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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

100% Hate-Proof Debate Opportunity!

125 replies

MadBadDaddy · 04/05/2018 00:41

(An invitation to pour scorn on a man for being an old credulous hippy and not for hating women)

Why not? I'm a bit Wine, & you lot look like you could do with cheering up. There is a serious point here, but yes I am Mad, and here's how. I thought I'd share something original that is at least accusation-proof and, in my wildest dreams, debatable!

Here is the plate, hand me my ass. Bonus points for unconscious sexism.

*
There is a magic to MN/Fem boards. I believe in magic.
Some boards feel like a Spell has been cast that aims to make a woman feel safe and trusted, as though it were an actual, physical 'Safe Space' (refuge, etc.).
The words of the Spell are the Rules of the Debate for a particular topic. The words are spoken in parts, in many posts and statements. The Rules of MN/Fem aim to create a 'Safe Space for All Women,' to talk or to listen and not be afraid. Fearless debate needs this as a minimum requirement.

A 'Safe Space' ceases to exist once it is compromised in any way. Any male presence will compromise it. If one woman feels compromised, all women are. A male presence is as much of an intrusion here as it would be in any physical space, but there is a difference.

Any male voice here is not destroying a Safe Space, it is breaking a Spell. The threat is almost identical, but there is no spell in a real-world shelter, just locks and doors. Your shelter has transparent walls and advertises its address. The personality of the board adds the locks & curtains and creates Seclusion. When secluded from Men, Women can feel safe.

Any debate with a Male presence can always be perfectly civil (depending on the male...) but there is a sense that the spell blows away a bit with every post I make. I notice it as I type, and as I read. I am intruding, whatever my intentions.

I see the impatience, irritation or frustration in some posts (not all aimed at me :)), and they could be read as if it were the Spell that is being defended or complained about, rather than the Male presence that is being attacked.

As protective and powerful as it is, a Spell is not real like a wall is, it is an illusion. It is powered by belief. You are not secluded here, but can feel like you are. That is enough for the Spell to work. My voice reminds you of the illusion, but it was an illusion before I arrived.

The Spell serves a much-needed purpose, but it can sometimes be destructive if used without care. You are all magicians, whether you know it or not. If you cast the spell as a defensive reflex, what you are doing is a little like flinching. Sometimes a big, strong Shield can get in your way as much as your attacker's.

I'm not suggesting you change a thing, but just don't be fooled. Seclusion or isolation is a hard place to be if you want to get off your back foot.

As they used to say, blessed be!

OP posts:
DixieFlatline · 04/05/2018 00:44

This is FWR. Who suggested it was supposed to be a ‘safe space’?

UpstartCrow · 04/05/2018 00:46

I'm not suggesting you change a thing, but just don't be fooled. Seclusion or isolation is a hard place to be if you want to get off your back foot.

Thats a pretty tone deaf comment, this is is pretty much the last place on the internet we can talk about female biology.
It isn't up to women to get off our back foot. We are actually under fucking attack. We cant stop that happening. Logic wont stop it, the law wont stop it.

spontaneousgiventime · 04/05/2018 00:55

It might be a good idea if you sober up. You're not a good advert for the male sex.

Greymisty · 04/05/2018 00:56

I'm not sure about this post my eyes sort of couldn't even be bothered to even skim read it properly.

Just maybe chill out a bit?

ToeToToe · 04/05/2018 01:03

Blessed be the fruit. May the Lord open.

Under his eye.

(Birdseye)

ErrolTheDragon · 04/05/2018 01:03

Think you might need this Brew Grin

MadBadDaddy · 04/05/2018 01:04

I thought you might be bored with the usual idiots and offer you a fresh one.

Pull me to bits if you like, but it's my perception that women are unconditionally welcome here but men are guests. As guests, some rooms are more available than others. But I sense the atmosphere of certain topics (all MN, not just Fem) where a male voice would just disrupt or stifle.

OP posts:
AssassinatedBeauty · 04/05/2018 01:05

And? What is your point?

ErrolTheDragon · 04/05/2018 01:05

I mean, of course there's magic here, I'm a flipping dragon. Dragon whether there's a bloke or two around or not.

starsandstuff · 04/05/2018 01:07

"O hai let me, a man, explain what's really going on here and also cheer up you lot! Say what you like about me go on but oh by the way if you do you're sexist cos I'm a man."

Congratulations! You win all the badges.

ErrolTheDragon · 04/05/2018 01:07

my perception that women are unconditionally welcome here

There are some decidedly anti feminist women who would get a pretty frosty reception here, I'd think.

BarrackerBarmer · 04/05/2018 01:13

I will say that there is something extraordinary about women speaking amongst themselves on subjects that matter to them. And that I didn't properly experience this until recently. And that the majority of my recent experience of this has been online. And I'm thinking as I'm typing and I'm realising that in real life I only speak to women in small numbers at a time or one to one, and rarely without men present. The experience of being with a dozen or more women and talking about US is shocking in how rare and alien it feels to me. And it is completely different to when a man is there.

And yes, when I'm aware of the presence of a man joining the conversation, even online, the situation changes.

It's not that I want to seclude myself away from men entirely.
It's that it is so unusual to be part of an exclusively female conversation that I'm aggrieved at how soon that 'magic' evaporates when a bloke arrives.

It's like spending your entire life in the almost perpetual company of men and the moment you find an all female space you're yanked out of it by men immediately with a reminder that they think it's not a good idea.

DixieFlatline · 04/05/2018 01:15

I suspect this hostility and the ‘spell’, as you term it, is actually a fierce refusal to bow to our socialisation on our own bloody board. A refusal to pander and humour and bow at the appearance of men and their sense of entitlement.

DixieFlatline · 04/05/2018 01:17

It's like spending your entire life in the almost perpetual company of men and the moment you find an all female space you're yanked out of it by men immediately with a reminder that they think it's not a good idea.

Hah! Excellently put.

MadBadDaddy · 04/05/2018 01:19

OK points all round, special shout out for those reacting defensively to a post that is criticising you for being too good at being defensive.

It doesn't make me wrong, but you'd have to overlook me enough to find out. A Gin helps. Think of it as show&tell.

But say the word, if it's unacceptable, and I'll pull it myself. But you're proving my point. This place feels like Day50 of a Siege, and it's not me with my arse on a plate.

.

OP posts:
thebewilderness · 04/05/2018 01:20

...it's my perception that women are unconditionally welcome here but men are guests.

Feminists are unconditionally welcomed here on FWR. As they are in almost all the places where Feminists gather.
Women are conditionally welcomed here on FWR.

You cannot tell the difference I suppose. We can.

AssassinatedBeauty · 04/05/2018 01:23

It's so dull. A man telling us we're doing chatting about feminism wrong.

You think we're too defensive? Why?

thebewilderness · 04/05/2018 01:25

We appear to have cross posted Mad.
Had I realized that this was an exercise in proving you right I would not have bothered.

WomaninGreen · 04/05/2018 01:27

"I thought you might be bored with the usual idiots and offer you a fresh one. "

I think you went off quite a while ago.

BarrackerBarmer · 04/05/2018 01:35

This place feels like Day50 of a Siege

Oh mate. Day 50?

Women have been under siege for milennia. You've just only happened to notice in the last couple of months.

I'll let you in on a secret.
We talk privately too.

Mumsnet is just one of the few places where we discuss ourselves publicly and allow an audience.

MadBadDaddy · 04/05/2018 01:36

@BarrackerBarmer Thank you for describing your experience on my terms. You describe what I notice.
I'm not hostile to women's spaces, I just get the impression that an impulsive need for them is being exploited as a weakness somehow.

OP posts:
ILikeyourHairyHands · 04/05/2018 01:42

But yet you come here as a 'male voice' to bestow prophecy.

Can you not see the logical circumference in your argument?

Anyhoo, I'm not a fan of internet safe spaces, it's all up for debate.

I am however a fan of physical and literal safe spaces. Where women can't be physically beaten and raped and whatnot.

MadBadDaddy · 04/05/2018 01:48

Yeah I have my male voice what else am I supposed to do with it? I wouldn't care to be anywhere where 'male voices' like mine were in abundance right now. I'm not objectifying you as women, but grown-ups.

OP posts:
MadBadDaddy · 04/05/2018 01:50

(Grown ups i'm asking to listen to my branes. )

OP posts:
ILikeyourHairyHands · 04/05/2018 01:50

Mate, I know many 'old hippies', and I have to say, as I've got older and wiser, much of the sexual emancipation of women and the sexual revolution was just a new and exciting way for blokes to get into women's pants.

Now they want our body parts and identities too.

Same old shite. Different day.