Those Womens Fora
In The Beginning
When I first got onto the Great Cyber Highway I raced out to join every site there was dealing with Women's Issues.
In Real Life I have been involved in Feminism virtually from birth. I had quite a bit of experience in dealing with the myriad of problems women faced from domestic violence to the glass ceiling to what would later become the "Me Too" movement.
I assumed those women I would encounter on line were more fey than I was, and anticipated the highest level of communication.
Slow Findings
That is not what I found.
In fact, what I encountered was the opposite.
A woman would log on to a 'Feminist' site and ask for help with a problem. Often, her husband was 'demanding' some new sexual activity or that she change something she has done all her life,
The word Demand jumps out. This is not a suggestion nor a request. This is the "massa" giving an order to the slave.
This woman logs on and is reaching out for help. She is reaching out in the safety of the Internet.
She is asking for help in an arena where she can not be seen nor heard and can
maintain her privacy.
I expected the others on the site would recognise that whatever her husband was asking was something she did not wish to do and she was looking for support.
For Sisterhood.
Yes, in the very early days, there was a group of fey women who would advise her not to do what she didn't wish.
As time passed there came at first a small, then increasing number of women who would advocate bowing to the 'husbands' desire.
Many of these assumed women or feminists would claim that they enjoyed
what they had first been forced to do.
It was clear that 'obedience' to one's husband was their advice.
womens-health
It is, or should be clear to anyone, the words 'demand' and 'forced' do not signify a healthy relationship. In fact, they are key in abusive ones.
For a female ear or eye, (assuming those who join women's fora under female
names are women) Demand is the trigger.
Even if the topic under discussion was chocolate, for example, if she wrote; "He
demands I buy dark chocolate and forced me to eat dark chocolate," the only
definition of that relationship is abusive.
When it comes to particular sexual activities it is clear that the husband gets
pleasure out of demeaning the wife. if one 'demands' there is a clear signal that his physical pleasure is the act, it is the domination and subjugation of the wife.
This is not advanced psychiatry, this is obvious.
It is clear the woman is asking for support, wanting other women to tell her that she is a full human being with rights and desires and has a right to refuse what she finds offensive.
That is NOT what I encountered on various 'Women's Fora"
Reading Between the Words
When a person advocates a position too robustly, when they take opposing opinions as personal attacks, it is clear that they are speaking personally.
That they are speaking to themselves.
They are trying to convince themselves and trying to coerce others into accepting the same treatment they have come to find 'normal'.
For women to tell other women that they must submit to their husband's demands that they have no right to object or express their own volition, was at first shocking. It would lead me, in early days, to dive into a long discussion on women's rights.
As time passed it became more than obvious there were less of those advocating the woman make her own decision and more telling the woman to obey her husband.
This is because after the third or tenth time a woman joined a so-called feminist site where she was stomped upon by other women, it became too boring, too much effort to argue, to even read the rubbish. And hey; there is always another web site.
By 2000 it became clear that any site claiming to be a Woman's Fora was more of a denial fest, more of an Anti-Feminist venue than one on empowerment.
Disappointment
Instead of the myriad Women's fora hosting the most vibrant women, the ones who have gotten their lives on track, they are full of women who have long since subjugated themselves to their husband's whims. They have forced themselves to adapt and exhort other women to join them.
Women who do not agree with their views, who express conflicting opinions are forced leave these message boards or are locked out.
This is why many Women's Fora have become moribund.
There are no new posts, and no new ideas.
It is not a venue for the independent woman
