Appointing yourself to decide how people discuss inequality

[lisamuggeridge]

So with austerity, there was political consensus, rule of law was undermined for women and there wasnt a peep. In that time I also learned that in the UK very posh people, some of the most privileged eole in the country., have been 'identifying as feminist' or the left and thought that meant they were the peole who decided if anyone was allowed to discuss it. So quite a lot of people are dead and we still didnt discuss it. But there was a movement about those systems, and only a coule of months after the GRA deadline we appear to be having the same conversatoin.

Can someone explain how you qualify to be in this central authority who decides how people can discuss inequality and powerlessness? COs am quite sure it makes no sense for the entry to that to be an elite university, and being part of hte social network around the left.

Is there a way to bypass this cos I havent found it, and have never had any confirmation that this is an officially recognised layer in our democracy. So confused. I hd heard something about women standing u and being heard but here we are again..

The implications of feminism as a gatekeeper, which is what we are discussing, a gatekeeper to women discussing inequality are profound, when that gatekeeper is almost uniformly extremely privileged there would seem to be issues here about power we are not discussing when we ask how far Posie Parker should be wedged under buses.

Quiet the issue I have is not that Posie is straight but that she promotes conformity to gender roles by making comments about women’s looks, referring to the ‘pretty girls’ and suggesting that women transition because they are not conventionally beautiful. I see her very much conforming to type- not being some trailblazer.

I also object to comments that she has made about lesbians- that we’re all the same both in looks and personality (in a negative sense). These are comments she has actually made and they are out there on twitter and other SM in case I get a load of ‘prove it’ comments. I am sure someone will defend her, but being part of the group she denigrated makes it harder to just get over it and see her as some sort of inspiration.

So I do not mind that she is straight, but I do wonder if she fully gets it and how it is for those who don’t neatly conform to ideals.

On a slightly more positive (!) note, is it worth considering the team building theory of group development known as forming–storming–norming–performing?

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuckman%27s_stages_of_group_development

Do we need to decide whether we even want factions and groups and leaders at all? Is there a compromise between no leaders and imposed group discipline to be found?

Oxytocin you didnt see me being told elite women pay for me? Sorry was I supposed to respond to that and not let it demonstrate the power dynamics discussed in the thread? I wasnt going to pretend that was valid in a month iof Sundays. But hey ho. Thread derailed. That was the pont wasnt it? Thats the point of this? The power to make sure a woman isnt even allowed to speak on a mumsnet forum, the power to follow her, make sure that cant happen. The power to have other people say that that is ok. The power to have other people bolster that. No I dont pretend that is normal or ok. Its not. Its a demonstration. Nothing more. And I use it as such.

LangCleg it depends which group you are seen as conforming (or not) to. Vis-a-vis 'conservative women' she is reasonably conformant, but that's not a good group to be identified into, in the context of social issues.

The issue in the first place is how you frame 'gender-critical feminism' in a left/right spectrum. As I mentioned earlier, if you can frame it as 'right', the debate is essentially won at that point by the opposition, because the right are wrong, so to speak, on every social issue.

Mumsnet as a hub for this thought has been quite successful in that it has never been a forum for right-wing voices, and those coming here to express such thoughts tend to get piled on and/or banned in fairly short order.

TRAs try to win the argument by default by attempting to argue that those opposed to them are fascists. That's why people collect screenshots of Posie - she said 'this' about 'that', and therefore 'she is a Nazi and we should disregard what she says about any given topic'.

I don't think this has quite worked wrt gender-neutral feminism as a whole, but as a divide and rule tactic it's doing great guns:

• A group of women on the left are sensitive to being associated with people holding unacceptable thoughts on other topics (even while themselves holding unacceptable thoughts wrt transwomen), so act to say 'she does not speak for us', or 'this meeting is not in our name', or whatever
• This feeds into a wider narrative about 'anti trans bigots', which the Independent, Huff Post etc can happily put out to their woke audience
• You are left with multiple factions all with slightly different lines in the sand about, say, gender recognition, against a single TRA lobby that in the end isn't really forced to answer hard questions about whether Ian Huntley is a woman because they just ignore them in favour of a larger narrative about social justice & oppressed transported.

I’ve seen you attacked on another thread with an obvious derail, and I supported you there. I didn’t see it happening here, no. I saw the comment with respect to welfare, and didn’t think it was directed at you specifically. Obviously it can feel like it’s being directed at you if you are on welfare yourself, I have been many times. I don’t like using phrases like ‘elite women’, I’m not sure what it’s supposed to mean? Am I ‘elite’ because I pay taxes? Is it not ok to say my taxes go towards welfare? ( I’m glad they do ) I feel the same about ‘posh women’, but I've always found the class system here difficult as I didn’t grow up here and it’s in stark contrast to where I grew up. I still maintain that, taking it at face value, the comment was responding to the claim about the collapse of welfare. It was derailed because of the repeated and ugly insults, now removed.

Nobody is stopping you from speaking here?

QuietContraryMary I am so enjoying your contributions and how they really cut through to the heart of the matter.

'Oppressed transpeople' sorry for the autocorrect there

Trousering

Can I ask those figures you gave earlier do they include amounts allocated to sub contractor companies government use to ‘fix’ the benefit claimants? Do you know how much A4E was given in past (a company that screwed the most vulnerable) I don’t want to say to much but it still happens with these private firms sub contracted. So those figures I feel are misleading as it not going directly to claimants.

I admit got my back up reading your posts but having thought, I wonder if I part of that issue in what creates divide, as I expect you to under my situation and felt originally your posts was like some superiority, if that correct word also think because people like me are blamed and seen as tax payers burdens so have become defensive mode.

The wall gets created and attack/defend on all sides.

I never got it until was in position myself, like now my child needs a pair of school shoes, but it not just pair of shoes which is a basic need, but for someone in my situation those shoes become the centre of everything financially but also mentally and emotionally the strain it causes, this is the part that is invisible to most.

This is NOT a begging request as am lucky that I could (I won’t) ring mum & she would send money up, but it doesn’t solve the problem yes got shoes but it not just shoes, is it. It doesn’t fix real issues.

Would give you breakdown of my incoming & outgoings as single parent and the constant loop of catch 24 circumstances, some days try holding it together just to continue the loop. I’ve searched and sucked up any pride asking for ways that I help myself get off loop but to no avail. Am always open to suggestions.

Don’t like to drag names in but don’t know how else to explain, don’t see Posie as being elite, yes our worlds are completely opposite but does that make her more elite, how can she represent me, I don’t expect her to as, it’s not her responsibility, more importantly I don’t recall her saying she was representing anyone other than her beliefs which just so happens many agree with (me being one who agree with some of what spoken about), so honestly don’t understand why others are intent on pushing her under bus.

Regardless of all that however you feel about Posie , she has broken down that wall used resources that she has, just as she would if up ladder on class having more resources.

I knew nothing about understanding of feminism until recently so still not much but learning to trying to find place where I fit, recent spats has changed my whole view realise that it doesn’t fit me so no longer seeking to fit in. I agree about what said about women’s rights instead and that’s where I’m at.

"What do you if you are poor and need to urgently discuss or organise to address actual inequality in your life if feminism is about elite women deciding what is an acceptable way to discuss it? How do you get the right to challenge your own oppression if no matter what you do you hit a wall of elite women saying they will decide how you discuss inequality, and their movement is about their social network that can only be accessed from elite institutions." 100% agree. Don't know what is to be done about this, however, because the 'elite centre' stonewalls anyone ( like you) raising the questions.

I did try to start to raise these questions but met the same response...I'd say that one of the few things left to do is for the great unwashed among us to simply stop giving certain people our time, attention and money. It might not change much but at least one stops being willingly exploited.

Hey, I am one of the women hit by austerity and multiple other oppression olympics tickbox shitsticks.

Because of these things, I am struggling to keep my sanity, get by every day, care for who I need to, get help (ha! there is none, I have exhausted every RL avenue and experienced the callousness) I can't post often or keep up with threads, even when they are discussing things that directly affect me. I'm the voiceless disadvantaged powerless austerity hit woman this thread is partially discussing. I want this stuff to be talked about. I am especially voiceless because I have very few people to talk to in RL and few allies, have battles to fight on many fronts, I can't/don't use any social media. I fear my LL selling this property at any moment because no one else wants tenants on benefits, even very nice ones). Other stuff I don't want to mention here. It takes all my spare effort to check in with FWR, never mind post. I constantly fear being maliciously reported to the DWP or being spied on (and will now have to name change). Ha, I'm pretty much at the bottom of the fucking pile!! MN FWR has been a recent lifeline for me. It has power. I am glad I know women are here discussing important stuff otherwise I would truly despair. Labour and the Lib Dems don't represent me any more since they went trans insane; Lisa's damned elite in action.

But because I cannot write or think much or get stats, and these days barely know who anyone is bar the Prime Minister, and can't get anywhere in RL, I'm reliant on those who can post here to hopefully, coincidentally, represent me, cover my points, make some changes that will also benefit me.

And then a thread that aims to talk of oppressed and voiceless powerless women being ignored and kept out by a self appointed elite includes some posters who feel able to troll hunt and use nastiness and snipe to control participants at the drop of a hat, and when I say can't disagreement be kept reasonably civil (and to avoid hypocrisy on this thread in particular), I'm called the thread police, that I am policing women (no just a woman commenting on two other individual women) whilst getting policed myself and being told to go elsewhere.

So I just have to sit back and resign myself again to the fact that others with more power than me, however much or little power they have themselves, will conduct themselves however they like whilst discussing issues where my life pretty much hangs in the balance and where my circumstances prevent me from joining in even with an FWR thread, and so I have no influence whatsoever. I am almost completely disenfranchised.

That's pretty much what the OP power dynamic Q addresses in microcosm isn't it?

Am I supposed to stay quiet so as to not add to the divisions? Yet if we don't speak up at all, or throw out those who do, we get the Green Party. What a mind fuck. Don't the kids say 'meta' or something, or is that so 2015.

On the bigger issue of defending biological womanhood I want to see all women fighting for this, and don't want to see this kind of outright denouncing.

I won't be able to come back for the foreseeable for the above mentioned reasons, so I'll just resign myself to crossing my fingers and hoping as usual that someone somewhere does or says things that can help me and other women like me, and maybe my occasional post will add something constructive to life somehow.

This has taken me along time to write so it will miss any posts written in the last couple of hours. Its truly the best I can do and I am posting in good faith.

No Oxytocin, I didnyt 'feel' it was directed at me. It was a direct use of disgusting rhetoric, in a pattern consistent with what happens at least two or three times a week for a decade, directly attempting to derail the thread and I used it to demonstrate. Which in the absence of being able to stop it and given the relevance of the display to the thread, I used it. Now I didnt 'feel' anything, I am perfectly able to assess behaviour aimed at me, consistent with an ongoing pattern, and designed to derail a discussion which is about power dynamics. I discuss the relationship of social policy, to economics, to political power, I dont indulge 'elite women pay for you'. You maye have 'felt' I had no right to use that to demonstrate, but that feeling was not shared y me. My actions were guided by assessment of the situtation and reality. And I did not ask for your support but the idea I would indulge someone saying elite women pay for me because am on 'welfare' is really just another demonstration of what the thread is about.

Ha thanks Lang, plus on 1.5 hourly wake ups! I started this post at 11; ive since done a really horrible nappy (where they also kick it everywhere) overseen traintrack construction, fed number 1, appeased teething crawling number 2 multiple times, and somehow did the dishwasher. So it's probably out of joint.

There needs to be a disassociation between identities and ideas perhaps?

Feminism as an identity. (As Lisa has said elsewhere.) ideas can be free floating and you agree or don't.

The discussion around 'wife' is interesting. My sister did not marry and was shafted financially when they split with one child, not least as she'd sacrificed her career. At that time child care wasn't funded at all. She's poor but clever. And very GC.

Being a 'wife' actually led me to try to understand feminist ideas.

Bindel has spoken about the fallacy of marriage for women. Which I get. And posie is doing what she's doing because she has no job to loose as she's a sahm/ wife.

Brain has forgotten the rest.. but there's many interesting facets amongst all this.

Am sorry Pomo, no. I dont think you are posting in good faith and it is asolutely beyond me to pretend that a pattern which is a constant when I post is fresh and new just for you. Its beyond me to do so. It is also beyond me to indulge 'elite women pay for you' and if you are looking at a single mother, dicussing what I am discussing, that way, then you need to look again and i dont have to pretend that is in good faith. Its either not or its mistaken but neither of those things are my responsibility although thanks for assisting in derailing discussion of why we dont discuss that intersection you are discussing, which also impacts millions of other women. Cos that discussion happens all the time and needs derailing into 'elite women pay for you and I will turn up every time you post until you stop talking about this'.

Ill leave the thread and wont post again and then maybe the discussion can happen without what happens when I post. Whixh I am not responsible for.

'elite women pay for you and I will turn up every time you post until you stop talking about this'.

Neither of which have I said or done. The tax and social security system is a social accord, it includes "elite" women.

www.gov.uk/government/collections/benefit-expenditure-tables
The data I posted is here. I have read lots of it and it doesn't appear to include admin costs.

I abhor the sell off of council property and yet my working class family jumped at the windfall. I believe it was a shortsighted policy, my DS's first home away from me was an ex council property with five tenants paying a total of £39,000 annually to the owner who likely paid 50 to 100k for it. Regrettably the loss of commonly owned housing means that the small investor in buy to lets gets a larger income from that fomer state asset from the tax take than would have been acceptable if charged by a state owner.

I was a huge supporter of Gordon Brown who restructured the system to introduce tax credits as a transfer of wealth from the higher paid to the lower paid. Much of this has simply subsidised low paid employment sectors such as hospitality, retail, etc. which would not be viable businesses without the state topping up pay. The balance between what voters will accept as tax and what the economy needs to keep people working is the main issue of government. The fact that voters switch governments from left to right and back again is evidence to me that the social accord swings back and forth over just how much we are willing to share out.

There's an interesting breakdown here
obr.uk/docs/dlm_uploads/Welfare-Trends-Report.pdf

It starts by saying this:
Around half the population receive income from at least one social security benefit at any given time, and almost everyone does so at some point in their lifetime. Furthermore, eligibility for different benefits is determined by a wide range of household or individual
circumstances.

So that includes me.

QuietContraryMary - thank you for your posts on this thread. Fab contribution.

pomo

This has been a really interesting thread, lots of food for thought. Thanks.

Maybe work on your literacy skills. Learning to structure propositions and arguments in a manner that is clear and concise makes it easier for other to understand exactly what it is you want heard. Less is more and all that.

trousering

Admin costs?

See what happens these subcontractors (private companies) will fall under DWP, you will have to dig deeper to find exactly where that money going.

An example:-
Job claimant gets allocated to work program now call work & health programme (which is subcontractor private company)

Gov pay a fee to them for taking on claimant (which isn’t option for claimant), this is supposed to cover training courses etc etc (this is agreement to getting contract with gov)

one particular sub contractor was getting fee everytime see claimant for regular 2wk review on top (none optional for claimant)

If that subcontractor got person off benefits within set period into work (oh some being ruthless bastards making it impossible so claimant got sanctioned or stopped claim altogether) subcontractor got bonus as in few grand the bonus got reduced say every 6months claimant was still under subcontractor.

Claimant still has to attend work coach appointment with those employed directly by DWP.

Claimant doesn’t see a penny other than say the JSA/IS of £73 per week.

So all those figures are applied to that claimant, who get acussed of burden tax payer.

I’m using A4E as (legally I can’t mention others) it was few of staff that eventually caught & convicted abusing system at expense of vulnerable.

This still happens and I could say a lot but just want to explain that those facts and figures are just surface.

I see it shifted onto council housing now.

This is where I come back to knowing that it still remains fact, other than myself and others in same position there is no one to speak up for invisible, the only time we are seen is when someone wants to jump on the saviour bandwagon and use us for statics.

Why is it always those who got f.a. Seen as place where cuts needed. How about starting at the top ie MP expenses before getting onto Social housing

I see I haven't had any apologies for being accused last night of being a lower class, male troll/sock puppet, mollusc and simple virus. Quite the eye-opener.

Thirty seconds on Advanced Search would have revealed that I am a sporadic but regular GC poster on FWR but I wasn't granted the courtesy.

Pomo thanks for seeing it the way I did and saying so. Do come back when you can, all our voices are important.

I did start reading this thread last night, but got confused, and today I have tried to read through but have not been able to take in all points.

But to go back to the original post.

I dont think it is true that anyone group of women "own" feminism. One of the problems maybe (or at least that how it appears to me) is that discussion on feminism on mumsnet operates in a vaccuum as to the totality of feminist activism. This is obviously true of any social media group. You operate in the bubble of that group.

But I think that it certainly does feel that some women on mumsnet feel entitled to derail discussion they dont like - or worse there seems a trend that the only issue that can be discussed as being politically relevant / seriously are trans issues.

Perhaps because the majority of posters to not suffer from austerity and cuts, but there are feminist groups that are trying to challenge this, but dont get acknowledged on mumsnet. (Although I think it is true that many of these groups probably are dominated by researchers and acadmics eg the Women's Budget Group.)

There are many women's groups that have grown out of working class communities. eg focus e15, women's lives matter - although some would suggest that these women's groups owe an allegiance to various strands of the left. But maybe because feminist academics and journalists cant get a job advantage from publically acknowledging them. And it is also probably true that not as many other feminists show support, but also the groups dont want middle class women rushing in and appropriating their work.

But what is also true is that most women, like the rest of society, waits for so called experts to confirm or inform who we should listen to. ie why did so many women who got involved in 3rd Wave Feminism decide that 70s Women's Liberationists should not only be ignored but publicly derided. From the media and academics.

Just because the Guardian (its own self serving elite bubble) and twitter dont acknowledge the work or even existence of the majority of women's groups is because they are dominated by middle class university elites. eg Million Women Rise one of the few Black led women's campaigns existed for over 10 years before it was mentioned (as a photo op) in the Guardian.

Twitter is the most irrelevant social media platform for feminists (and has a far smaller number of users than just about every other social media platform). And I dont understand mumsnetter fascination with what's being said on twitter. Its a bit like saying I want to reach out to other women, but do i go to where I think other women might be, no I go to the sleaziest pub in the town and get into arguements with drunks. While women are carrying on a live of both paid and unpaid work.

Unless of course it is a short cut to get noticed by the media as it it so obvious that lazy journalists use twitter to write sloppy news stories as its easier to do that than proper research.

The other thing is that (and maybe this is because this is the "chat" forum rather than the activism one) that everything is discussed in personal terms.

The wider discussion about PP has been about her aligning with a known right wing, patriarchal, anti woman's rights christian group. It has nothing whatsoever to do with her race, class or views on being a wife. And because of how she expressed that alignment, having only recently given an interview to Meghan Murphy about how being dropped by WPUK had made her reconsider how she spoke about things, women were angered. Not on a personal level but because for them politicly it is an important part of organising activism. And I dont think JL got as much flak, but there was definitely concerns about post on WNTT which implied one thing (ie distancing itself from the HF) only to find out (as jean hatchet did) that it wasn't true. Many women have been deeply shocked by this - politically. To the extent that London ReSisters did not go ahead with their planned action for the same day. (The real worry is that the growing network of resisters will be tainted by this being economical with the truth. For instance some have said they are willing or duped marketing agents for a t-shirt promoter.)

I've lost my train of thought as there were other points I wanted to make but what I have written is confusing enough anyway.

But just to say to Lisa and anyone else who feels mumsnet slince them, there are other networks of women you can join.

Stumledin, the OP was about major political institutions which cover millions of people and expect to get to Dwoning Street and power dynamics when those cultures shape perception of activism. Including feminism. Now re: the council housing and elite women pay for single mothers guff on the rest of the thread, it was a demonstration of something quite important but nowt to do with anything I said. More who I am. And yes, everyone has a right to speak. I didnt accuse Mmsney of silencing me, I pointed out that actually I couldnt take part in many forms of activoism because of actual targeting which was done publicly and was pointing out that I was not not being derailed y that is not silencing someone or abusing power dynamics. But dont let nything I actually said inform. Interesting thread. Even if not the was intended.

Thanks Lisa

I'll rethink given your recent post.