Late night surprise about reputation of FWR

[IwantToRetire]

I was on Site Stuff to report back on ongoing freezing and noticed another thread about whether Mumsnet should apologise about deleting threads about ongoing conflict in the Middle East.

And there were some comments about there being a border line between legitimate criticism of Israel's policies and anti semitism. And it is this last that get these threads deleted.

So was surprised to see some comment on this thread saying it was as bad as some threads on FWR, and those particularly at fault are thos with a GC view point.

(Funnily enough AI suggested a title for this thread along the lines of "Are FWR debates judged differently ..... " but now it has hidden its suggestion, just when I was going to use it.)

Oh its come back

"Are sex and gender debates on FWR judged by different standards?"

If you believe that humans can change sex or have a good reason as to why gender shouldn’t be seen as regressive stereotypes then please let us have your arguments.

If the issue is the Bananarama defence then a lot of us will push back on our tone being policed.

It was a bloody good post, @MarieDeGournay - nothing in it was superfluous.

When you're as angry as I am about this BS (see my long post upthread) having my tone policed is just one more fucking thing.

And a bloody good post it is too, Edith
Agreed - it is quite often 'same 💩different day'

THIS 👏👏

I've been involved in this for over 10 years. Only now is society creeping towards acknowledging that changing sex is impossible and perhaps we shouldn't have allowed a damaging adult ideology to be sold (via government funding and a tsunami of coercion and bullying) to children.

I'm finding it much harder to pander to the evidently insincere (I'm as GC as they come BUT you're all such women on here) posters. Especially when they drivel on about pronouns and toilets while young people are literally wrecking their futures with this shit.

I also need that t-shirt. 😆

Women say No

Response: you bigots why are you being so hateful
Women still say No

Response: threats like the delightful one about spiraling
Women still say No because they've been threatened and that's not cool.

Response: well maybe it's your tone, you should compromise or build a gold bridge
Women say FFS, we are literally being threatened because we don't agree, we have not once changed our position and frankly we can't change our position because you cant actually change sex - it's impossible - and all this compromise stuff is nonsense and all this is about is about steam rolling our rights

Response: It's just like Gaza/Israel
Women say In what way are we like either Hamas who rape and murder civilians or Israel who bomb children? Can you actually point out how we are being violent or encouraging violence or just generally excusing violence for a cause, cos that sure as hell seems to be one way traffic in this debate.

Response: it's being treated differently to other subjects and that's not fair.
Women say Errrr hang on. What's not fair is all of the above when observing sex isn't exactly controversial and is a necessary part of daily life, is a mainstream view and is recognised by the courts as worth of respect in a democratic country. And yet apparently we should shut up, roll over and just tolerate harms to children, abuse and threats of violence, threats to our income for not accepting this, losing female sport, losing dignity in the workplace and in public spaces and massive fuck off safeguarding fails.

Response: why are you being so hateful?
Women still say no like we did the first fucking time because nothing has changed and we damn well are not being hateful we are just fucked off at you not taking no for an answer the first time, second time, third time or all the other thousands of times your tried it on since.

The answer is still no.

I don’t have the patience with the tone policing these days and I’ve only been posting here for just over a year.

I want that t-shirt too please.

inadequate words masquerading as meaningful engagement

I’m appropriating this phrase. I like it a lot. Easily applies to GenAI too.

I actually don’t believe those things, no.

Is religion not also an ideology with no scientific basis?

Well that's your opinion.

Just because i dont think like you doesn't mean I intend to provoke.

Its really sad that you feel so challenged and cant either think this is an interesting topic I might join in, or think I'm not interested in this I'll find another thread.

The problem is what is going on in your head!

I may start a few threads, and what is more overt but you clearly haven't registered as you are determined to see "provocation" is that I start far more threads on actual reports, facts, examples of things being done to women and they get very few responses.

Which for a forum is feminism and women's rights it was only MNHQ having whinny nice feminists sayd we dont want to discuss sex and gender that the re-labeled it in a different way. The problem is the one we all point out, that now those who dont know the history think this is a single issue forum. But even with the mislabelling the context of having a discussion on sex and gender is for it to happen in a feminist context. Sadly it has attracted those who see sex and gender within a right wing context. And also those (who love to wind FWR up) that it is about constantly challenging sex as a biological reality. Which means they bog us down in the basics, rather than what it used to me where the discussion moved on from the basics.

Do you actually, really think that "debate" means "two sets of people slinging hate at each other"?

FWR has a reputation because people tell lies about us and eventually people believe the lies. Keep slinging mud until some sticks is a very old tactic.

I am quite prepared to say posting late at night might mean that I wasn't clear, but I am amazed that so many assumed it was yet another thread started to then say things that I think in the last 2 there are three major threads about.

Hard to belief but there is life outside and endless repititions about sex and gender.

So actual fact.

1 I saw a thread on site stuff about problems in discussing conflict in the Middle East because of differences of opinion about Zionism and anti semitism.

2 I was completely surprised to see someone use a thread that is about something really serious to hijack it to comment on FWR. (Sorry for those who dont know what that measns. Blame MN HQ and ask them to revert to its original name.)

3 Why would they do that. They could have had their own thread on site stuff if they genuinely thought the could compare language on FWR with threads on the ongoing issues in the Middle East.

4 As someone said I have been on this forum for a while and thought I would just let everyone know.

I think only 2 or maybe 3 realised that.

Not saying I would have wanted it but why didn't this lead to a discussion about whether it is possible to say that discussion on the ME has the same characteristics as discussing sex based rights.

Sometime it might be worth standing back and remembering this isn't a single issue forum.

It is a feminist forum to discuss sex and gender because not that many years ago you could get kicked off for daring to suggest sex and gender were not the same thing.

So as said in recent post when in MN had to accept that there were such things as gender critical feminists, they should have a forum where they could discuss the implications of genderists (TRAs) and not faint and send for the smelling salts.

So for those who thought is was just too frightful to be so unkind could have there very own we want to be kind space to "chat".

But that also means we dont have to have the same discussions over and over again.

The point was, or used to be, having that shared outlook of sex based rights what actions, or events, or laws or ... whatever could women as a group online discuss about how to bring about change.

Still find it amazing that anyone from whatever part of MN would think it appropriate or relevent to raise FWR discussion as though the same as discussions about the ME.

Oh dear, naughty me, there I am being provocative again.

Sigh.

It seems to be here. Let’s see what a formal definition of debate suggests: “to discuss a question by considering opposed arguments” (Merriam-Webster). I don’t really see a good deal of that.

Which people, though?

This is a quote from your OP, @IwantToRetire.

“So was surprised to see some comment on this thread saying it was as bad as some threads on FWR, and those particularly at fault are thos with a GC view point.
(Funnily enough AI suggested a title for this thread along the lines of "Are FWR debates judged differently ..... " but now it has hidden its suggestion, just when I was going to use it.)
Oh its come back
"Are sex and gender debates on FWR judged by different standards?"

You directly compare FWR threads to the ME threads and ask if they are judged by different standards. Now you seem upset because I dared to bring up FWR at all. (Your comment above: “I was completely surprised to see someone use a thread that is about something really serious to hijack it to comment on FWR.”)

Can you see this doesn’t make much sense?

I agree. Antisemitism and transphobia both exist but the words are both misused sometimes as a way of silencing real concerns reasonably expressed .

Well if the TRA could come up with coherent arguments instead of just. Youre all bug meanies saying no to the poor liddle Menz who just want to peeee then maybe the discussion might be meaningful.

The discussion might also be more meaningful if cliches like this weren’t thrown in all the time, along with odd childish tone.

YY. It also is bullshit that FWR is singularly “hostile”. It’s a feature of online discussion groups, particularly those around political issues.

Well I guess it’s for people to either engage with them or not then, isn’t it.

I agree.

We are allowed to have concerns and priorities that you do not share.

We do not need your approval nor blessing.

We can think about more than one subject at a time.

This may be difficult to understand but TOUGH.