Women's rights general conversations - Thread 4

[Kucinghitam]

Continuation of Thread 3.

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 "Has anybody noticed this recurring theme that keeps coming up??" or even "Random bloke asked me to smile while I was choosing onions, grr"- that sort of thing).

"The stink of Mumsnet".

Ho ho ho.

"The stink of Mumsnet".

Basically clean, with some fresh garden flowers, but on a damp day like today some corners will have a slight tincture of clean but wet dog. Also freshly brewed tea, toast because everyone's too busy to bake cakes, and good quality hand soap, one of the little luxuries that make day to day life pleasant.

There are potentially other, less pleasing smells that I suppose could be unleashed against the patriarchy if we are sufficiently provoked.

Heh, thank you @DeanVolecapeAKAelderberry - I am honestly baffled that post was deleted, I’m pretty sure I’ve replicated it here word for word.

? ?

It was something said by one of the men on the thread.

Basically clean, with some fresh garden flowers, but on a damp day like today some corners will have a slight tincture of clean but wet dog. Also freshly brewed tea, toast because everyone's too busy to bake cakes, and good quality hand soap, one of the little luxuries that make day to day life pleasant.

Yes, exactly. What's not to like!

Gammon and fash apparently.

Ah, OK. A TRSOHer covering himself in glory, as per usual, I presume.

@MavisMcMinty

I'd imagine that one or more fragile souls will have complained, because they cannot abide someone using measured tones and common sense, to point out something factual. They're still NO DEBATE! by the sounds of it. I still haven't been back.

Some people really do seem to hate Mumsnet without ever having been here. I guess it's because we're all TWSOH. Or women.

I read that bit from the Twitter thread and my brain nearly exploded. Definitely queer theory, definitely all theory and no idea of real life. The notion that getting young women to draw images of dick pics that have been sent to them is some sort of craftivism is insulting to the young women and craftivists alike.

I don't doubt that there are many good people with good intentions involved in all of this but my god they are getting it wrong on so many levels.

The post from over yonder that most recently enraged me was one bewailing how mean and horrid women are for not counting post-op transwomen as "proper" women, for the purposesof including them in women-only groups. I mean, God forbid we should be allowed to define our own groups or have boundaries or anything radical like that.

The thread upsetting me right now is the one where everyone is piling on to an 8 year old girl, calling her a spoilt brat, while showing endless empathy to her mums boyfriend who "lost his shit" with the little girl. Adult males get sympathy for not being able to control their emotions. Little girls get the blame.

I mean, God forbid we should be allowed to define our own groups or have boundaries or anything radical like that.

Women aren't supposed to design anything for our own interests. Our purpose and point is to give men whatever it is they decide they want. If they want to call themselves Deliah and go to miscarriage support group, of course they should. Who would mere women be to suggest otherwise?

There's an article in the Guardian today about how close to death a woman has to be to get an abortion in Tennessee. Putting aside the subject of the piece, throughout the article unless quoting someone they refer to the women and girls affected as 'pregnant patient(s)'. Perhaps it's me, but it seems really jarring because all the people quoted use women or women and girls.

I understand terminology is the least of these women's problems but, ffs, it's obviously important to the Guardian, to the person who wrote that article.

Which thread, beastly?

It's in AIBU Angelico - I didn't read the whole thing - it was very sad - the mother is misscarrying, the child is picking up that something is wrong, doesn't know what, and is acting out (uncharacteristically) and the partner, distressed at the loss of his future child, is not cutting the existing child any slack. I hope they managed to resolve it with hugs and edited explanations. A tough time for everyone, and definitely not the little girl's fault.

Lots of people calling the little girl a brat and saying how they'd call her worse to her face, etc. Really sad. The partner apparently "lost his shit" and wants to "kick her arse" and everyone thinks that's fine, but the little girl being upset is not allowed. Gross.

That's terrible, and the sense of being second best may stay with her for the rest of her life. I hope there's someone who can help. What's wrong with the pilers-on? is there a secret mumsnet of child-haters?

Yeah, one of them’s me, and she sounds like a brat.

Poor little thing, she's only 8, I'm sure I was a brat some of the time at 8. I admit I haven't read the whole thread.

I read some of it. Personally, I think that if you can't be a brat at eight when something scary and mysterious is happening to your Mum and you're being cared for by someone who doesn't seem to have much tolerance, there's something wrong.

Mum having a miscarriage is a thing an awful lot of children must live through without much in the way of helping understand what has happened - or are there books about it now? I remember slightly baffled and alarming conversations with friends - all of us well under 10.

I don't know, but there are definitely some child haters on MN. A lot of people seem to have zero compassion or understanding for anything an 8 year old child might be going through and she's expected to have complete control over her emotions, where a grown man is coddled and sympathised with for not being able to stop himself from being aggressive and name calling a child. It's fucked up and it's misogynistic.

Gosh. I’ve missed that thread but I agree.

Kids act out sometimes- it can seem inappropriate to adults but a child’s eye view of a situation is often quite different and an 8 year old is a long way off of emotional maturity and full impulse control.

If the atmosphere in a household is one of stressful simmering undercurrents, it doesn’t take a massive leap of imagination to understand why a kid might cut through that stiff atmosphere with a good old fashioned burst of the screaming abdabs.

You can explain to the child that her behaviour was unhelpful a few hours later or the next day - in the moment she probably needed some reassurance that whatever was happening was temporary. A big hug and a film you’ve all watched so many times you can recite it is going to be more helpful to all in the long run than mum’s boyfriend shouting and name calling.

That kid will never trust that man again now and god help a second time around couple with a kid who hates an incoming step parent.

The day was already shit for the woman having the miscarriage but it’s going to be a lot harder to put the bad day behind them all now that the little girl has a solid reason to hate mum’s boyfriend.

Women as defective men again. Women don’t exist in our own right but are defined as people lacking the defining qualities and attributes of a man. What more does a man need to do to become a woman, than remove his manhood? Surely that not something that any man would do by definition? What else are post-operative transsexuals than women? How cruel of other non-men not to recognise their common misfortune. Probably votes Green.