Some questions for the socialist/left feminists here

[BlackWaveComing]

It's a free world, apparently, but this isn't a thread seeking input from conservative or right wing GC's. So

Otoh, if you are a feminist whose feminism encompasses but is not confined to GC in the context of transgender issues, and you have a socialist or left political alignment, I'd like your input. I suppose it's an AIBU for you. ( For context, I appreciate the role of social conservatism as a balancing force, and have defended FWR from accusations of transphobia on many occasions. Posting here for years, other names. You can PM me if you want my other names for veracity.)

I feel like FWR is losing a connection to feminism, and becoming a free speech board with an upsetting number of anti-feminist and anti- w/c tropes appearing here, largely unchallenged, daily.

Today I note the patriarchal notion that mothers are to blame for their children's mentally illness being trotted out. ROGD children, subject to an individualist corporation mediated social pressure being called attention seekers. This veers towards t-phobia, imo. And a complete lack of recognition that feminism is for poor women too, a cohort to whom the economic right is no friend.

Am I unreasonable in my assessment that yes, FWR is sliding into anti-genderism, anti-feminist conservatism?

And regardless of whether I'm wrong or right, is there a place for international w/c socialist feminists to discuss gender, among the many other issues facing women and children?

TIA.

I don't understand this bit

individualist corporation mediated social pressure

but am working class and left wing, and do feel welcome in FWR.

Feel free to challenge anything you dislike.

As a left wing woman I do feel like right wing voices are more common here, but maybe right wing posters feel the same way.

@PotholePalace

I don't understand this bit

individualist corporation mediated social pressure

but am working class and left wing, and do feel welcome in FWR.

OK, good to know.

@Gingerkittykat

Feel free to challenge anything you dislike.

As a left wing woman I do feel like right wing voices are more common here, but maybe right wing posters feel the same way.

I have and I do.

Having been here for quite a few years now, I am noticing a swing to the right, and a correlated change in how issues are discussed.

@SpartacusAutisticus

"I feel like FWR is losing a connection to feminism, and becoming a free speech board with an upsetting number of anti-feminist and anti- w/c tropes appearing here, largely unchallenged, daily."

I'm pretty sure generalising is against the rules.

It's just a feeling, and there's no reason I shouldn't be able to ask it of women coming from the same political perspective of me. But do report if you feel you must.

Butterer, I don't mind being pragmatic and working across the aisle on single issues, but when I come to a feminism board, I kind of expect that posters will have a feminist lens through which they make their critique.

It's nuts (imo) to come to a feminist board to get told that we should all be waving bye-bye to the left and embracing the right. What does the right do for women and children more generally? Very little.

Well yes. Obviously. The issue that dominates the board has attracted a host of people who are in it for the single issue thing.

I've been here since it was all trees :D well in fact before this board was even created. It's been through various dominant, erm. Voices? Styles?

In the end though. The people who are posting on one issue and, well. Not aligned on other issues. Ignore. Avoid. Debate. Argue.

MN as a whole has got more right wing over the last few years.

Roll your sleeves up. Get stuck in!

What do you hope to achieve with this thread by the way?

'It's nuts (imo) to come to a feminist board to get told that we should all be waving bye-bye to the left and embracing the right. '

Who has said this?

Tell them to fuck off is my advice.

And remember some threads are for lovely screen shots...

Is it so broad that uncritical comments that place blame for a social phenomenon, say, ROGD, on mothers and mostly female teachers should go unremarked? Is it so broad that pushing feminist-leaning women towards right wing market economics is just dandy?

There's broad, and there's anti-feminist.

I'd expect a feminist, whomever she chooses to vote for, to have an understanding that 20th C psychiatry largely rested on the idea of mothers being to blame for their children's mental illnesses. See a history of autism, refrigerator mothers etc. And that feminists have had to (and still do - see BPD) push back against these type of sexist assumptions.

I'd expect a feminist, whomever she personally votes for, to understand that of course w/c and poor women will vote for parties which lean left as these are the only parties prepared to address women's housing/poverty etc.

I'd expect a right wing feminist (which still seems oxymoronic to me - the market isn't going to deal with the patriarchy) to acknowledge the many ways in which the right fails women and children.

It's a bit like the mind. Keep it open, but not so open your brains fall out. Isn't feminist a broad church, but not so broad that it begins to espouse anti-feminism?

@NiceGerbil

Well yes. Obviously. The issue that dominates the board has attracted a host of people who are in it for the single issue thing.

I've been here since it was all trees :D well in fact before this board was even created. It's been through various dominant, erm. Voices? Styles?

In the end though. The people who are posting on one issue and, well. Not aligned on other issues. Ignore. Avoid. Debate. Argue.

MN as a whole has got more right wing over the last few years.

Roll your sleeves up. Get stuck in!

What do you hope to achieve with this thread by the way?

I hope to find out if I'm unreasonable, or reasonable.

And to find out if there is a place where women who are on the left, and who want to bring a leftist, feminist lens to a variety of issues, including but not only transgenderism and TRA's, can talk without having to deal with non-feminist anti-genderism.

So far I'm finding out yes, I'm unreasonable, I should budge up for the right, and if I don't like it, tough luck. Fair enough. If you ask for feedback, you have to take it on.

Huh?

I have a straightforward answer..

This is an open anonymous chat board. Anyone can post.

I don't understand what the problem is. You want magic to keep the 'wrong people' out?

If you don't like what someone is saying, then tell them. Make your point.

If you want only people like you, you need to look elsewhere.

I've been here 14 years. I was here and in the rows when the board was created. I miss dittany

What is your complaint exactly and what do you want actually done about it?

'So far I'm finding out yes, I'm unreasonable, I should budge up for the right, and if I don't like it, tough luck.'

Literally no one on this thread has said that.

You're being totally unreasonable by whining about something that no one here has any control over

And taking the advice 'tell them to fuck off' as 'budge up'.

Weird.

Why did you expect MN to be right wing?

Out of interest.

I thought it was stereotyped as a sort of guardian reading lefty middle class enclave?

@NiceGerbil

Huh?

I have a straightforward answer..

This is an open anonymous chat board. Anyone can post.

I don't understand what the problem is. You want magic to keep the 'wrong people' out?

If you don't like what someone is saying, then tell them. Make your point.

If you want only people like you, you need to look elsewhere.

I've been here 14 years. I was here and in the rows when the board was created. I miss dittany

What is your complaint exactly and what do you want actually done about it?

I thought I was clear, and it has nothing to do with 'being liked'.

On a feminist board, which this is, I'd expect that anti-feminist tropes were regularly called out when they appear, which is increasingly often.

I feel like they too often aren't...

I guess I'd like to know if there is a place on the internet for socialist feminists where patriarchal nonsense like mother-blaming for mental illness just doesn't arise.

I dunno love, I’m a bit bored by the constant accusation that everyone is right wing. It’s a bit straw man. I don’t see anyone arguing any of the things you are taking exception to on here, so you’re going to have to come up with some concrete examples. Otherwise it’s all a bit boxing shadows.
FWR (and man as a whole) is largely left wing, despite lots of people trying to claim otherwise in some weird attempt to discredit.

Anti-feminist tropes? It’s not anti-feminist to discuss women being caught in a socialization trap. Is it? Since when?

The traditional left wing is socially conservative, so I'm not sure t's clear what you are looking for.

I would say that what you are seeing is in part a realignment of feminist thought, or maybe a sort of refining. Certain elements that were generally assumed or just seen as natural bedfellows are being re-examined in light of where they have led, some of those things were criticised by social conservatives all along so there is now this interest in looking at those arguments again, trying to see what was missed, and why, and excising what was toxic. And then there are spaces for new thinking.

Free speech and examination of orthodoxies is one area where a lot of feminist though had become weak and it's become evident how dangerous that was in the last 10 years, how vulnerable it became. So it makes sense that it's become very much of interest and that as a result many feminists are looking at other assumed truths of feminism with a more critical eye. You hear women here every week saying that they used to consider themselves good leftist progressives but now realise they were simply going along with whatever was supposedly the correct way to think.

All ideologies go through periods like this and they can be really invigorating for them. And if they don't, they degenerate.

@nachthexe

I dunno love, I’m a bit bored by the constant accusation that everyone is right wing. It’s a bit straw man. I don’t see anyone arguing any of the things you are taking exception to on here, so you’re going to have to come up with some concrete examples. Otherwise it’s all a bit boxing shadows. FWR (and man as a whole) is largely left wing, despite lots of people trying to claim otherwise in some weird attempt to discredit.

There are two threads on this first page that were the first things I saw this morning (my morning).

One asking why any sensible woman is sticking with the left, and going off on a pages long communism-tangent, and one lauding an article that blames mothers (and teachers) for 'coddling' their children as a cause of ROGD. So-called feminists agreeing that yes, these vulnerable teens and children are 'attention seeking'.

I have NEVER 'constantly accused FWR of being right wing'. As I've said several times now, I have defended FWR from this accusation for years.

But then right-wing and patriarchal tropes pop up, and they seem to go unchallenged. So idk what to think, frankly.