Anyone else mistakenly in "Reclaim Women" Facebook group?!

[MarisCraneTheSecond]

This is going to be a stupidly naive post - sorry. I'm just stupidly shocked by this. There are THOUSANDS (I can't remember how many thousand - maybe 100k?) people in that group. Supposedly a women's group for women's rights, possibly formed after Sarah Everard was murdered(?). Anyway, it's actually quite terrifying - the majority of posts are seemingly about "trans rights" and a couple of prominent transwomen essentially bully the whole group - all to loud cheers from the crowd. Horrible aggressive language (e.g., about JKR, etc etc). And everyone just GOES ALONG WITH IT?! I know I shouldn't be shocked by anything now. I seem to have been blocked/removed, after just "liking" a post or two saying something like "it's not great for people to be violent, whatever their sex or gender" (and making the mildest of comments which aren't fully TWAW). Where ARE all these people thinking this is all OK? Who are all the thousands of women who are cheering on being bullied by men? Anyway, just wondered if anyone else was flying under the radar in that terrifying group?!

I suppose I sort of hope a good chunk of the group membership is made up of GCs just there for the fascination/horror show...

FWIW, I found myself in a similar FB group in the US after Hillary lost the election. It soon morphed into TWAW and a place to for some women to showcase their "protecting my trans child" lifestyle. Small pushbacks were met with bans and dog piles. I still lurk quietly but the original love and Democrat woman support was destroyed.

Used to be.

Got kicked out within the first week or two for saying that women are female people.

Loads of us were in and out, banned in the blink of an eye.

Loads of supposedly female only or female focused groups are the same all over the internet.
At least on FB it’s obvious, whereas on Reddit you don’t get a profile pic with every comment.

Who are all the thousands of women…

women, hmm 🤔

I’m in one called Women Reclaim - is that the same? I’m just an observer to see which way the wind is blowing, and joined a few months ago, after I left various other womens FB groups in a huff a couple of years ago then wish I had stayed to see the capture play out.

I think I got booted from that one a while back; someone had posted something using the terminology “vagina owners” or “uterus owners”. I replied with the single word “women” and hey presto, blocked.

I left that one when it was batshit twaw.

I was on it. It has so many members because they all joined after the Sarah Everard protest.

Unfortunately, as bit like Women's March in the US (and here) it was more that a small group of women sort of socialists / sort of Labour set it up effectively to exploit the emotion of the time. (Women's March was post Trump's election and should have been representative of a wide range of women shocked that he ever got elected, but was set up by "influencers2 who were advised it would be a good move for them.

I managed to stay on it for a while, although had numerous posts deleted, but in the end left saying why, one of which I wasn't going to allow my feminism to be manipulated for an outcome I didn't agree with. (they didn't care I'm afraid)

But yes totally captured, not even sure it is feminist.

At the time I left it was much more about telling women various left campaigns women should join.

I did wonder how the many women, who had previously not been part of women's groups but joined because of Sarah Everard, made of a lot of the posts ie defund the police, etc..

I was, started after Sarah Everard, it seemed like we could get a ground swell of angry women ready for a change and actually do something with it.
I got booted, there were threads about it here at the time, I really did try to stay in as long as possible just to act as a kind of mole but even liking the wrong posts got you chucked; was only there a few weeks.
There were threads sharing Dr. Jess Taylors work which all got jumped on calling her a terf even though some of it was helpful (I know she's not a favourite of many here)
They are not feminists they are dick pandering arseholes.
One of the main posters was Emily Bullen, centred everything around himself, constantly talking about trans women and talking about himself while handmaidens fawned and bowed down asking how they could do better.
Quite sickening, I'm surprised I lasted as long as I did, my mental health was better then.

They also became very ACAB defund the police, under the influence of sisters United I believe they are called.
I joined a local reclaim the streets group on FB which had some good ideas for real action which could make women safer on the streets at night but there was some disagreement about the group name and one member floated the idea of us becoming sisters United, I did object to that and gave reasons why, didn't really feel safe to contribute much after that bearing in mind I'm a single mother with a public facing job role (nmw)
Anyway nothing ever seemed to materialise, I doubt anyone even met in person bar one vigil which the police tried to stop under covid laws.
Such a shame, it was a flagship moment which could have brought a change, but like everything else for women these days it was hijacked by men and their poor hurt feelings and massive egos.

Yes I used to lurk on it because I think it's important to have a plurality of views. I left a few weeks ago because it just got too much. Theirs is the worst form of cultural appropriation. Their faux feminist voice is so loud (awful lot of males in the group btw) and so much more palatable to our patriarchal society that it is always favoured. I have lost my initial hope that one could work together with people like this. If they're not actually abusive (which some are), they're misguided or thick.

I too noticed that two or three transwomen swipe instantly on anything they can twist as being anti trans. Or any post that references someone who once said something that they manage to construe as anti trans. Cue lots of self flagellation from the women and hearts from the men.

A few months ago I lurked agog at an earnest discussion on how to steal Karen Ingala Smith's work on counting dead women, and pretend it was by someone who wasn't "problematic". There is absolutely nothing feminist about this group. They just use some of the words to lure young women in.

I used to lurk in a very similar faux feminist group with a musical aim. Absolutely hilarious watching them trying to reason why the gender neutral music awards were going to be a good thing for women. Apparently, it might help women try harder in the industry! Behold what deep feminist minds are at work!

I have suffered at the merciless trans activist hands of Emily Bullen. She seems quite the provocateur.

I just had a look on the Women Reclaim group. 19k followers. There are quite a few TWAW posts but they seem to be ALL by Emily Bullen. They mostly have less than 10 likes each. Lots of other posts by other people on other topics.

Strange name ‘Reclaim Women’.

Sounds like women are in the lost property box or pawn shop.

I've joined just to have fun

Is it fun arguing with transwomen about what a woman is?

Those men know exactly what a woman is, they are the ones putting the costume on.

I'm in it, agog with horror. I never post as can't risk being outed irl. I just read and marvel!

Emily bullen doesn't let up! Looks like their posts don't get a lot of likes though. The admins are clearly scared of Emily as the posts are so off topic. Also Emily is apparently a "community nurse" 😕
Women can't have anything for themselves can they?

I think there needs to be lots of resistance towards his posts ... gentle resistance but lots of it. Why in th fuck have men infiltrated EVERYTHING

Any resistance gets you kicked out the group instantly.

They liked to claim they were intersectional. I witnessed a woman being banned without her realising or being told. She had written a powerful post about her experience as a black woman, NOTHING TO DO WITH TRANS. Got lots of engagement and likes. Until.... Someone swiped in and flagged to admins that the poster had previously written something "transphobic" and that was it - banned! - then apologies from the admin for having let this post through and even apologies from a man who had commented favourably, saying he never would have done so had he known the woman was "transphobic".

The stupidity hurts so much.

Really interested (and sorry!) to hear everyone else's similar experiences.

As well as being horrifying, I also found it fascinating being in that group, before I got booted out. Partly because it showed so clearly how you can manufacture a false "consensus". By removing even slightly dissenting voices, you 1) make most people terrified to step out of line, giving the impression to everyone that they're/isolated on their own with any differing opinion, and 2) maintain a group who ARE disproportionately TWAW, and use the word "women" in the title to make it sound like this group accurately represents women. All policed by males, of course.