Gender critical board?

[Arewehumanorbones]

Would it be worth asking MNHQ to set up a gender critical board?
Two main reasons:

1. People who don't identify as feminists may find it more acceptable to use. Even though I suspect a majority of posters will be feminists.
2. To try to decouple the perceived necessity in some people's minds that to be gender critical you must first be feminist. When in fact as has been pointed out Kiwi farms has lots of gender critical posts but no feminists.

Any thoughts on that?

People who don't identify as feminists may find it more acceptable to use.

This forum is called "Feminism chat". Anybody who doesn't like that is not obliged to post here.

My view? We certainly do not need a separate 'Gender critical' forum.

No, there's enough boards. Too many just dilutes things.
There's no real need to be gender critical unless it's from the perspective of women's and children's rights, which is covered in the Feminism and Women's Rights in the title

So you don't think it might be interesting to get some fresh voices heard on the gender critical issues that are often posted on the feminism board? I personally like hearing others opinions especially when they differ from my own, but many people do not post here merely because it is "feminism" and they do not see themselves as feminists.

You could ask for a non feminist gender critical board, but you'd need to ask in site stuff, not in fwr.

Nope, it's not needed

Is there any evidence of hoards of people who don't "identify as" feminists feeling inhibited from posting on gender critical posts?

I doubt it!

But also - feminism isn't the only section on the website. If you want to post from a non-feminist point of view on trans issues you can go ahead and do that in politics, or schools, or wherever else the issue arises.

FWR includes gender critical posts from a feminist perspective.

This is a MASSIVE issue in contemporary feminism. Of course we should be discussing it in feminist forums!

Ah well, was just a thought, no point asking if there's no interest in it. :)

Gender critical board would be seen as red rag to a bull in some quarters and MN would be under intense pressure to pull it down,

It would be a bad move.

You don't need a board to start a thread you know! You could go over to chat, for example, and start a thread "gender critical idea from a non-feminist POV" and see if you get any takers.

New boards usually happen because there's loads of posters who want them, not because people are worried about a thriving section of the website not being "inclusive" enough!

Arewehumanorbones what problem is it you're trying to solve?

Perhaps there are other solutions.

Honestly, if someone ‘doesn’t identify as a feminist’ to the point where they can’t even hold their nose to post on an anonymous chat board that has the word ‘feminism’ in the title, then no, I’m not especially interested in their opinion, as that is pretty much the definition of bigoted (and I don’t usually use that term as it’s wafted around willy-nilly now by TRAs meaning ‘you disagree with me’).

Setting up a separate non-feminist board would just be pandering to the inherent misogyny of those who seek to undermine and demonise feminism, IMO.

Mainly I want to unlink in main stream thinking that you have to be a feminist to be gender critical. And so therefore people who team up to fight genderism are "betraying feminism" when sometimes it's not about that.
And a lot of eyes are on MN. If MN boards can indicate that being gender critical is actually wider than feminism then that helps feminism in bringing down the patriarchy in the long run

Or something like that

I don't think that's mainstream thinking.

I think gender critical is, to a certain extent, mainstream thinking.

Yes, there's a lot of swaying by the patriarchy, a lot of habit, but most people these days are at least a fair way along the road to agreeing that men and women are perfectly at liberty to wear what they like, and be in whatever career they want to be in (for example). It falls down a little in practice due to traditions, but most people definitely at least think that they think equality is the way forward.

Mainly I want to unlink in main stream thinking that you have to be a feminist to be gender critical. And so therefore people who team up to fight genderism are "betraying feminism" when sometimes it's not about that.

I get you. It's like the glinner thread at the moment. It would probably be a positive step to start more GC threads on other boards.

I don't think much of this criticism is coming from a place of looking out for feminists, though. It's mainly non feminist, or people whose main priority isn't feminism, trying to force division.

It would probably be a positive step to start more GC threads on other boards

This I do agree with.

I think that there is a perception among some sectors (my FIL for example) that anything, 'PC' or slightly SJW sounding is blamed on 'the feminists' - he doesn't know anything about feminism, hasn't actually read who's asking for what in whatever he's blaming on 'the feminists', he just assumes if someone's saying something he doesn't like, then it's 'the feminists' saying it.

I don't think a GC board will help there. They would just lump everything together, whether it is or not.

I think blaming non compliant women is the go-to for all the ills of the world isn;t it?

Or just women full stop, even the ones who try...

There are GC threads on main boards and they get mainly agree with a handful of this is transphobic

I think people do get tired of topics and while it's important, so are other things. I do feel a bit sad sometimes that feminism is pretty much just GC stuff when I joined it was such a range and this exploded. I do start threads about other feminism topics from time to time but they don't get much traction.

So based on that I think the feminism board is the GC board, as not much else is talked about, and from conversations and other topics not gettign traction it's fair to say that a lot of posters are not so interested in the other stuff.

So, it's done really.

GC itself is a feminist term. Many people who object to trans philosophy are not critical of gender they love it. feminists are GC by definiiton and also very very often GNC which is why I think the trans thing is light blue touchpaper and stand well back. We are the people who have been saying for years, gender is oppression. Get rid of the boxes. So, of course people who want to enforce the boxes even harder get our backs up. It goes against everything we have been figting for and makes us fear for the girls who are like we once were.

Hey OP, while I think I understand where you're coming from I agree with posters above that it would dilute and fragment FWR threads. The solidarity and discourse I have thankfully exposed myself to through MN FWR threads is invaluable to me - I think fragmenting or breaking off conversations/resources to another GC area could somewhat derail FWR focus.

Much like you I greatly enjoy engaging in conversation with people that carry different views than I, and from what I've seen many MN FWR participants feel the same. However, as our sex-based rights are eroding before our eyes the FWR is a place (mostly) of solidarity and support - and anyone can participate. I find that FWR is quite inclusive and seemingly allows an open forum for differing views (barring abuse of course).

I hope you have a fantastic day!

It reminds me of the forced splitting back in the day. Funfems and antifeminists lobbied for FWR to be split into 2 - the 'radical feminist board' and the 'feminism chat' we are on today.

Because the people calling for the radical feminist board weren't the radical feminists, but those who wanted to oust them for the very board they original pushed HQ for (FWR), the RF board was tumbleweed.

This gender critical stuff rose up on the feminist board for a reason. What fucking cheek for latecomers to try to take ownership of all the discourse and resources created by the feminists here. OP you are a CF.

Struggling to imagine how it works to be gender critical and yet not feminist.
If gender basically means society's roles that are assigned to each sex, then gender critical means to criticise the practice of assigning roles to each sex.
As far as I can tell it's pretty impossible to be gender critical and not feminist.

TRAs are in favour of roles being assigned and linked to each sex. They just think to change roles is to change sex.
Sexists are in favour of roles being assigned to each sex. They know people can't change sex but they also think noone should be allowed to change roles.
They are opposed to trans ideology only because they oppose transgression of sex roles. They're not critical of gender nor are they feminists.

If you're opposed to sex based roles entirely, you're both gender critical, and feminist, as I see it.

Cwenthryth agree very much.

Trouble I've found this week too is that posters of these particular persuasion will jump on any thread with a whiff of the F word which is posted anywhere but FWR with cries of "Take your man hating poison to FWR you witches, leave Chat/AIBU out of it!"

I really wish "identify as" as a pre curser to everything would just fuck off.

It's synonymous with "am not" more often than not, meandmetoo