James O'Brien: what a twat

All new buildings should obviously have loos that are individual cubicles. But the loo thing is easily solveable with good will on both sides. There are much more intractable issues that need to be addressed.

UnbridledRuth Wed 15-Nov-17 08:16:26
Trying to actually find a solution that accommodates both natal women and the trans woman who is terrified of using the men's toilet is going to much more productive

Most women here support creating a gender neutral third option, but trans people dont want that. The battle cry is 'trans women are women', and we just get shouted down.

It seems extraordinary that such an underprivileged, reviled, fragile minority has managed to effect such far reaching social change in such a short time......

Ruth, a round up so I'm sorry not to quote but that would take ages and I'm on a work break...

you've met really horrible feminists? I'm wondering in what way they were horrible?

you talk about men as protectors, but surely women required protection from other men, no other reason?

You talk about men taking up the fight "for obvious reasons". I don't know what those reasons are. Could you tell me please?
I see no reason women couldn't pick up stones, swords, guns or even their fists.

"women and children first" - I queried this when I was a child! It makes no sense! Children - of course, they are too little to look after themselves in an emergency. Women can look after themselves. Men might have instituted that rule because historically they found it very handy to keep women down.

If you feel women should have fought back more and earlier - is this not a brilliant example of women fighting back?

and if you are trying to play devil's advocate, why not start by answering the questions I posed -

what are the consequences if we don't go along with the GRA?

Why would any group of people fight so hard for the GRA in the first place? Acts of Parliament don't appear out of the blue like Travis in a Top Shop changing room. Men have campaigning for this for quite some time, with a very complex and fulsome strategy. What is it you think they want?

Yes 53rdWay.

Great comment. Sums it up.

Every form of feminism everywhere has been accused of being man-hating, toxic and vicious. The Suffragettes got accused of all those things for wanting women to have the right to vote. If there was a magic way of feministing in just the right tone of voice so that people didn’t despise us for it, we’d have stumbled across it by now. But in truth, it’s not about the way we’re expressing our views and demands - it’s that we have those views and demands in the first place.

I just refuse to identify with a movement incorporating slogans like #killallwhitemen

I'm 99.9% sure that you're taking the piss here, but I suppose there is that minute possibility that you genuinely believe that feminists want to 'kill all white men'.

I've had a look at Woman's Place UK; Fair Play for Women; Rights of Women; Mayday; Women's Aid and the self-identified Women's Equality Party.

Nope, none of them have 'kill all white men' as one of their aims or slogans. Maybe you would like to have a look and find out for yourself what their actual aims are. You never know, you might even find that you do identify with these aims after all...

UnbridledRuth

I don’t know what kind of feminists you’re talking about. But you won’t find a single one like that here.

If women are turned off feminism, it’s because they are not reading the right stuff.

If that is deliberate, there is little one can do, except wait.

Women tend to turn to feminism as they get older. Sexism ramps up over a woman’s life time.

@unbridledruth

Based on my experience of twitter, the people who use phrases like kill all white men are the same ilk who call people TERFs. I don’t think any of the gender critical feminists I’m aware of eg Sarah Ditum, Becca Reilly-Cooper, Glosswitch use provocative and violent phrases like that. It’s the TRA aligned feminists as far as I can tell, though I could stand corrected.

I also agree that there is a place for discussing issues which disproportionately affect men, notwithstanding these are far lesser than issues which disproportionately affect women. Shouting such concerns down with sarky remarks of “oh yes please tell me how difficult your life is as a man” etc is unhelpful but I think it is only a minority of people who do this if it is a legitimate concern being discussed (as opposed to eg complaining about international women’s day).

Imo Ruth, re intersection.

A middle class sahm has more understanding of my money worries than a working class man
A black woman has more understanding of my worries of random violence than a white man
An able bodied woman has more understanding of my health worries (which as well as the direct effects also coincide with female biology issues) than a disabled man

Bahar Mustafa denies posting any tweets containing that hashtag, the case against her was dropped as there was no evidence offered that she had. It was an uproar about nothing at all.

Can you give an example of feminists who have used that hashtag as a slogan?

Wow. UnbridledRuth
'less savoury aspects of feminism' , 'a lot of bad apples' 'incorporating slogans like 'killallwhitemen' ??

It looks like your prejudices are screaming showing. I'm sure there's a nice rabid MRA group somewhere who would appreciate your thoughts as with your level of prejudice, this board must torture for you.

My post was to datun - datun your post was very eloquent.

The #MeToo campaign has made me so angry - not least because I have so many experiences of my own. Experiences I have never reported - and I reckon every woman on this thread will know why I never reported them.

I know that my 9yr old DD will probably go through the same. Unless she is very very lucky. That makes me very angry.

And now we have to let men in our changing rooms - or be bawled out by right-on men : "what do you think I'm going to do to you?" - well, James, NAMALT, but have a fucking wild guess.

But apparently 93% of UK women don't get it either (not being facetious). Well, I actually think they do but don't want to be seen to identify with the less savoury aspects of feminism, which is why ~85% still profess to believe in 'equality'.

I totally understand that there are good feminists and worthy causes but there are also a lot of bad apples too. I just refuse to identify with a movement incorporating slogans like #killallwhitemen, especially when these bad apples are rarely called out by other feminists.

There are many many more examples but I'm sure they've all been brought up here before.

I honestly think most people I meet in real life care most about their partners and immediate family and don't really care about satisfying a somewhat indeterminate group.

Except they are ruth. Women are.

Of course, the people I care most about my immediate family.

But when I look at the #metoo campaign, and read the accounts from women, I get angry, personally angry.

Because it comes at you from so many levels. Injustice is a big one.

Or the lightbulb moment when you realise that women’s experience of living and men’s experience of living are so very different.

The frustration when, no matter how hard you try, you can’t make men understand. The very lowering realisation that your life, and the lives of most women, are completely alien to men.

Because you think oh, he is an intelligent chap. He’s had life experience. He’s had a family. He is well read, educated.

You start to talk, and not only does he not get it, it annoys him. Or he genuinely doesn’t believe it.

And you start wondering why? Is it ignorance or is it wilful ignorance?

And whilst I'd never deny the unique challenges faced by each gender, and the obvious differences, one of my main issues with much of the feminism I encounter is that it's often very reductive in the sense that it downplays issues around class, race, etc, which are things that IMO often unify people more than gender.

Datun

I honestly think most people I meet in real life care most about their partners and immediate family and don't really care about satisfying a somewhat indeterminate group.

Men aren't physically intimidated by women for obvious reasons - few women could pin down the average man against his will.

... and he’s a man.

James O'Brian doens't get it because he is virtue signalling left winger - the left wing equivalent of a right wing bigot. There's a lot of it about over the transgender issue.

And UnbridledRuth. I just wanted to ask you this. Equal rights cannot ignore the current inherent power dynamic between men and women.

Can you, or anyone else, explain why there are not whole groups of men jumping up and down about this issue?

Why are men not worried that women identifying as men will compete against them in sport?

Why are men not worried that women might access their locker rooms, bathrooms, etc?

Why aren’t men storming out of Top Man and taking en masse to Twitter because they are concerned over women using them?

Why doesn’t James O’Brian get it?

Archery

I'd have to respectfully disagree that class doesn't offer any protection against violence. Of course it's not absolute, but many drink/drug/antisocial behaviour problems are more prevalent in lower socioeconomic economic areas.

But I apologise if I've come across as diminishing the work done by others. I was talking about the fashionable feminism we see from degree educated women who sit in ivory towers writing articles telling other people to check their privilege. Bit of a stereotype but you get my drift.

Shotsfired

In the context of somebody who believes they were 'born into the wrong body' I would think that the ultimate golden goose of 'being a women' would for many involve being in the right body.

James OB did not have a personality transplant on this particular day!

just that I think they would rather 'live' as their chosen gender and will very much seek to be allowed to enter the according space.

You can frame it like that but you would be wrong.

Transsexuals, what transactivists call Truscum, are generally gay, have gender dysphoria, and just want to get on with their lives under the radar. The ones who pass have used our bathrooms for years. With no laws being changed. As a courtesy.

Those who don’t pass use the gents. Because, although they want to present as female to alleviate their symptoms, they wouldn’t dream of making women feel uncomfortable.

And they never have.

Now transsexual has been replaced by transgender. The people who are pushing this are not homosexual transsexuals, they are straight men, with fully intact genitalia, who have autogynephilia.

Cross dressing fetishists/transvestites in old money.

They are officially part of the transgender community, and are recognised by Stonewall as such.

They view women as weak, victims, subordinate, hyper sexualised. That is part of the fetish. The demand for access to women’s spaces is not to predate on women in the traditional sense, it is to be accepted as women because it is arousing.

There are numerous threads on here about it. There are numerous sites devoted to it. And there are numerous transwomen who have it who are quite happy to allow it in plain sight. Because the term transgender now legitimises it.

They really don’t care if you check out the profiles of them in pornographic poses wearing silk stockings and suspenders.

Because they are Teflon coated by calling themselves transgender. And why shouldn’t ‘women’ strike a sexual pose? Why shouldn’t they like kinky sex play? It’s an ‘identity’ that masks a fetish.

They are so far removed from homosexual transsexuals, it isn’t funny. And those homosexual transsexuals are infuriated. Because this sexual motivation to transition undermines the credibility of those with genuine gender dysphoria.

But, like women, whenever they object they are subjected to terrible threats, doxxing and relentless persecution.