@OldGardinia there are a lot of detailed and thoughtful points here. Without requoting the whole:
I think you've over-extended yourself here. I got a very definite disapproving tone from some of your posts especially regarding women who regret some of their choices work wise and now prefer to spend time with their kids.
I appreciate that's how it might have come across. I was writing of examples that came into my head at the time - there are numerous others - but the issue here is the consistency of that approach. What frustrates me is that the women they constantly wheel out to write this stuff are, almost without exception, taking a 'back to home and duty' type of stance, illustrating how those who have transgressed will rue the day once they're older and wiser. It's patronising and it's transparent. My issue is with the regular bombardment of their readership with articles taking this kind of stance, without scope for balance, discussion or questioning.
If I'm irritated that working women are represented in the DM as 'ballbreakers', I also expressed equal discomfiture with their (frequent) stance that those who don't work are economically inactive, lazy, or gold-diggers who simply want to live off their husbands. I find that attitude - and it's there a lot of it in their pages - equally reprehensible. You only need to look at the comments from men saying 'women are leaches, no wonder men don't want to get attached to them', to see that the shot's gone home.
The point is it doesn't matter WHERE you sit on the SAH or WOH spectrum: you'll be criticized by that publication because you are female. Okay not all the time - and they have done some good stuff relating to women, as evidenced by the above link. But in general, the picture holds true.
Sadly for Feminism the Progressive Left has a new favourite cause to ride on which is the trans movement. They just weren't getting many gains anymore out of women as a minority cause.
Sadly indeed, but not in the way you seem to imply. Women are not a minority, but we are the only majority to have traditionally been treated as one. The idea that the feminist battles for equality have been won, and feminists needed something new to do with their time, simply isn't true. Don't forget these activists came for us - they are the ones maintaining a sustained assault on the painfully slow ground women had already gained.
We'll leave aside whether TRA falls under the banner of 'progressive left'. To my mind this is old-school, right-wing, male rights activism. But as the ground between left and right is increasingly blurred and less meaningful these days, I don't suppose it matters.
We also disagree about the subtlety of MSM manipulation. The fact that sometimes it has all the nuance and delicacy of a JCB digger doesn't mean the covert discourses are absent from its content, or that they shy from bending the truth. Practically everyone knows not to believe everything they read in the papers.
I say "sadly for feminism" but honestly it's quite good. Disentangling women's rights from socialists and "gender is a product of colonialism nuclear family boo deconstruct society" types makes it a lot easier to support women's rights without finding yourself supporting a whole lot of other baggage you don't agree with. It even means you can read the Daily Mail and be a feminist, if that's how you choose to self-describe.
I've not claimed otherwise. I've commented on media practices in general. As for 'feminism' being in disagreement with other branches of feminism, things have been that way since time immemorial. The 20s had their own version of woman citizen vs. 'wages for housework' and these were vociferously opposed. It's been some of the most bitterly contested ground of the 20th century. I don't hold with third-wave feminism in the slightest, for example, but that isn't to suggest it's not 'feminism'.
I'm not being over-dramatic when I say there are very powerful forces with very deep pockets pushing much of this agenda. Most propaganda isn't effective because it convinces people. It's effective because it intimidates people.
On this point we fully agree.
I honestly haven't seen anything in the Daily Mail that tells me that its readership are terrible people and it's some kind of devil's bargain that will bring a lot of terrible things along with criticizing the current trans lobby. Your criticism seems to be largely along the lines of it being generally pro-nuclear family and having women writing in it who (rather fortunately) seem to be able to espouse raising kids.
I've never suggested its readership are terrible people. It's the most widely read paper in this country. There will be a reason for this. But I also suspect there are few people who read any news/media outlet and are fully passive absorbers of every word they write. The 'Oh, no! apologies for the DM link' disclaimers we so often see on MN are disingenuous. It's so obvious those people read it, and are in denial.
And yes, I'm critical of the Mail's overall contempt for and objectification of women. This is the case whether they are 'golddiggers' or 'selfish ballbreakers' for not working or working respectively, for their hideous comments about IVF mothers (never dads), and for their vociferous, misogynistic (there's no other word for it) campaigns against particular women, of which Meghan Markle is the most extreme example.
No one can name a male equivalent who's attracted that amount of vitriol. The reasons as to why is obvious.