Please or to access all these features

Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

James O'Brien: what a twat

385 replies

SelmaAndJubjub · 14/11/2017 20:39

Explained in this link. Basically, he bullied and shut down a female caller who said she'd be frightened to share a changing room with men. He didn't just take an opposing view - he ridiculed her.

Yet another liberal bro reveals himself as a misogynist. And a stupid one. Even if he doesn't care about women in general, he has 2 pre-teen daughters. Will he really want them changing and showering with men?

OP posts:
FarFrom · 15/11/2017 22:15

Rufus- I can believe it but am interested in where your statistic comes from because i haven’t heard it. I feel I am globally privileged as a British white woman. That doesn’t take away from the fact that women in the UK still struggle, are more likely to be assaulted and earn less.

It also doesn’t take away from the plight of many boys.

ShoesHaveSouls · 15/11/2017 22:12

"fuck off to boy soldiers" - said no feminist ever.

Who makes them soldiers? Who enlists/forces them? (clue: it's not feminists, it's highly unlikely to even be females).

UnbridledRuth · 15/11/2017 22:11

53rd

I struggle to name many people that would identify as prominent MRA's, but that's partly because the term has been altered to have negative connotations and also because I don't read much online tbh.

Rio Ferdinand and his documentary about losing his wife/fatherhood is perhaps a good example of a male figure contributing to men's rights by combatting the 'boys don't cry' mentality and the people responsible for the current 'Be in your mate's corner' campaign.

I don't want to say too much as it would likely reveal my identity on here but I work with a charity where a large proportion of the service users are homeless. At least 90% are male and that probably makes me slightly biased / is responsible for my strong reactions to the frequent discussion of male CEO's and board members etc. That's the last thing on our service users minds.

Rufustherenegadereindeer1 · 15/11/2017 22:08

far

Are you a chugger in real life ...its just that Fuck off to boy soldiers seems pretty grim is just the technique those chunts use

Rufustherenegadereindeer1 · 15/11/2017 22:07

far

Girls are also child soldiers

they constitute up to 40% of all child soldiers in some African contexts?

FarFrom · 15/11/2017 22:05

Cuird- thanks! I promise you little boys also get hurt. Fuck off to boy soldiers seems pretty grim as a response and even to the little boys who are more likely to be hit, hurt and murdered by their parents than little girls are. But I don’t know why you wrote that. And again that doesn’t mean o don’t recognise the shit that little girls and women face.

cuirderussie · 15/11/2017 21:57

Oh fuck off.

FarFrom · 15/11/2017 21:51

Interesting post dn- but are you not interested in hearing the take and experience of the new generation who feel something different about their way of not fitting in? They are no doubt in pain too- even if their solution may not seem right to you.

Cuird- that is all horrific - really awful- and the little boys are more at risk of becoming child soldiers- also horrific. This is also about global inequality.

We don’t have to limit our empathy to only one group.

cuirderussie · 15/11/2017 21:31

Proposed law change in Iraq to allow clerics to marry girls as young as nine
www.theguardian.com/global-development/2017/nov/14/catastrophic-iraq-law-could-legalise-marriage-for-children-as-young-as-nine

Similar law change in Turkey
www.google.ie/amp/www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/11/03/new-turkish-marriage-law-prompts-fears-child-weddings/amp/

Police fire tear gas at women protesting abortion laws in Brazil which will deny abortion even to rape victims
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5079181/Thousands-protest-proposal-total-abortion-ban-Brazil.html

That's just in the last fucking MONTH.

But yeah, poor men.

DN4GeekinDerby · 15/11/2017 21:30

Not really Unbridled. No movement for change has ever had a majority actively working for or identifying themselves with it. People have always fought to maintain the status quo, people have always blamed the oppressed for their position within society.

As someone who is American, I find the thing about the draft argument a red herring before we get into this story being British story so bringing the US into is grasping at straws. No one in my generation has ever been drafted, those who have been don't blame women for it, the selective service system was not put in place nor is its continued presence maintained by women. This system was put in place by rich men to bring in poor men for slaughter, they do that better now by promising health care and education. If men organized to get the requirement removed, it likely would, but then what would they have to beat feminists and young women with? Women fought for many things, including sex separated facilities because we were being attacked regularly in public, including facilities to help domestic violence victims and refugees and those who are suicidal. My local women's centre which is fighting for funding and only open two days a week due to this is still helping a local men maintain their low-cost counseling services because without them there would be none at all.

Right wing women are not an entirely different species from left. I come from the Bible Belt, I know women who voted for Trump who hate my existence and would tell me I deserve to burn in Hell forever if I wasn't already shunned by them, I know women in the UK who voted UKIP (I live in one of few areas that still has UKIP councillors) and love to tell my immigrant self how we're ruining everything and they hope I get kicked out and I still have more in common with them than I do many of the left wing men and women who also regularly throw those they dislike under the bus. I certainly have more in common with a right wing woman who fights for single sex facilities than the left wing ones who like to tell my feminine son that he can "grow up to be a woman" and tell him he's wrong to get upset about not being seen as the boy he is, I have more in common with the UKIP right wing parent who agrees with me that boys who sexually harass girls should be restricted from the park than the left wing one who wanted to blame everyone but the significantly older boys who made porn-inspired sexual remarks threatening girls as young as 7, some of whom were attacked. Girls who were attacked because of what those boys thought of girls and their bodies, just as women are (and I don't know where you are Ruth, but everyone I've been, women have been attacked and treated like freaks, attackers who feel we should be responsible for their views on our sex). It's not how we identify, it's what we do and who we protect and who we fight for.

Just as women and disabled people fought and continue to fight for facilities, dysphoric and sex role nonconforming people have been fighting for sex neutral preferably single stall facilities for decades. I remember it from many moons ago when I was an awkward guy-passing dysphoric teen. You can hear . The very recent push by a very loud few to just let everyone go in whatever sexed facilities won't help the most vulnerable, they will continue having difficulties and attacks while those who already can muscle in will cause harm and push to take up more and more space from those who can't risk fighting back. The people pushing for self-ID and such really don't need us to defend them.

BitterLittlePoster · 15/11/2017 21:30

Little acknowledgement of the fact that US men have to sign up for the military draft to get the same voting rights of women.

That's not actually a fact. Maybe that's why there's so little acknowledgement?

ShoesHaveSouls · 15/11/2017 21:27

Erin Pizzey did a lot of good, ( did ) but I can't forgive her for joining the MRA. She speaks at the conferences organised by AVFM. You, know, that guy that says women ask to be raped. How could any woman, in all conscience, do that?

RosaTheOwl · 15/11/2017 21:24

Ruth, you could stay and address the questions about what James O Brien said and the GRA?

It's possible to have more than one concern but why hijack threads? Just a start a new one or talk general in our pub chat section.

Anlaf · 15/11/2017 21:23

Thanks 53rd

Agree EP is v interesting, and complicated character. I don't know enough about her, I own.

53rdWay · 15/11/2017 21:22

Ruth, I like the idea of this 'men's rights activism' movement that's all about helping men and not about whining about women or having disturbing ideas about us. It's not the kind of MRA movement I've ever seen, but maybe things are different wherever you live! Can you name me a few men who self-identify as MRAs and have some kind of respected position in MRA communities who'd fit that description, so we could learn more?

UnbridledRuth · 15/11/2017 21:22

Ok, I'll admit that Erin Pizzey's dog was maybe bit OTT. But she is another example of a woman who had done much for womankind than most women but had been spurned by many modern feminists for a few comments. I see this a lot.

UnbridledRuth · 15/11/2017 21:18

Anyway, I have no desire to further derail so am stopping now.

53rdWay · 15/11/2017 21:17

Erin Pizzey's dog got shot, nobody knows who shot the dog, it later got blamed on feminists who protested her work and now "feminists killed Erin Pizzey's dog!" does the rounds on MRA discussion forums as gospel truth.

Erin Pizzey is an interesting character anyway. I disagree with a ton of what she says, but she did great work setting up refuges when the world around her mostly ignored domestic violence as an issue. People are complicated.

UnbridledRuth · 15/11/2017 21:17

I'm undoubtedly focusing more on one side of the argument here, but were I talking to a genuinely misogynistic MRA then I'd be more inclined to focus on the other - I refuse to pick sides.

I do find it hypocritical that we are expected to ignore the nutters in feminism and focus on the textbook definition, but it's ok to judge the men's rights movement on the actions of a few. If this is the case, then it would be disingenuous to discount people like Misandry Mermaid when talking about feminism.

'Men's rights activism' is nothing more than contributing to activism that helps men, and the large majority of people like myself involved in charities which primarily benefit disadvantaged men are not pickup artists or people like Roosh V.

To judge the men's rights movement on the actions of a few but to not do the same for feminism is disingenuous.

PricklyBall · 15/11/2017 21:13

"As I said yesterday, the biggest rise at the moment is in born girls feeling they are in the wrong body. I find it hard to understand the lack of empathy."

I suspect for many of us it might in fact be a case of a great deal of empathy - because as children/teenagers, we were exactly those gender non-conforming girls (tomboys in old money) trying to identify out of the stereotypes that come with being female and into a world of greater freedom and possibility, and we feel this cold grip of fear that had we been born in this day and age we would have been pumped full of hormones and encouraged to mutilate ourselves surgically.

I have every sympathy with adults who have suffered over a prolonged period with gender dysphoria, and who find that presenting as the opposite sex alleviates their feelings of distress. But in all honesty, FarFrom, do you not look at the huge spike in teenage girls presenting as transgender, often quite suddenly, often (as you yourself have pointed out upthread) with co-existing conditions like autism, and think "hang on a minute - a 2000% increase in cases? Has no-one considered the possibility of social contagion here?"

53rdWay · 15/11/2017 21:13

FarFrom, you're talking about you as an individual person and the causes you follow. I'm talking about feminism as a movement. Sure, many of us individual people support other causes, too. But complaining that feminism as a cause isn't sufficiently attentive to the needs of men is missing the point. Causes are about rallying round a specific issue, that's how activism works. They can't deal equally with every bad thing that ever happened ever. Complaining that feminism isn't sufficiently attentive to the problems of men is like saying the RSPCA isn't sufficiently attentive to the problem of prison reform.

Anlaf · 15/11/2017 21:12

I see the MRAs have arrived.

I don't want to derail further. i cannot resist

But feminists killed a dog? What conspiracy theory nonsense is this? I googled, found <a class="break-all" href="https://www.webcitation.org/6UKmcdccU?url=www.theguardian.com/theobserver/2000/apr/09/featuresreview.review2/print" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">www.webcitation.org/6UKmcdccU?url=www.theguardian.com/theobserver/2000/apr/09/featuresreview.review2/print

Both letters to JOB are superb, I'm disappointed he was a self righteous wanker over this.

WhatWouldGenghisDo · 15/11/2017 21:10

the patriarchy does not just hurt women and girls well no, and it would be absolutely amazing if there were a concerted attempt by concerned men to question and dismantle it we might start getting somewhere if that happened

But where are they? Why are they leaving it all to women who have so much less power and credibility to effect change?

FarFrom · 15/11/2017 21:08

53rd I’m a woman and I consider myself a feminist. That doesn’t make me only want to help vulnerable women.

FarFrom · 15/11/2017 21:05

Assassinated I assume you are not being genuine- but in case you are- no I mean the lack of empathy on these boards shown to people who feel they were born wrong.

Swipe left for the next trending thread