“Women basically already have equal rights in the West”

[Ethelfleda]

I’ve heard this statement from a few people over the past year or so, always from men.
I know they’re wrong but I so rarely know how to tell them they’re wrong.
I want to tell them they’re wrong without patronising them because it is my belief that once you do this, you alienate your audience and they won’t ever come around to your way of thinking.

What do you say to this statement??

This is how it tends to go whenever a TRA activist or ally comes on to this board...

Remind us of some of the brilliant points they have made (that were ridiculed) you must have many examples.

This article from This morning's 'Spectator' outlines a new, young mother's experience of 'lock-down' with a new born.

she certainly sounds very young ( having never been aware of the traditional 'period of confinement', for example), and her pre-Covid lifestyle sounds quite different to my own...but nonetheless an interesting account: www.spectator.co.uk/article/lockdown-used-to-be-the-norm-for-new-mothers?utm_medium=email&utm_source=CampaignMonitor_Editorial&utm_campaign=WEEK%20%2020200509%20%20AL+CID_c6f19a07f0d57c499318c2e1bbf58f70

Lockdown used to be the norm for new mothers

Remind us of some of the brilliant points they have made (that were ridiculed) you must have many examples

Once again, you leap to derogatory comment, rather to engage.
Many people would attempt to outline why they were in disagreement with TRA ideology, while others would simply shout down, dismiss with personal offence and name-calling and so on.

If one really can't hack a discussion, and have nothing of interest to contribute, then it is most often best not to engage at all.......

If you have a disagreement or a counter point to any of the assertions or questions posed, then detail it.....others are then free to question, or test, that point. That's how debate and discussion works.

Happy to do that when you stop telling people they are bullies or man haters for their opinions. This works both ways and many of your posts are unpleasant so I'm not going to respond to those.

So what's your view on Miss Havisham justhadathought?

Happy to do that when you stop telling people they are bullies or man haters for their opinions

I suggest you go back and read through......see how it actually progressed, and who was responsible for the purely negative rebuttals in the first instance. Discussion turns to personal animosity when people inject personal animosity into it.

I come here for the purpose of broadening my mind, and challenging my own perspective, and to learn about, and share with, the experience of other people.....not to be dismissed as an 'MRA', or told that I "can't have read any feminist texts", or that I am "best ignored".

But do you know what, I'm a big girl and I can take that...but you no longer get compliance and "nicey nicey" from me. If you thought people would back down and go away if you talked about cats, or blanked them in rude and aggressive ways, you're wrong.

Once again, you leap to derogatory comment..

And once again we have someone on here (this time it's you) making crass generalisations about how men of both kinds are treated on these boards.

Lockdown used to be the norm for new mothers

Still is in some places - my friend is Malaysian, fully modern woman - always worked full time etc. Stayed home for 6 (or 8?) weeks for each child, used special washing products as she wasn't supposed to shower - all sorts of rules about it, and she stuck to them - didn't even consider it a possibility to not do it.

So what's your view on Miss Havisham justhadathought

I actually used to be an English teacher, and I guess that people will insert or identify their own situation onto any character.....engage with their presence in a novel in different ways. However, for me, Miss Havisham is clearly a woman damaged beyond repair, unable to move on from her wound. Living in Victorian times, even though wealthy and of independent means, she still craved love & marriage...but was humiliated and betrayed by the man she was to marry and spent the rest of her life haunted by that; even as she attempts to repent in later life.

A woman whose life has become frozen in pain and bitterness; determined to suffer, and nurse & nurture those wounds; to extract revenge through the manipulation her young charge.

*And once again we have someone on here (this time it's you) making crass generalisations about how men of both kinds are treated on these boards8

You assume all women who disagree with you must be men?

Didn't say that

But your so called 'rules of misogyny' are just a list of made up bullet points.

"12th rule of misogyny: Women’s ability to recognize male behavior patterns is misandry"

May 2018 thread:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3236421-so-these-ere-rules-of-misogyny

"12th rule of misogyny: Women’s ability to recognize male behavior patterns is misandry"

Those rules never fail.

And once again we have someone on here (this time it's you) making crass generalisations about how men of both kinds are treated on these boards

Didn't say that

You implied that some of us who posted content ( on this thread) that you didn't like or approve of ( or perhaps, on other threads too) must be men, and MRA at that.

What else could you have possibly meant?

There are women / females who are MRA.

People who have posted on this thread have been banned, just. It's not difficult to spot sexist, provocative behaviour, it really isn't.

Miss Havisham is a woman who was prepared for one role in life - to be a wealthy wife. She was humiliated when her fiance jilted her at the altar, and she realised the love of her life was a fraud, who had conspired with her half brother to defraud her of her fortune.
Miss Havisham's original goal in raising a girl was to prevent her from suffering as she had at the hands of a man. But her plan works too well, and Estella is trained to despise men.
The result is that Estella lives just as unhappily as Miss Haversham.

I am not an English teacher, but I did study Great Expectations as one of the GCSE set books.

An interesting, and thoughtful piece of feminism and motherhood: www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/i-loved-motherhood-where-does-that-leave-my-feminism-1.3283329

^Until we create new dialogues about motherhood, feminism will keep hitting walls, argues Elske Rahill"

And another:

"Motherhood, it is true, is one of the main instruments traditionally used to dominate and domesticate women, which goes some way towards explaining “the rejection it faces within some feminist circles: there is a biosocial aspect to being a mother, and feminism is uncomfortable with that biological component,” explains Vivas.

“An anti-maternal and anti-reproductive discourse emerged during the second wave of feminism, in the 1970s. But now there is a generation, mine, that has not been confronted with motherhood as the only route possible and that has a less prejudiced view of it,” www.equaltimes.org/the-rise-of-the-disobedient-mother#.XrQUzi-ZP5Y

Motherhood is not rejected in feminist circles

The low societal value that is placed on motherhood, and the use of stereotypes to continue to justify that low value is what feminists reject.

As soon as one says "it's natural for women to nurture, it's not in men's biology" it excuses the kind of crap upthread (not from you just) about how maternity leave is a "perk" and working 9 to 5 is harder than caring for a newborn and possibly other children 24x7

Most feminists welcome a conversation about appropriately recognising and valuing motherhood as work (e.g. Caroline Criado-Perez).

We reject the stereotype that women love being treated like servants, essentially

For example, in that article:
Verónica Gago, academic, activist within the Not One Woman Less (Ni Una Menos) movement and mother, summarises the dilemma as follows: “No woman can do it alone; it would be enough to drive anyone crazy, because the pressure to be a self-sacrificing mother is coupled with the decimation of public childcare facilities and radically altered family structures.”

The challenge for the feminist movement lies, according to Gago, in “thinking about motherhood from a community and interdependency perspective, as the solution to care cannot be resolved privately or monetarily”. In other words, we need to look for collective solutions, rather than every individual woman being forced to solve the problem within their own home, by paying another woman to take on the tasks she cannot handle.

Absolutely no mention at all of fathers. No discussion of parenthood vs. motherhood. It's purely discussed as the mothers issue to resolve her work life balance, the mooted solution is "paying another woman".

Where are the men in this debate? Men shouldn't be able to opt out by claiming childcare is naturally the woman's domain. It's not true, not supported sociologically and is a position that allows the continuation of the status quo - where women do the grunt work while men get lauded for it.

I don't hate men but I hate patriarchy and stereotypes are a way it is upheld.

Where are the men in this debate? Men shouldn't be able to opt out by claiming childcare is naturally the woman's domain. It's not true, not supported sociologically and is a position that allows the continuation of the status quo - where women do the grunt work while men get lauded for it

This thread has looked at the issue of having children from a variety of angles........including looking at the Scandinavian experience, which actually throws up some interesting results..& which don't actually accord with pure feminist theory.

I think the issue arose was when some expressed a belief that there was a certain amount of inevitability about women feeling more attached to nurturing roles, especially when they have small children.....as it does tend for most women to be a more powerful and instinctive experience...for what I think I quite obvious reasons.

That is not to say all women must have children, or that all women must stay at home when the children are young, or that some fathers may not choose to do so themselves. And many men do not "opt out", at all, even if some do. They see it as their role to provide, as well as to actively play a role in bringing up a child. The father of two of my children is very engaged and nurturing in certain ways that I have less patience for, for example. So we do tend to quite naturally split certain tasks and roles......some of that is down to personality, character and personal preferences.

I think some feminists do have an issue with others even suggesting that not everything is necessarily socially constructed. That seems to be a line which some refuse to cross for ideological reasons.

Those rules never fail.

The reason for that is their construction and how you are sing them. If you question the rules, it proves you are a misandrist. So the rules must be correct as they've spotted it!

It's completely circular, and not really different from saying criticising something like TWAW shows you must be a transphobe so what you are saying should be ignored.

...as it does tend for most women to be a more powerful and instinctive experience...

Stereotype that allows men to get away with not getting involved in dirty nappies and toddler tantrums.

There is no evidence it's more instinctive for women to parent than men. You are asserting that because you want to believe it because it fits with your experience. But that doesn't mean it's true. And it doesn't mean that it's not a damaging stereotype.

TWAW only fools those who don't know the difference between an adjective that modifies a noun, tall woman and Black woman for example, and a compound word which changes the meaning of the noun entirely, Seahorses are not horses, hot dogs are not dogs, trans women are not women.