Brainwashed

[MadameKali]

So I wanted to start a thread of my own but, like some kind of tosspot, managed to add it to another thread by accident. The internet is a mystery to me.
Anyway I've copied it below:

I've been pondering lately how we've managed to sleepwalk into where we are now. How have people been so duped? Many people are waking up to the reality and the scales are falling, but why were the scales there in the first place?

Two years ago hearing about "pregnant men" I would've quite happily nodded along thinking "yes, yes of course men can be pregnant and have babies" How did I never come to the point of going "Hmm, I did GCSE biology and I'm pretty sure that men having babies would've been covered. I should maybe do a bit of research because that just doesn't make sense" Nope, just blindly went along with it. I'm hardly brain of Britain but how could I have been so dumb?

I just accepted that yes, TWAW of course they are. Anyone who feels like a woman is one. How did I never question "what does a woman feel like?" Possibly the fact that I've never given any thought to feeling like a women - it's just my reality - but that I knew I wasn't a man, meant that other people felt or didn't feel like their reality. (Don't know if that makes sense, it does in my head)

A story in the Daily Mail about male born people in women's prisons would've been hand waved away with "Fucking Fail, making shit up again" It's definitely a lie and against the law Surely if it was true the Guardian would cover it. They're my tribe, we are the good guys.

I guess the last example is slightly different because that's stuff being overtly fed to us by the media with certain things being deliberately hidden. But is the other stuff also a symptom of that? Was I just a thicky? It's like some weird brainwashing experiment.

I don't want to keep rambling but does anybody have any ideas how we got to the stage that seemingly intelligent people believe such nonsense? While I'm here, a big thanks to the women of the naughty corner (and a particular RL friend) for making my eyes open, it's odd that once you see it, you can't unsee it.

Turns out I didn't remember it accurately, but the insight is the same.

Link won't paste. 🤷🏼‍♀️

Look for smoke-filled room experiment.

The language is insidious. I remember the "first pregnant man" stuff a few years ago and talking with friends about how this was ridiculous - it was a woman who'd had a baby but had taken steps to look like a man and we all agreed - how silly, only women could get pregnant and carry a child, no matter how that woman looked.

Then the pronouns thing and there was no way I could get my head round calling someone that I knew was male "she/her". Just didn't compute in my brain.

But then.....a few years and constant drip, drip, drip later, and pregnant person is everywhere, and I automatically she/her someone I know is a transwoman. And my boss has pronouns on her email signature and keeps trying to persuade us all to join us in "being kind".

My belief in sex remains that it is unchangeable and that no matter what you may believe about yourself, or whatever changes you make to your outward appearance, you will remain that sex, but even me, Ms Terfy McTerfface feels it seeping into my day to day (made worse because I'm public sector so face potential sanctions for not conforming).

(made worse because I'm public sector so face potential sanctions for not conforming).

I'm in the same position @ditalini, if I was to say what I believe at work I'd be sacked on the spot. So I smile and nod along with the rest and try to avoid saying anything at all.

I think sleepwalking, kindness, lack of understanding, trust that "we'll do the right thing" got us to a point.

Then as people started asking questions, silencing, shaming, cancelling and no-platforming played (and continue to play) their part.

We've come too far. How do we go back?

Imagine:

You are a respected public figure in authority.

You have stated confidently and repeatedly, "transwomen are women" and have condemned "hate speech" by people who have suggested otherwise. You have worn a rainbow badge and visibly showed support and spoke in celebration of pride month and applauded the transwomen in women's sports as brave trailblazers and pioneers.

You may have not fully understood it, or the implications of doing so but followed advice and it was what everyone else was doing too.

Then comes the question : "So as you say, transwomen are truly women, are you allowing them into women's sports, prisons, refuges, associations and clubs, girl guides, changing rooms, toilets and other safe-spaces? And to claim women's awards and scholarships and to count as women for the gender pay-gap statistics?"

The cameras and microphones are all pointing at you. What would your answer be?

@ditalini

The language is insidious. I remember the "first pregnant man" stuff a few years ago and talking with friends about how this was ridiculous - it was a woman who'd had a baby but had taken steps to look like a man and we all agreed - how silly, only women could get pregnant and carry a child, no matter how that woman looked.

Then the pronouns thing and there was no way I could get my head round calling someone that I knew was male "she/her". Just didn't compute in my brain.

But then.....a few years and constant drip, drip, drip later, and pregnant person is everywhere, and I automatically she/her someone I know is a transwoman. And my boss has pronouns on her email signature and keeps trying to persuade us all to join us in "being kind".

My belief in sex remains that it is unchangeable and that no matter what you may believe about yourself, or whatever changes you make to your outward appearance, you will remain that sex, but even me, Ms Terfy McTerfface feels it seeping into my day to day (made worse because I'm public sector so face potential sanctions for not conforming).

You could point out to your boss that encouraging people to put pronouns in the signature could force someone who is questioning their own gender identity into a corner.

Example:

Do I put "he/him" and then be forced to stick with it forever or suffer the humiliation of changing it later? People will think "oh he can't make up his mind what he is!"

Or do I put "she/her" now? But I'm just not ready!! Why are they making me do this!?

---

Kind? Or brutally unkind?

A very interesting thread.
I used to be vaguely supportive of trans rights as part of the LGBT rights movement, without giving it much thought to be honest.
Then there was the backlash against J. K. Rowling‘s tweets and it made me wonder - why would a woman who always struck me as intelligent, thoughtful and openminded make „transphobic“ comments?
I read her essay and agreed with what she was saying. Yet I kept seeing comments on SM saying how horrible she was, how much harm she and people like her were causing etc.
The more I read about the topic the clearer it became to me that there was a conflict of interests between certain demands from the TRAs and women‘s needs for sex-segregated spaces.
Yet that conflict of interests seemed to be largely ignored by people trying to appear progressive and inclusive on social media. There just didn’t seem to be space for any discussion/ disagreement/ compromise.
Otherwise perfectly reasonable people would say how transphobic J. K. Rowling was and I just couldn‘t see why.
Or when I saw a post about the LGB Alliance and how they were a hate group - it was the first time I heard of them, but when I looked into what they actually stood for they didn‘t seem unreasonable to me and I could see their point.

That’s how I ended up on Mumsnet

I completely agree re: pronouns in sigs - it's not consistent, against the Yogakarta principles, arguably not "kind". It's been chosen as a way of getting people to visibly demonstrate to others that they're in the in group (be-kind) to pressurise the out group (not-kind-terf-bigots).

To be honest, it's not really working in our workplace. Everyone's keeping their head down, very few pronouns displayed despite the reminders. There was a badge too (if you signed the pledge) - not much sign of that either. Although apparently take up was "huge" .

I'm deflecting for now. Manager is a genuinely kind person, in the original sense of the word and would be massively uncomfortable in overtly pressurising anyone to take part.

So many interesting and thoughtful posts. Thank you.

Smoke filled room experiment.

academy4sc.org/video/the-smoky-room-experiment-trust-your-instincts/

I think a lot about this too, OP. How did we get here? This whole thing has really shaken my faith in the media, institutions etc. Although I was probably naive to give them the credit of common sense in the first place.

Like others I noticed a few weird things along the way (I seem to remember the pregnant man was on the cover of People magazine, or on Oprah or something), and just thought it was an anomaly.

But was busy doing other things, not taking it seriously, and even if something did seem off, I was convinced that the 'people in charge' would ensure that nothing so stupid or ridiculous would be allowed to happen. How wrong I was. This wasn't by accident, but very much by design.

It's like the old Hemingway quote about 'how did you go bankrupt? Gradually at first, then suddenly...'

There was so much lobbying and sneaky dealings going on behind the scenes for several years that we didn't know about, and weren't supposed to know about. Then once that was safely in place, they could emerge from the shadows. Very sinister.

You should be proud in the UK, you upset the apple cart . Without your focus on this, and the push back by women's groups so many people wouldn't even know this is happening.

I never would have realised that we already have Self ID law in Ireland, and already have men in women's prisons here! It's not like the Irish government or mainstream media give a shit, they've all drank the koolaid.

@NewlyGranny & @AfternoonToffee The Smoky Room experiment is very interesting.

I remember being in junior school and a dentist coming in and asking us all to sit quietly and when we thought 2 mins (obviously the time it takes to brush teeth) was up, to raise our hands. So we sat and I counted in my head and before I'd got anywhere near 60, loads of kids were raising their hands. I doubted myself and put my hand up even though in my head I was still counting. When the time was up, my counting had been pretty much spot on, yet I'd sat there with my hand in the air for almost a minute. Maybe I'm just easily led! That would explain my previous capacity for gender bollocks.

I'm really pleased I started this thread, thank you to everyone who has responded as always in the naughty corner, it's been informative and interesting.

I remember being in junior school and a dentist coming in and asking us all to sit quietly and when we thought 2 mins (obviously the time it takes to brush teeth) was up, to raise our hands. So we sat and I counted in my head and before I'd got anywhere near 60, loads of kids were raising their hands. I doubted myself and put my hand up even though in my head I was still counting. When the time was up, my counting had been pretty much spot on, yet I'd sat there with my hand in the air for almost a minute. Maybe I'm just easily led! That would explain my previous capacity for gender bollocks.

There have been psychological experiments on this kind of thing. For instance, I remember an experiment where you had a small group of people who had to work together to assess the length of two differently-sized sticks. However, all members of the group except one person were stooges, not genuine participants. The stooges were all told to say that the shorter stick was longer than the longer stick. The study was actually about whether the one remaining participant would conform to the group and agree that the short stick was longer than the long stick, even though it clearly wasn't, or whether they would stick to their guns and speak the truth.

In almost all cases the study participant went along with the group and agreed that the short stick was longer than the long stick. Either they didn't trust their own perception, or they didn't want to go against the group. The need to conform to the group is very, very strong.

Interestingly, when the study was redone but just one of the stooges had been told to say that the sticks were, eg of equal length (so not agreeing with the study participant but not going along with the group either) the study participant was more willing to say that the longer stick was actually longer.

I need to find that study. I may have misremembered the finer details (like maybe the group were told to say that the sticks were of equal length when they obviously weren't), but the overall point remains.

I think this is why people can look at someone like Laurel Hubbard in their bulging shorts and confidently declare 'that's a woman'.

Okay, I misremembered quite a few of the details! But the experiment is here:

www.simplypsychology.org/asch-conformity.html

It was to do with comparing different length lines on a card. 75% of study participants conformed to an incorrect answer at least once.

25% never conformed.

Thank goodness for the 25%.

Interesting experiment EdgeOfaCoin. Another one for Caroline Criado Perez though , as no women included. So no change there.

@334bu

Interesting experiment EdgeOfaCoin. Another one for Caroline Criado Perez though , as no women included. So no change there.

True. It was the 1950s.

I imagine it's been replicated more recently.

@334bu... interesting.. would the conformity of women be so easy to control, would it make a difference if the stooges were male or female, does it make a difference if the answers are secret or shared.

[quote ChateauMargaux]@334bu... interesting.. would the conformity of women be so easy to control, would it make a difference if the stooges were male or female, does it make a difference if the answers are secret or shared.[/quote]
I know in Milgrim's experiment (where participants thought they were giving electric shocks to others) women were more likely to administer the shocks than men were. It was depressing.

Unfortunately, my suspicion is that women would be more likely to conform to the group in Asch's experiment. However, I'd love to be proven wrong on that!

There was a Derren Brown special that used the idea of complying with the majority to select participants. He does some interesting psychological stuff around this.

[quote AfternoonToffee]Smoke filled room experiment.

academy4sc.org/video/the-smoky-room-experiment-trust-your-instincts/[/quote]
my perception is that mumsnetters on this board would report the smoke/danger and go against the social norms in the group, in much higher numbers than the average person. Getting older, wiser, more aware and less concerned with group think and what others think. maybe the generation gap has a lot to do with confidence and awareness as you get older? Things I'd speak up about now in the workplace or public, say on a train when a male harrasses a female, I wouldn't have done as a teenager

I noticed a shift sometime around 2010(ish). Most of the younger degree students when asked to talk about a subject ( in this case art) started off with " I feel, " rather than "I think."
The mature students were thinking about and analysing the artwork.
It's much easier to convince people who prioritise feeling above thinking. I reckon we were already primed to accept gender ideology as thinking is not a priority now.

It IS a brainwashing thing. Practically the whole point of 1984 is that language is used to change and obscure the truth, and that's spot on. I googled to see if I could find a quote and came across this (not about "1984" but politics): "Orwell believed that language was necessarily vague or meaningless because it was intended to hide the truth rather than express it."

Real-life examples: how we were all trained from decades ago to glibly trot out he was Born in the Wrong Body! (like THAT makes any sense - we are born WITH a body, not IN it) but more worryingly to me, when I first read 'her penis' I winced and disbelieved and shouted at the screen, but now I skim over the words hardly registering them, it's become so relentlessly drilled into us as something which makes perfect sense in a world where what you want to be is magically what you are.

No you were not thick or brainwashed.

You responded in good faith and that this was progress.

The majority of people are good people and want to see the world in positive terms.

The trouble is that not everyone is like that and some people aren't interested in the well being of others in the same way as those with genuine good faith.

This is a symptom of living in a bubble of having a good life untouched by the reality of bad faith actors. It is the very definition of being privileged that you don't see the negative side of life.

Indeed humans are actually programmed to almost be in a state of denial about risk - its what allows us to explore and push boundaries that other animals wouldn't because of fear. But this has obvious draw backs in certain situations. Many of us would touch the red button labelled 'Danger: do not touch' just to find out what happened.

And critical thinking and joining up the dots between unrelated pieces of information is something that social media actively discourages. Social media is short bursts of information in a condensed form with a lack of depth. People read, feel satisfied that they have educated themselves and know something but don't bother to either check it, read in more depth or challenge themselves with a counter argument. Why? Because people are lazy and this involves effort. We live in a microwave instant gratification world. This actually does something to our brains - we seek out dopamine hits from social media and gaming, with reward instantaneously.

I don't think people are stupid for falling for it by any means. Three word slogans are thought terminating cliches. They are actively designed to stop people thinking. This has been well researched - they know they appeal to our emotional side of the brain which is stronger than our logical side. We have to actively be aware of the propaganda landscape around us. How does advertising affect us. Where is it around us. Its not just people selling us products - its people selling us lifestyles and ideals.

I think this is why this particular issue sells best to the young. Its people who haven't hit the wall of reality that actually not all good faith actors have your best interests at heart. Cynicism is a learned trait from experiences of having been let down despite promises. (By the same token thats why Brexit slogans sold better to an older audience.)

Critical thinking is something you have to work on, practise and value. Its not instantaneous. It can be difficult and challenging. It makes you question things you 'know to be true' and it takes a certain amount of humility to recognise and acknowledge your errors.

Humans are funny things. Sometimes they find belief and idealism comforting because reality is darker and much more disturbing at times. Who wouldn't want to live in a land where we all live happily ever after and there are easily identified black and white heroes and villians?

Its much harder and uncomfortable to realise that things aren't that simple and people who are 'good' are actually flawed and can do things that are hypocritical, naive, and at times actively harmful. Sometimes this is intentional. Sometimes they are just so self absorbed or not capable of empathy due to their neurology that they are completely oblivious to the experience and effect on others. It may or may not be malicious.

Where the state comes in - or is supposed to - is to identify these range of conflicted and assess various harms and their level. And then balance them. This can only happen if you have a range of people from different backgrounds able to speak freely and openly (the real definition of liberal society) to protect everyone as much as possible. And then the media report this as such.

This issue and many others are highlighting institutional failure to do this. Indeed institutions are actively using the knowledge of this dynamic against certain groups to get what they want rather than doing the best for society as a whole. This is ultimately never sustainable as over time it builds resentment and public backlashes as scandals happen. These are hard to repress - even with an increasing authoritarian stance. Even China had a scandal over Wuhan.

Manipulation of good people and trying to silence other is a hallmark of something. Not a good something. Its highly sophisticated and deliberate.

OP take the lesson from this. Critical thinking is a wonderful thing.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_techniques
Read this Wikipedia page on propaganda techniques. Learn them and try and spot them every day in your life. It will make you see the world in a completely different way if you can readily identify them.

I think it should be compulsory learning for all children in the 11 - 14 age group. Its essential to know to navigate the world well.

I do think there's two groups of people

Those who read something, accept it and move on.

And those who read something, go 'well is that true' and keep that in their minds (be it to just hold that thought or to actively seek out further information)

Journalists should do this job, but in an world of instantaneous reward this is time consuming and expensive to do so editors have leaned to opinion columns / talking heads rather than fact finding.

Its your basic difference between loose women and newsnight.

Btw of you want to see an example of the smoky room experience in real world action, pay attention to mask wearing.

In situations were no one else is doing it, you will see people wearing less masks. Its almost harder to buck the trend and do so yourself.

The converse is also true. Where the majority are wearing masks it becomes harder not to.

It doesn't matter what your view on risk actually is. You are likely to behave differently based on what others are doing rather than your own personal concerns and risk assessment of the situation.

Social conformity in action in a very visible way