Mumsnet moderators are struggling to find the line between free speech and transphobia

[Ereshkigal]

https://www.wired.co.uk/article/mumsnet-moderators-trans-rights-debate

Digested read: Why can't Mums stick to talking about biscuits and Ant and Dec instead of having opinions about issues which concern them? And why can't we call them goady names? And why are they so mean? And why is it allowed?

Comments from MN moderators are measured and reasonable, however.

This article uncritically presents doxxer Emma Healey who put women here at risk from TRAs as a noble whistleblower.

Other Mumsnet moderators express similar pride – although only under the cover of anonymity. Only one of the moderators I spoke with would give their real first name, two did not want to reveal their age, and none would chat over the phone. One moderator did not even want WIRED to include the year she started her job at Mumsnet for fear of being identified.

Hmmm, I wonder why that would be, Amelia? I don't think it's MN feminists they are afraid of now is it?

Another piece of poorly researched, biased nonsense.

Glosswitch NewStatesman article, May 2018

'The demonisation of Mumsnet is just the latest incarnation of witch-hunting
Naturally, it frightens people to think of what a group of mothers might actually demand.'
(extract)
'The deliberate withdrawal of women from men has almost always been seen as a potentially dangerous or hostile act, a conspiracy, a subversion, a needless and grotesque thing.” Thus wrote Adrienne Rich in 1976’s Of Woman Born, her seminal exploration of the politics of motherhood. From the workers gossiping in the spinning circle to old wives passing down knowledge of contraception and abortion, women gathered in isolation have long been considered untrustworthy. What might they be saying? What could they be plotting? And how, above all, might they be controlled?

It’s a problem that’s never gone away, though the context has changed. Anxiety over women’s speech – fuelling violent backlash in the form of witch trials and scold’s bridles – arose at a time when, to quote Marina Warner, “women dominated the webs of information and power; the neighbourhood, the village, the well, the washing place, the shops, the stalls, the street were their arena of influence, not only the household”.

One could say things are different in 2018. Changing work patterns and the greater separation of public and private space have led to a fragmentation of female-led domestic communities. As the protagonist of Elisa Albert’s 2015 novel After Birth puts it:

Two hundred years ago – hell, one hundred years ago – you’d have a child surrounded by other women: your mother, her mother, sisters, cousins, sisters-in-law, mother-in-law. […] They’d help you, keep you company, show you how. Then you’d do the same. […] Now maybe you make a living, maybe you get to know yourself on your own terms. […] And then: unceremoniously sliced in fucking half, handed a newborn, home to your little isolation tank, get on with it, and don’t you dare post too many pictures. You don’t want to be one of those.

She’s right. While the work of gestation, birth and mothering hasn’t gone anywhere, the gatherings that sustained it – and scared the hell out of men in the process – have disintegrated. Still, though. There’s always Mumsnet." (continues)

www.newstatesman.com/politics/feminism/2018/05/demonisation-mumsnet-just-latest-incarnation-witch-hunting

When I read drivel like this, it helps explain why other women like Maria Miller didn't even consider the opinions of women's groups on the Women and Equalities committee re self ID.

The utter gall of this woman!

Listen love, and I have NO doubt you are reading, it's your internalised misogyny that has formed your opinion of Mumsnet and its users. It must have been a shock to your cool girl head to find the range of intelligent debate on this forum.

Go on, log on and try to debate us. You will likely splutter and founder like all the others who come on here to lecture us on how we should be wiping arses and not talking about issues that directly affects us.

But if there is a chance that your brains have not completely fallen out and you still have the ability to think critically, you will soon be joining us 'TERFs'.

Or you can just go on mocking mothers, of course, and celebrate your cool girl wokeness. Remember of course, never ever ever become a mother, because other women like you will then tell you to STFU and get to that arse wiping.

That article was clearly commissioned to try to get more traffic from here over to Wired in time for the Black Friday sales. How transparent.

You have been used as click bait Amelia, with your hard hitting insightful investigative journalism. I'm being sarcastic, it was a bit dim really.

When I read drivel like this, it helps explain why other women like Maria Miller didn't even consider the opinions of women's groups on the Women and Equalities committee re self ID.

extract from interview with Maria Miller MP by Janice Turner:

"When Ms Miller, 53, released her report in January last year she was surprised that criticism came not from conservatives but, as she put it, “women who purport to be feminists”. This may be because feminists, well versed in sexual politics and long-time supporters of gay rights, are among the few people who can penetrate the arcane, confusing terminology.

Many see potential loopholes and conflicts of rights that put women at risk, giving men access to rare female-only spaces such as single-sex wards, changing rooms and domestic violence refuges, designed to keep them safe and private. It is these concerns I put to Ms Miller in her Basingstoke constituency.

Take this scenario: a man enters a female communal changing area, removes his clothes while women get undressed. Now they have a right to ask him to leave. Under gender self-definition, if he said “I identify as a woman” he would be entitled to stay. This, I stress, is unlikely to be a trans woman — many who use women’s changing rooms every day with discretion and no fuss — but could be a sexual predator exploiting the loophole. (There have been a growing number of cases in the US, including a man in Seattle using women’s pool facilities claiming “the law has changed, I have a right to be here”.) Does Ms Miller not see why women fear a conflict of rights?

“But 50 years ago, maybe ten years ago, people felt very uncomfortable about gay people showing their relationships in public but life has moved on.” This isn’t a question of feelings, however, but of physical safety and privacy which, as the author of another report on sexual abuse, she surely understands?

I show her a photograph of a bearded, male-born American called Danielle Muscato who dresses in men’s suits and ties, has made no attempt to transition but nonetheless “identifies as female” and insists on living in a women’s homeless shelter. On International Women’s Day he tweeted: “Some women have penises. If you’re bothered by this, you can suck my dick.”Alex Drummond is a lush-bearded British psychotherapist who claims to be a woman, without any transition, who is “expanding the bandwidth of gender.” (continues)
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/2993425-Maria-Miller-interviewed-by-Janice-Turner-full-text

Interview above from July 2017

The thing about cool girls, is that they invariably get older, less attractive, possibly have babies of their own, but almost always get walked over and shat on, just like the rest of us. Even as utterly clueless my mother is about certain things, and even though she’s chocked full of internalised misogyny, she’s not daft and she can see the world for what it is. She was learning all this when I was a child, and later when I thought she was so old and out of it and knew nothing. She pulled me out of the shit more than once when I was young naive and arrogant. Being cool is for when you’re young, everything is shiny and exciting. Turn the clock forward 20 years and life and its injustices have had their chance to assert themselves. Sparkly multicoloured idealism is like Father Christmas when you’ve seen and experienced the world a bit. As far as mothers go, if your mum is talking about something you haven’t been through then at least listen to what she’s saying. One day you’ll probably see what she means.

Here endeth the lecture.

A bit late but yes to SirTPratchett,

I never knew which was Ant and which was Dec until I realized that Ant is the one with a head like a cartoon ant. I can't imagine ever fancying either of them.

I love Terry P. So sad.

I have no idea which is which, and have never to my knowledge watched a program with them in it.

My dd1 is just discovering Sir T through Diggers and Tiffany and the Jonny series. She loves them and that makes me happy.

That Wired article is a massive pile of sexist crap.
And it's a bit niche but fig rolls are my favourite though, if anyone's interested.

Thanks for the Glosswitch though R0wan. Love her.

Badstyley
I felt a bit choked reading that.
Exactly how I feel about my Mum.
So thank you

Wired should stick to updates on how soon the singularity will upload our consciousnesses to Pornhub.

Aspie

R0wan thank you for the Sarah Ditum link.

Another day, more whining that MN actually allows discussion on this important topic rather than shutting it down.

Thank you Mumsnet HQ
You're brave. You're right.

And as for that silly bloke on Twitter. Mums don't go around threatening to rape and kill people they don't agree with. So there literally are no screenshots.

The public announcement thread is a useful tool to be regularly bumped.
Goady posters are moderated by MNHQ.
Goady posters are politely challenged and reported by the regular posters.
This leaves a challenging healthy debate for all to see.
I particularly love the "behold" moments.

Of all the social media places to hang out, MN is the best.

I'm really thankful mn provides this space

Yes, I'd like to say thank you to MN too, as I'm sure it is a complete pain in the bum, dealing with the associated, er, correspondance.

Well we know what Wired's views are then. Not a very balanced piece was it?