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?

"I would be far too scared to be openly GC irl for fear of being labelled a phobic bigot. Is it a case of this is only true in certain circles?"

The climate has changed a lot in the past 12 month. I think more people are feeling more confident about their thoughts absolutely not being transphobic and so are more willing to speak truth to power.

A partner works across big city firms and was working in a shared area with a DEI director last week. The director was reflecting on how a colleague had said that she didn't want to put pronouns on her zoom title or email signature as she didn't want to be defined by gendered ideas. The DEI person was blown away by this and her world had been rocked by this. Well done that woman for speaking out!

Ok I think I worded it badly because yes, more people are openly GC here because it's anonymous but what I meant was how have we got to the stage where anonymous internet forums are the only place it feels safe to be open about ones gender critical views?

Also I'm really sorry I feel like I'm saying 'yes but why' to everything lol 🙈

No it has only ever been in feminism SGD

The climate has changed dramatically in the last year. Now it's only the BBC and Guardian still clinging to the "don't mention facts and reality / TWAW " line. The Telegraph and Mail have joined the Times in openly reporting the court cases, the silencing of women, the gaslighting of children, the batshit in the NHS, universities etc. There are countless discussions and criticism about using the phrase "gender critical" below the line with the consensus being that it's misleading and should be "sex realist". Lots of criticism of calling sex offenders women and demands for honest reporting. Along with horror at the gaslighting of children in schools and the NHS.
Since much of the press starting doing their job properly, there's a significant change. Just look at the comments under the article about the lesbian Newcastle supporter hounded out of the club by the boys:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/02/02/football-fan-banned-gender-critical-posts-permier-league/

I presume it’s certain circles because I don’t think I know a single person in RL who believes TWAW and no one is afraid to state that. And that’s from my 80 year old mum, down to my 19 year old son and his friends and pretty much everyone I come into contact with at work or friendship groups, even my very left leaning psychotherapist sister is GC.

I work for a private US owned company and pronouns on emails, rainbow lanyards etc don’t exist at all in our office.

I read a lot of the threads on here and wonder if I live in a parallel universe as most of the captured BS others have to deal with just doesn’t exist in my world.

I am thankful for MN for showing me a real insight into what has been happening and giving my the knowledge to do my own research which has been a real eye opening education.

Reading through has been so interesting and really nice to here how and why women came to find the FWR board a sanctuary.

I was a long time reader of the forum, because at one it was possible on fb to have discussion posts about being gender critical, but slowly more and more women felt unable to speak freely or genuinely felt we weren't doing our "be kind" duty.

One reason might by the upsurge in social media being monitored and what seems the unlimited energy of TRAs to dig out where people work and report them. And then later employers checking social media of those applying for jobs.

I am happy to say I am not on facebook under my real name, and this maybe why I didn't feel I had to tone down opinions or comments.

But that in fact came about because in the early days of social media it was quite common (even part of a training course I did!) that if you worked for a charity, voluntary group and wanted to be on social media please dont use your real name. And that was done from a position that employers didn't want an employee not to feel able to be able to post honestly. But on the other hand they had more important things to do than deal with people saying that because an employee had said something or other on social media it mean the employing group was saying that.

Shows had times and attitudes change.

So for me FWR became somewhere from having been a reader I felt I could continue to discuss in a way that other platforms had made impossible.

The term 'radical feminism' was already tainted by transphobia and long considered nigh-unsalvageable prior to 20 years ago. It was one of the most crushing disappointments to come of age to - discovering the raging bigotry espoused by so many brilliant authors and activists who otherwise spoke such sense.

I agree that the extended 4-letter acronym is actively unhelpful and should be discarded. It is not an accurate description of the majority of people it is applied to nowadays.

The term 'radical feminism' was already tainted by transphobia and long considered nigh-unsalvageable prior to 20 years ago. It was one of the most crushing disappointments to come of age to - discovering the raging bigotry espoused by so many brilliant authors and activists who otherwise spoke such sense.

ah diddums, did the women not centre men to your satisfaction?

Sorry to make another post but want to add this point.

However as individuals, or because of outside maligning of FWR, it evolved to be one of the few places you could discuss issues around the encroachment of trans ideology, the big turning point (IMO) was the consultation on proposals to change the GRA so that self ID etc., would become legal.

I think this real and imminent threat of having a law that was already intrusive of women's lives and rights, really ramped up the level of participation, and as sense that we had to be on our guard.

And showed, whether you call it the Hive Mind, or just the natural tendancy to share with other women info that might be of use, the level of research and digging out obscure documents that so called reporters and researchers never bothered with.

And even if it came from the individual threat we all felt, it also should that by working collectively we could stand up to the rainbow coalition that was networking to undermine not just women's rights, but the reality of being a woman.

20 years ago or even 40 years ago radical feminism was not tainted by transphobia.

1970s Women's Liberationists and what followed from that up until the male inspired 3rd Wave Feminism was depicted as "man hating".

So an interesting slip as recognising that WLMers and Radical Feminists were a direct challenge to male entitlement has now been rebranded as transphobia.

I (and others of course) have always said that the TRA agenda would never have got as far as it has, if it hadn't given misogynists a "lgitimate" platform for MRAs to berate uppity women about as another sign of their / our shortcomings.

Just to point out that 20 years ago, long time radical feminists never thought that the total fallacy that you could change sex would become a major part of social norms. 40 years ago there were some trans sexuals but were more likely to be from Scandinavia and a few in academia.

At that time Radical feminists were still recovering from the back lash against Women's Liberation and the complete swerve that media sponsored 3rd Wave Feminism made away from the radical roots of Women's Liberation.

The US has no legal concept of hate speech. I absolutely stand by my comment that we have robust freedom of speech under our First Amendment. I will not be arrested for saying "men are not women" or "I hate Donald Trump."

The treatment of Black slaves and the 1/3 rights of citizenry to Native Americans has nothing to do with hate speech laws (which again, we have never had). I think you're confused. Freedom of speech is not the same concept of the right of citizenship.

Ideologies get modified all the time, that's why those that are around for any length of time tend to have many different schools or denominations or other divisions. There are already various types of Marxism where it's applied to characteristics other than class.

Such an interesting thread!

I wanted to add to the discussion of intersectional feminism and radical feminism that they don't have to be mutually exclusive, though they can be treated that way, too.

Radical feminism is based on the idea of going to the 'roots' of women's oppression, and those roots are seen in sex: The desire by others (mostly men, but also wider groups such as families which are led by men) to control female bodies in order to control reproduction and the access to those bodies for heterosexual intercourse which men desire. The means used for achieving and maintaining this control include gendered roles, norms and stereotypes which have traditionally been based on laws, religious beliefs etc.

Intersectional feminism, is in its earliest (and, in my opinion, the most correct) form is about the importance of analysing how sexism and misogyny affect women differently based on how other forms of oppression also affect them.

It's the intersectional aspect between two or more forms of oppression which can affect how different women experience sexism and misogyny and how it might affect their lives differently. Class, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation and age are some of other types of possible oppression bases which need to be considered in the same context as sex-based oppression.

These two approaches are quite compatible, in my view.

This is not so much the case in some more recent interpretations of intersectionality which dispense with the sex-based oppression axis altogether. Once you do that, your feminism cannot be radical feminism.

In fact, I think it has stopped being feminism altogether, though those who prioritise gender identity over sex disagree.

Thank you for making it really clear, appreciate it

Same. Preference falsification and a chilling effect have worked very well.

Beyond feminism, its bloody terrifying that within a few years it's become so difficult and risky to state basic truths - 'there are two sexes and you can't change sex' - that women have been arrested, sacked and physically attacked for holding those views.

Now we have those basic views protected as a belief thanks to Maya Forstater we can begin to reassert reality.

But the problem for me is how easily and quickly society was hoodwinked by madness. It suggests weaknesses in our politics society and legislation. Whatever anyone's views on feminism, that should be taken notice of.

Quote fail, that was a response to SamW98.

Completely agree that the US has infinitely stronger protections for freedom of speech, and transparency generally, than Europe.

Most Europeans don’t understand how broad the First Amendment’s scope is.

Marxism: Marx was firstly and foremostly a political economist concerned with the consequences of the organisation of production, and distribution of wealth and power that falls from that. It's analysis of material relations. Whilst you can explore the implications of those material and social relationships of production for aspects of social life and culture, including different forms of oppression, for Marxists, this would always be analysis of the relationship between social phenomena and underlying economic structure, specifically class structure.

I see belief in TWAW as akin to religion. It runs contrary to scientific evidence but people actively choose to adopt the mantra as the truth and then evangelise about it to others.

Deep down they know it's a fabrication and so they just repeat the line, abuse those that don't and stay away from tricky questions under the guise of 'kindness'.

MN is a place where women feel able to be honest and speak up. And where we don't accept bullshit as some kind of replacement for critical thinking.

The term 'radical feminism' was already tainted by transphobia and long considered nigh-unsalvageable prior to 20 years ago. It was one of the most crushing disappointments to come of age to - discovering the raging bigotry espoused by so many brilliant authors and activists who otherwise spoke such sense.

You might reflect on whether you've been Denton-ed.

Thoughtful conversation between Glinner and Genevieve Gluck. At this point, Gluck says that it was women and lesbians who prevented the progress of PIE and NAMBLA last time. So, for similar organisations and boundary-eliminating ideologies to progress again, it was essential to team with others to undermine and discredit women and lesbians. It seems they've succeeded.

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For an online community, MN seems to have an unusual number of normal people. Other spaces ime tend to be dominated by weird men who never leave their bedrooms and mentally ill young women (under 25) who suck up to whatever the community expects of them. Neither group is likely to be drawn to Mumsnet.

You'd be surprised how many 'weird men' do seem to find themselves here though.

This. Our children are at the vanguard of all of this, being bombarded with dangerous and confusing messaging. As parents we see the impact it's having first hand and that makes us braver to hold the line and say "enough is enough, the Emperor has got no clothes". When my kids, and your kids, are at real risk of harm, we are not going to stand back and "be kind".

It should be perfectly possible to be a feminist, or a radical feminist, and support trans rights in terms of naming the mixture of misogyny and homophobia that forms violent attacks and discrimination against men who are challenging their gender prison and living a different way. And without a doubt the trans rights movement really can challenge some areas of sexism that we can do without.

What radical feminism can't do imo is go along with claims that a woman's body is not definable by being female. Or that male sexuality can be rebranded as female sexuality just because it's a turn-on for the man involved.

Maybe I spend more time on literotica than the average MN user (maybe not, who knows). It's very interesting reading in trying to understand what is being thought about sexually by people saying they are trans*, male and female.

*Accepting that I can't know any facts about any of the writers.

I don't see it as being GC more as standing up for rights of women. The two are not the same