Shall we start a feminist think tank?

[Newuser123123]

There's lots of clever, knowledgeable women on here. Perhaps we could have a space for gathering research, ideas and policy proposals?

I'm in!

I’m in. We need a secure space to discuss and debate these ideas. Not here - it’s too accessible. We need some quick slogans/hashtags that we can start throwing around the internet. I like #AWA as a quick throwaway. Start calling out the bullshit as misogyny every time they say something anti women. Be organised to create pile ons when some one/business acts against women. Have the femicide and female suicide stats to hand to respond to their stats. Use the AWA’s tactics against them. Start moving the conversation from not wanting penises in safe spaces to men/AGPs fetishising womanhood and that we are all being expected to be complicit in their fetish, even children. The argument of no men in women’s spaces isn’t working so we need a narrative that means (non trans) men are negatively affected. We need to roll our sleeves up and do this.

@yoyo great, have a couple of ideas for sharing platforms. Will get back to you.

It may be impossible to verify everyone when we move this privately so we will need to be mindful of what we say (at least until the high profile cases are resolved!)

I agree with others that we keep the focus pro-women, anti-misogyny.

I have posted on another thread the beginnings of a work plan and structure. I will do some mapping of the other organisations working on these issues and get back to you.

Thanks

Hi all, I've sketched out the existing organisations and their scope and I've added it to a trello board. If you'd like to be added to the board please dm me and I'll send you a link.
Thanks

Please could you DM me OP?

Thanks. I've DM'd you OP.

Have DMd you OP 👍🏻

Would like to be in, am retired software engineer. Not sure if I can DM from the app...

I'm in - ex journalist, tv and digital media strategy and business person. I've had a trawl through, but can't if someone has mentioned how to sign up (or indeed if that has happened yet).

Ah idiot, just spotted that I need to DM the OP - how do you do that from the mobile app? Sorry to be dense!

I'm in. I'm a professional writer - particularly short, crisp, marketing copy. Wrote a successful application for charitable funding and three books.

IMPORTANT PLEASE READ

For anyone on the trello board, please click on 'settings' , then 'manage or delete your atlassian account' (at the bottom) then change your name to your username.

Please do this ASAP as I have no way of vetting people and whilst we will only be gathering existing resources I know a lot of people wish to maintain anonymity at this point

Ah, um. That's probably a valid point about managing accounts and real-life vs online IDs.

I might hold off joining until I've thought through which IDs I use on which sites. I need to make some changes on my MN account as it is.

(I'm not expecting to be able to contribute very much practically, but I'm interested in following anyway.)

Is it possible to read the Trello boards without having joined?

Thanks

I'll have a poke around at the weekend to see. All that's on there at the moment is a document with the names and brief description of all the existing organisations

I have nothing much left to lose, in terms of friends, job, public position etc so happy to be on media but I live outside uk, lesbian radical feminist foot soldier here.

I’m in please, will DM you.

I'm in

Thanks

BTW my concerns about ID are just about potentially connecting real-life ID with very personal stuff I've talked about on MN.

I appreciate other people may have other concerns.

Thanks everyone for the DMs, will get back to you all ASAP

Following up what Nonny said about misogyny being made a hate crime, this is definitely possible, the law commission will be looking at this: www.lawcom.gov.uk/project/hate-crime/

It says in early 2020 there will be a public consultation so the think tank could submit a response to that, as well as potentially coordinating other responses from relevant women’s organisations. Also raising awareness among individual women so they can respond too.

Note: The law commission uses ‘gender’ when they actually mean ‘biological sex’ so it’s very important to respond with clear GC points to make sure sex-based misogyny is not overlooked. They seem to give a 12 week consultation period so it would be good to start thinking about this sooner rather than later.

My Uni tutor drummed a mantra into me "first, define your terms" so maybe we could start with dictionary definitions? It's one of the things we are most worried about, the gradual erosion of meaning from language, so we could put that right in front.

I personally would prefer not to include recent made up terms like xer or whatever, but it's not a biggie to me.

Can we put up that fantastic piece about pronouns and rohypnol on the Trello board? Just as a reminder.

Could you link to the other thread that you started? I can't see it. Apols if it's obvious!

Other thread, although it didn't really go anywhere! www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3750781-Feminist-think-tank-research-group-the-work-begins?msgid=91974705#91974705

I think I've caught up with dms now so if I've missed you please send again (this week is a bit hectic with school, Xmas, childcare etc)

I will get different boards added this weekend so we can start planning but I guess my first thoughts / questions are:

Fair cop are dealing brilliantly with the free speech angle
Woman's place are covering single sex spaces (as well as lots of other things)
Fairplay for women covers sport
SSA uk and transgender trend cover children
Lgb alliance will cover lgb women.

There doesn't seem an obvious gap for us, so could we join up with existing groups? The closest seems to be Woman's place (who I have contacted and they said they'd take it to their board)

SSA uk asked for of many of us to join them as possible (which I will do)

But aside from this, what can we do?

I like the idea of scanning for consultation opportunities, coming up with responses and offering ourselves as a research group to the existing groups.

Will start a discussion thread on the trello board, as ever, I bow to the superior collective knowledge!

Thanks