Women's Rights Network Imploding - thread 2

[ThimbleThief]

Continuation Thread.

Original thread here:
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5485117-womens-rights-network-imploding

It is simple maths. I am sure that ex-WRN Scotland members can improve on this example by supplying more accurate estimates but here goes . . .

If a group has around 120 members and the majority (about 80) are expelled then that leaves 40 members in the Group.

• If 5 exiles are readmitted then 45 members know that 5 have been readmitted. There is little uncertainty here.
• If 60 exiles are readmitted then 100 members know that 60 have been admitted. There is little uncertainty here.
• In both cases, there will be more or less information and rumours both inside the Group and outside WRN about members who applied to rejoin and were rejected or who did not apply to rejoin. There is much more uncertainty here.

That is a significant number of women who know how many women have been readmitted and, one way or another: Word. Gets. Out.

There were a lot of complaints aired in the first thread. IIRC, and happy to be corrected, only one woman said that she had applied to rejoin and she said she had been rejected. Her only complaint about that process, when her application to rejoin was "considered", was, IIRC, that she had no reply to her request to rejoin. So de facto rejected. Again, happy to be corrected if I am wrong.

There have also been women defending WRN in response to other women's complaints about all sorts of things. However, not once has anyone volunteered that after being expelled she was keen to rejoin, that her application was accepted and that she is happy to be back in her group.

All that is not proof of anything but I would suggest that it is a hint as big as a house that the vast majority of women expelled did not apply to rejoin.

Although almost everyone on these threads is anonymous, if there were only a very few re-joiners then someone who rejoined might be worried about self-doxing herself if she reported here that she had rejoined.

However, if many women had rejoined then this would not be a worry.

There is therefore a lot of circumstantial evidence that very few women rejoined.

That is not, by the way, the reason that I said:

"My understanding is that:

• only a very few applied and were accepted back
• most "removed members" did not apply to rejoin."

It is the reason that I believe that "my understanding", which is definitely based on hearsay (ie. what I have been told), is very close to the truth.

I have considered if there is anything to confirm or support what I have been told, or instead to disprove or challenge it. What I have seen so far is a lot of circumstantial evidence to support "my understanding".

What I have also seen, in the letters from WRN North & South Bucks members, is evidence that women who have given their all to WRN for years were desperate not to be expelled and were then desperate to be readmitted and that they were rebuffed. This suggests that WRN is not prepared to consider readmitting even women who were very valuable assets and who were responsible for building WRN from the ground up.

"We also have no idea how many of the women initially removed from WRN as a group then applied to return individually and were accepted back."

You keep repeating that claim like it is some sort of magic spell that will erase all the evidence that is in front of your eyes,

Women in those groups know for certain. The rest of us can get a good idea just from what has been said plus what has not been said in this thread and in the previous thread. If you cannot see it, or do not want to see it, then fine, you "have no idea". Some of us do though, by considering carefully what women are saying, and not saying, rather than dismissing everything as "hearsay".

"If you want to decide whether the new groups would suit you, then I suggest you sample the posting style of some of the women involved in those groups."

Good advice. I guess you are not referring to the very reasonable and measured "posting style of some of the women involved in those groups"?

Also good advice to sample the posting style of most of the women defending WRN. They will have to be quick though because so many of their posts have been deleted for being abusive, personal attacks in breach of Mumsnet Talk Guidelines. They are not doing anything for the reputation of WRN.

I must admit I'm not a huge hustings officianado, but all of the ones I've been to have followed the same format where the politicians on stage are the ones speaking & using their voice. But perhaps they're different where you live?
Why was a hustings the deciding factor in you deciding that I didn't use my voice? Seems a strangely specific thing to mention, rather than visits to Parliament, or attending protests, or attending court cases, or having one-on-one meetings with MPs & MSPs, or taking legal action for discriminatory practices, or engaging with stakeholders, or doing FOIs, or arranging meetings with local organisations & councils, supporting & attending FiLiA events regularly, or good old-fashioned public engagement, or financially & administratively assisting groups like FWS, LWS, WWW, SWoC, AF, SL, SM, PWE etc. All of which I've done.

So if you’re such a stalwart of the fight for women, why don’t you stop trying this repetitive slagging off WRN? They are successfully working with politicians and people at the forefront of running institutions that support women.
Why on earth are you continually bleating about not being part of them? You don’t like them, fine. However these screeds of repetitive posts and personal attacks are petty at best, but way more destructive to the movement as a whole. Lose the vindictive attitude and try and see the bigger picture.

“Also good advice to sample the posting style of most of the women defending WRN. They will have to be quick though because so many of their posts have been deleted for being abusive, personal attacks in breach of Mumsnet Talk Guidelines. They are not doing anything for the reputation of WRN.”

this is what I am getting off these threads. They look like a bunch of meann girls.

Why on earth are you using the word “ gender “ ?

I've never slagged off WRN.

Well, signed up to twix to go follow and DM (well, at least I think I did) Women O'Scotland. Here's to a fruitful endeavour.

@ThimbleThief The flaw with your 'mathematical' arguments is that you assume that loads of members or ex-members of WRN are on MN following these posts and adding their comments. Of course, we will never know how many lurk, but only a handful are posting.
Very few women in my own WRN group ever mention MN. Most seem to get their info directly from other online sources.

This is a classic example of confirmation bias @Seriestwo In fact, one of your own posts was deleted on page one.

I don’t thunk mine was deleted, I didn’t get a message and don’t know what I could have said that’s deleting. I asked question’s because I thought I was in WRN but turns out I wasn’t because I wasn’t thrown out, is that a bias?

For people who claim that these Mumsnet threads are an irrelevance they are doing some extremely diligent monitoring of who said what and when.

With the exception of Heminist, who has been dreaming up posts that OrangesAndLemons never made and also claims to have a "gender". So probably neither a current or ex-WRN member, with a side-line in intimidation by insinuating that they know who anonymous Mumsnetters are IRL.

"The flaw with your 'mathematical' arguments is that you assume that loads of members or ex-members of WRN are on MN following these posts and adding their comments."

That is not my assumption at all. If it had been then I would have stated it.

I've only recently had time to catch up with the end of thread 1 and then this one.

Sorry that this thread seems to have been hijacked by someone with some sort of agenda about not sure what.

As someone who is not part of WRN have found the thread very informative, and also really positive to here other groups have formed and are networking.

My only niggle is that even though individuals may like twitter now X for whatever reason, please remember it is now one of the least used social media platforms(*), and worse, cannot be read by those who have not joined. Ditto Instragram but does have many more users

So please always think of a second outlet. A Facebook page doesn't necessarily have to have chat. It can just be used to post updates. Or even be a shared page for each group to post updates?!

Only saying this because I am sure there are many women who would really want to opportunity to be part of these new groups.

And of course really welcome this development because as I posted on the first thread in the early days of Women's Liberation that was the model. Each group was autonomous and took its own decisions, and accepted that other groups may have different priorities but would still work together on a common issue of concern, whether a local refuge losing its funding, or campaing or lobbying. And this with done without the aid of new technology.

And although I am sure that some groups found an individual or core group tried to register the name of the group as though it were their invention, it rarely happened and many groups have kept going!

Just adding this because from the first thread and on this there seem to be some who only have a negative view of women working together as equals, based on having a shared outlook, politics and women's sex based rights.

Just so strange. Nothing to stop other groups setting themselves up in other ways, such as Sex Matters had done. So long as it is transparent.

Hope that on occassions those who are active will pop back to this thread and let us know or if even more new groups have been started. (In fact nothing to stop having a Women of --- thread on FWR, which anyone can read as a way of sharing online!)

(*) TwiX has dropped from 9th placed to 15th in the past 12 months. Which may mean the boycotting of the platform has worked.

2024 https://www.statista.com/statistics/284506/united-kingdom-social-network-penetration

2025 https://www.statista.com/statistics/272014/global-social-networks-ranked-by-number-of-users/

You have a valid point, but many people can only do their activism on X because it allows anonymity, unlike Facebook. If a woman has work colleagues on her Facebook, she might not even like or comment on, let alone follow, women’s activist pages, because it could cause problems at work if it became known that she holds gender-critical views. Many women are also still targeted and attacked by TRAs, so having their real name and profile picture visible on Facebook may deter them from interacting with women’s rights groups there.

That’s fair comment. I see that FairIsFairIsFair has also added her own very fair comment.

The Women of Wessex use X/Twitter as their main method of communication and the recruitment of new members because we can keep up-to-date, and get in touch directly, with prominent women’s rights campaigners and groups while preserving our anonymity.

Like our three affiliated sister groups, we also use WhatsApp to communicate and organise, but a new member is not added to those chats until we are absolutely sure of her.

Our shared vetting procedure is strict, but no one who knows anything about personal security would claim it was 100% foolproof. No system ever is. Our reasoning is that if a X chat group was compromised, we could shut it down, change our screen names, regroup under new usernames. It would be a palaver - but not as much as it would be if our mobile numbers were compromised. Just think how many people and organisations you’d have to inform if you changed your mobile number.

I know several women in the Chilterns group and a couple in the new Scotland one, and they are flourishing. The affiliation with more established groups is giving them a lot of support to get set up, and they are generating loads of backing. I’m a bit envious honestly, I wish there was something like this in my area!

I am on facebook annonymously. And as I am annonymous here I will admit I have a second annonymous account for updating a shared public page, for obvious reasons.

So that really isn't an issue.

I am just being really conscious that many, many women just never hear directly about feminist activism, let alone take part.

And Twix always was, and still is a really unpleasant space so many women have never gone near it, and as it is now being politically boycotted even more anachronistic to go on being part of it.

So, and not wishing to pontificate, but in considering out reach, or being welcoming the best approach isn't always what I like should be the criteria.

But either way, it would be good to have some sort of public page where existing groups could be listed. And quite honestly why not as part of a thread on FWR.

Which reminds me wasn't there a next work of local women's groups that had a central web site where you could check if there was one in your area.

It wasn't that long ago, and I just cant think the name of the network.

Which reminds me wasn't there a next work of local women's groups that had a central web site where you could check if there was one in your area.

Are you thinking of the ReSisters Groups? Some still exist and new ones have been set up but whoever was maintaining the website has abandoned it as a lot of the links to local Groups are out of date or dead links and no one replies to the email address.
https://resistersunited.org/

(Edited for accuracy)

My guess is that she was being ironic and referring to the Women’s Rights Network.

I dont really bother with the WRN anymore and LWD are also having issues

I agree, a lot of women are unaware of women’s rights groups, but given that many women’s rights groups are already on Facebook, it would appear that those women either aren’t searching for them or the algorithms don’t promote them the way the X algorithm does.

Many women’s rights groups protest and are active in real life. They also still spread their message through word of mouth and leaflets not just social media. There are also many local groups that are active, with chat groups on various platforms, but they aren’t official organisations so they have no public social media presence. By chatting to someone in real life, I’m sure most women would eventually be invited to something similar whether it’s on Facebook or not. A lot of women activists are in more than one group too. There’s also media exposure for protests, events, and court rulings, etc. And of course, many groups are active but don’t accept members, so I’m not sure what your point is. Are you referring to a particular women’s rights group that doesn’t use Facebook?

I find Facebook far more toxic in the replies than X. Ironically, fewer people use anonymous accounts on Facebook, yet the comments are usually much worse and not worth the hassle, especially if it’s political. Most women’s rights posts on X are left alone these days and have more support than negative comments. Maybe it’s just your experience of X (your particular echo chamber?) because it’s not as bad as you make out it is.

Have you considered making a Facebook page to list all the women’s rights groups yourself and getting it out there to women? As you’re on Facebook and Mumsnet you’re already aware of a few of them and you could share that information and help with their exposure, then other women who are also on X would share info they have from there too. There are lots of ways to help with women’s rights activism these days.

Have you considered making a Facebook page to list all the women’s rights groups yourself and getting it out there to women? As you’re on Facebook and Mumsnet you’re already aware of a few of them and you could share that information and help with their exposure, then other women who are also on X would share info they have from there too. There are lots of ways to help with women’s rights activism these days.

That would be totally inappropriate.

And you seem to have gone off on some tangent, when I was just pointing out that unless you only want to be in touch with the same small pool of people, which by comparison if you compare how the number of twix users have dropped considerablly in one year, seems counter productive. Especially when if you arent signed up to X you cant read. Let alone the message it says when most women's groups have publicly left twix because its politics.

So just pointing out that if you want to reach more women you would opt for a platform that is more used. Not just the die hard twix recidifists!

And again if you had read what I said I was just talking about an place where the fact that the groups existed could be seen. Which I would have thought would be an objective. Nothing to do with open conversations.

And again why should I do it? I am not part of the group, and as indicated am already part of existing information exchange FB group,

Why not look at the more easy to achieve, and as a temporary stop gap, just having a thread on FWR which info about groups coming into existence could be posted about.

Were you having a bad day or something.

Thanks yes, it was Resisters.

And yes, sadly an example of setting up a web page means having to maintain it.

(and no I wasn't being ironic, but a reminder that without always the same reasoning it can be hard to build networks)

The suggestion was genuine not snarky! As an anonymous Facebook user you could bring women’s rights issues to the women on there if you think there’s such a gap. There’s nothing stopping you from providing info on many different women’s groups, you don’t have to speak for them or have membership just get it out there and groups and individuals could contribute too. How is that inappropriate?

You do seem fixated with the number of users on Facebook compared to X but you might not be aware of the effectiveness of each platform? More users on Facebook doesn’t necessarily equate to meaningful followers or members for women’s rights groups.

For example:

Women’s Rights Network have 45.4K followers on X but only 10K followers on Facebook. Some of those followers and likes will be the same person and / or members. I don’t think their membership numbers are public.

For Women Scotland have 74.5K followers on X but only 8.9K followers on Facebook. They don’t have a membership like WRN.

The new Scottish women’s group mentioned earlier has 9.3K followers on X and no Facebook page. I don’t think their membership numbers are public.

These X numbers are not a ‘small pool’!

Of course women’s rights groups will always welcome more exposure for the cause but whether Facebook is essential to that is debatable.

Hard agree. A lot of people seem to know each other and so it’s like a conversation where I can’t keep up because they keep presuming we know what they’re talking about.
@TipsyKhakiJoker said “one such organisation got more followers in 12 hours than the one that kicked them out managed in 5 years, shouldn’t the one dropping women like flies maybe rethink how it operates?”
what did that mean?

@weegielass tells us that LWD are having problems but presumes everyone knows what this is about?