Feminism - College Project

[roisinjf]

Hello everyone!

I'm a college student in need of some responses to a survey I am doing for a report about Feminism and current attitudes towards it, including the influence of media and celebrity culture. It would be a great help if you could please answer it for me, here's the link:

www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/GX3WNNH

Thank you all.

Take no notice OP; they are mostly bonkers!

Take no notice OP; they are mostly bonkers!

Oh totally bonkers. Why, they even believe biology matters! 😲 😒

Roisin, you would have saved yourself a lot of bother and got more responses if your first question had been
are you
male
female
other
But, we have provided you with a LOT of material even if it's not what you expected.

FWIW I'm and ANCIENT feminist and feminist themed clothing, to me, would be DMs and dungarees and/or self made, so not a great commercial prospect.

Ps. If you want more than 10 free questions then esurv.org is a better bet.

I ... was recommended to share it here by my lecturer.

I am fascinated by this lecturer roisin! Did he/she know what he/she was sending you into I wonder???

First time I came in here, I was also eaten alive, basically because I had no perspective on what was being said and those who post regularly are very well educated on these topics. I have a much better handle on it now and as someone who studied things like anatomy, physiology and genetics at university, I agree that there is no sense in which a man can actually become a woman, nor is there any scientific evidence that indicates transwomen’s brains are female, despite the claims of some transactivists.

Sadly I too am gender critical, so stuck at the first question. Hope you get your pass, even if your survey is exclusive of radical feminists.

So do you think vaginas and reproductive rights are a feminist issue?

OP
As MsMcWoodle asks above (the link is to the map) please will you have a look at this petition & sign if you wish to? Thanks.

petition.parliament.uk/petitions/214118

Stick around & read the things these awesome women write on here there is so much to learn & dont be afraid to open a biology book, humans are male or female it is not possible to change sex

I thought it may be a media/celeb perspective. Perhaps it would have been beneficial to have 3 studies because there are different waves of feminism and the media portrays and reacts to them differently.
For example, advertising loves the type of feminism that says posing naked is empowering. It's not as keen on the type of feminism that challenges advertising's focus on the male gaze.
Advertising adores the misunderstood view of intersectionality that supports putting transwomen in adverts for women's products or fronting traditionally female campaigns. Radical feminism challenges that position.
Pro-sex work feminists get lauded by lots of the media. Feminists that support the nordic model get no-platformed and receive death threats.
One ten question survey can't begin to tease out those contradictions.

Take care if yourself Roisin - don’t let the posts here upset you. Good luck with your project- I’ve done your survey. Looks like you entered the lions den without realising. FWIW I think you’ve handled yourself exceptionally well in your replies here and shown maturity for someone I’m guessing is quite young.

Although I understand and appreciate a lot of opinions expressed on this thread, the OP is a college student so I think posters could have gone a bit easier on her. Lots of posters here should be a bit kinder imo. If you want people to understand your point of view and come along with you, then you need to be a bit gentler.

I have not read the thread but given that you have posted on a MN feminist chat I assume you have had many responses similar to mine already.

I cannot answer your survey due to the expectation that your survey expects any respondent to identify with a gender. Which most people do not. In those terms it is very exclusionary.

I'm interested to know what your teacher assumed of MN when they apparently suggested you post on here (huffy middle class women perhaps?)

The problem is that the OP, for all she has good intentions, has probably never considered the impact of forcing women into a gender box when what they should be answering is a question about their sex.

It's such a loaded question that any answer will be a bad fit for many feminists.

It's the classic "have you stopped beating your wife, yes or no?" trap

I do sympathise with a newbie wandering in to a place of ideas they may not have considered before, but to post asking for respondents to a survey, and then when people explain why the survey is loaded from the start in such a way as to be impossible to truthfully complete, a more gracious response might have been to stick around and understand why, possibly learn how not to exclude your target market, rather than ignore and instruct us not to bother if we don't want to.

The point is that many of us would in fact like to help, but CANNOT truthfully answer questions that are restricted to gender this way.

Vegetarians: what is your favourite meat:
Lamb
Chicken
Other

Fine, don't answer if you don't want to, but I'm trying to be inclusive of meat eaters here in my study on vegetarianism.

Sorry, OP. I too would have liked to help, but couldn't get past the first question. It's one, of course, that I see in other places lately, but when it's on a paper form I can cross out gender and correct it to sex.

So, you are doing a report on Feminism and current attitudes toward it based on a survey asking women on the Feminist chat questions they cannot answer.

Barracker - yes exactly.

Hi OP. Your gender question did jar a bit but I've answered your survey anyway. I don't think this was the right part of the site for you - unless you are looking for feminists? It sounds like you are actually after more mixed opinions so I'd suggest you hit the report button next to your original post and ask Mumsnet to move your post to _Chat instead if you want a wider range of views.

You've posted in a predominantly body positive part of the site, where people mostly believe that your body is fine for you regardless of whether you like knitting/unicorns/make-up or science/sports/money, and regardless of whether you have a male or female body.

Unfortunately, you start your survey signalling to a bunch of strangers that some people's bodies are such a bad fit for their personalities, you literally don't believe they are women.

By your premise this is a self selecting survey. It would be called out redundant if ever a meta analytic survey was requested.

Wow there is a lot of criticism and one upmanship here, can’t anyone be nice and just help out? College research is about someone trying to learn, this tread is just full of hostility- how unwelcoming.

I believe that trans women are women and that feminist issues are their issues - that’s my opinion. As feminists we should recognise that they will have female struggles as well as those that the trans community or general LGBTQ+ community has.

But they can't have 'female' struggles. It's actually impossible as 'female' struggles are directly related to female biology - which they don't share.

What are these 'female' struggles of which you think you speak?

Wow there is a lot of criticism and one upmanship here, can’t anyone be nice and just help out? College research is about someone trying to learn, this tread is just full of hostility- how unwelcoming.Wow there is a lot of criticism and one upmanship here, can’t anyone be nice and just help out? College research is about someone trying to learn, this tread is just full of hostility- how unwelcoming.

Sorry do you mean 'women just shut up and do the survey'?

Pointing out the flaws in a survey, and how it relates to the real world, is learning surely?

TERF. No, on both counts.

It’s odd that you should quote my words directly, and then rehash a completely different version.

“Woman should shut up and do the survey” - why are you assuming everyone commenting on this are woman?

I haven’t used the words shut up, so why have you? I have suggested, like others, a less hostile approach. ‘Be nice and help out’ e.g. let’s be supportive and constructive is not the same as shut up and do the survey.

Pointing out flaws? Do you mean tearing the research apart? No that doesn’t help learning it turns people off. No one who trains or teaches would take this type of approach to increase learning.

I’m disappointed that the focus is not on how great it is that young people are looking at these topics at college rather than taking the line that ‘feminism is redundant now’. Sure the wording could be changed, but suggestions on here are hostile and unwelcoming and I’m not the only person to have suggested this.

I like this part of the site, but not if the premise is to rip things apart rather than constructively discuss, shape, promote positive ways forward. This is a person who just wants to collect some views on people’s thoughts on feminism. You just sound like someone who wants to have an argument.

can’t anyone be nice

There's that plea to "be nice" again!!

No, I don't have to just "be nice". I will always "be kind" but nice? No.

GOLD - fine, be kind if you prefer that terminology. I’m not sure it’s a distinction that a lot of people would split hairs about.

And for the record my message didn’t say you HAVE to do anything, as you said it was a suggestion to be more constructive. But this seems to be the wrong site for constructive, that’s for sure!

I think the lecturer set her up.

I’m not sure it’s a distinction that a lot of people would split hairs about.

Well being kind and nice are completely different things.

Nice is telling someone what they want to hear regardless of the truth.

Kind is delivering the truth in a compassionate/considerate/constructive manner.

It's the difference between the Dr telling you your test results were fine and there's nothing to worry about (because that would he 'nice' and what you want to hear) and telling you that there is a problem but delivering the news compassionately as they understand it's not what you want to hear.

Do you understand the difference now?