I'm sorry but I just don't believe that we can take a m-i posters words, quote and comment on them extensively and not give them the opportunity to reply in thread without inadvertently propping up sexism. I think it segregates when the purpose is to create a working discourse to combat inequality.
And, from over the road:
this thread can't remain a women-only forum if we are actively segregating the men into another thread that we can all respond in... unless equality isn't an aim. Generally asking people: Is equality an aim?
Speaking as someone who’s been ‘hauled’ over here, shaken a bit by the ankles and had my own sexist remnants fall from my pockets to tinkle onto the pavement I see these comments as irrefutable. Whether the fora can be locked, and forgotten, is slightly harder. I believe that the mere fact that the WO thread was started, and also (in a way) the setting up of this thread, shows that many F-i posters have felt genuine need for somewhere to express discomfort. I did, and I came a cropper. It has been very clear, however, that F-i posters were quite willing to take me to task themselves. I should have responded to xk, for instance, but was already backfooting madly over here and didn’t much want to spread my mess any further. Had my comments not been seized upon here, they would likely have been examined where they were posted. My particular need for a thread like the WO is, as I’ve already suggested, that I might raise issues (cackhandedly, if necessary) that concern me as a female, show them to other females and find out whether I am rightly affronted or if I should find some sort of balance in what others say. In that respect, the thread does not threaten equality.
‘Secret Squirrels’ is hard to achieve, here, and not really desired. My brother was a member of a ‘Men’s group’, once, and I was fascinated. I asked him what they talked about and was told, very firmly, that what they discussed was just for them, and not for him to share. I was curious, but I didn’t push it. Perhaps some M-i posters often feel the need for their own thread, here? Maybe not.
The WO thread was started and quite quickly some people took issue with it. Male identifiers posted heavily there, and were asked not to. When they were asked not to, this thread was started: the day after Haus suggested it, and the day after Tryphena said
The problem with this thread is that you can't identify which experiences were primarily effected by your gender or necessarily remember when you were identified as expressing some sort of hysteria so what do I write here?
So perhaps she has identified, twice, that the WO thread is a necessary failure. Shame. It’s also a shame that this post really belongs in the other place, but I’m putting it here. |
