Have feminists brought this upon themselves?

[Lessthanaballpark]

I’ve heard this opinion so much lately, mostly amongst men who seem to be enjoying the struggle between feminism and trans-activism and the threat to women’s rights.

The opinion is that feminists have been attacking male spaces for years and now are getting their comeuppance.

Or that we’ve created the language of inclusion and gender that has led to this.

It’s a mean spirited attitude for sure. But is there any truth to it? Has feminism hoisted itself with its own petard?

The one I can't get over is Margaret Atwood being so TWAW. Her best known books are rooted in female biology. Maybe she saw how Germaine Greer got cancelled. It's depressing.

I often find a hard stare at a man trying out a bit of intellectual wanking on a matter he's a smug observer of other people's struggles in, and a rephrasing to So you're saying if women hadn't tried to get out of their box, men wouldn't have been forced to punish them? Which is essentially the whole If you didn't provoke me I wouldn't have to hit you, line beloved of male abusers isn't it? Usually shuts them up fairly fast.

This total mess has exposed that most people, male and female, believe at gut level and enact in daily life that male people are more valuable, more important, to be prioritised, and female people are to provide service. Which is why we have incels now openly trying to state that lesbian women must 'learn to cope' with sex with males and not 'selfishly prioritise their orgasms' when male people have needs that they should be meeting. It's medieval.

However more and more ordinary women, not academics, those who never would have called themselves feminists, are getting increasingly angry and resistant, and grassroots women's movements are swelling up in ways they haven't in decades if not over a century. This will end in forcing recognition of women's rights that this time will not be a mere band aid. It's just going to be hell while women gather in sufficient numbers and get angry enough to force the point that no, actually does mean no.

It's bad enough that 'intersectional' is now meaningless. Let's not also obscure what 'gender critical' means by allowing people to apply it randomly to anyone they disagree with, regardless of their personal beliefs.

@Artichokeleaves

I often find a hard stare at a man trying out a bit of intellectual wanking on a matter he's a smug observer of other people's struggles in, and a rephrasing to So you're saying if women hadn't tried to get out of their box, men wouldn't have been forced to punish them? Which is essentially the whole If you didn't provoke me I wouldn't have to hit you, line beloved of male abusers isn't it? Usually shuts them up fairly fast.

This total mess has exposed that most people, male and female, believe at gut level and enact in daily life that male people are more valuable, more important, to be prioritised, and female people are to provide service. Which is why we have incels now openly trying to state that lesbian women must 'learn to cope' with sex with males and not 'selfishly prioritise their orgasms' when male people have needs that they should be meeting. It's medieval.

However more and more ordinary women, not academics, those who never would have called themselves feminists, are getting increasingly angry and resistant, and grassroots women's movements are swelling up in ways they haven't in decades if not over a century. This will end in forcing recognition of women's rights that this time will not be a mere band aid. It's just going to be hell while women gather in sufficient numbers and get angry enough to force the point that no, actually does mean no.

Yes, indeed. I acquired late onset feminism as a result of such blatant male demands for compliance.

I'm not naturally acquiescent, but without being given the feminist framework that I now have, the lens through which to view society, I wouldn't have understood why compliance is so valued, even when it's evidently detrimental to women.

Once you see it, you can't unsee it.

Assertive women are strident, bossy, ball breakers. Assertive men are strong, confident leaders.

And this is why mumsnet is so valuable. The biggest gathering of women in history. And this is why there are so many men who want to shut it down.

this is why mumsnet is so valuable. The biggest gathering of women in history. And this is why there are so many men who want to shut it down.

This.

And then compare how HQ used to confidently, easily and assertively respond to MRAs in the past who were open about their reasons for coming and disrupting here, with how carefully and gently and supportively current male dominance and female oppression is treated, and reflect on what that tells you. There were threads this weekend that had to reach quite an eye popping stage before banning happened.

I mentioned upthread about the Edinburgh rape crisis centre being run by a transwomen who is calling female service users bigots if they don't subscribe to transgenderism and demanding they 'reframe their trauma' as a result.

Dr Jessica Taylor has written a thread on Twitter about it.

But the relevant part is how she explains that women not complying with male demands is seen as something to squash, immediately, and in any way possible.

She also describes how she deals with that.

twitter.com/drjesstaylor/status/1425009284614610949?s=21

I don't think feminists have 'brought this on themselves', but I don't think the modern trans rights movement could exist without the gains made by feminism over the last century or so.

The right for a man to be legally recognised as a woman would have been laughable in a world where women:

• had no right to own property or have control of their own finances.
• had no right to vote.
• had a very limited choice of professions.
• were banned from participating in many sports.

And so on...

A man would have been considered insane if he wanted to be 'treated like a woman' and have many of his rights removed as a result.

How many men are shouting TWAW and demanding that men be legally recognised as women in countries like Saudi Arabia?

So in a way, feminism paved the way for the modern trans rights movement by giving women equal status to men, but the trans rights movement was not an inevitable consequence of giving women equal rights, so feminists are not to blame. Women are not responsible for what men do.

women not complying with male demands

And when investigated, this always is in essence, an inability (rarely just merely a refusal) for a woman to put a male person's needs, wishes, feelings and requirements ahead of her own regardless of the cost to her.

That's the demand.

Having a vagina = everyone's mummy and good mummies eat last and eat only the scraps when they've seen everyone else fed
Having a vagina = your body is not your property and male people have needs.
Having a vagina = being good means self sacrifice and embracing subordination to others.

And yet we're told 'sex is a spectrum' and 'no one knows anyone else's sex' and 'sex isn't a thing' and 'sex isn't binary'

When the actions scream, from the rooftops, sex based, binary thinking at all times.

All the things women have tried to escape from in the last century are being rammed back and fixed in place, with punishment for resisting.

wellbehavedwomen

I'm not saying that history isn't strewn with glaring inequalities where females had no rights. But modern day is pretty much equal across the board. And i'm not saying there isn't prejudice around, because there is and this can happen.

2% charging figures for rape is not the fact that 'nobody gives a shit'. Its more about the offence being difficult to prove beyond reasonable doubt. Its often word against word, mix into this the victims who do not wish to pursue the matter through the courts (and i can appreciate this, as its an absolute horrendous crime and as a society should we not respect the victim view point on this?) And there are a host of other evidential difficulties that come into play. Its not the case that no one cares, we want to put away bad guys for a long time but we can only act within the law.

Murders - again horrendous - about 100 women per year are killed in the home from domestic violence which is about 50% of female murders - the other happening on the streets etc. However 30 men a year are killed from domestic violence which is only about 8% of male murders - the vast majority happening on the streets for men.

Females not being the CEO of major companies is a huge subject but I don't think is purely down to male dominance - we have lots of female Chief Constables in the country, lots of Government Departments have female leads etc. The vast majority of males in the country do not fit into the category of CEO's and will have no chance of getting any where near it. I would also suggest that the vast majority of people (male and female) would not want the role in any case. You're pretty much working all the time and have little sleep or family time - and i think only men are stupid enough to take these roles on in the first place (but hey, that's just my point of view)

The gym thing - fine to have single sex gyms and saunas (if they want to engage in nude saunering). The issue would be that a group joins a mixed gym, but then has an area set aside just for their particular group. I wouldn't expect men to have a 'men only area' in such places. Personally, I'm not too bothered with set areas for women if that's the consensus of opinion and if it works at the gym - great.

But I can see an argument being made that it appears unfair that one group has an advantage over the other. And isn't that the basis of this thread? Two wrongs don't make a right. If its wrong back in history for one group to have advantages over the other, then it must be the same now.

I'm not here to wind people up by the way - its a discussion forum where i'm just voicing my opinion. I'm not saying that I'm right and not saying that anyone is wrong and all viewpoints are extremely valid. I'm just interested in having a discussion - and if we don't talk & discuss these issues - how can we move forward as a society together?

When the actions scream, from the rooftops, sex based, binary thinking at all times.

Exactly, @Artichokeleaves, this is precisely it.

(I would advise that women posting here don't waste their time and energy with patient explanations of basic points to posters making the same tired old points that visitors here always make as if they are novel insights.)

Unless, somewhere in the history of feminism, women did assert that men and women were the same.

Yes feminism did for years have to campaign and prove that the intelligence and capabilities of women are the same as men. We had to fight to get education from primary schools through to university degrees. We had to fight to be allowed to have certain professions....Doctor, solicitor, MP, PM, business owner, CEO which were exclusively male for centuries because the female brain was judged to be no better than a 7yr old boys.

Sadly, this concept where we are the same has been weaponised by men to argue that biology is the same....

Women needing their own spaces isn't an advantage over men. They need it because of men's advantage over them.

Women don't need a rape refuge, or a secure hospital ward, a female HCP, or a female gym session to protect themselves from their own sex.

@AssassinatedBeauty

(I would advise that women posting here don't waste their time and energy with patient explanations of basic points to posters making the same tired old points that visitors here always make as if they are novel insights.)

I would seciond that. I thought about it for a moment or three and thend decided that it was futile.

Anyone reading the first and last paragraphs will see it...

women being sent to the front line in war if we want equality,

On a side note, I do personally think women should be eligible for conscript and be expected to fight in the military in times of war. Also that in volunteer military forces, women who do volunteer and enlist in the military should be allowed the same opportunity as men to fight on the front line...such as fly fighter planes, helicopters, sail aircraft carriers, destroyers, drive tanks, even lead platoons of soldiers etc. Not having experience in conflict zones does hamper women’s promotion chances compared to their male counterparts. That’s why we don’t have many female generals of admirals.

Fundamentally there is nothing particularly original about men demanding that they should be able to do what they want, whether that is invading Wembley, or marching around in Orange sashes.

A movement that centres the individual and post modern concepts of queer theory also really doesn’t have much overlap with movements that are based in material concepts of class analysis.

This is a really interesting thread, I think I need a MN earpiece too, but what I find most fascinating is the type of posters we get in the wee hours. What is that about? Its like clockwork isn't it? See a goady post where they clearly haven't read the thread and the timeline is always between midnight and 3am. Never fails to amaze me.

@ErstwhileGoth
the trans movement isn't about breaking down the gender stereotype boxes and saying anyone can do what they want, it's just preferences, and are instead rigidly reinforcing them by saying 'if you're a woman you do X and if you're a man you do Y and if you want to do something from the other box, then you need to climb into it fully or stand in the middle and declare yourself boxless'

Love this. It’s my view of the dangers of the trans movement as it is now. Yes some people are truly trans but so many non trans people are being misidentified as trans when they are simply gender nonconforming. But every time I point out the lives ruined by the current crude methods of determining who is trans, I get called transphobic....sigh.

Why historically are women not part of front line conflict?

At the most basic level, because just their presence makes males considerably harder to barrack, organise, control and keep within the necessary boundaries of discipline required in that arena.

Not because women refused to get their hands dirty.

Some really fantastic points drawn from the twitter thread Datun links to above that are too acute not to share: (the view of a male born head of refuge services for women, that 'bigoted' women who will not 'reframe their trauma' and agree to mixed sex spaces to recover in can justifiably be refused care)

• help with the caveat of moral judgement and correction, is not the type of help that a secular society should be promoting. Demanding lip-service to an ideology as a barrier to adequate care is appalling behavior.

• In the past women had to renounce their sins or accept religion to access mother and baby homes or to receive help. That this kind of thinking is making a come back in government funded services for women who are tax payers is appalling.

• pushing a political view on to a woman at a time of profound trauma and crisis is inappropriate, unethical and unprofessional.

• No matter the views of the therapist, it is completely inappropriate to push religious, political or cultural views on to the client during sessions. Ever. This is basic training to be fit for post.

@wellbehavedwomen
“Google the law of coverture, maybe? Blackstone: "In law, husband and wife are one person, and that person is the husband." And the rest...

Fantastic post! Well needed because I do sadly find young women today who have no idea just how recently women gained emancipation. I remember my own mother having her savings account in her sole name emptied by my father because as a married woman, he owned all her earnings. She also couldn’t buy a car without his signature, they sales person wouldn’t sell her a car to her alone without her husband co-signing.

@Artichokeleaves

Why historically are women not part of front line conflict?

At the most basic level, because just their presence makes males considerably harder to barrack, organise, control and keep within the necessary boundaries of discipline required in that arena.

Not because women refused to get their hands dirty.

Yes that’s the typical men’s defence on why not allow women to fight alongside them. The “distraction” of a female among men.

But many countries have gone past this. Look at Israel for example. The US also has opened up combat positions.

Females not being the CEO of major companies is a huge subject but I don't think is purely down to male dominance

1.bollocks

1. Stop. Calling. Women. Females.

2. Stop. Calling. Women. Females.

Well spotted. It just creeps up on you, doesn't it. It's insidious.

women being sent to the front line in war if we want equality

In my day we were banned from combat roles. And in non-combat roles we were paid less than men doing the same job at the same level. Some of that has changed, but I'd be up for conscription being equal (incidentally there was a cohort of British women conscripted into the army in WW2. I used to know one who loved to give me tips on how to care for my uniform)