online site (I'm deliberately not naming it) and from there to all her current work, personal online details, full bio, where she lives etc etc.

Worse than Jazz Jennings parents who only exploit Jazz, as though that were not bad enough. These people at Mermaids are inexcusable.

I'm not into these tweeters but surely the 'threats' about technology are tongue in cheek jokes because they think we are insane and think that loads of TRAs work in technology? So they're feeding that perception as they think that we are paranoid? Is no one else reading that comment in this way? It was a weird thing to say but I don't think it means that person is actually wanting to do anything, more like mocking us for our 'paranoia'

NinjagoNinja in the early part of last century, feminism was in a large part about improving the conditions of women who were at home looking after children. For example, maternity care and provision, maternity allowances. Second wave feminism, ditto - if you think about provisions of refuges, child crèches and campaigns to recognise the unpaid labour women do, campaigns against DV, those came out of the need to protect the position of women at home.

Feminism has always been about recognising, protecting and campaigning for women’s multiple needs, it has never been about being men, or emulating men. So if you are a SAHM, all power to you, feminism exists because of and for you too.

I'm not into these tweeters but surely the 'threats' about technology are tongue in cheek jokes because they think we are insane and think that loads of TRAs work in technology?

I do agree, but at the same time I've never come across a woman use that style of social media discussion. We never see it on mn, I don't see it in the feeds I follow on twitter who are women, Ive only ever seen it written by men, and potentially young girls on the TRA or MRA side. Ime and imo.

In a "it's the thought that counts" way.

Though, according to the screen shot below, this woman has suggested someone hacks someone...

Wait, wait, is that the sound of the Earth's core grinding to a halt leaving us vulnerable to the destabilising effect of solar radiation? Erm, no pet, that's the sound of bullshit.

This thread is gold

I don't think mimmymum is at Mermaids any more - a quick search suggests she's set up her own marketing consultancy.

Strewth. Who the bloody hell does their PR

That's Helen too I imagine!

Ah yes, feminism, that movement well known for being all about being a stay at home housewife and living off your husband's income

Sahm, wohm. It doesn’t matter. We are all united by just being women. MN is a pretty diverse place, and feminism aims to serve all women regardless of financial status, employment status, class, colour, race or creed.
Away with your division tactics. This whole dabate should be uniting us.

I work. I'm poorly paid. Both I and mythical "middle class sahm " are entitled to our opinion even if it doesn't coincide with your or each other's. Dismiss at your peril.
I what I would say to such bullshit.

Helen is still a trustee of Mermaids.

CapnHaddock

I thought that was a different Helen entirely?

Oh is it? I didn't know there were two of them

Rikki Arundel supports Mermaids and gives talks and educates different organisations about gender identity/Trsns isdues. I think it’s good to open up to all voices to try and understand different perspectives- and this is actually a very good talk/presentation (or whatever). This is what is being taught to people, possibly our kids too. I’d say try and watch with an open mind.

m.youtube.com/watch?a=&v=IFBU7h7fqLc&feature=youtu.be

At one point, there was a big kerfuffle on Twitter and some supporters/members of 4th Wave Now were absolutely certain that Helen had created a sock account, befriended several of them, and attempted to get real world information about them. Obviously, I personally can't confirm this, but I saw the account in question and it was very sealion-y.

I wouldn't trust anyone from Mermaids with my shopping list. And it's my conviction that this "charity" will, at some point, collapse in an almighty scandal.

Ah yes, feminism, that movement well known for being all about being a stay at home housewife and living off your husband's income

I thought that was a tongue in cheek comment? The point being the original tweet basically said this.

Wobbles, I have an open mind and was keen to avoid the taint of prejudice towards anyone "stuck in the wrong body ". This is a phrase from someone I knew in my 70s childhood.
The more I discover about Mermaids and the like the more I see that, in fact, I'm not the one with a closed mind about women and trans issues.

I occasionally buy the odd Cottage Pie from Marks and Spencers. Does that make me middle class?

What I do know is that Mermaids is nothing but a sham. If I had a child who was purging I'd take them to a doctor who would refer me to psychiatrists and doctors who treat eating disorders. I would not go to a charity run by anorexics who encourage anorexia. The same goes for gender dysphoria. Encouraging puberty blockers and surgery where your genitals are chopped up is extreme when the issue is mental just as extreme as starving yourself to death because you have an altered view of your body and what it should be. GD should not be given validity. This charity is in schools, teaching GP's (laughable but utterly shocking) and advising politicians. Scary stuff.

wobbles

Ive just watched it and totally agree with the majority of what she says.

The pink / blue rubbish that young children are subjected to is extremely restrictive. I didn't realise how much till I had a son. Everything said in this though, is at odds with the gender spectrum image mermaids use which reinforces gender stereotypes.

It reaches beyond identity as it categorically affects some girls achievement in stem and maths and there is an issue for boys within the arts (see work by the Campaign for Drawing and many other bloggers such as the Artful Parent on art and boys). See the bbc documentary last year, "no more boys and girls."

Regarding brains. I believe we are still overly rigid in our thinking about this and there are as many studies disproving a difference in men / women/ boys / girls as there are that prove it. (There was a good bbc documentary about it a few years ago: www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04knbny)

The brain is so plastic in a neurotypical person I simply can't see how we can accurately discount the impact of the very social stereotypes Rikki talks about affecting brains. There's supposedly no difference at birth in brains. At the same time, baby boys apparently respond more/ differently to fast moving images. Young boys learn to read better if they can move more. Is that innate or social? And you can always find exceptions to the rule. So why pigeon hole?

I think that there are issues with the way we talk about 'spectrum'. It isn't a line. For gender or ASD. The links below show a better way of describing the spectrum for ASD; I think it could go further and be a 3D sphere from all my experience within autism. And I think we need to think about 'gender,' that social construct and 'brains' in a similar way, but not linked to colours or sex. Multifaceted. So yes I have superb spatial awareness skills often associated with 'male brains' (I put this down to Lego) and also other elements that might be associated with 'female' brains - it's too diverse to pigeon hole. It is significantly harder for a man/ boy to be seen as feminine by society though, which is the crux of the issue as Rikki says.

This would be, in fact, completely non binary, as there really should be no link to anything as being only for men or women - unless it is to do with the functioning of their medical biological sex. Which is from conception.

Sex is completely different as Rikki says. Sex is binary, with a tiny amount of intersex people in the middle. The gendered world young children are exposed to us so confusing. There will be people with true dysphoria, but we know the stats show most realise they're happy with their bodies when they work it all out and may decide they are gay. Take away the ingrained stereotypes and people can be who they are happily.

(I hope this makes sense; my brain is very visual and lateral. Brains are awesome...)

the-art-of-autism.com/understanding-the-spectrum-a-comic-strip-explanation/

I disagree with the 'stuck in the wrong body' but many people experience body dismorphia about all sorts of physical features, and that is very challenging for them to deal with.

It's so incredibly sexist though isn't it. I mean surely this whole supporting all women and being inclusive thing should involve not slagging off women. There's enough sahm/wohm/breast/bottle nonsense as it is. Surely inclusivity is accepting and not being horrible about women as life choices.
Also, and this really bothers me, where is the analysis of why women are staying at home (some by choice obvs) where is the thinking about the pay gap and childcare and all the really boring shit that we have to put up with while men generally don't have it as bad.
This whole 'we' in tech is sad, it seems to be a comment that is completely blind to the reasons women aren't, and haven't been represented in stem.
FFS.
(Working mum, went to uni as a mature student while holding down two jobs, first in my family to have been to uni, from working class background, one cat)
Get lost with your sexism.

The self agrandising seems to be a standard characteristic of TIM’s.

They mostly all claim to have an IQ of a bajillion, can hack into super computers, invent time machines, have psychic abilities and Jack Bauer like agent training. All this on top of looking hawt, 47 screaming orgasms in a row, doing womaning better than women and being able to gestate humans in their non-female bodies. Oddly though they seem to struggle with logic, sentence construction and in this case, basic grammar... if it’s a quote, you use quotation marks you ding bat.

It’s mostly the ravings of fantasists.