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?

That's mean of you, you know how bacon rind makes me gassy. It's @Boiledbeetle that will suffer most. She's going to be very upset with you.

I fell off the wagon!

I'll just move us outdoors for a while

insisting that female puberty was all about developing boobs and round bottoms

I wish Mother Nature had mentioned that to my anatomy - when I was young I was as flat as a pancake, top and bottom.

The menopause has more than compensated for it, though, and I am now almost spherical. 😁

😂

I often think the same! I also have wondered many times if the thought goes both ways, ie is there the same concern about/for female to male transitioners?

Are TW underrepresented in the areas you mentioned? I thought it was rather to the contrary, especially in software.

So they'd probably have a hard time making a case for scholarships of their own. Better to just take the women's.

No. They are massively OVER REPRESENTED.

Which is part of the problem here when they are writing software, programming and generally otherwise dominated censorship, editting and management of the internet and social media. It has a massively above average representation of autism too. (Funny that).

Since its the original premise of the thread we should ponder why a website dedicated and dominated by women is GC in contrast to everywhere else.

Could it be due to social underepresentation and participation in the key industry which is driving politics in 2023 and distorting what the grass routes beliefs are, for their own ends? Its almost as if they didn't/don't like women speaking for themselves isn't it?

We could argue a lot here about the institutionalised level of cultural online sexism (and indeed how this is seeping into even AI because its so ingrained) and why the biggest companies have made efforts to try and combat this on the one hand and then have managed to effectively create a culture of no debate with trans right and an inability to challenge the concept that lack of critical thought on gender identity undermines sex based rights.

But we'd probably be told its not really a problem because gender ratios have improved massively... (Noting we not longer have a clue about sex ratios because this data isn't recorded for us to observe whether there is an ongoing issue with sexism which is being hidden by the replacement of sex with gender).

A friend was telling me just last week that she was trying to get her daughter to do GCSE computer science. Her daughter replied "I'm not doing that, there's too many boys doing it".

One of DH's previous companies had a graduate scheme which had a women's only programme for VERY good reason.

A friend was telling me just last week that she was trying to get her daughter to do GCSE computer science. Her daughter replied "I'm not doing that, there's too many boys doing it".

Hard to believe this sort of thing is still happening in the 21st century. It's why - paradoxically perhaps - girls schools can be a very good thing. My DDs school had 2 sets for gcse CS. A good sized set doing electronics. Loads doing STEM A levels. The uptake of these subjects in coed vs single sex schools is a worked example in the corrosive effects of gender stereotypes and societal pressure, and that because of them we still may need single sex provision even in areas where sex shouldn't be an issue.
Fix sexism before demolishing rights and opportunities for women and girls.

Indeed.

We developed positive sex discrimination for gendered issues because the presence of male socialisation was the problem AS WELL AS biologically based protections.

Male socialisation has the effect of women's non participation because they often feel mansplained to, talked over or intimidated because they don't have the same level of confidence. They don't feel able to demand even their basic rights and instead have been conditioned to accept the lowest levels and to be gratiful for that ("ignore your birth trauma and injuries and don't complain, be grateful you have a healthy baby anyone?").

Trans Right Activism actively seeks to use this same socialisation to its advantage by suggesting that women have equality and all the rights they need and that its unkind to speak up about their sex based rights. They have the 'cis privilege' nonsense to pretend there aren't massive issues with female levels of confidence and under performance in the work place (despite now often having higher educational attainment).

Maybe we should talk about THIS aspect of gender stereotypes and JUST how much they hold back women, whilst talking about how we should abandon sex because its 'just the way your cells are arranged' and replace it with gender stereotypes.

It's incredibly difficult to talk about these real and important issues facing women when a conservative rearguard keeps resetting the discussion back to whether or not you really, really provably definitely fulfil all the criteria of womanhood like it's 1979.

It’s incredibly difficult to talk about these real and important issues facing women when men come along and merail entire threads going on about their own experiences of not being a woman, and mansplaining womanhood and feminism to women yet here we are

You STILL have not engaged on my points about Sex Based Rights.

Try Again.

Its 2024 yes. There's still sexism. You know the old fashioned kind that existed back in 1979.

Nice of you to notice it.

Only a woman can fulfil all the criteria of womanhood.

You need two things

1 Be born female
2 survive to adulthood.

That's it.

It's incredibly difficult to talk about these real and important issues facing women when a conservative rearguard keeps resetting the discussion back to whether or not you really, really provably definitely fulfil all the criteria of womanhood like it's 1979.

No idea what womanhood is, but sexual reproduction evolved about 2 billion years ago, and that is why human females need specific sex based rights and services to participate equally in society, regardless of their feelings about gender or identity.

Human rights frameworks are generally thought of as left wing, but you seem unable to acknowledge the concept.

Mate.

There's really not much between traditional Conservative/ Religious views on gender roles and Gender ideology views on gender identity.

The former wants you to change your personality, the latter to change your body.

Both are based on regressive stereotypes. Both seek to control women and keep men powerful. Both represent a prison for women.

You obviously know feminists reject the former (otherwise you'd have not used it as an insult) so what makes you think women ought to accept the latter?

All the academic phrases, philosophical wrangling, coercion, misrepresentation, scolding and insults. And yet never reading, never engaging.

Feminists want to be FREE. From traditional conservative men and from gender ideology men. Two sides of the same patriarchal coin.

Not really.

Your contributions here are illustrative of the very point that red just made. That many of us have made on threads where you were present over the years.

It really is part of the male entitlement and socialisation that you cannot acknowledge.

Here is another example. Attempting to put your own issues, as a male person, into the discussion about a post clearly stating how negative sexist discrimination exists for female people both directly and indirectly. Your own discrimination is not the same as what female people have be subject to since before they were even born.

But thanks for another example of male entitlement/ socialisation / privilege.

Reminds me of the kind of faux left wing man who thinks we should be grateful it's not as bad for women in the UK as it is in Afghanistan. And thinks that gratefulness should extend to allowing enlightened UK men in all our spaces. Unable to see that they practice the same misogyny, just lower down the scale.

It's 2024 yes. There's still sexism. You know the old fashioned kind that existed back in 1979.

We can see some of it on this thread.

I am LOVING the idea that feminism after 1979 is pointless and that 2 billion year old sexual reproduction is irrelevant to the female experience.

I was born in 1978.

My boss for many years made the point that if I ever got pregnant I would destroy his small business because he wouldn't be able to afford to pay the wage bill.

I left before I did.

I’m glad this post is still standing

Agree

It's incredibly difficult to talk about these real and important issues facing women when a conservative rearguard keeps resetting the discussion back to whether or not you really, really provably definitely fulfil all the criteria of womanhood like it's 1979.

The criteria of womanhood have not changed since we evolved into mammals, mate.

I remember 1979. Women earnt considerably less than men, whilst working harder due to the unequal domestic burden they carried. They were subject to domestic violence and sexual violence at epic levels with no effective state response, lacked access to affordable childcare, safe abortion, suitable healthcare, and were blighted by poverty in later life due to pension inequalities. To add insult to injury they were marginalised, humilated and abused if they failed to adopt sterotyped presentation and behaviours as a good and attractive girl/wife/mother.

This resulted in widespread psychological distress, which was treated as individual pathology and not a response to social injustice.

And yet I am sure I was hearing Germaine on tele around 1979.

I really don't think that Germaine was confused at all by the criteria of womanhood.