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>

I'm beginning to come out out in hives when I see shrill.

Just come out and say, "My rebuttal to your otherwise excellent points is that you are physically female, and your voice sits within the typical female vocal range. Your obvious femaleness renders your argument invalid".

How do they get 'shrill' from a typed Internet post?

Oh yes. Misogynist prejudice.

Shrill - anything that doesn't centre them?

I remember being accused of being shrill by at least one male poster, before they were permanently banned .

Shrill is this century's version of hysterical. Or calling women mad for having opinions and expressing them. It's just one of a million ways some men use to devalue what we say and who we are. And to feel superior to us.

Oh yes - "people might be willing to engage with you (which we always said we wanted) if you weren't so strident, so aggressive, so blinkered, so.... transphobic"

In truth, with a couple of honourable exceptions of non-GC women who really did stick around and try to make their case (unsupported by the brave keyboard warriors who have been scolding us since we left, they felt outnumbered and piled on and didn't want to continue - and I don't blame them), the engagement by the other side was largely in the form of:

1. the site owner coming on and telling us we were a "shitstain on the site" a couple of times before he threw the final hand grenade;
2. a few people who would just pop in occasionally for a spot of pearl-clutching and tell us we were awful and they had trans friends and it was our fault they were unhappy and felt unsafe;
3. about 4 weapons-grade nutters who would join in for a few days, post links to absolute unsciencey bollocks which was generally dismantled pretty efficiently, largely by @Kucingsparkles and @BinturongsSmellOfPopcorn , resort to shouting, get into slanging matches with the rest of us, and then flounce until the next time they got pissed and fancied throwing a self-righteous temper tantrum.

And before I go and make the old man's tea I just want to say how much I am loving having my lifelong feminism affirmed!

I find this determination is made about my posts too, all over the internet outside MN, but only if I have a female username. It's not made if I have a unisex username.

I don't believe my style of posting changes that much between fora.

Yes @SqueakyDinosaur that is a very good summation of what it was like. I'm still working my anger through about all this.

only if I have a female username. It's not made if I have a unisex username.

For quite some time on the old Guardian boards people thought I was male! And I think I was supposed to take this as compliment! (Reader - I didn't!)

Fuck that for a laugh.

Welcome home.

Thank you @ArabellaScott I feel very welcome.

Wow, this thread moves fast. Especially when you keep having to break off to do actual work. My two penn’orth, as someone who used to post on the other board many years ago, is that if male exiles from over there want to post on FWR, they need to understand that they’re here on sufferance and behave accordingly. This is not their space. And if that sounds unwelcoming, so be it. We’ve all chosen to come here because we want to talk to other women about women’s rights issues. They don’t get to fuck that up.

The vast majority of women’s groups I’ve ever been involved with irl don’t allow men at all for that very reason- because the vast majority of them (and yes, including our own bloody nigels) are just not capable of STFU and letting women speak. It’s too ingrained in them that their opinions are worth more.

Welcome home.

Thank you! This place has such a different feel to it. We can just be.

Our Nigels!? Is that slang for the men in our lives!? Love it!

Lawls, it's like NAMALT except about one's son, Nigel.

I think we're going to need a new thread sooner rather than later, aren't we. This one's speeding along.

Lawls, it's like NAMALT except about one's son, Nigel.

Ah right thanks. I thought it might be a play on the word angel! Thanks @Tricyrtis2022

I always thought on MN it was about husbands

eg
all men watch porn
Not my Nigel

This place has such a different feel to it. We can just be.

I find not only is it millions of times nicer and much better than the old boards but I'm preferring it Twitter too. I feel less constrained, less in fear of being banned or suspended or mass reported all of which have happened to me. (Got my account back but it was horrible!)

Yes. Our Nigels are generally good blokes else we'd have LTB by now. And their existence means yes, we do know NAMALT , and that no, we aren't all 'men haters' . Of course there are also many happily Nigel-free women.

I always thought on MN it was about husbands

So did I! I presumed it was a play on the word angel. Mine's a perfect angel. Which of course mine is!

OMG my Nigel is my DP, not my DS! (And he's lovely).

I always thought on MN it was about husbands

Yes, true that!

I'm a bit slow on the uptake today, because I needed an antihistamine yesterday and it's made my wits sleepy.

The tone and feel of this thread is reminding me of being at the recent Filia conference (my first). It was extraordinary, being for once surrounded just by hundreds of women of types and all ages - there were a very few men there but it was nearly all women - and everyone talking, talking, talking, exchanging views and experiences so spontaneously, communicating so easily, and feeling really relaxed and at home.

In the main though, our Nigels are as irrelevant to womens rights as the women who periodically announce 'well, I don't mind sharing a ward/loo/changing room with a male' etc.