Gender Critical 'Lurkers'

[BadasIwannaB]

I’ve been reading the Gender Critical threads on Mumsnet for a few months now and I’m ‘delurking’ to say THANK YOU! To all the intelligent, articulate gender critical feminists here - you are my absolute heroes, and you’re really giving me hope!

I’ve thought for a long time that many aspects of the supposedly right-on rhetoric about gender is deeply misogynist, and I was unsettled and annoyed at how much pressure there is on women not to challenge it, and how much supposed ‘feminists’ enforce that pressure. But for a long time I felt like I must be the only person who thought this, because I wasn’t seeing anyone speaking out, and on the v few occasions where I mentioned any of this to friends, it didn’t go down well. So it’s been hugely inspiring and reassuring to see that there’s this growing community here standing up for women against the bullshit. I’ve literally been reading the discussions here every day for the last few months, and it cheers me up so much! I’ve become such a fan of so many of you: LangCleg, Datun, Bowlofbabelfish, Ereshkigal, Angry Attack Kittens, I could go on and on…

So I started wondering, how many people like me are there reading these threads and cheering silently from the sidelines? I’m hoping there are lots of us. I think it’s easy to think we’re a tiny minority because of all the fear surrounding joining the discussion, but maybe if we all delurked we’d see that that’s not the case.

So any other lurkers wanna delurk?

Hi, lurker here de-lurking to share my gratitude. Became aware of a groundswell on Twitter but I prefer the civility of debate over here. Thanks for a fab resource.

Another lurker and occasional poster here

Pacers

I could have written your post

I am middle-aged with previously fairly flimsy feminist ideas

My gender-crit stance actually came from observing the pressures on my two (very different from each other) teen sons to conform to male stereotypes

Lucky enough to have had overwhelmingly positive relationships with men, but eyes opening wide at how my personality has been shaped by female socialisation.

Once you see misogyny you cannot unsee it. TRA ideology is an attack on women. Once you see that, you cannot unsee it.

Posted a lot under another name but maybe a year-long contributer to Feminism Chat. The knowledge, patience and communication-abilty on here is fab.

Lurker here delurking to say thank you to the many intelligent, articulate posters here.

Yes, cheering you silently from the sidelines. And where I can, challenging instances of this creeping ideology in RL.

To all those who are peaking real life people, can you show them the petition on your phone or send them a link to it in hopes they'll sign?
It needs thousands more signatures to show the strength of feeling about this.
And if it gets to 100,000 it just may get debated in Parliament.

petition.parliament.uk/petitions/214118

I'm another lurker grateful for the time and effort the posters here put in to these discussions. Cheers all

I've been lurking for about a year. I have stuck my head above the parapet a couple of times on a much less anonymous forum, and had threats from a TRA that they would try and work out who I was and report me to my professional body. Even though I know I haven't said anything discriminatory or factually incorrect this really shook me, so have stayed quiet since, which is unfortunately what they want.

I don't post much on the FWR boards. When I do it's usually to deploy bees to repel invaders. 🐝🐝🐝

But I've lurked for a long time, learned so much and I'm still paying attention and being quietly gender-critical where I can.

This thread is glorious. It reminds me of the Twilight Barking in 101Dalmations!

And to the posters from USA, Oz, NZ and other far-flung places - I'd love to see you start threads and spread the word to bring more of your compatriots to here to discuss how these issues are affecting you.

I have family in NZ who have followed recent discussions here and are not sure what to do or where online to find GC Kiwis. (It seems things are moving very quickly there)

Tell them to start threads here R0wan.

If we build it they will come

Still here, still lurking, still learning.

If we build it they will come smile

I love that. And it's true.

So many women thinking eh? And wondering if they're the only one.

Then they find themselves here.

And that's why I hope posters will not leave MN Datun. There's nowhere like it for women of all backgrounds to come together to discuss these issues. It's a shining beacon, is what it is.

Newbie lurker here. Only posted once, in praise of the brilliant Sporticus thread. Keep up the good work posters, you never know who you may be informing, educating and amusing.

reminds me of the Twilight Barking in 101Dalmations

BoreOfWhabylon that is beautiful!

(From a obsessive fan of 101 Dalmations)

reminds me of the Twilight Barking in 101Dalmations

Oh what a lovely image!

Well, I'm delurking to add my bark. Amazing board, amazing women. I have learned so much. I am going to try to give less of a shit IRL, and speak out more. It's too important to sacrifice to 'niceness'.

Courage Calls To Courage Everywhere, indeed.

I'm also a lurker. I've been reading Mumsnet for quite some time and the FWR boards in particular for the past couple of years. I've never even been registered but this thread has finally pushed me into registering and making my first post. Hello!
I've also got my DSD's (early 20s) lurking on the FWR boards. There's LOADS of us out here

Hello TelephoneThing!

Welcome to you and all the other lovely delurkers

I am another lurker.

Hello BoreOfWhabylon and thank you.
My 'background' re feminism is that I was involved in student politics back in the late 80s/early 90s and very much a feminist. Sociology A Level made me think that I was a liberal feminist, rather than a Socialist or Rad Fem. I became less involved in politics later... felt like we'd made lots of strides with feminism, got complacent really. In recent years I've realised that in many ways we've gone backwards. Having DSDs really highlighted this for me and has pushed me back to reading more about feminism and hoping that I can change things for them and their friends. Would love to see my old sociology teacher and tell her that Rad Fem is now more my thing...

Have had good conversations with the DSDs about this and tentatively discussed it with others. Discovered that my DB is gender critical and is a bit of a 'noise' on twitter about it - he's a middle aged northern leftie bloke, slightly bemused to have so many new Radfem followers .

De-lurking to say thanks too!

Hi Thing

I'm old. For a long time I thought the battle had been won and I just bimbled around in my liberal bubble. Then it started to dawn on me that was not the case.

Wondering now if I follow your brother on Twitter

Not that I think of myself as a Rad Fem or give myself any particular label really. I'm just an old woman who's mad as hell and not going to take it any more!

Hello lovely lurkers! I still classify myself as a 'lurker' but. to be honest. I've been a bit vocal lately

If any of you are anything like me, it feels very exposing to post (particularly if you're just a general lurker like me, who's lurked for over a decade mostly), particularly if you've experienced male-based coercive control, abuse, etc and recognise some of the behaviours that gender critical posters face here so evidently sometimes. I could almost feel my own flinch, each time I posted something on this board for the first few times. (Reader - it gets easier!)

So firstly, I salute you for even posting on this thread.

But I'd encourage you, now you've spoken, to do so more. It doesn't matter if you don't feel you'll add as much as some of the awesome posters here.

Don't forget that many of them have been slogging away (on behalf of those of us who were unaware, too nervous, etc - as always, sorry to all of you, I just didn't realise!) for years here and in other places, to raise awareness. So they've had plenty of practice in the rationale, the words, the debates.

As others have said, even if it's just a post to say 'this', 'I agree'. Or to note when a gender critical poster is being specifically targeted, or you recognise a moment where things could flare up and it needs a bit of tea & cake lovebombing!

A movement comes from the swell in numbers coming to join, in whatever way then can/need to.