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.

Well, I use FWR whether I'm welcomed or wanted, and don't care. You're stuck with me

But it is nice to see new folk come along, especially those that have been lurking and reading for a while then decide to become more active. We would be wankers not to appreciate that.

Still can't believe bewilderness is banned, nor Maryz. Maryz I saw happen and it was shocking really as it apeared to be for pulling up HQ for deleting her post, resinstating it then lying about it being deleted in the first place...might have been more going on behind the scenes of course, but it was bizarre from what I saw.

I suspect a lot of posters on here are ‘old’ bewilderness was 70’s wasn’t she?

There were many women such as TheBewilderness with a huge amount of wisdom, experience and knowledge who were banned early on when the new rules came in. Some left out of principle.
Their analysis a massive loss to the board and I also understand and respect why many women would not be coerced after years of speaking truth to power.

Its worth reading Lee Lakeman's recent speech from Meghan Murphy's recent event at Vancouver Library:
(extract)
"Great that you got here and got in. That is the victory of the evening.
To show those who have taken control of our library and our public discussion that we will not be shut out or shut up
Second victory is to have the discussion that they were discouraging and for which we came.

"But it is also important to put this achievement and discussion in its proper perspective:
the murder of women, that is mostly the murder of wives and prostitutes, by men continues even as we speak
the violence done to women and even more often to impoverished or racialized women continues to be without social consequences to those men
as continues the harassment by men up to and including murder of women especially Aboriginal women who are forced to live in the public realm by poverty and lack of social supports like public transit and local public schools
as does continue unabated men’s harassment of women who try to use their legal rights and privileges to take their position in public institutions and political life… what Hannah Arendt speaks of as the very nature of public life;
the recent campaigns led by women victims of male violence and their feminist advocates to hold men like Ghomeshi accountable are still at their very earliest stages and so far have been stunted rather than assisted by legal procedures, by the police and courts as well as by the commercial media and by the social media.
The fight for equal pay is not achieved much less the fight for equal distribution of wealth and resources.
The right to welfare and social services,health services and education services has been so undermined as to barely exist for the poor women, for the immigrant women and for the Aboriginal women. To be among such women is to be criminalized for trying to get by.
Women do not have proper access to legal aid much less to adequate protections of the law and to security of our persons.
Childcare, the care of the sick and the old are still loaded on women even if more and more it is the loading on to immigrant women at low rates of pay and with insecure citizenship.
Women’s sexuality is under constant assault so that young women have even less sense of the entitlement to autonomy to sexual pleasure and to body integrity than my generation had won. Instead, from childhood on they are fed a constant diet of pornography in every media form.
The international talk of women’s rights is just that: talk. Unless women measure, protest and demand, nothing happens to ensure women’s rights as written on paper.
No political party and no public institutions have distinguished themselves as fighters for the liberation of women. Nor have they defended those who do fight for that liberation. I am old enough to remember the Montreal Massacre and what the governments did at that point and in this year of Me Too and various campaigns they have done the same… nothing of pro-woman effect
International studies now confirm that it is only in the presence of an autonomous women’s movement that policies and practices of the state start to reform toward the advancement of women.
“Women only” is a key practice of the independent women’s movement. In the 60’s we had to admit that if men where present in our groups they could sabotage the conversations by their very presence. This has not changed
In fact, for me this discussion of “inclusion” is really the conduct of the backlash against feminism" (continues)

tradfem.wordpress.com/2019/01/12/lee-lakeman-speaks-at-the-vancouver-public-library-january-10/

thread:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3479722-Lee-Lakeman-Vancouver-Jan-2019-Thread-title-edited-by-MNHQ

It really tickled me when Teh Bewilderness revealed she is 70. That username is really steeped in techy nerd gaming culture. Its one of the things I love about mumsnet that you build up a picture of someone that can be completely confounded.

I kind of agree about Twitter and I too have sometimes wondered whether we spend too much tine talking about what some knobhead, who nobody in the real world, has heard of has said on it.

It seems like that, but some of those nobheads do things in the real world via twitter like successfully campaign to get dicks into teenaged girls' changing rooms at Topshop, or get Primesite to remove feminist billboards. It is infuriating that tech platforms enable the pisstakers, perverts and control freaks like that while shafting people sincerely fighting for their rights.

TheBewiderness
"The rules of misogyny
1st rule of misogyny: Women are responsible for what men do.

2nd rule of misogyny: Women saying no to men is a hate crime.

3rd rule of misogyny: Women speaking for themselves are exclusionary and selfish.

4th rule of misogyny: Women's opinions are violence against men thus male violence against women is justified.

5th rule of misogyny: WATM! Women and Feminism must be useful to men or they are worthless.

6th rule of misogyny: Women who go around being female AT men by menstruating and breast feeding babies deserve punishment.

7th rule of misogyny: Women should always be grateful to men for everything.

8th rule of misogyny: Men are whatever men say they are and women are whatever men say they are.

9th rule of misogyny: Men always know the "real reasons" for everything women do and say.

10th rule of misogyny: The worst thing about male violence is that it males men look bad.

11th rule of misogyny: Basic pattern recognition skills are cruel and evil when they hurt men's feelings.

12th rule of misogyny: whatever women suffer from, men suffer from more.

13th rule of misogyny: Women are not oppressed! Rape and catcalling and objectification are all compliments, not oppression.

14th rule of misogyny: Women have all the rights they need: The right to remain silent."

Btw it is 'Teh' Bewilderness which is a joke about a common mis-spelling of 'the' when people hurriedly type on a keyboard.

www.facebook.com/theposieparker/videos/2366769483443018/?lst=762943925%3A100003299679086%3A1548506094

Megan and Posie outside twitter.

Love the twitter jail model they have.

This is important, women being edited and censored from conversations on twitter is serious abuse. Shareholders need to know.

GCSocScientist I'm several pages too late but thank you!

Yeah good point about influence of Twitter knobheads WeRise

I suggest you read what Posie actually said.

Eh? Sorry about that last post - I think I was replying to a poster pages ago, or on another thread even. Just ignore me.

I do see this all taking place in a little bubble. Mumsnet and Twitter.

Just to clear up a misconception. Mumsnet has twelve million unique users per month. The feminist board is in the top three of dozens of boards in terms of popularity.

As far as I recall, HQ confirmed that people accessing the site via the feminist board increased twelve fold in one year and was 177,000 in one month. Accessing. So newbies.

Mumsnet is the largest gathering of women on the planet.

Which petrifies a lot of men. Who are desperate to shut it down. But can't quite think of a good enough reason to make advertisers dump their (massive) core demographic.

As well as SAHMs, cleaners, teachers, engineers, and traffic wardens, MN is also populated by lawyers, judges, journalists, police officers, MPs, scientists, writers and trans people.

It's a cross-section of women everywhere. And is routinely mined by every mainstream newspaper.

And

It's neither better nor worse to be a ReSister than a Mumsnetter or a VAWG campaigner or or or. It's all the same. It's women, pulling, pulling, pulling, together however they can.

is key

Honestly, it really isn't in a little bubble on twitter and mn.

There's a huge number of people who don't use either concerned about this. I've met many. Some are connecting through other social networking sites or just through day to day lives, jobs, schools, experiences.

Not sure if this has been posted already upthread but I think it's worth reading this statement from the Women's Liberation Front (It is part of their Declaration of No Confidence in the Leadership of the LGB Movement womensliberationfront.nationbuilder.com/declaration-of-no-confidence )

Sexist demonization of women for ordinary political activity

"Movement leadership (they are referring to the likes of Stonewall, Human Rights Campaign, Amnesty and the various "LGBTQI" orgs etc...) generally has no complaints about, or problems working with, anti-abortion Republican officeholders in the US, the Log Cabin Republicans, the UK Conservative Party, or members of the Canadian Conservative Party, to attain goals they’ve deemed necessary. Movement leadership has at times praised the gender identity policies of the Islamic Republic of Iran, where gay men can choose between either execution or “sex-reassignment” surgery. Movement leadership has at times praised the gender identity policies of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, a country whose restrictions on women’s rights are extreme, and where the non-state torture and murder of women by their families is epidemic.

Conversely, when the feminist and gender identity-critical women whom you have no-platformed from the left seek any conversation or understanding with people outside the confines of the left, or mainstream liberal politics, we are at best demonized as hypocrites for not demanding allies who share our values on every feminist issue, and at worst slandered as Nazis, fascists, or white supremacists, all for talking with the very same sorts of people as movement leadership regularly lobbies and tries to win over. Movement leadership has organized boycotts of entire US states for opposing them on ending single-sex accommodations for women, while never having coordinated half so much fire and fury over the abortion policies you say should be deal-breakers for us, nor for our access to birth control medication, nor for the lax investigation or prosecution of male violence against women, nor for the excessive prosecution of women’s acts of self-defense, nor for incarcerated women being shackled in childbirth, nor for the involuntary sterilization of racially marginalized women, nor for pay disparities by sex, nor for the closure of women’s reproductive health clinics.

You do not likewise demonize people you otherwise agree with for working across the aisle to attain necessary goals or useful compromises, whereas it is clear that your fevered accusations are a hypocritical attempt to politically unperson us and disappear our concerns. Movement leadership stands in front of the doors you have closed to us, in front of the mainstream women’s movement that you hold hostage, braying like a jilted boyfriend that if you can’t have us, no one will. Listen up: feminism is not your girlfriend, or the property of any man. Also, do not treat any women as if you are entitled to our support. To our sisters who bravely continue putting up with the left’s petulant man-baby contingent on behalf of all the other good you are trying to do, please insist that your interests get as much cooperation as the demands of men in drag to be allowed to strip in front of you or win women’s cycling matches. If you are really going to keep putting up with this nonsense, at least demand equivalent compensation."

Can I ask what are the new rules for the fwr boards I missed that update.. can I find them somewhere?

ode

I think there is a sticky with most of them on at the top of feminist chat

I dont envy the mods at all, they are doing a very difficult job

Well that was an interesting read.

I suspect a couple of users don't internet much if they flounce just because people disagree with them.
Either that or they sit on Twitter with their precious little block lists.

Jean has worked her backside off for women, through an awful year on a personal level. I kind of wish she could have a break that doesn't involve battling actually. I wish her well and a beach holiday.

I like Posie too. She's at not like slimey Haddock "I'm a Tory"/"I love Corbyn". Don't agree with her sometimes. Agree with her sometimes.

The way mumsnet is set up feels slightly basic, often I read something I'd give a "like" to if it was on other social media, but here the thread moves on. People probably have read it but the forum doesn't lend itself to responses. I don't think it's unfriendly though.

I feel there's some strong personalities in the GC world. Brave enough to stick their heads above the parapet. Much braver than me. It's understandable not all of them are going to get along all the time. That's okay too.

Thanks especially to pencils for the emergency transcript .

Not on the app that I can see

Well it's awfully big

I'll see if i can cut and paste

I'm glad there's no 'liking' on here. I've been on sites that use it and it turns every thread into a popularity contest. Now that really is cliquey. This way it's more like a normal conversation. Yes it means you miss things if you're not there at the time and occasionally a really great comment gets overlooked but it means the conversation keeps moving - like this thread has.

(Plus sometimes you say something really stupid but you know it doesn't matter cos there'll be someone else along in a minute .)

ode

Ive pmed you...hopefully

Am a very very very occasional poster but I remember Bewilderness and find it staggering she was banned. THats awful.

IIRC, Bewilder got a strike or two and was asked to confirm that she would avoid strikes going forward or face a ban. She felt that the "rules" were not sufficiently clear nor evenly applied for her to be able to do that, so technically left of her own accord.

Oh does that mean she could come back?

Thanks for that rufus

Just want to say that I've been contemplating the fwr boards a lot lately. I originally came here years ago and got the initiation roasting!

Lots of name changes and lurking since then but I read this board every day now and I've realised that the reason I love it so much here is its one of the only places I see a variety of women discuss important issues in an engaging and often challenging manner. I'm rarely brave enough to post much because other posters seem so much more knowledgeable than me but just want to show my appreciation to you all!