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?

You do not have to be a farmer to recognise bullshit.

Gosh. A massive sealion identifying as a fragile, delicate butterfly.

If we’re doing that I want Leia’s gold bikini.

To be fair, by 1991 we had dial up at our place. Mind you DH was in IT and we were both part time uni students.

Hmm

I didn't get on the web until 93, when I was at uni.

I was on nascent pre-web internet forums in about 1984 - very much the domain of nerdy STEM postgrads, among whom I was usually the only woman. We discussed the relative merits of operating systems, played Mornington Crescent but also had a few good discussions about women's rights (and lack thereof) - it actually helped open my eyes to my own 'I'm all right, Jill' attitude at that point. Happy days!

Home Internet arrived in 1995 when I started WFH - ASDL broadband, which cost my company an arm and a leg with high telephone bills, so not there for non-work purposes.

It was the bandwidth I was thinking of too. In the 90s we had sod all. We started on dial-up in 1996, which was for work though we were WFH. You'd go online, download what you needed and then disconnect as you were paying for every second. Around 2000 we got ADSL but broadband didn't come in where we lived until about mid-2000s.

The idea of kids being freely online in the 90s doesn't ring true to me.

I suppose that early internet experience did feed into my gender critical stance, coming back to the topic of the thread.
It made me think about why I'd been the only girl in my physics and chemistry A level classes, one other in double maths - even though we consistently beat the boys, for one thing. In a nutshell, though I wouldn't have used the word then, it was purely because of gendered expectations, not sexual differences.

We got dial-up internet at home in 1994. But it was extremely uncommon, my parents only got it (having had it explained to them by me and my brother) because I was going abroad to university and wanted to be able to email me.

When I got to uni, I was one of the very few people in my cohort who actually went to the Computer Room, and knew how to use the Scary Internet Things.

Fair enough.

There's no way it'll fit my enormous arse me, anyway.

So beautiful, so delicate, so discriminated against, so vulnerable . . . just trying to live its best life as its authentic self, flitting from flower to flower, sipping nectar, and not crushing or destroying anyone else at all.

It doesn’t matter what the access was or what the internet speeds were at that time, they could have been millions of megabytes per second, in 1995 BH was around 11 years old. The idea that they were at the vanguard of the online discussion around trans rights is pure fantasy.

Yeah. In the early 90s it was pay as you go and expensive and we did use it sparingly at home. Not only that it put the phone line out of action until ADSL was available.

Just catching up!

It's always nice to see the male perspective on things, it tends to prove highly informative!

And I can date my first "will you get off the internet I'm expecting an important phone call" to Autumn 1995 when the annoying lad with the computer and modem moved in. At that point you were still having to type in the whole https/wwwetc and the phone bills were horrendous!

Even pre-broadband a few kids were online before their parents really knew what was out there. Ritchie Herron has talked about being online quite young, pre broadband. He was groomed online by older men even then. He's said he's glad that he couldn't share pictures.

So honestly, those happy little groups that ButterlyHatched talks about were lucky for some but unsafe for others. And not just online either. There was no awareness of safeguarding and organisations like the Stonewall Youth Project in Scotland (now renamed, under new management and presumably a lot more careful nowadays than it was pre-2005!) exposed some vulnerable young people to real harm, some of which has only recently come to light as historic abuse.

And to generalise... although feminists have campaigned around protection from abuse and also sexual freedom, I'd say that women active in sexual (or gender) politics (like feminists!) tend to care more about protecting themselves and each other from abuse and sexual exploitation, while the men care more about sexual freedom and self expression. And that difference seems to be along the lines of sex not gender identity.

I'd say that women active in sexual (or gender) politics (like feminists!) tend to care more about protecting themselves and each other from abuse and sexual exploitation, while the men care more about sexual freedom and self expression. And that difference seems to be along the lines of sex not gender identity.

Yep.

That sums it up.

It's not exactly surprising that behaviours and attitudes around sex are correlated with sex!

One of the things that evidently can cause confusion is that on the one hand we reject gender stereotypes, but on the other we need to remain acutely aware of genuine sexed differences. Some of which are completely binary eg reproductive role, others are distributions at the population level eg height, strength, propensity for violence.

It's not exactly surprising that behaviours and attitudes around sex are correlated with sex!

Not to us it isn't, but to some people it seems to come as a shock! There's an age element too, younger women tend to assume that everyone means well and we should all be left to explore and have fun .... us old gimmers know where that can end.

(shakes head fondly at younger self)

There is a lot of decidedly unearned incredulity here. My household wasn't an early adopter by any means.

This is world bank data for internet usage in the UK. That’s usage - not home internet (which will have been even lower).

Note how very unusual being an internet user was in 1995.

Maybe Butterfly’s Internet went to another school in 1995 and we wouldn’t know it Jackson 😆

😂😂😂

Or a Big Boy plugged the internet in and ran away.

In case anyone is interested, the data for that starts in 1990.

The data for landlines is also interesting. Quite a lot of people lived in households without phone lines at all in 1995. And no, they did not have mobiles instead.

But in Butterfly’s alt-history of everything, everyone was 2020s-style levels of online in the 90s.

Data from the USA shows more early users but anyone with home internet in 1995 was clearly very much an early adopter.