Is this really a feminist board?

[GaspingShark]

I am a crap feminist. I haven't read a single book on the subject. Not De Beauvoir, not Greer, not Butler. The reasons for that are to do with a disability that I'd rather not go into, but I am a woman with a brain, and the Republic of Ireland is having a referendum on repealing the 8th this week. There it is, look, thirty threads down. And this "Feminism and Women's Rights" board's primary concern seems to be "What it will really take the peak trans the world?"

So I'm asking you, because I genuinely, honestly, cross my heart and hope to die, believe you are all better read and/or have more experience and/or more knowledge of being a woman than I do.

Doesn't that bother you? Doesn't it bother you that, four days away from the repeal vote, there's one thread on that in the bottom third of a fifty-thread page, and two or three dozen trans-related threads covering everything from Amnesty International to Jordan Peterson to exactly what Munroe Bergdorf told Venice Allan? Does it give you any pause for thought?

LaSqrrl*, you also switched to starting a thread about deflection, your thoughts on other areas of feminism and that transwomen can NEVER be impregnated!!

. Why is it ok for you but not me?

I also find it odd that those saying there is not enough posts about repeal the 8th..have not even posted about it themselves.

And that's how you know the goal is "shut up" rather than "let's talk about this other important thing too/instead".

OP, sorry but that is an ROI vote, what do you want posters in the UK to do about it? Surely it is for our Irish sisters to be discussing and to head up threads to discuss it, if that is what they want! However as the ROI is a completely different country it behoves UKrs not to start telling our sisters there what they should and shouldn't do, which if one does is rather a colonialist attitude. Not every Woman supports abortion, those of us that do have said we support their rights to bodily autonomy, pray tell what else we should be doing? I know the issues, I have read up on them and given my support on twitter by sharing their threads, but at the end of the day it is not my place to sit on Mumsnet and tell them what they should do in their Country. Mind you, I couldn't get over the amount of people who sat in their armchairs to tell Scots what they should do during the Scot Ref, which was a sanctimonious, colonialist bullshit mentality. I suggest you go start a thread yourself and see what happens! And take some time to read up on some feminist literature, try Mary Beards Women and Power A Manifesto just to get you started, simple and easy to read. Trans issues have the very real potential to affect Womens sex based rights and is a UK issue which is why UK feminists are discussing it, our Irish sisters have shown support and given some of their experiences with Self ID but they haven't en mass turned up to tell us what to do!

Is this really a Feminist Board?

I think it is, but once again a thread has moved from the OP/Feminism to "why do we always talk about Trans Issue on FWR site, etc". again

I'm wondering that myself, especially given the level of (excuse me ) ignorance towards Transpeople that is so often evident here. No-one (least of all the posters who seem to helplessly keep bringing Trans up to suit whatever patriarchy-bashing point they need some reassurance on) is interested in having their preconceptions or prejudices challenged,

So why can't you stop talking about it? And if you can't stop talking about it, why can't you listen?

Rosy
your thoughts on other areas of feminism and that transwomen can NEVER be impregnated!! . Why is it ok for you but not me?

The thread is about 'why not about' abortion rights (as a deflection) about how we are 'doing feminism wrong' and ignoring the assault on women's rights, which always does include abortion, and will never include transwomen, who will never face unwanted pregnancy. I sensed that the tangent you went on was about MHI and how you feel sorry for them. I am not sure that clarifies it to your satisfaction, but you seemed to go astray somehow, perhaps I read more into it, which is possible given the medium.

@MadBadDaddy - in what respects are the posters on this board ignorant of trans issues? What is there that you know and we don't? 'Cos, you know, you could try to explain rather than just being insulting.

Well, thank you for your explanation LaSqrrl. My reason for that earlier post was I thought this thread was a bit of a free for all, suddenly remembered a recent video where a transwoman genuinely thought the bleeding from the new vagina was menstruation! I wanted to share it with people, that's all. It really resonated with me because I'm a transwidow(bastard deceived me for years) and I'm still coming to terms with how delusional his thoughts (secretly) must have been during the marriage. Numpty here, oblivious! In hindsight I maybe should have gone on trans widows with that particular post.

Sorry to hear about your transwidowhood rosy.
But I would look to his either closeted or open porn history, not MHI on that one.

I really give zero fucks about men. They have the entire world, and expect us to care about them. I don't.

@smithsinarazz thanks for asking.
"in what respects are the posters on this board ignorant of trans issues?"
Not issues, People. This board struggles to see the difference. (And it's not 'everyone' 'all the time', its just that there is a lack of challenge to some rather ropey assumptions and generalisations.)

"What is there that you know and we don't? "
I am one

"'Cos, you know, you could try to explain rather than just being insulting."
I have no explanations.
[shrugs]

@MadBadDaddy - thanks for replying!

But I'm not really much the wiser. I mean, if you were to say, "Well, this board seems to think that trans people all - (say) keep Marmite in their belly buttons, but actually that's a complete fallacy, and I know this because someone's done a study on this very subject and the group most likely to keep marmite in their belly buttons is ten-year-old girls" then I'd know what ropey assumptions and generalisations you were talking about, and I'd know why you thought they were fallacious.

I don't mean "explain why you think people on this board think in the way they do" I mean "explain where you think people have got it wrong".

"Mumsnet/Fem - Where men are just salt for the chips on the shoulders"
And the point sails elegantly over men's heads.

Mumsnet/Fem - Where men are just salt for the chips on the shoulders.

I think the statement needs considering in context. In my own case, I am married to a man I love and mother to two more. The individual men I know are the usual mix of lovely to not so. But the older I get the more I see that the ‘class group of men’ or however you want to put it has SO many advantages. So much is set up for them, so much benefits them. And they just won’t budge up a bit and share what they have. The entire world of work is set up for men at the expense of women. The power structures benefit men at the expense of women. All of them. And I see this endless deluge of hatred for women and girls - FGM, honour killings, girls being dragged through the court when they’ve left a party having been left bleeding and crying then their spiked clothing displayed in court to brand them a slut. Yazidi women enslaved, incels demanding we fuck them on demand, MRAs, TRAs colonising womanhood, killings in ciudad Juarez. And friends who have been assaulted and raped and then defiled again going through court. And it just wears you down. And if you point it out you get an indignant NAMALT as if pointing out that racism exists makes every whites person personally culpable for racism. Just no acknowledgment, no ‘yeah it’s shit isn’t it? Let’s work on it. Just indignant shrill protests that not all men. Tiring. Exhausting. Dispiriting.

And frankly, while I don’t ‘not Give a shit’ about men, I can see why someone might think that, and I have sympathy for it. It’s just being honest. I think deep down a lot of men hate women. And it’s acceptable for them to say it and it’s acceptable for them to act like it. But not women. They’re chippy...

This thread is fucking unbelievable. No other group of people get such shit thrown at them as feminists in general and radical feminists in particular, including from other 'feminists'. But there is one fucing truth here, and that is that radical feminism has women at its core. Fuck only knows what is at the core of liberal feminism but it isn't the rights of women. Utterly fuck sick of the attacks on the women here.

Excellent illustration of the cliche of trans women identifying as women but with us above...

Fuck only knows what is at the core of liberal feminism

The desire to sell stuff? Clothes, makeup, someone's latest book/album/movie/the idea that the sex industry is empowering so it'll be easier to recruit and loosen laws/porn style sex to young women...

I agree with you OP. I posed as much on another thread re the 8th and I got a snotty reply as a result (although I think I also bumped the thread because it got a lot more traffic).

As a woman, I have no country.

All the best to my sisters in Ireland.

MadBadDaddy You don't give a care to anyone but you! Time after time you come here firstly all nicey nicey, then you change on a dime.

This board is for women about women by women. TIM's are not women they are men presenting as women. They want to take everything women have worked and fought for. The OP of this thread is (imo) doing nothing more than stir the pot. It helps no-one.

Women will continue to shout from the rooftops and as has happened in the past put our cause out there with civil disobedience. This goes against all we have been socialised to do, it's not what we want to do but we will do it. Guess what MadBadDaddy? Not you, nor a billion TRA are going to stop us. I will also add, I never use salt and don't keep it in the house, not in the cupboard nor on my shoulder.

"And it just wears you down. And if you point it out you get an indignant NAMALT......."
If it's NOT all men, then why don't the men who it isn't get up off their arses, look at the situation of women, and do something? Like saying -- this is realy shit, gone on for long enough, sorting it now.........
Yet not happened (yet). Why? Either not all men (but a large enough majority) ARE actually like that, or not all men (but a large enough majority) don't actually give enough of a shit to do anything about it.

If men are (almost) all so nice, why do these problems still exist? When you start thinking hard about that one, then you're getting somewhere! Whereas I think liberal feminists are still stuck trying to persuade all of the nice men out there, instead of asking why they needed to be asked in the first place and haven't sorted it out already......................

Fuck only knows what is at the core of liberal feminism

Fear. The fear that if they go too far men will turn on them. Hence the appeasement.

And YY to the posters above who point out that simply by being woman focused the board is feminist. A supportive ear to someone suffering, practical advice on stuff - it all centres women. And that is feminist.

I'm sick of the NAMALTing and NATALTing all over the board too. Well said, the last few posters.

Women's rights, dignity, health, safety, dignity are always under attack from so many directions - and now even the bloody definition of the word woman is being redefined by MEN. Well, fuck that, frankly.

(Said dignity twice - but it's an important one)

Men could, if they wanted to, eliminate most of the need for feminism tomorrow. They just choose not to.

If you dont like the board why bother with it

I really don't understand

I dont have a dog so im not on the dog house

I dont go on the telly addicts board to coronation street threads and tell them off for not discussing Supernatural

Im bored witless by the infighting on the EU board...so i dont go on there anymore