Mumsnet invented a feminism that is rooted in female experience. Honest.

[FloralBunting]

So, I know you are all hyper-privileged white middle class women who really only know suffering through what to say when the Au Pair doesn't load the dishwasher correctly etc. But I thought you might be amused by this dillock writing a thread on the potted history of how Mumsnet managed to warp all your brains into thinking feminism wasn't about promoting porn and being a #BossBabe.

twitter.com/RodentWild/status/1434087672105025538

I particularly enjoy the tweet at the end of the thread pointing out that some of us used to be in patriarchal 'submissive wife' cults ( That'll be me, duckies, owned it, speak out against it at every opportunity, what are you doing to counter the abuse of women, tweeter? Oh, you're attacking women for being mothers and getting retweeted by Roz Kaveney. )

Still, I did enjoy being called an 'Mn prominent t*rf'

Thank you Charlie (23:24, unseen, I’m slow) Don, Plan and Aparal. I am always amazed about the education and diversity of the women on this board, and have learned so much, even though I didn’t want to know some things, eg that weetabix usage.

[quote underneaththeash]@FloralBunting that doesn’t even make sense - maybe post in the morning.[/quote]
The rest of us understand her post perfectly though

Paragraph one

Before TRAs began making a land grab on women's rights , before a huge growth in children seeking physical treatment, women on MN were not bothered by trans people

Well that's me told I guess.
Except- on an anonymous forum, how anyone can tell (unless they know all my usernames and advance search the lot) what my background is?
Middle class? Nope. Privileged upbringing and life? Not in U.K. terms, no. As for BIPOC- well as I have traced my family back 500 years on the maternal side and pre- Norman conquest on the paternal side, do I win a prize for being an "indigenous" woman?

Like many women of my age, we thought the legal battles for equality were largely won, although attitudes in society still needed work. No problem with LGB people or transsexuals- most of us campaigned for equality for all.

Now, now. Here you all are being educated and erudite about linguistics and anthropology and archaeology.

I'm sure this just proves the Tweeter's point about you all being privileged white M/C dummy mummies /heavy sarcasm ends.

At, but FloralBunting, what good is the combined knowledge/expertise of MNers in all these areas, not to mention science, law, education, medicine, not to mention applying basic critical reflection to the experience of being a woman, if we haven't read any feminist theory. How dare such women fight for their rights.

“Why do people always forget that we were last conquored by invasion in 1688?”

Well, that depends on whose perspective you’re looking at it from- William of Orange was invited over and was married to the daughter of the incumbent king so...(although I suppose William the Conqueror also argued that he’d been invited to be King)

Anyway what silly tweets. The horror that anyone could think women’s oppression had something to do with our reproductive organs . Even though the ability to get pregnant and all that goes with that clearly make women a more vulnerable class in society. No- it must be about their long hair and makeup! It’s a neat way of blaming women for their own oppression, because in new liberal feminism, the ‘costume’ of womanhood is viewed as a choice, taken in a vacuum.

“They never seem to consider that the women in rape crisis or domestic abuse services (and, for that matter, prisons) are overwhelmingly there because of cis men's violence in the first place. They'd rather imagine hypotheticals than deal with real problems.”

And this reply baffled me. It’s almost as if they don’t know what we’re arguing at all.

I don't get the distain.

Women who were experiencing sexism, ramped up by attitudes to them based on their biology, come to MN and find more women who enable them to see it through a feminist framework?

Putting a negative spin on that is pretty desperate.

And I'm sorry, but you don't have to read even one line of feminist theory to know that allowing rapists into female prisons stinks.

@TheMarzipanDildo

“They never seem to consider that the women in rape crisis or domestic abuse services (and, for that matter, prisons) are overwhelmingly there because of cis men's violence in the first place. They'd rather imagine hypotheticals than deal with real problems.”

And this reply baffled me. It’s almost as if they don’t know what we’re arguing at all.

That is such an odd thing to say. Yes, we do talk about male violence and its impact on women.

Maybe they think that the only important words in that sentence are “cis men?” Who are obviously a completely different category from transwomen and readily identifiable as such.

(I never fail to be stunned by a lack of empathy so complete that they think we can see their feelings.)

Who needs theory anyway when they’ve got actual experience? I love reading feminist theory (and the feminism section is full of widely read women) but theory is often quite abstract. It can’t compensate for experience.

I bet the tweeter wouldn’t tell someone who was talking about their experiences of racism that they need to read more theory first.

“Maybe they think that the only important words in that sentence are “cis men?” Who are obviously a completely different category from transwomen and readily identifiable as such.”

Yes! The whole bloody point is that with self ID any male (cis or trans, malicious or harmless) can access women’s spaces.

"They never seem to consider that the women in rape crisis or domestic abuse services (and, for that matter, prisons) are overwhelmingly there because of cis men's violence in the first place. They'd rather imagine hypotheticals than deal with real problems."

When you don't believe in transgenderism, they're all 'cis men'!

Who are indigenous people on mumsnet? Welsh people?

Rough northerners 🤦‍♀️

🤦‍♀️

I see they've now sneakily edited their comments to a british version.

Maybe they think that the only important words in that sentence are “cis men?” Who are obviously a completely different category from transwomen and readily identifiable as such.

So easily identifiable that Karen White was put in a women's prison and the Wi Spa flasher was defended as a 'real transwoman'.

How many examples of harm caused by men cos-playing as women do they need before they realise this is a pervert's charter? (I know, it's always n+1)

In one breath MN is awful because we're oh so privileged and in the next we're awful because we aren't at all well read on feminist theory.

So is the suggestion that women who first experience oppression due to motherhood can't participate in feminist discussions until they've done sufficient research on theory? Isn't that a bit exclusive?

Gawd why did I click on that tweet and read the replies, I'll never learn.

Anyhoo here's a gem:

You've really caught it all as it occurred there Wild Rodent and i just wanted to add that previously there had been a number of attempts to promote on mumsnet the ideology of the "Submissive Wife" from a couple of what have become Mn prominent Terfs.

I've been here for 8 or so years and I don't remember any "prominent Terfs" pushing this ideology? Also I thought the term was "Surrendered Wife" not "Submissive"...strange that they choose that particular word isn't it....

Also BIPOC makes no sense from a UK perspective and is yet more US cultural imperialism, a type of imperialism that genderists and wokesters don't seem to have any problem with...

Oh and the whole “they welcomed/defended fascists, because there were three odd men standing on the other side of the road, who obviously had nothing at all to do with women’s rights? Presumably they were as much a part of the women’s group as the anti-women counter protesters and equally welcome. Indeed, had they joined the anti-women protesters it wouldn’t be too much of a surprise, given the rhetoric where they want to abolish prisons and police and are generally anti-establishment.

I had a good view of these guys when they appeared and they arrived along with a group of conter-protesters before they took up their positions on the other side of the road.

As far as I could make out they appeared to be antifa types (one had a red & black flag is that antifa?) and had nothing to do with the women's protest, indeed I was under the impression that antifa regards women who want to campaign to uphold their rights are fash and they wouldn't be on our side anyway...

Surrendered Wife is the secular version, the 'submissive' or 'obedient' stuff is more religious in character, imo. Similar to look at sometimes, but slightly different in motivation and execution. The secular version is openly about using a man's desire and domination fantasies against him so that the woman who does it can get what she is told she should want (financial support, gifts, attention, etc)

The religious version is more about obedience being God's will and that if you end up with some bad consequences, it's usually your fault in some way. The book 'Me? Obey Him?' is a very good example of the mindset, and you can find plenty of websites that promote this perspective.

I don't recall ever 'pushing' it, but when I first rocked up to MN many years ago, I was part of a Patriarchy group that believed these things, (It's defunct now, but if you search 'Vision Forum' you'll get an idea of the tone) and I will definitely have discussed those ideas. Funnily enough, it was having conversations with the terrible feminists on here that gave me the space and opportunity to see what a crock of utter shite it all was and escape.

@BrozTito

Who are indigenous people on mumsnet? Welsh people?

🙋🏼‍♀️

Welsh, disabled, W/c woman checking in.

Totes privileged by virtue of the fact I happen to post on one particular website though.

@FloralBunting

Surrendered Wife is the secular version, the 'submissive' or 'obedient' stuff is more religious in character, imo. Similar to look at sometimes, but slightly different in motivation and execution. The secular version is openly about using a man's desire and domination fantasies against him so that the woman who does it can get what she is told she should want (financial support, gifts, attention, etc)

The religious version is more about obedience being God's will and that if you end up with some bad consequences, it's usually your fault in some way. The book 'Me? Obey Him?' is a very good example of the mindset, and you can find plenty of websites that promote this perspective.

I don't recall ever 'pushing' it, but when I first rocked up to MN many years ago, I was part of a Patriarchy group that believed these things, (It's defunct now, but if you search 'Vision Forum' you'll get an idea of the tone) and I will definitely have discussed those ideas. Funnily enough, it was having conversations with the terrible feminists on here that gave me the space and opportunity to see what a crock of utter shite it all was and escape.

Thanks for taking the time to explain the difference Floral, and it seems the MN vipers certainly made a good job of getting their fangs into you!

Because they were all mothers/pregnant/trying to conceive, and possibly their first undeniable experience of sexism was associated with pregnancy or motherhood

I must have missed the memo that says I didn’t experience sexism prior to being pregnant.

15 years of studying with and then working with almost exclusively males and there was no sexism there at all, no siree.