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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

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Gym thinks only men can be Drs

363 replies

DrElizabethPlimpton · 18/03/2015 18:21

I've just seen a link to a Daily Fail article (I won't link obviously) about a gym in Cambridgeshire

A paediatrician joined and she found that her electronic key wouldn't allow her access to the female changing room. The 'glitch' was explained by staff - apparently her title Dr automatically defaulted to the assumption she was male.
I'm currently speechless.

OP posts:
kim147 · 19/03/2015 17:20

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JeanneTheRabidFeminist · 19/03/2015 17:19

Incidentally, the word you are looking for is 'patronizing'. For a definition, see this post.

JeanneTheRabidFeminist · 19/03/2015 17:19

I explained that it is erasing sexism to attribute the problem to the database and not its maker, which you did in one of your posts. I know you know human beings make databases. It was the phrasing and its implications I thought were dodgy.

And I'm sorry about the limitations of your vocabulary, but it doesn't make it ok to do that.

JeanneTheRabidFeminist · 19/03/2015 17:18

hermia - yes, I agree.

I do use Dr, because I'm a woman and I reckon it's vaguely good to be visible qualified in something people associate with men, but if I didn't have that reason, I'd very happily not use it.

kim147 · 19/03/2015 17:17

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HermiaDream · 19/03/2015 17:17

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JeanneTheRabidFeminist · 19/03/2015 17:16

I'm not concerned about your understanding of databases, kim, I'm concerned about your casual erasure of sexism. I am aware it was probably just a clumsy choice of words, but I felt it mattered.

I'm also not wild about you misgendering me, which I think is a bit off, really.

kim147 · 19/03/2015 17:13

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HermiaDream · 19/03/2015 17:13

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kim147 · 19/03/2015 17:12

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JeanneTheRabidFeminist · 19/03/2015 17:11

Oh, ok then. I'm mansplaining. I'll just take my masculine privilege away, shall I? Uppity woman that I am.

kim147 · 19/03/2015 17:10

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kim147 · 19/03/2015 17:09

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EBearhug · 19/03/2015 17:03

I think you're reading a different thread, if you think this wasn't about both changing rooms and assumptions made by programmers. That's how I was reading it, anyway.

If the card in question wasn't used for gender-specific access, we'd probably not be aware that the database behind it all was making assumptions about Dr being assumed to be male. It probably happens more widely, but we're just not aware of it.

JeanneTheRabidFeminist · 19/03/2015 17:03

Look, kim, can we just leave it?

The whole bloody thread is about this woman not being able to get into her changing room. Yes, it is also about databases and assumptions and all sorts of other things, but to claim it isn't about changing rooms is absurd.

I do think it matters that the assumption belongs to the programmer, not the system. And you did need correcting on that, because your statement - in that post, not in others - was obscuring the fact that sexism here isn't some randomly generated effect, but the result of active decisions made by people. I felt that was important. I don't think it is mansplaining to say so.

I really don't think I am obsessed with 'the T word'. I think trans people - and everyone else, actually - would be better off if we stopped classifying the whole world into two groups based on sex. I have expressed this view many, many times, both to you and in general on here.

I feel really sad that this thread has now been totally derailed away from 'shit example of sexism' to 'kim and her one-woman crusade to tell everyone they are bigots'. I get that life is shit and hard for you and I am sorry about that. But that does not mean that you get claim everything that is not directly about you must be bigotry directed at you.

It isn't. Sometimes, it's just not about you.

PuffinsAreFictitious · 19/03/2015 17:01

Oh for goodness sake....

kim147 · 19/03/2015 17:00

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kim147 · 19/03/2015 16:58

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kim147 · 19/03/2015 16:56

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JeanneTheRabidFeminist · 19/03/2015 16:51

Oh, for fuckssake.

Now you're accusing us of wanting to 'ban the T'. Really?

Could you for one minute consider this thread may actually be about a woman who was discriminated against, not about us being evil, evil bigots?

I corrected you about the programme because the point here is that a person has to make that sexist assumption about women doctors. You don't like that idea, do you? That someone might be discriminating against women.

But they are. And some of us actually don't like it.

That attitude, believe it or not, is not actually to do with wishing harm to people who (like me), might prefer changing rooms and indeed databases that didn't use sex as a selection category. Ok?

kim147 · 19/03/2015 16:45

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kim147 · 19/03/2015 16:44

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JeanneTheRabidFeminist · 19/03/2015 16:41

Oh. I thought it was about who could go into a changing room - that is what's in the OP!

It's not a programming assumption that a Dr is male. A database isn't human - it can't really 'assume' anything. It can only be programmed.

Obviously, I stand by what I've just said about options to tick M/F. Not sure why you're asking me again?

kim147 · 19/03/2015 16:39

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plummyjam · 19/03/2015 16:36

I always use my Dr title because that's my title.