Excellent article on the problem of transphobia

[crispbuttyfan]

www.huckmagazine.com/perspectives/opinion-perspectives/mumsnet-transphobia-online/

"Regardless of intention, it seems to me that Mumsnet has allowed transphobia to become associated with their brand through their inaction. These boards have now become nothing short of echo chambers, spaces in which anti-trans rhetoric is continually employed with little objection."

The evidence is apparent throughout the feminism board.
Where lies are spread with abandon and the truth is slandered as 'gaslighting'.

If you jump on someone you instantly reframe the conversation to you attacking them (and of course you run the risk of attacking someone genuine at a personal level which is to be avoided anyway.) so they then are able to rail against you - now you’re not talking about their argument you’re talking about them, and narcissistic people can do that all day.

If you address the point they’re making and draw them out, it’s usually pretty apparent within 3-4 posts what or who they are. Especially when you’re in a technical discussion. I could probably make a single point on a range of technical areas but if I started getting into the detail my lack of knowledge would be exposed.

Also very, very few ‘angry’ people can stay calm. I’m actually realising this as I get older. The skill of just staying calm is so valuable. I was in quite a heated work meeting a month or two back where people were really after blood and I was the only calm person in the room. Eventually I was the only one anyone listened to because I wasn’t being an arse, I wasn’t throwing blame or calling for people to be fired, I was trying to find the root cause of the issue and fix it.

I credit my toddler with increasing my patience levels cheers son.

The lack of emotional control in a big swathe of the population is something I seem to notice as I get older. Has it got worse or am I just too tired to get angry?

I’ve never lost it on here at anyone but by god, through gentle questioning some people have lost it at me. (Been on here about four years but reregistered after the intern breach with a clean email.)

And when someone loses their shit, they’ve lost, it’s as simple as that. MRAs lose it and call you a cunt. Bang. Exposed. It’s immensely satisfying

To teach science in the UK you need at least a 2:2 degree in a relevant subject, and a postgraduate teaching qualification. I also know plenty of teachers and they are utter grammar pedants .

Also the science word salad - that’s the big tell. Sounds impressive but it’s meaningless. While an undergraduate degree just touches on these fields it should give the student the basic background to go off and read a few reviews and get a rough understanding of it. Just like how I’m a geneticist/mol bio/cancer/development person but the background I have would let me go and have a look at a fair few fields and at least get a very rough idea of what the situation is. I imagine it’s similar in most fields.

MRAs are particularly easy to gently prod towards an illustrative rage explosion.

BowlofBabelfish Thank you . It was wonderful to read your clear explanations after the confusing um, explanation? Also another thank you to the other posters who made this thread such a pleasure to read , with one or two exceptions. (Not naming names as I do not want to be accused of being mean or bullying.)

You’re very welcome :)

I’ve learned so much from FWR - it’s a constant education.

So, is it wise to take a highly skeptical approach? Or take posters at their word and see where they go with it? I know keeping the tenor of these conversations as polite and respectful is important for them to remain open.

Personally I want an explanation of their premise. If it holds water then it should be easily explained, easily replicated and easily proved.

That tell is especially useful if the poster begins any comment with the word "ladies". Now, ladies, shall we all be ladies together?

(Two page later) Well A and B are nice like ladies are supposed to be and you other mean bitches should learn a lesson from them!

Never fails.

See also sending unrequited PMs

This was a great read. Thank you to all the intelligent, and scientifically knowledgeable posters who dissected the word salad placed in front of us. It was a master mistress class.

I find it helpful to point out, in as impersonal way as possible, the dynamics of a conversation and all the various tells, after the inevitable flounce has occurred. These "post mortem" discussions we have here are invaluable in helping each other to recognise the patterns - there aren't that many of them and they're all predictable - and respond accordingly going forwards.

And it's always good to leave those with the best expertise - here, the fabulous scientists among us - to take the lead and not do too much clogging up of the thread with less helpful interventions. It provides more clarity for all.

To begin with I had a bit of admiration for their dogged persistence, having risen to the challenge of "Blinding 'em with pseudo Science" they didn't immediately run away when met with an array of MNers with actual PhDs in molecular biology and biochemistry.

Shame it ended up with the usual bullying accusations and flounce. What have modern science degrees deteriorated to, that students no longer learn about how to cope with the robustness of scientific debate, eh? They'd pitch a shit-fit the first time they got back peer reviews for a manuscript

BUT! Hopefully, there are lurkers who have seen this thread, and that actually posters here are discussing things intelligently and factually rather than being the rabid hysterical mobs of myth.

LOL! "How dare the reviewers give me feedback? Is there really any need for that kind of personal attack?"

They'd pitch a shit-fit the first time they got back peer reviews for a manuscript

Oh god, yes. For totally empathy-free demolition of your pet theory, some older scientists can't be beaten.

I suspect even the milder 'Poorly expressed, and needs substantial revision before I can judge whether they are saying anything new' would go down like a lead balloon.

I'm very sorry but I can't follow most of this thread but if I was wondering what people think is the aim of the writer? Is it to get Mumsnet to clamp down on what she perceives as "transphobic" - so to ban any threads discussing the impact self-id may have on women's rights? Is it to scare off advertisers? She mentions a few advertisers in the article and I know there was some sort of Twitter campaign recently that involved getting in touch companies that advertise on MN and warn them off.

"...to parents struggling to cope with postnatal depression"

The parents who struggle with pnd are mothers. I don't know if the writer deliberately chose to use the word parents rather than mothers here, as she does refer to mothers elsewhere, but it did stand out to me.

They'd pitch a shit-fit the first time they got back peer reviews for a manuscript

I was livid the first time I got back the peer reviews for a manuscript I submitted. How dare the reviewers not accept without question my unalloyed masterpiece?
You learn, you learn.

They'd pitch a shit-fit the first time they got back peer reviews for a manuscript I'm doing a little moonlighting, helping a hapless student get his head round the art of writing a good dissertation.

He is keen, but loses faith very quickly and often resorts to "Fuckin' 'ell! You KNOW what I meant"

He has yet to fully understand that the academic world will judge him on how he expresses himself on paper as well as in person! So a hideous writing style, devoid of the usual passive voice and any references, is having to stand in the stead of actual, you know, actually knowing things and being able to communicate them!

I am hoping the penny will drop soon, as I have a nigh on irresistible and growing urge to laugh and/or slap!

Reading the writing of people like that always used to make me want to say "no, and I'm not entirely sure that you know what you mean either".

I'd be an awful teacher.

I was livid the first time I got back the peer reviews for a manuscript I submitted.

Me, I was distraught - all those years of slog in the lab culminating in what was to be the core of my doctoral thesis, and it felt like they just ripped the guts out of my paper and stomped on them in front of me! It's funny now .

(And although I use very temperate language when I'm reviewing manuscripts, I'm sure many an aspiring academic has felt that I've ripped their guts out and stamped on them).

AAK I did have to stop lecturing Mainly because the government was doing it damndest to make it untenable and also because, as the years went by, the level of autonomy in the students lessened, until I felt so bloody sorry for them I fear it may have started to show!

I only got to them at 16 or 19, course depending, and it began to take more and more time persuading them they how they wrote made a lot of difference to how they would be graded. One young woman made a fairly hefty complaint about me when I wouldn't give her a higher passing grade. She could point out where all the science was in her assignment, sadly she couldn't point out her synthesis of said information, nor any cogent arguments. That was reflected in real life communications, she just shouted and cried a lot!

I am a bit sad when I think of all the time I gave over to putting on extra sessions for writing academic papers. Lots of time end effort on my part and, because they just hadn't got any past experience to base it on, no real understanding and a lot of frustration, from far more students than you might imagine!

Quite honestly as I'm not scientific, my antenna was up just for the username.
It's as if someone had thought "Now how could I blend in on a forum full of silly mummies and get them to trust me?"

Apologies to anyone else with Mummy in their username. It's just an indicator to me. Especially plopping into a Feminism board.

and . Whoever said, 'talk to the lurkers', you were talking to me.

Although I have just spent ages reading this thread when I should be working...

To begin with I had a bit of admiration for their dogged persistence, having risen to the challenge of "Blinding 'em with pseudo Science" they didn't immediately run away when met with an array of MNers with actual PhDs in molecular biology and biochemistry.

I think it was a case of mixing up ambition and capability. These conversations go better for TRAs on Twitter where responses have a character limit and it's harder for onlookers to recognise a lordly pronouncement for the shite that it is because the rebuttal has to be equally short and the conversations also tend to be more time-limited.

It's an entirely different matter on a message board with unlimited post lengths, a more leisurely pace, and a more permanent record.

She could point out where all the science was in her assignment, sadly she couldn't point out her synthesis of said information, nor any cogent arguments.

Glad you said it was a girl, as I was wondering if you'd taught DS. To be fair, the Asperger's perhaps tends to mean he assumes that you know what he knows without the minor detail of having to write it down.

It's taken me a while to persuade him that if the result, say, was that his simulations show that the beam weight can be reduced from 60 kg to 34 kg without loss of strength by remodelling the profile, then somewhere he needs a sentence that says 'The simulations show that the beam weight can be reduced from 60 kg to 34 kg without loss of strength by remodelling the profile' rather than leaving this for the hapless reader to unscramble from three diagrams, a reference list and a results table.

Mind you, the same goes for at least one Italian engineering professor, whose utter incomprehensibility keeps my freelance hours up nicely.

To be fair, the Asperger's perhaps tends to mean he assumes that you know what he knows without the minor detail of having to write it down. Ah! That, being a whole different kettle of fish, only adds to the fun, for all concerned. But I don't think I ever found repeating my self to someone with aspergers, dyslexia, dyspraxia etc, anywhere near as dispiriting as just someone who knew no better and didn't know they could change that.

Every FE and HE student I taught with any LD/SEN always knew they had something to learn, even if theY were utterly mystified by the need for it!

And as my subject was rooted in exerciser physiology I had a lot of students with a wide variety of issues. I used to think it would be worth doing a study on!