Women's rights general conversations

[Kucingsparkles]

This is an experimental thread, all input much appreciated!

There is so much excellent information and so many active discussions on FWR that I wondered if it would be useful to have a thread to sort of "cross-fertilise" between them - airing little thoughts or vignettes that wouldn't themselves merit their own thread, to highlight other posts/threads of particular interest or to point to notable developments on fast-moving threads so that casual observers know where to look.

(For example, "the X thread has meandered onto a fascinating discussion of Y" or "Poster P's amazing analysis on thread Z might have relevance to the scenario in thread W" or even "Random bloke asked me to smile while I was choosing onions, grr"- that sort of thing).

Right, bring on the flames or flowers! <cowers>

Buying a woman's body is an act of degradation. The transaction exerts shame and coercion on the woman. This can be rationalised. Some men may even feel virtuous because, even after paying for the woman's body, they choose to suspend the subsequent, expected rape.

It's not virtuous to threaten rape, whether or not you carry out the act itself.

We have two whole boards on MN, this one which is essentially the old FWR, plus another because we were mean or something, and other people wanted to discuss the really important feminist issues we don't. Or something.

In practice, feminism chat is little used, there are sometimes good threads there - which could just as well be on this board. It's a bit daft, and means people who don't visit both boards may miss things but two boards are better than none! It occurs to me, having just written that, that if we come across an interesting thread on Feminism Chat we can link to it in this thread and its successors. (Likewise with anything from other boards which is relevant here)

Yeah the therapist is kind of secure in the knowledge that the man on her coach isn't going to change his mind about not raping her today. Plus she's not having yo listen to some creep twine about how shit his life is when hers is most likely infinitely worse!

@NeighbourhoodWatchPotholeDivision Thanks for that.

I have endometriosis with dyspareunia as a result, and I know a lot of other women with the same problem. The amount of men who just cannot understand this, who cannot even try to understand this. It's sickening. There was a thread in Relationships recently where a man was abusing his partner because she had endometriosis and couldn't satisfy his needs. The worst part was she was sorry. Sorry that a disease she didn't ask for, can't do anything about and is immensely detrimental to quality of life is affecting a man's need for sex and his ability not to be an abusive fucking twat.

Thank you Neighbour for the post on male "bad sex" (=disappointing, no orgasm) vs female "bad sex" (=pain, injury, coercion). Horrifying.

Well this makes me fucking angry! Bumping this post as it shouldn't get lost. This is grooming children in plain sight. @QuickNameChangeAgain - has this been reported to the police, the Charity Commission if they're a charity or anyone else?

I think quite a bit of the feminist opinion here is informed by the Relationships board.

Ah, so it was like Nicola 'feminist to my fingertips' Sturgeon? 😏

Here we are reality based feminists (thanks, Hadley Freeman). 🙂

So my analogy worked for you @WagnersFourthSymphony!

I too love being on a board where it's mostly women, women's issues and women are centred. It's so rare. And it's probably why mumsnet gets slated so much elsewhere on the net. Many men feel threatened by it. We've seen how some men behave offline when women try to meet to discuss our rights - our LEGAL rights I should point out! They cannot stand it. Misogyny takes many many forms but it's always there. And even when it isn't that rampant there is the suspicion, the fear. Women are meeting and discussing stuff! Having lunch! Having drinks together. HAVING FUN!!!

I actually wrote and complained to the ASA because the government once made a series of adverts about how you could end up having a shit night if you drank too much, which I imagine they thought appealed to youth (which I was at the time). The one aimed at young women was your standard "you might get raped" one. The one for young men? "You might pull a "moose".

Yes.

I see no benefit to the collective board of FWR for allowing any poster who posts misogynist posts to 'settle in'.

If those particular posters have had a habit of posting sexist and misogynist posts and that sexism and misogyny being ignored, that is an issue for them, not for any of us as far as I can see.

I also see people saying things like 'let them settle' and 'it will all pass in a few days' and 'best tread carefully on THAT board' as akin to a plea to women to 'be kind' or an indication that it is women who are at fault for making the men upset.

Plus ca change.

Like we have not been constantly told this for years. MNHQ even split this board so people could have a 'nice feminism' board.

I love the feminists of mumsnet. thanks for this thread.

Yes, and I wonder if women coming from the other site are used to having to placate the men to some extent, if that site was majority male or 50/50.

I don't know the stats @StellaAndCrow but going partly from how popular the football threads were on there (and yes I know women like football too - I'm a huge football fan myself) I'd say it was much closer to 75/25 or maybe even 80/20. I've got to meets where women were in the minority; never equal numbers.

I'd love to know what the percentage was but judging by the way our exodus was pushed and then cheered I'd say the vast majority of the posters are now men. And while many did not join in calling us bigots, scum or hateful I think they were relieved when we left so they could get on with doing what they wanted to do most without us pesky Women With Wrong Opinions getting in the way.

I think the male majority may be true of many places online. I've no idea how Twitter splits along sex lines or Facebook. But I've been online since 1995, dialup and Internet Relay Chat. And I've always had the feeling it was far more male than female.

Thank you
b Neighbour
for your post and the link to the article on the female price for male pleasure.

I guess if some of the people who left that other forum want to support sex trade apologists, they could try the Feminism Chat board. Whether blokes who treat women as support humans will get an easier ride there I can't promise.

But I've been online since 1995, dialup and Internet Relay Chat. And I've always had the feeling it was far more male than female.

The first online discussion of feminism I ever participated in was ~1984. I was the only woman involved. At that time - a chemistry PhD student - I was an I'm All Right Jill who thought women had equality.... Fortunately, the discussion made me realise it wasn't all about me. So I'll never be someone who wants to exclude sensible male allies.

b Neighbour

Arf!

Classic rookie mistake!

It's not maleness that is the problem. It is misogyny. Unfortunately misogyny maps closely onto maleness. How can it not, when we swim in it? Some men manage to see it. There are plenty of men who actually listen and can, if they concentrate some of them, actually centre women in a discussion. But the ones who have already decided that they are "good men" (in my experience they believe they are good men because they read the Guardian and are "left wing" and get angry at Tories) are often pretty impregnable to the idea that they might be a misogynistic git too.

I may be being ungenerous. I am still very unimpressed by the display of contempt we experienced last night.

What is?

Helleo, in the old place putting in a line break and then 'b' before a word would bold it. You get so used to doing that stuff that, on a similar looking forum, it's easy to repeat.

the 'b' neighbour?

Bold???? or a finger slip. I am always sending text from my phone with a 'b' at the end. And find the new bolding interface on the update unreliable so still use the * *

Sorry. Cross post.

Me messing up the formatting of my previous post to Neighbour. Sorry, am going back to lurking.

And that is supposed to end with two asterisks. *

Not a finger slip, pike was trying to format in the way we did for years at the other place and it made me smile.