This is all getting too much.

[RadicalFern]

I don't know if I can manage this any more. Like life wasn't hard enough already with the prospect of working until my mid seventies, having to fight to be paid my fair worth, never being able to buy a house, etc. I don't know what to do about all this hatred and erasure of women - I feel totally powerless and miserable at the thought that people who have no share of my life experience are seen as being no different from me, and totally qualified to speak for me.

Of course an MP whether male or female is never going to be able to perfectly understand all of their constituents - how could they? But from a women's officer, I expect a woman, and hopefully an older and wiser and tougher one than myself, because that's who I want fighting for me. Not some whinging teenager who feels free to threaten rape, but then cries "meanies!" when challenged.

And this is supposed to be a great leap forward in our tolerance - what an enlightened society we are! Where anyone can be anything! How hollow that claim rings when you really examine it. And the great and the good shut their eyes to scientific facts and tell us not to be hysterical.

I have been so depressed about this the past few days. I don't see that there is any hope.

[DJBaggySmalls]

I feel like I'm watching a bunch of gleeful spoiled brats bring down Western civilisation; cheered on by people who are closet male rights activists, but who prefer the virtue signalling that goes with pretending to be left wing.

[DamnDeDoubtanceIsSpartacus]

It is all so hideous. The rights of men who have a sexual fetish placed in a position of power over women and girls. Young kids increasingly policed lest they stray outside their gender role. My biggest concern is the rise in young girls identifying out of their sex and damaging their bodies with chest binding. The whole movement is un scientific, misogynistic and homophobic.

[GuardianLions]

It is hard to take. It is a garish horror show.

[SweetGrapes]

The chest binding thing is horrific. Very sad here too.

I came here 12 years ago and am seeing all the things I loved and admired about this country being destroyed piece by piece

[Nyx1]

I know what you mean OP

It's enough to make me give up on everything and join the satanists or something. Actually, that wouldn't be a joke if I could find a 100% biological females only group....!

[Thelilywhite]

Sweetgrapes
I hear you- I hear all of you.
Yes its ghastly and makes you want to switch off to it all. But I just keep thinking if our mums/ grans / great grans. They also went through horrors but didnt give up and we benefitted. We cant stop now. We can change things Im sure of that.

[Datun]

We can change things Im sure of that.

I’m sure of that too. I’m often encouraged by the below line comments on articles. Most normal people simply aren’t having it.

The general public isn’t yet aware of the ins and outs. But I read so many comments where they say for fucks sake stop shoving this down our throats. Why should we cater to 1% of the population?

And they don’t yet know the half of it.

So take heart. It might get worse before it gets better. But it will get better.

[busyboysmum]

I'm hoping it will be a passing fad. Like Goths and emo. That really made little dint in the fabric of society although of course affecting strongly those caught up in a negative way.

Don't despair.

Although I have to say when I see the news and see how repressed women are in half the world not being allowed to show their hair and their faces or drive or being raped and set on fire. I do worry about the way forward. Will this be the pinnacle of equality of the sexes? Is it downhill from now onward? Or are these just peaks and troughs?

[BetsyM00]

I hope it will get better, but I'm really not feeling it just now.

For a little light relief I've just been on digitalspy and clicked on an article about celebrity big brother. Apparently to mark 100 years from the suffragettes they are starting with an all-female cast and then gradually adding in some male housemates. So, guess who is the number one female celebrity - India bloody Willoughby!

Aaargh *@@!!!!!

[Nyx1]

what's emo please?

[DJBaggySmalls]

Nyx1 Emo was a punk music genre at the end of the 1980's. Emo kids were a phase in the 90's, characterized by introspection, self harm and depression.

[doctorcuntybollocks]

Most of us have wondered how we would act when faced with a time of great trial such as WWII. Now we can find out: the war on women is the great trial of our time. We can't give up.

[Nyx1]

thanks DJ, now you've told me that I don't know how I missed it. Maybe I just saw it as "life".

I never saw being a goth as harmful - in fact I seem to be becoming one !!

[Gacapa]

I hear you OP.

It's making me feel very, very down.

[RaininSummer]

I agree OP. I am starting to think that we are going to have to take to the streets to protest all this crap.

[silkpyjamasallday]

I can't agree more OP, it is both terrifying and devastating. I went to an all girls school where feminism and women's rights and achievements where championed, they now have a male head. My university had a man, not even a TIM, attempt to become the women's officer, with an offensive misogynistic campaign. Thankfully he wasn't successful but in the current climate he may well have been.

I am more angry than I have ever been in my life, and I feel totally powerless to fight against the erasure of women and the decimation of our rights and protections. All the more since I had my daughter, I worry what sort of world she is going to grow up in. MN is encouraging as there are a great many intelligent, informed women who won't take this shit lying down, but it seems an almost impossible fight when any argument against the current trends are shouted down with accusations of bigotry.

[HumphreyCobblers]

It is the gleeful way in which many men are joining in with the misogyny that is depressing me. Hey look, I get to put women down whilst waving my liberal credentials! What a win win for me!

They just have no hesitation in joining in with the lunacy, no pause to think that the women they are married to, friends with, work with may actually have a valid point and valid reason for their objections.

Who was it who said women have no idea how much men hate us? I am realising how true that is. I knew about the rapists and the violent men, the aggressive and the entitled men. I just didn't know how easily the rest of them would throw us women under the bus.

[irretating]

It's certainly been eye-opening, this journey through left wing misogyny. ''oh I'm so progressive because I'm a trans ally, these women are hysterical liars and there's no need for them to have safe spaces''. As much as I hate to concede any points to the alt-right, they were fucking right, giving those who scream and cry the loudest the right to shut down all other voices - it's wrong and it shouldn't be tolerated.

I'm deeply unsettled knowing that there isn't a political home for us, they've all embraced this lunacy, that gender identity is biological, that biological sex is a social construct. I couldn't be more mystified if I woke up in the morning to hear that all science departments in schools had to teach the flat earth as fact.

[Nyx1]

irretating "giving those who scream and cry the loudest the right to shut down all other voices - it's wrong and it shouldn't be tolerated. "

um, what's that got to do with the "alt-right"? Many people think this.

[SelmaAndJubjub]

150 years ago, women could not own property or get a divorce. 100 years ago, women could not vote. 40 years ago, rape in marriage was legal.

Progress is never linear, and progress is always met with a backlash. It's exhausting, because the fight is never over, but we have to keep fighting.

[HemanOrSheRa]

I just posted on another thread about how sad I am. Who do women vote for?

I remember working in local government and there was Women's Unit. A team of women working for female employees. Imagine that?! It feels a long time ago.

[whitehandledkitchenknife]

Humphrey - it was Germaine Greer ......."Women have very little idea how much men hate them" from "The Female Eunuch" published around 1970.

[irretating]

um, what's that got to do with the "alt-right"? Many people think this.

Nothing directly, but they've criticised university 'safe spaces' where opinions are banned if they may cause offense or upset. I thought this was a bullshit but it seems to be true.

[vaginafetishist]

I had nightmares after clicking on too many twitter profiles of male 'lesbians'. Some with swords and baseball bats.

[Nyx1]

irretating - I have heard people and politicians everywhere complaining about "safe spaces" at universities, it really isn't something to attribute to the nazis!