Women's Forum - Are private forums necessary?

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The original content of this thread has been lost to the mists of time (I think it happened when we upgraded to a newer version of the software.)

Sorry for the inconvenience.

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Men would be surprised by where the same topic is going in the women’s forum. Definitely quite a different take.

Don’t you have anything better to do today, Maoman?

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[quote]And men would be surprised by where the same topic is going in the women’s forum. Definately quite a different take.
[/quote]
Wrong. Men don’t give a flying fuck about it. Why should we? We can’t see it and have no knowledge about it other than what I suppose you assume we think of as “tantalizing snippets” from you. “Ha ha ha, we’re all talking about stuff and YOU can’t!” Cliquey and elitist, and when you include that with taunting the other Forumosa members, disgusting.

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So why is there a women only section anyway? And how do you prove you are a woman when you apply to join? Is there also a white’s only section? A place for Americans to bitch about us Brits without being put right? Or vice versa?

Is there a gay forum so that QM and others don’t have to put up with the predominantly hetero tone of the place? I rather hope not. I like having the guy being part of normal society, without having to hide in his own little forum somewhere.

I’m rather surprised that here we are, in a bit of cyberspace that is supposed to reflect the world we live in, a place inhabited by the likes of Hartzell and his campaigns for equal rights, a place where a good many of us trumpet the superiority of our ‘more equal’ society over that of Taiwan, and yet we discriminate against some of our members on the grounds of the chromosomes they happened to inherit.

If ‘the girls’ want a place of their own then they can go and create one somewhere else. I say there should be one forumosa for all, and it becomes whatever we make of it by our combined efforts. The only private forum I can see a need for is the mods and/or administrators. Everyone else can create their clubs, cliques, secret societies etc away from forumosa - if they really must have them.

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The women’s forum was set up before a decision was made not to have any further elitist cliques, so it was allowed to stand. I don’t really care if the women want their own forum, except when its members salt the normal boards with references to “we’re talking about over there.” Its tacky.
After all, me and Maoman don’t make references here to the people we discuss in our secret forum.

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Seems a bit strange that women on Forumosa feel the need to have their own private forum. Apart from the principle, I guess it doesn’t really matter seeing as most men have absolutely no interest in what women talk about with each other.

If pushed to guess as to the discussion in the secret forum, I would think it would be a mixture of practical stuff about health, sex, food, and shopping, some bitching about men, and realtionship stuff.

I’ll take a stab in the dark.

Women’s Forum

Summer salad recipes
Waxing legs
Buying clothes for the normal-sized woman
Yeast infections (part 4)
A month late!

Tomas - stud or not?
Why are men such bastards?
Ohh, that Almas is a bit of alright
Does my boyfriend really love me?
Forumosa “Man-beast” poll

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That’s because you understand the meaning of the word ‘secret’. Girls, it means that you don’t tell the people who aren’t in on your little chats what you talk about.

Anyway, I have a secret fo my own to share. I’ve decided to stop trying to play the studmuffin game and admit that I’m just not up to it. We all have our feminine sides, and I want to get in touch with mine. From now on I want you all to call me Loretta, and to support my right to have babies. It’s my right as a man to be a woman.

There’s a woman inside, crying to be let out, and I for one don’t believe in repressing women or denying them the right to be heard. I am a woman in a (damnably attractive) man’s body and it’s killing me.

Please please let me into the women’s forum so that I can talk about this away from prying unsympathetic male eyes.

SB

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I’ve got an idea. Suppose you agree that he can’t actually have babies, not having a womb, which is nobody’s fault, not even the Kuomintang’s or the Republicans’ or the French’s, but that he can have the right to have babies. :wink:

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When I first started to read this part of the “broken thread” I was a bit miffed that the women were allowed a secret, “no-where-to-be-found-under-the-forum-listing” forum. :frowning: My annoyance was not because I thought they didn’t deserve their own forum. It was more because we were denied the right to create a LGBT forum (one that we weren’t even asking to be “secret”) because forums were deemed be topic related and not group related.

However, since it was created (allegedly) before the decision to make new forums topic based only, I won’t complain… too much. :slight_smile: However, I do think it is odd that, while participation in this Women’s forum is apparently limited to people who can prove they don’t have a penis, you can’t even find it in the forum list. How do women even find out about it? :?:

Does one female poster approach another suspected female poster and say,“PSST… are you a women?”

“Why, yes! Why do you ask.”

“Can you prove it?”

"Here… " (opening her pants) :shock:

“Good… don’t tell any of those male-type creatures, but there is an exclusive ‘women’s only forum’. Follow me.”

I think you missed the “Is my boyfriend really gay?” thread. I think that one would be very popular in Taiwan with all the alleged “metrosexuals” running around. :laughing:

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[quote=“QuietMountain”]Women’s forum is apparently limited to people who can prove they don’t have a penis[/quote]I fit those entry requirements, maybe I should apply after all :moo:

[quote]you can’t even find it in the forum list. How do women even find out about it?[/quote]If you click on the ‘Groups’ link at the top, you can find it in there, the groups that someone is in is also listed in the panel under their avatar.

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I’m having a hard time understanding what the big deal is about having a safe place for the female Forumosans to talk about sensitive topics. Do some people have a problem with there being a thread about anal sex in the Women’s forum? The people who commented probably wouldn’t have posted so openly in the public forums but did so in the Women’s forum because it’s a smaller group, more personal, and a little more private.

If someone who is an alcoholic wanted to start an AA forum here, wouldn’t it kind of be the same thing? If s/he is a long time poster here, s/he probably wouldn’t want the entire community to know that this is something s/he has a hard time overcoming, but in a more personal group where you believe everyone else is going through the same thing, you’re more willing to share your experiences/lessons learned without people attacking you.

My two dollars.

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First of all this is the internet. If you really need to post intensely personal information, you can create a new identity, and post under that identity. And as far as being a “safe” place goes, I can’t imagine a much “safer” posting environment. The Mod Squad keeps a close eye on the forums, and anything that might endanger our posting environment is discussed, and if necessary, acted upon. Neither privacy nor safety need to be considered as being real issues here.

As I said above, anything can always be posted under an alias, if necessary. Secondly, www.Forumosa.com isn’t meant to be all things to all people. We don’t have a martial arts forum. Or a sports forum. We don’t charge for access to “premium content”. Most importantly we don’t define ourselves by what we aren’t, but by what we are: A Taiwan-oriented online community. Not a white community. Not a women’s community. Not a gay community. We are expats from all over the world who choose not to segregate ourselves by race, creed or gender, but rather be defined by what unites us - our interest in Taiwan. If other people in Taiwan want to create websites for parents, for women, for gays, for children, for scholars, for alcoholics, or whatever, that’s great. I’ll happily link to those sites, or put up a banner if you provide one. We are not going to be a motley collection of separate interests with separate access to separate areas of the website. I feel very strongly about this. :sunglasses:

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I said “don’t have a penis” not have a small one. :shock: :laughing:

Sorry… couldn’t resist!

Damn… I don’t belong to any groups. And, no one has endorsed me. :cry:

How have I been a member of Forumosa for this long and not known about these things? First avatars, then chops, now group ‘belonging-ness’ and endorsements. What else am I ignorant about!

And, if you say everything… you’ll get a bitch slap! :wink:

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That’s nice to hear that someone likes having me in “normal” society. :slight_smile: Thanks. I enjoy being a part of it, too, as I hate hiding in the closet. Even the nicest closet is still a closet.

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Hi folks,

For the past 6 months, there has been a private forum on this website that is exclusively for Women. The idea was to have a discussion area where women could discuss women’s issues without being concerned about male members views, opinions or comments.

Since this website began 5 years ago, we have tried to maintain an open atmosphere. A private forum for people to “post in peace” is in intriguing idea, but it runs counter to what Forumosa basically tries to encourage – openess and an exchange of views.

Today, traffic in that private forum is flagging. I am wondering: has the Private Forum experiment ultimately failed? Please share your thoughts about whether there should be ANY private forums on Forumosa at all.

I plan to take your feedback to Maoman and to that forum’s moderator this weekend to make the case for or against (1) keeping the Women’s Only forum and (2) keeping any Private non-administrative forum.

g.

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I’d like you to keep it. As a poster of the mentioned forum, I really appreciate having a space where women can post delicate, private issues. Eventhough it is currently flagging, there are questions that a woman does not dare to address in an open forum. Can you imagine how you men would react to questions like “Where can I find a decent bra?”, etc. Questions that are important to women, questions that don’t concern men at all and questions that men would only make stupid jokes about. Men and women are different and need their own space from time to time. Unless the womens forum costs a lot of unnecessary money I don’t see the point in closing it down.

I already hear you guys arguing that it is unfair and if there existed a womens forum we should have a african american, jewish, christian…etc. forum. Hell no, that’s different and you know it.

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[quote=“mesheel”]Can you imagine how you men would react to questions like “Where can I find a decent bra?”, etc.[/quote]Yes, look at all the rude childish comments in this thread: [Breast Reduction Surgery in Taiwan

[quote]Men and women are different[/quote]Does that include job opportunities too ?

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I fully support a separate female forum. What is the membership number of that forum?

Wouldn’t a poll be a useful addition to this topic?

Let’s also remember that there have been repeated requests for a gay forum (not private), but this has so far been refused. There are plenty of gay issues and related stuff that could be discussed and arranged under such a forum. For example, we’ve had lots of contributions about gay “marriage”, relationship recognition, and residency rights of same-sex spouses, etc. The last, at least, is an important topic that should be easily accessible.

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As could be expected, I’m with Mesheel and the other girls in the Women only forum. Gus, you pretty well know that setting up this private forum wasn’t to run counter Forumosa’s openess and liberal exchange of views. Instead it was to discuss girl-related topics like relationships without all the males skipping in and telling us that Western girls are not supposed to have relationships in Asia because we’re all ugly, fat and hairy anyway. If you have the time, go back and check what has become of the threads where a girl asked for other girl’s opinions on topics like relationships, men, clothes etc. The male posters’ contributions for the most part weren’t exactly helpful :s

If you ask me, all this nonsense about posting traffic is just shere jealousy (maybe not by Gus but certainly by some other drooling male Forumosans who have spoken out against setting up a private women forum from the very beginning). As little as I would care about the guys having their private guys forum, as much all the guys seem to be drooling when they hear that there are a couple of girls talking freely between themselves. What the heck? :smiling_imp: Besides, looks like a lot of the guys have jobs where they can actually spend a lot of their office time posting. Well, I have a job that can be so busy at times that I don’t manage to answer my sisters emails and two months later can leave me doing nothing but posting on Forumosa for a week. But since I have VERY few lady friends here in Taiwan in a similar position as I am, I thoroughly appreciate the possibility to adress or answer “girl” questions in women only forum, even if I don’t do it every day.

I do think there is a point for having certain private forums. I would be able to imagine why it would make sense to have a private gay forum. Can’t think of any other ones right now because it looks to me like most other topics are openly discussed anyway without too much sniggering of the average straight male Forumosan. Of course, it’s you as the admins who have to decide who to give a forum to and who not. If somebody doesn’t agree with your decision, they’re always free to leave Forumosa, set up their own forum etc. If you decide to close down the women only forum, I’d probably be grumpy but would certainly be able to live with the decision. I’m pretty sure I’d still be posting on Forumosa even if you had never set up the women only forum. Though I’ve pretty much enjoyed the exchange of certain information. I would like to keep it. I won’t start a war if you decide to close it. The only option I wouldn’t agree with under any circumstances would be making the private women forum as it is right now public.

Am I making my point clear enough?

Iris

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If a women’s forum provides a useful service to our “customers”, then I am all for it. I hope I don’t sound piggish by saying this, but I think that ex-pat ladies often have a harder time adjusting to Taiwan and they might need a place where they can talk without us guys piping in.