Women and girls' sex-based rights

[StephanieSuperpowers]

Well, here we are...

I also thought Peacalmer’s post was great. No one can possibly say he is not trans inclusive but he engaged on that thread in very good faith and that led to some really interesting discussions. He also pointed that his daughter has encountered a series of safeguarding issues even within her mostly positive experience, which from what I can see no poster from the other side of the debate has engaged with.

You might hear "Bunbury" mentioned. The Bunbury threads are about spotting and dealing with community disrupters.
These threads are "monitored" by TRAs who have been known to start threads in the hope of provoking posts that they can post on Twitter as examples of Mumsnet evilness.

And there are TRA posters who try very hard to take threads off topic and often succeed because people argue back.

There's a fine line between discussion being informative for the lurkers, and arguments that go nowhere.

"Grey rock" cam be a useful tactic i.e. ignore, don't give them material to work with, they hate that the most, and it's the most effective way to deal with it.

More fluent posters will hopefully explain this better :)

Stay sinner! It is helpful to have male allies and you habe shown you are prepared to listen and be humble.-

😒

Realistically we know you aren't Sinner! There's just the odd raw nerve round here.

Something that never fails to surprise me here- there's a kick back against the female socialisation of 'be kind'.
It is acceptable to disagree profoundly, and say so with no softening necessary.

It took me a while to get over the rather robust forthrightness of some posters. I went around mumbling 'be kind' and 'if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all' before someone pointed out my misunderstanding.

Women don't have to soften unpopular opinions here. I mean we tie ourselves in knots to avoid triggering the guardians and moderators, but that's slightly different.

I'm still not quite ready to tell someone they are talking bollocks, but I'm getting less mimsy day by day. Unless that's the menopause... hmmm.

For bold text, put one asterisk * directly before the text you want to be in bold, and one directly after. No space between the asterisk and the text.

You can check a post in "preview" before posting to see if it has worked.

Has anyone organised a ritual mass hazing yet?

I've definitely told someone in the other place that they're talking bollocks, because they were!

Women don't have to soften unpopular opinions here.

Good, I've never got the hang of that.

(Trying the app to see if that gets round the lines problem. Looks weird, takes ages to scroll to the end of a thread. This is going to need a bit of experimenting.)

Ha ha! I take your point pickemewalnuts and that is a good thing. My post to Sinner was heart felt and true, he is a GBOL and want him to feel welcome in our lifeboat.

I do accept however that on reflection the atmosphere of the Other Place has led to my posting style being increasively ans uncharacteristically passive. Partly becuause of the moderation strictures placed on us on one thread and partly, I now realise, self imposed as when I was more myself I got scolded by a clique of posters so retreated to a more people pleasing style for fear of being disliked in a place I already felt I increasingly failed to fit in.

Anyway TL:DR

You will find we are an opinionated and awlward lot once we find our feet.

Is there a way to embed links on the app?

A couple from Twitter today.

Tampax apology twitter.com/Tampax/status/1596512639332540417? Better than some apologies.

But on a considerably more depressing note: if women are victims of domestic violence that's the fault of their poor inadequate bodies (and therefore they must be trans allies) twitter.com/iseult/status/1596248891783282690?

Excellent! I am in RL a people pleaser if the nth magnitude (thanks mum). Here it's great to experiment with just, you know, speaking up.

I mean I regard myself as trans inclusive in that I support the right of trans people to go about their lives as happy, safe and fulfilled individuals protected from discrimination.

This is me too. I’d extend that to using people’s preferred pronouns (something that does come up when teaching in that in group crits and the like it’s not unusual to refer to someone in discussion while they are present) though I understand why others won’t.

As someone who only lurked on the thread over there (not least because it moved so fast I’d usually missed the moment by the time I’d read new posts, something which I think may also happen here), I kind of assumed I’d stay over there on news threads and the like but it feels different (not least because a lot of you were the most interesting posters) and even if I didn’t post, I can’t consider myself as anything other than part of the group that’s being slagged off. How much I’ll engage here I’m not sure yet. I’ve had a login for years (despite not having children) but it’s a big site and I’ve never explored it properly.

It is a shame artant. I wasn't sure I was going to leave as I was morr invovled in other threads but the pitchfork mentality since Friday, mainly aimed at giid

Hello ex-JTTers. The various threads on this topic over the years really helped me to understand this issue when I first became aware of it in 2018-ish. It was one of the most intelligent and informative discussions I've found anywhere. I was mostly a lurker, but may join in a bit more here. Thanks for finding a new place for it.

Arggg that incomprehensible post was me being fat fingered. The mobile version of this site is not .... optimal.

picklemewalnuts I'd say the menopause definitely helps with being much more intolerant and "forthright", but tbh in my case I'm just more so than I already was - in person at least :).

Like Gin I was always very careful on the other place to phrase things in such a way as to cause as little offence as possible. I'll probably still do that because it does make you think a bit more about what you're saying.

I will definitely miss the Boggle, Drool and Sneer thread as well - I popped over to the property / DIY section and couldn't see a likely contender, it's a great idea to start one!

I'd say the menopause definitely helps with being much more intolerant and "forthright"

Yeah, when I turned 60 my people pleaser gene switched off and I've since become a grumpy middle aged woman. I don't really give a fuck anymore, there are things that need to be said.

I think Mumsnet having a larger readership is helpful.

And some of the readership has come from Twitter directing people to come and see how awful we are - people come, start reading, start learning from the very patient Mumsnetters who have been willing to play the long game.

Thinking about it more, we - mainly confident, robust, educated women - were drawn in to forced kindness by this episode. We were made small, cowed, limited. We were held responsible for keeping the thread on track and curbing the excesses of (mainly) male drive bys and outbursts. Inteligent and articulate women were again and again forced in to long overlt complex, passive posts modifying their positions and views to appease any invisible observers.

We were guilt tripped by people expressing hurt that their "friends" thought such awful things as you cannot change sex or dared to read unapproved media.

I popped back yesterday with the idea of letting a few threads I post on know that I was leaving and noticed that someone (TBF someone not known for politeness or nuance) has crowed about the "teans hate cunts" leaving. And no one challenged it. Not one single person. And let's be clear they were talking about mainly left leaning, progressive women many of whom had been using the site for years and know people in real life.

I thought I had seen a lot in my forty or so years as a woman but this episode has opened my eyes again to how much we are controlled, silenced and held responsible for not "being kind".

I now feel sad I spend a long time making myself small, overly reasonable and meek to appease people who don't even care.

Completely agree. Tbf the “Terf Hate Cunts” post has been deleted, although the poster immediately afterwards graciously clarified that the problem was rather caused by the ones who “refused to leave”. No problem with the ritual shaming and exorcism then, just the ones who didn’t accept their punishment.

I see from Twitter that one of the attendees of the #letwomenspeak event in London was attacked and assaulted by an "activist" (can we say T-R-A in here?). This worries me as there is a bit of a pattern emerging at these events where "activists" are moving on from harrassment to assault. It's not good enough that they were arrested afterwards, the police shouldn't have allowed it to happen in the first place.

It feels like it was inevitable. Hello all.

It's only here that I was taught to see the sex class issues. Not long ago I was saying that feminism was a bit passé, and no longer needed.

I hadn't 'seen' the socialisation of girls, and the impact of motherhood on careers.
-Despite trailing round the country, then the world, after my DH and being expected to take on the daughter role by MiL, while DH was allowed guest status at my parents.

Anyway, I've learned a huge amount from women here, which I believe is an almost uniquely female dominated/focussed space. I didn't learn it anywhere else!

Mazy, hello!
**
**
**
**
**
**
**
**
**
**
**
**
**
**
**
Pike I'll need to have another read of the rules, but from memory that particular TLA is restricted but not fully banned.
**
**
**
**
**
**
**
**
**
**
**
**
**
**

So that's how it looks if I just go ahead with all the aumotac extra line breaks.