Why is Mumsnet so GC?

[ireallycantthinkofaname]

Maybe an odd question but I've never come across another space, online or otherwise, where being GC is the norm. IRL I only ever discuss GC views openly with one family member, whose stance on it is similar to my own, though, so I'm not saying it's unwelcome.... Just curious how/why it's come about. Any thoughts or theories?

Maybe because it's largely populated by women who have given birth and are therefore in no doubt about there being two sexes?

Two reasons:

This section was always full of radical feminists, which is really all GC Feminism is.

A lot of sites (e.g. reddit) banned women for discussion of women's rights, so the resistance grew here, where it was (mostly) allowed to speak freely.

Because they shut everywhere else down.

There was a thriving gc community on Reddit but it was banned, and virtually all wrongthink on any other subreddit also gets banned.

Twitter was also highly policed until fairly recently.

There was a massive amount of effort made to make MN cave as well. They were pretty damn brave not to.

What is the difference between intersectional feminism and radical please?

The ladies on here have opened lots of other eyes to what transwomen in actual women's spaces really means.

The unfairness in sports - tw are on average bigger and stronger than women. Rachel McKinnon peeked me and was pointed out to me by women on here.

Single sex spaces are to keep women's dignity and have an element of safeguarding.
Transwomen in there just poses risk.
Isla Bryson is the perfect example

Which definition of intersectional feminism are you using?

The original that recognises that women may be oppressed in more than one way, so the needs of black women (who are oppressed for their race as well as sex) differ from white women.

Or

The bastardised version that says men can be women. Shut up bitches you're oppressing us!

Radical feminism doesn't contradict the first and is inclusive of female trans people in any case, recognising their oppression along the axes of both sex and transgender identity.

What is the difference between intersectional feminism and radical please?

My understanding is that radical feminism focuses on women, as a sex class, being oppressed by men as a sex class.

Intersectional feminism considers a lot of different variables and that e.g. a black woman's experience will differ from a white woman's experience.

Radical feminism has a focus and clarity intersectional feminism lacks, but is criticised for being overly simplistic and / or biased towards the majority experience.

Intersectional feminism is good for a more detailed understanding of individual women's oppression, but is much less effective at spotting bigger patterns. Moreover it has a tendency to create hierarchies of oppression, and in recent years has included biological males who identify as women.

Anyone more knowledgeable can correct me as I've probably missed something important!

Yes, a comparison might be the labour movement who were historically pretty poor on women's rights, saying workers rights first (ie majority male) AND THEN we can get round to your little equal pay struggle...

So black women see a majority white feminist movement concentrating on women's rights first (majority white) and ask when will you centre our specific needs that are juyas important?

They don't have to be in conflict, but they are when done poorly, and not everyone's voice is heard (and it's not just intersection with race, also class, disability etc)

Yes radical feminism is based on the fact that women are discriminated against and worse because of their sex, ie women as a sex class are oppressed by the male sex class.

But that does not mean its simplistic, it means that irrespective of your race, religion, class and so on, women still share a common experience of oppression by men. But what radical feminism also recognises, as it is about grass roots activism, ie life as lived not theoretical concepts, it is about autonomous action and thought.

So this means radical feminism with its common understanding of sex as the basis of women's oppression allows / encourages women with other commonalities such as race or class to work together to provide a framework for how to organise based on the overall common oppression of sex and another common shared oppression such as race.

In theory this allows women to work together as suits them rather than some top down notion of this is what you should do or think, ie at any time or most of the time women can work autonomously as a single issue group, but can also them join the larger group on a shared concern eg abortion.

The practice of interesectionality is presented as these positions being competitive and lead to as much time being spent on competing as to who should acknowledge this or that group as though it were some a constant jostle for power positions.

Intersectionality as banded about is very much about academic theory and gives some women the opportunity to endlessly write and pontificate, and talk down to other women for not sharing their concepts.

Whereas radical feminism (in theory!) means that at any one time disperate groups of women can come together on a shared issue, as well as continue to have the right to organise around the issues that are their priority.

Obviously that doesn't guarantee that in shared spaces or campaigns racism or classism isn't an issue, but in aiming for non hierarchical activism, it shouldn't become so easily entrenched.

However I think neither concept of feminism has really survived the surge in queer trans politics.

Intersectional feminism embraces it and then become submerged, whilst radical feminism doesn't, not because of transphobia but because what it proposes is totally the opposite to the basis of radical feminism. Women as a sex class.

As usual first comment hits the nail on the head 👆🏼

I agree that an intersectional lens can be helpful to feminism when looking at the layers of oppression a woman may experience that include poverty, race , religion, education etc. I don't see Rad feminism being in opposition to intersectional feminism. Both focus on helping women, IME.

As to MN being GC, well, I came here because all the leftist feminist groups I'd been in started muting women's speech. Simply stating, "I don't see an issue with pussy hats at the Women's March" would get you a scolding. Stating, "transgirls in girls' sports isn't fair or safe" would get you a warning from mods and some harrumphing about TRANSPHOBIA! And when a post that starts with "I support trans people's rights but puberty blockers seems very unnecessary for a boy who simply likes pink" got hundreds of likes, well, shut down the witch because she's recruiting for a TERF coven!

MN was a breath of fresh air! I'm from the states and our freedom of speech is very robust so to see American political groups shut down women talking was very disturbing. Sure, they can't send us to jail but when you get kicked off every FB page for daring to question if girls should wear binders...you know immediately why McCarthyism 2.0 could happen.

I live on a working class council estate. Everyone I know is GC. No one hates trans people btw , but recognises that sex is reality and that no one can change sex. Maybe you should expand your horizons.

The world is full of gc people. Iranian women didn’t stop wanting rights and a role in society because they were locked inside and nobody dared say it. Chinese people didn’t stop wanting more than one child because you weren’t allowed, even if in public they’d never ever say it. Mumsnet lets us say it.

I live on a working class council estate. Everyone I know is GC.

I used to work in a factory and biological realism was the norm there too.

I suspect people who have spent less time in academia are less prone to overly theoretical thinking, and if you're doing a manual job it's harder to ignore certain physical differences between the sexes.

For many, the sheer act of having children opens your eyes to the systematic disadvantage of being a woman.

I certainly thought I was equal in terms of agency, career, expectations etc pre-children.

The trans discussions are secondary but in very simplistic terms bearing children is something only those biologically female can do so of course you're going to see more people here awake to biological reality because we've experienced it.

And Mumsnet is one of the few places online you can say this now.

There was a massive amount of effort made to make MN cave as well. They were pretty damn brave not to.

This. Credit to Justine and MN for holding out, even though I don't agree with every decision they made.

Yes, there are many many things I find about MN more than irritating, but in a world where no one else would let those of us who are on FWR have a voice, it is exceptional.

And of course another reason why so many here are GC. There is nowhere else for us.

Not forgetting that in terms of women's issues, in all areas of are lives, queer trans ideology is a more active threat than the ongoing ingrained mysogyny.

Intersectional analysis, in its original pure Kimberlé Crenshaw sense, looks at interlocking axes of oppression that put up double barriers against progression. So take the example of a black woman in a town where the car manufacturing plant is the majority employer. She tries to apply for a white collar job in the offices, but is rejected, because they only employ white people there. She also applies to be an apprentice assembler on the factory floor, but is rejected as they only employ men there. The company stats show that ostensibly they employ blacks, whites, men & women, so it can’t be proven that she is being discriminated against, yet she falls foul of this double bind, that needs intersectional analysis to prove, yes this is discrimination. All sensible and reasonable to fight this.

The bastardised form of intersectionality comes in when the two categories are ontologically, by material reality, mutually exclusive, eg “women” and “penis havers”. Women can’t and don’t have penises, without egregious mangling of the language, which serves to shoehorn penises into women-focussed concerns, spaces and policies. Not everything must or should intersect with penis 😁

@ireallycantthinkofaname and your stance is?

Because we are allowed to talk here

I could not identify out of chronic lower back pain with my period.

I could not identify out of perimenopause or menopause.

My husband could not give birth to our children.

I have breasts and vagina.

My husband has a penis.

This is the only place where I could say all the above, and say I am a woman, an adult human female, without getting arrested.

The fact that some people want a law in place where I could get arrested for claiming my own identity and my own sex radicalized the hell out of me.

And of course another reason why so many here are GC. There is nowhere else for us.

I'm Gen Z and currently childless. Probably less "true GC" and a little more conservative than most of the users on FWR. But MN is one of the only forums where I feel comfortable.

Because mothers dealing with the practicalities of family and child-rearing, protecting their children from harm while managing their own careers, need to say it how it is, and don't have time for any 'emperor's new clothes' nonsense.

america is the birthplace of hate crime laws (created in the 1870s as a response to that nation's history of terrorizing non white PEOPLE (not "savages" as in the case of the Natives in its 'declaration' (white settler colonial document), or "property' as in the case enslaved blacks in its constitution...PEOPLE) so your comment on 'robust' free speech is odd.

Prosecution is extremely high there. Hate crime is constantly brought up in news reports as a possible motive to the latest act towards a minority (who by 2050 will be in the majority in america, and boy will the tables have turned on the dominant class then).

I work with a very close knit group of about 20 people , I think people only tend to voice the obvious nowadays amongst people they trust , and as such we all know each other’s views on the subject . Mumsnet is an anonymous forum where common sense can prevail and honest thoughts discussed without fear of a backlash.