Why did MNHQ think it knew enough about feminism to split FWR into two

[IwantToRetire]

Why did MNHQ decide that there are 2 types of feminism and that they should not be allowed to mix together so it split the Feminism and Women's Rights forum into 2. One for the nice girls who didn't want to discuss or even know that TW could be a threat to women's sex based rights, and one that tried to dumb down feminism into just discussing sex and gender but not related to feminism.

What was the point.

It backfired.

It was an attempt to control us , and a way for MN to let us continue - they thought they were controlling and limiting and well…. They misthought

My favourite was the one asking how to defrost prawns.

It was a way for MN to continue to exist, which as a business dependent on advertising was a decision they were entitled to make. Accusing MNHQ of being dictatorial about it makes you sound like Citizen Smith (that dates me).

They're entitled to make those decisions, sure. Just bear in mind we are the content producers.

I think it's "interesting" that the ploppers and MRAs always know to post here on the S&G board, not the Chat board.

It is isn't it?

Able to do enough reading to fi d the right board yet apparently unable to do a cursory search to see whether their "just a thought, just wondering...." has ever come up before. Hmmmm.

The search function is really crap, to be fair. MN should be sorting that out, not messing around with AI-generated titles.

All of this. For a long time MN was one of very few places that gender ideology could be discussed at all. Rape threats, death threats and cancellations were rife everywhere else. Some amazing posters got banned, unjustly IMO, but the environment was so toxic then. In the end FWR became the place where women could discuss their rights and the safeguarding of children, even though, for a long time it was also referred to as the "naughty corner".

At the time the split happened, there was one very loud, supercilious, 'putting you all in your place' poster who said that there were apparently thousands of women who felt they couldn't post in FWR because every thread got taken over with trans issues; apparently they were all bubbling with fizzy eagerness to post matters of REAL interest to feminism (hundreds of ideas they had all had to curb), and the new no-trans-issues split-off board was going to be so busy, and,.. and....

As far as I can recall, it barely got a post. Tumbleweed ran through there like dust in a barren desert.

But I suppose they felt they had had a moral victory over us nasty Terfs, and demonstrated that MNHQ would do exactly as they wanted.

I believe that poster was eventually shown the door by MNHQ @ApplesinmyPocket

It sounds like you think that somehow MN should have only considered the views of the appropriate left wing women.

I think the people who wanted the split were wrong, and often had an agenda, but they posted here as well. They were site users for the most part, some still post here. There is no mechanism for HQ to get everyone to "agree." Their status as users wasn't somehow less than others.

I also think it's a wild stretch to say that it's had a significant impact, almost universally the forum continues on as it had before with people posting on every topic here. Feminism chat has never taken off.

And if some people who wanted to talk about feminism in an environment that is supportive of gender ideology, you know what? That is ok. They might be wrong, in my opinion, but had those people wanted to be able to discuss issues without getting drawn into gender debates, it's really not up to MN HQ to quash that for ideological reasons, which seems to be what you are saying. The same attitudes to allowing user discussions that allowed FWR to be the only place, for a long time, where people could be critical of GI, also logically allows those who are supporters to have discussions of their own.

If some posters left over this - and actually I think almost everyone who posted before the split continued to do so after - then that's their choice. There was zero prompting or necessity for them to do so.

Really, this thread seems mainly like another of your regular attempts to decide who can speak and about what, and another dig at women on FWR whose views you don't think are pure enough for feminism.

As I recall it was the self identified 'Intersectionalist' feminists versus everyone else.

The newly created 'chat' board was inactive to the point of death - because all of the really lively, invested and engaged discussion was on here.

I remember it like this as well. It wasnt a fun time and was a very imperfect compromise. But at least this space did manage to survive in some form as, at the time, it was literally the only place you could discuss what everyone is now allowed to publicly discuss again - men in women's sports, prisons and toilets, harm caused by puberty blockers and transing vulnerable young kids etc.

In a way this is indicative of the issue with deciding which areas to host. People often think they might want a special area, but unless there is enough traffic, usually discussion dies pretty quickly.

So people end up posting where there is more traffic, and this works against too many niche topics.

But it's not always obvious what topics will get enough traction. Why would FWR get so much, compared to, say, politics, which is an interesting thing to discuss as well, but the board usually moves to slowly to really work. There are other politics forums that are massive. In practice, MNHQ don't know what will take off and what will languish, they can only guess. I think their general approach has therefore been, if there seems to be a demand or users request it, they will lean toward giving it a try, and if users are interested and post, that's great. If they don't, it's really not a serious harm.

I think referring to " nice ladies" that want to talk about gender ideology is patronising to be honest. You often seem to start threads the purpose of which is unclear, and most often they seen intended to provoke or distract, in my experience.

I think most of the older committed posters are still here; they didn't go anywhere ( where else is there to go?) even if they have name changed.

MNHQ responded to the pressure from 'intersectionalists' and found a solution that permitted us to continue to discuss the issues that matter most to many of us here, whilst also creating a separate board for those that didn't want to discuss/critique that issue. It has worked fine as far as I'm concerned but recently threads about 'Joey Barton', for example have appeared and I'm not sure how they ended up here or who thought it appropriate to put them here?

I genuinely dont see why it matters?

I sometimes find this board a bit dull, so mute it. I am pretty TERFY and proud of it. But do sometimes find I want a break. I actually find it quite depressing.How little is written on the orher board. And how little engagement there is. Where some of the issues discussed, are so important.

Why do you think that board is so inactive? Where are the posters who want to discuss those issues - do they post elsewhere on MN?

That's interesting, MrsOvertonsWindow! I did wonder where the poster had gone.

I wonder on what grounds they were shown the door. After all, at the time MNHQ was inclined to be supportive of views like theirs, and a little less sympathetic to us terfy types. But they were obviously a goader, so.....

Credit to MNHQ though - they did stand fast at a time when it was unpopular/unthinkable to do so and I know they took flak for it (this was well before the SC clarification) - and allowed our voices by and large, though we weren't, of course, allowed to say anything really radical like Biology is Real, and Transwomen are Not, In Fact, Women. Three strikes and you were out, wasn't it?

I don't know why. Many of the issues affect us all in our daily lives, far more than this does? I do sometimes think people like the fight in this. Whereas the other topics (rape, SA, Violence against women, unequal pay, everyday sexism etc) have all been battled for so long that we've lost the fight? Whereas this fight is one of the first ones played out online.

There is undeinably a small number of posters on this board, who are here for political reasons as it serves a purpose so that adds to it.

Splitting the board did end up giving some posters extra bullying material and some posters still pop up with the ‘you are all such bigots that MN created a special board for you’ type posts.

This issue ( trans ideology) is what brought me to MN in the first place, and this is the only board I post on. For me, and many others here, it is the central issue of our time and the one that motivates us most, and to which we are most committed. In that respect this board has been a life saver and an incredibly useful resource.

This is an issue which transcends our daily lives and has wide reaching and fundamental impacts. In the attempt to erase 'sex' women's interests and concerns are existentially threatened. It has also cause many of us to fundamentally re-assess where we are now, how we got here, and has brought us to question all previous certainties. In that sense it is deeply political.

I remember a small group of them who used the argument that they could not post what they wanted to post so demanded the split. And then never posted on the other board at all while staying on this board and complained endlessly that the posters here were bigots.

It was clear their prime reason for posting was to keep telling women that they were hateful in every way possible.

There was one particular lolling, name changing poster who was a massive disrupter at the time and who thankfully seems to have fucked off.

Something to do with whether her dad could walk her down the aisle?