Jean Hatchet, new blog post

[SugarPlumFairy99]

jeanhatchet.blogspot.com/2019/01/why-i-wont-be-standing-up-for-women.html

This blog post from Jean is eye-opening. Working alongside anti-abortion, hard right groups undermines decades of feminism.

Shame on Posie. I agree with Jean, I will also be sitting down for women.

Amazing speech by Natasha Chart:

www.facebook.com/100003299679086/posts/2366913433428623/

Amazing speech by Natasha Chart:

That was very powerful. Thanks for sharing Pencils

Very moving speech by Natasha. I really felt her pain and anger. She made some very pertinent points.

Ladies, what an awesome thread. Thank you.

It’s late, I’ve had a beer, but that speech by Natasha Chart moved me to tears.

Onwards and upwards, am meeting with my MP next week, I want concrete plans of action.

Thank you Natasha / you expressed what many of us think

I’ve just spent Friday and Saturday night reading this thread, and it has been the most exciting and fulfilling Friday/Saturday nights I have had in a long time.

There have been so many insightful posters. Thank you, all of you.
Special shout out to Oxytocindeficient; you have really worked your socks off for this thread

Jean's post

I was sad when I read Jean Hatchet's blog post. Not if fact because I disagreed with her (I support most of her points) but that she chose to write on such a personal level. ie she could easily have said I went to Washington thinking I was taking part in (whatever) but found when I got there that it meant associating with right wing fundamentalists. So I have decided not to take part. I can only think she was a bit tired and emotional when writing it(!), but as I cant see her twitter account I dont know her reason for taking it down.

By the way this has been archivied, although it looks like a very tidied up version with lots of urls to support her comments. archive.is/jD9au#selection-491.612-491.620

The group called Women's Liberation Front came in for a lot of criticism some months, maybe a year ago for agreeing to hold a meeting hosted by the Heritage Foundation who are right wing christian fundamentalists. Nobody can understand why they did and continue to do this. Other women's groups have managed to pursue their political aims without partnering with a group that basically doesn't agree to you having rights!

The meetings

I got this info from facebook, but to summarise rather than quote, there is a week of action (meant to be international) called #WomenStandUp. In Washington there will be a meeting with some women from the UK and some from North America www.eventbrite.com/e/gender-identity-social-media-womenstandup-tickets-54151473515 hosted by We Need to Talk.

And as part of this week there will be a meeting hosted by the Heritage Foundation and (as far as I am concerned) with speakers from Women's Liberation Front. www.heritage.org/event/the-inequality-the-equality-act-concerns-the-left

And also a meeting about Lesbian Rights with women from Lesbian Rights Alliance.

Assuming this information is correct no one from We Need to Talk or LRA will be part of the Heritage Foundation platform, but their meetings will be part of the week that the Heritage Foundation meeting is also part of.

-------

So although I agree with Jean Hatchet's points it seems she may well have been so left out of the PP loop she was generall confused by lack rather than mis information.

By and large 99.9% of the population are totally unaware of any of this. And even those who are, will not know what has been said on twitter as it is the least used social media platform. Twitter is only important when the main stream decides to amplify anything said on it. ie when the papers started to print articles about the splits in the Women's March planning group in the US.

I think maybe mumsnet is in danger of believe its own / main stream media's description of it being a hot bed of radical feminism! In providing a space for women to let of steam (and MNHQ are to be thanked for providing this space despite the moderation) it no doubts help women work out politics, and in a few cases seems to have led women to activism. But that is surely true of any of the forums, ie talking about food and menus is not the same as actually preparing them.

And like others new to mumsnet I dont think it is very welcoming and the relentless need to correct others rather than make points ie have a discussion sometime makes it more like one of those plays about middle class dinner parties where guests endlessly strive to out do each other.

So we have this odd situation of a blog post that was only briefly live, but then disminated more widely because it became a thread on mumsnet made it more widely known. But it didn't engender an in depth discussion about political partnerships, campaigning or ... more a lot of character profiling.

There is a worry that this (very tiny) storms are counter productive. Just think it these 26 pages of speculation and side talking had been about how those on Feminist Chat could have actively contributed to the week of action.

(And I know how easy it is to get caught up in. For instance I was really concerned that Meghan Murphy had been implicated. Not because I am a fan, but have always been impressed by her thoroughness and politcal analysis - and personal courage IRL)

correction: hosted by the Heritage Foundation and (as far as I am concerned) with speakers from Women's Liberation Front

should have been: hosted by the Heritage Foundation and (as far as I am concerned bizarrely) with speakers from Women's Liberation Front

Other women in the US have NOT actually been able to speak about this issue. Prior to the first Hands Across the Aisle meeting, women who tried to discuss the genderism issue were shouted down and no-platformed everywhere.

What passes for.liberal-left in the USA is so very little connected to actual leftist politics, it takes enormous hubris for someone on that end to scold feminists for talking to women on the right.

After all, I'm sure those doing so would have no problem with feminists meeting with Obama, who signed legislation giving the president of the US authority to kill any foreign national anywhere in the world and to detain any American in the US without due process -- the US version of an Enabling Act.

Meanwhile what passes for liberal-left hosts and applauds a group marching with pink and blue painted baseball bats wrapped in barbed wire, to beat lesbians with. What passes for liberal- left on the US supports trade policy that decimated family farms in Mexico and blue-collar employment in the Midwest. It supports bellicosity against Russia and war-mongering in Syria. it is actively aligned with self-avowed Nazis in Ukraine.

What passes for left in the US is, today, to the right of Richard Nixon.

Women are in an existential fight. The left is actively aligned against women in this fight. When transactivism say feminists want to deny them the right to exist, they are as usual projecting: it is they who wish to define "women" out of ontological, legal, political, and social existence. In an existential fight, nothing is off the table.

The problem does not lie with the actions of women. It lies with a left aligned against women, with a left that is so far right it can't see itself. Take it up with them.

Hear, hear AnneHutchinson

I live in an especially woke part of the US and I don't find it the least bit bizarre.

YY BlackShutters woke totalitarianism

If Middle America gets it into its collective head that feminists and gay rights orgs are responsible for letting fetishy men with penises that are in good working order into changing rooms with little girls the backlash will be terrifying. It's absolutely vital that it's on record that there has always been opposition from within both groups.

Fallingirl

Oh how nice, thanks!

Obama, who signed legislation giving the president of the US authority to kill any foreign national anywhere in the world and to detain any American in the US without due process -- the US version of an Enabling Act.

Meanwhile what passes for liberal-left hosts and applauds a group marching with pink and blue painted baseball bats wrapped in barbed wire, to beat lesbians with. What passes for liberal- left on the US supports trade policy that decimated family farms in Mexico and blue-collar employment in the Midwest. It supports bellicosity against Russia and war-mongering in Syria. it is actively aligned with self-avowed Nazis in Ukraine.

What passes for left in the US is, today, to the right of Richard Nixon.

This

If Middle America gets it into its collective head that feminists and gay rights orgs are responsible for letting fetishy men with penises that are in good working order into changing rooms with little girls the backlash will be terrifying. It's absolutely vital that it's on record that there has always been opposition from within both groups.

And this

Both 100%

What on earth is this thing about FWR being unwelcoming? It’s not a social group. This board is monitored all the time by TRAs for screenshots, Some posters have been personally targeted. Of course it makes people suspicious and jumpy sometimes. We’ve lost posters. Some come and go because it gets too much for them and others change their user names all the time so you never really know if someone is new or not. And some of you want a fucking welcoming committee? Jeez grow up.

And if that makes you feel even less welcome then I’m sorry. But women are in an existential fight at the moment, the most serious one I can remember. No- one has time to be nice and besides, being nice is what got us into this mess.
If it helps, I first posted about 2 years ago and course I was nervous. Then I realised no-one was looking at me and no-one cared who I was and that it was fine.

No-one has time to be nice and besides, being nice is what got us into this mess.
But you still decided to post again to soften your message. Female socialisation.

Yup

I can't remember which feminist forum it was on, but they had a Tshirt they sold which said "I Got Roasted on [Feminism Blah]" because they saw the utter roasting of newbies as a rite of passage that they'd all been through. That was some years ago and iirc they were not radical feminists - more lib femmy. It is getting ridiculous that the concept of a 'safe space' - ie an event or meeting where confidentiality, non-judgement, valuing all members present and sensitivity around victims of abuse would be observed, has been utterly bastardised by blue-haired weirdos and reified into an actual physical room with a door and is sought to be extended to include the whole fucking world by curtailing free speech.

Mumsnet FWR is a comparatively very safe space (in the original sense of the word) on the internet. Posters have a strong instinct and gathered knowledge about victimisation and abuse. I think anyone who finds it unwelcoming either is new to all this malarky and doesn't get how forums work or finds the level of knowledge and expertise of some posters intimidating.

With myself -I have been around for a while and I remember my utter fear about posting and I remember being thrilled when a thread I started got more than 100 posts
No body judged me, they just responded when I said something that piqued their interest. There used to be way more annoying time wasting male supremacist trolls though. To newbies and lurkers in two minds about posting now though: don't worry you'll get the hang and won't even think about it pretty quickly.

Floisme

Female socialisation
I do love your posts FlyingOink

Oink is spot on. I am now filled with shame because I’ve not been nice on Mumsnet

I’ve noticed your posts Floisme, and have appreciated your contributions. Though I think you are correct, we’d not get much communicated or done, if we spent large swathes of time acknowledging and itemising the content of all contributions.

I don't want people on here to be nice to me or welcome me. I can get that from my mum, who always has the kettle on. I want the women on here to be fighting and screaming at what is happening.