Maya’s response to Radical Notion’s GC divisions

[HiccupHorrendousHaddock]

I thought this was a very interesting answer to the recent issue of RN.

Shout out to the vipers and their Mumsnet Feminism within!

mforstater.medium.com/on-gender-critical-disputes-db2e456ad9cd

Need to catch up on a lot of the thread and all the assertions, but my own understanding of evolution, anthropology and history is aligned with what I've seen of BinturongsSmellOfPopcorn's posts

That said, the rest of Maya's article I broadly agree with.

I'm also catching up on everyone's contributions because I'm a slow writer so bear with!

write it in another app and copy and paste!

Mumsnet has a bad habit of reloading while you are writing and all your words can vanish into thin air! It’s very, very frustrating!

Surrogacy is one topic that I've found does not have a political dividing line (sshhh...don't tell the political parties!). Religious and conservative men and women are just as likely to hire a surrogate mother to give them a baby as a leftist or irreligious woman or man. In my country, Gloria Steinem has pushed against commercial surrogacy as had Jennifer Dahl. I don't believe either share the same political beliefs, but in this they are on the same page. Personally, I know deeply anti-abortion women who agree wholeheartedly with me on surrogacy (I'm very pro-choice). Interestingly, Steinem is not a mother, but this hasn't stopped her from recognizing the harms to women on an issue she has no personal experience with.

this has turned into just the kind of philosophical debate I bloody love FWR for but am not smart enough to contribute to (I'm mainly good at squabbling). which is just to say do carry on, it's v interesting and helping me frame (or reframe) my views

Interesting posts everyone. For me the aims of second wave feminism were largely achieved in recognising the potential of women in the workforce. Being of an age to have witnessed the cultural shift in attitudes between the 70s and the 00s the second wave was successful.

I would argue that an important strand now would be to stand behind women such as Kellie Jay who will not be cowed with the idea that the work of motherhood is less valuable than work outside this sphere. The argument of the second wave was not to do it, because it was not valued. Well we need to value it.

The other thing that mothers note is that we raise sons. Such has been the cultural insult of "toxic" masculinity, that there are those arguing this is encouraging sensitive males out of identifying as male at all. Huge problem.

One of the issues of talking about patriarchy all the time is that it alienates men. For success for both sexes there needs to be equal respect. I think many of us thought we were getting close. And then the internet happened!

@WarriorN Not an expert so happy to be corrected. My understanding is that radical feminism (“radical” meaning “root”) aims to dismantle patriarchy – the social power structure of men as the dominant class over women – and essentially reorder society without a ruling sex class. However the word “radical” is also understood by many to mean “extreme” so people naturally recoil at that. Radical feminism knows that we are oppressed on the basis of sex but concerns itself with nurture rather than nature and says that the reason for our oppression is a socially constructed hierarchy; this is how our biology is used against us.

Maya is talking about biological essentialism, which is often talked about in a very negative way, because it can be twisted to justify the worst elements of human nature. But that’s not the point she’s making in the article – what she’s saying is that there is an element of nature and not just nurture that plays a part in our oppression. I.e. we don’t condone a “boys will be boys” attitude but we believe that some men will always want to rape women.

To add to bin's posts, though it's not my profession, and this is v broadband loose: key movements in human history triggered major changes. Eg the agricultural revolution (which could have been all over the place in different times, and probably started with animals more than crops), the Industrial Revolution and various other major changes in society, linked to science, engineering, communication. Undoubtedly the age of the internet too.

Matriarchal societies were more likely to exist when resources were abundant for example. As soon as things were tight, the stronger males needed to defend, fight etc. tribalism. Women undoubtedly did too but women also have the very necessary biological equipment to create the next generation of fighters. Which may in turn over millennia have affected our evolution to make males stronger and larger.

Attachment theory is basically rooted in our evolution; larger heads for our bigger brains and better communication led to earlier births and longer infancy / dependency. Which is where the mother baby dyad comes in, but would have also included extensive family units to support and even breastfeed etc.

Haven't read the rad notion piece Maya responds to but from her own quotes around patriarchy from the rad notion piece, I feel they're saying the same thing in different ways depending on which era of history and human evolution you're looking at.

Culturally humans have had some v silly fashions in the past so I have no beef with men wearing clothes currently stereotypically made for women (capitalism, consumerism, culture or patriarchy?) as long as they don't claim to be one.

I do have an issue with the the way that men dressing up in stereotypically fetishistic ways currently feeds into the ideological stance of TRAs and a whole host of child and woman harming shite. Furries included.

I read your post as being about the ideal rather than shitting on single parents. There are so many variables, but ultimately having an arrangement where the children are supported by both their parents is an ideal. How often it happens, well that is a whole other discussion. And a single parent family has to be better with family support if another parent is not in the picture. There has to be some kind of support for a single parent for balance.

And yes the question always should be how to support single parent families better. At all levels to make sure that family thrives.

Fascinating conversation, I gotta get some kids into bed.

If anyone can possibly remember the name of the anthropologist who observed different cultures and tribes and how they brought their children up, I'd be v grateful as there are some more points I'd really like to make!

I remember an awful story of a group that deliberately maltreated their children to make them more aggressive for example, and the group were therefore more aggressive as a whole.

He has gone a bit strange, tbf.

It's really hard though to discuss some anthropological stuff within the more modern context of feminism.

Reading that much Queer theory would probably make the best of us go bonkers.

Plus too much twitter (see also: Sam Harris)

Find it really strange that mumsnetters are happy to respond to a "name" posting about an issue, but dont feel it worth their while contributing to a thread about the same issue when it is based on FWRers being able to talk about issues themselves without being led by a "name".

So yet again duplicate discussions are going on.

What a waste of time and repition.

We really have dumbed down to fanzine feminism.

Why couldn't this just have been a post on the existing thread?

The argument of the second wave was not to do it, because it was not valued. Well we need to value it.

A PP said something along the lines of not wanting to outsource childcare to other poorly paid women. We are no longer able to imagine a society where carers are well paid and domestic labour valued.

How does that work out on a societal level when babies are usually born more or less 50/50 m/f?

They tend to have a lot of nuns (and monks, for the men who aren't keen on their brother's choice).

I don't know of other societies outside group 1 that have anything quite like the kibbutz system, but there there are a lot with shared parenting arrangements on a more or less formal basis. Communal women's huts and men's huts, with women raising the children on a largely collective basis and male children moving to the men's hut at about age 12. Grandparent (usually grandmother) daytime care while both parents go off hunting and gathering. Rota systems with mothers taking it in turns to stay home and look after several children while the rest gather or farm.

Unlike the kibbutz they aren't designed to equalise the sexes, or to prioritise the collective bond over the parental one, but they do free up a lot of maternal time for other tasks in a broadly similar way to the kibbutz. But all the ones I know of have children with at least 1 parent at night rather than sleeping separately.

TBF that thread had become a train wreck!

If I wasn’t in the thick of it early on I definitely wouldn’t have started contributing by page 3 or 4.
At least Maya’s blog gave us a reason for a fresh start without all the insults.

Culturally humans have had some v silly fashions in the past so I have no beef with men wearing clothes currently stereotypically made for women (capitalism, consumerism, culture or patriarchy?) as long as they don't claim to be one.

I do have an issue with the the way that men dressing up in stereotypically fetishistic ways currently feeds into the ideological stance of TRAs and a whole host of child and woman harming shite.

My position exactly.

I rarely go onto threads after 500 posts as they just don't load.

Sorry we missed your posts on there with your insights what with all the nonsense. I genuinely didn't see them.

Not everyone is here all the time. Sometimes you don't want to catch up on hundreds of posts - you want to get involved in a thread relatively early

But tbh that just feels like another ticking off for doing it wrong - how dare we not engage with the thread that was there on a related topic but instead engage with a fresher one with a different slant.

The goal should be as many people discussing from as many different angles as possible

The goal should be as many people discussing from as many different angles as possible

Another view of 'Mumsnet Feminism' is the opportunity to do so without judgement.

The name calling (eg domesticated zombies) is seriously undermining decent debate.

Just did a Google to catch any new relevant Nicola Sturgeon news.

Came across this:

thinkscotland.org/2023/02/the-link-between-dietrich-misogyny-and-sturgeons-folie-de-grandeur/

Author is a local councillor who sits as an independent, website says it’s primarily conservative.

Interestingly, Steinem is not a mother, but this hasn't stopped her from recognizing the harms to women on an issue she has no personal experience with.

Is that interesting? Do you think that women who don't have children don't see what other women are going through — don't have friends and sisters with children, don't sit in cafes and see how exhausted and unhappy so many women are, don't read Mumsnet and sympathise with so many of the stories we see. I was the go-to village babysitter from the age of 14. By the time I went to university I'd had more experience of looking after children, including babies, than most women have when they have a child. I'd also got an idea of the dynamics of the average heterosexual relationship. I grew up with my mum doing considerably more domestic work than my father on top of her paid job. My experience of other families indicated that this was pretty standard. I was a feminist at 16 and had decided pretty much by then that I wasn't going to have children. I never regretted that decision.

It's a bit othering that women with children might think we childfree women have no idea what they're going through. We don't know it all, we can't. But we have eyes and ears.

I didn't see your posts on the other thread either, Retire. It was a train crash of a thread so you can't really blame people for not getting involved. We mostly ended up talking about crocheting speedos for Nigel Farage in the end. I was glad to see a new thread pop up, tbh.

Thank you to @ShireWifeofNigelFarage for those screen shots yesterday; there's a lot of tenuous links and jumping about to construct a divisive narrative from my pov.

Any 'Populism' that's occurring now is not at all like past historical populist movements. We have the most instant, far reaching form of communication we've ever had via phones and the internet. I'm not sure it's necessarily populism. Afai can tell, women on the left and right are saying men can't be women.

The whole premise is initially
based on the initial assertion that "populism is mostly right wing" - this is not the case. Some academics don't even think the term is accurate, useful or relevant.