Newstatesman
Glosswitch
10 MAY 2018
'The demonisation of Mumsnet is just the latest incarnation of witch-hunting
Naturally, it frightens people to think of what a group of mothers might actually demand.'
(extract)
“The deliberate withdrawal of women from men has almost always been seen as a potentially dangerous or hostile act, a conspiracy, a subversion, a needless and grotesque thing.” Thus wrote Adrienne Rich in 1976’s Of Woman Born, her seminal exploration of the politics of motherhood. From the workers gossiping in the spinning circle to old wives passing down knowledge of contraception and abortion, women gathered in isolation have long been considered untrustworthy. What might they be saying? What could they be plotting? And how, above all, might they be controlled?
It’s a problem that’s never gone away, though the context has changed. Anxiety over women’s speech – fuelling violent backlash in the form of witch trials and scold’s bridles – arose at a time when, to quote Marina Warner, “women dominated the webs of information and power; the neighbourhood, the village, the well, the washing place, the shops, the stalls, the street were their arena of influence, not only the household”. (continues)
I bloody love Mumsnet (even if Mumsnet users haven’t always loved me). Whether you grasp the politics behind it or not, its very existence as a modern-day spinning circle/witches’ coven reminds us of female resistance to marginalisation and of the fear this provokes in others.
Like earlier attitudes towards gossips and hags, today’s attitudes towards Mumsnet mothers are a measure of how all mothers – and by extension all women – are perceived. By that, I don’t mean all women are Mumsnet mummies at heart, but that responses to those women provide a measure of what all women can get away with. (continues)
And yet, mean or otherwise, unless one takes into account the historical fear and demonisation of women communicating without supervision, it is frankly bizarre to see activists appointing themselves monitors of Mumsnet conversations on the relationship between sex and gender. It is both disproportionate and a distraction from meaningful work to dismantle stereotypes.
The political engagement of mothers and older women matters. Naturally it frightens people to think of what these highly-exploited groups might actually demand – and of the services they might stop providing – if a sufficient level of organisation could be achieved. This has always been the case, long before the internet came into being. This is the context in which we should see pushback against Mumsnet when compared to other, far more offensive but somehow less vilified social networks." (continues)
www.newstatesman.com/politics/feminism/2018/05/demonisation-mumsnet-just-latest-incarnation-witch-hunting