Older women should step aside says Laura Hudson

"i often feel like I have no idea who I am sexually as all my energy as a young woman went into making sure I was sexually desirable. I feel like I’ve been cut off from myself"

Yes, deadly!! I totally get that, have never been able to put it into words

I’ve always been an unfun feminist but as I’ve got older I’ve become more comfortable with the fact that it’s not me that’s the problem.

I found it very true in that Penny White video when she said women are taught to be sexy rather than sexual. I often feel like I have no idea who I am sexually as all my energy as a young woman went into making sure I was sexually desirable. I feel like I’ve been cut off from myself.

*i'm in my early twenties. I say this because my life experiences have been so different tomost of my contemporaries that I have an insight into how their femenist opinions are shaped by a very limited understanding of what being a woman entails.

I would suggest that younger women learn to listen. Most women wouldn't have experiences everything that womanhood entails until their fifties. It's not just about job discrimination and sexual assault. Marriage, pregnancy, childbirth, raising young children, brings SAHM (especially the dependency on one's husband), marrying motherhood with your career, giving up your career altogether, aging, menopause, female specific illness like breast/ovarian etc. cancers for example, becominga grabdmother, becoming a MIL. Most women experience the majority of what their sex grants themafter the age of thirty. To think that young women know best is a bit naive.

I'm younger than Laura, is she advocating that I tell her to shut up and move along? Til she "catches up" with my feminism?

She's right about how much people hate 'un-fun' feminists, though.

The Penny White video is truly heart-warming.

Rufus - One of the stage-hands routinely puts the mic back in its stand between acts.

I had hairy legs when I was young so you lot should listen to me.

Oh my goodness that Penny White video is amazing. I just cried all the way through it.

My response to Laura was as follows:

No sweetheart, I'm not changing the habits of 64 years and stepping aside for you or anybody.

She's a fuckwit.

Lots of the younger feminists have joined the conversation halfway through, they don’t read the seminal texts or understand about the structural elements of feminism and therefore don’t share the same language as the radical feminists.
They are standing in their shoulders and kicking their heads in at the same time

Deadly I think you've put that beautifully.

The young always reject their elders it's the nature of things but I do think there has been a conserted effort to marginalise, dismiss and now in the time of libfem and TAs to downright demonise what the feminists who've gone before have had to say.

It's not really surprising because ideas that really threaten the status quo have to be dealt with and short of banning them (which draws attention to them and would be seen as illiberal) the next best thing is to consign them to the dustbin of history for being outdated, old fashioned, irrelevant and probably dangerously bigoted so nobody reads them and the knowledge is lost. It's dispiriting.

*Apologies for bold fail...

sandandsea

When did you pick the mic back up

Did you have two mics

Now thats hardcore

Sandandsea

I find that Penny White video very reassuring. She seems to be saying 'Older women have got this. Stop worrying, gather life experience,' which I think makes sense in theory.

In practise, it's a shame that society routinely dismisses older women, especially older feminists. They are a dangerous lot. Too much experience and insight. It might upset the status quo if we listened too hard...

Lots of the younger feminists have joined the conversation halfway through, they don’t read the seminal texts or understand about the structural elements of feminism and therefore don’t share the same language as the radical feminists.

So true deadly

(Comes back on again.)

I was referring to the original post, not any subsequent references.

(Drops mic and goes off again.)

She sounds like an idiot. (Drops mic and walks off.)

For the TL;DR version of the video I linked to above then view the first 3 minutes and the last 3 minutes.

I saw this video by Penny White last year.

She waffles on quite a bit but her central idea of leaving the hard graft of women's liberation to the older women and the reasons why really made me think.

I’m 31 she’s talking shite.

cat I think 'slow feminism' is definitely a thing. Your post is really good. Both my folks have become more aware of feminist issues in the last few years.

My dad has always been an unwitting ally. He's an engineer and always believed that merit and ability trumped the sex of the applicant. He got a lot of stick for this in FE in the 80's and 90's, but didn't crack.

In modern parlance I was brought up to be gender non conforming. They didn't do that as a conscious thing, they just thought encouraging kids in any interests they show made sense.

We've been talking about the gender construct and they both think gender is a load of old pony, always have. It's just they now have terminology to use when explaining their views. They think gendered expectations are harmful to boys and girls.

So, that's two 72 year olds and a 43 year old who should just stfu then by Laura's standards.

Yy cat

Reminds me of a tweet from a TA I read after Maria MacLachlan was attacked at Speaker's Corner. It went something like What was a woman of that age doing at there anyway?

Yes I agree cat I was lucky enough to be brought up by radical feminists and therefore Andrea Dworkin and Germaine Greer were my bedtime stories and me and my Mother often comment that actually feminism was only allowed to come into the manistream once it stopped being feminism and became ‘equalism’.
Lots of the younger feminists have joined the conversation halfway through, they don’t read the seminal texts or understand about the structural elements of feminism and therefore don’t share the same language as the radical feminists.
They are standing in their shoulders and kicking their heads in at the same time.

Ageist nonsense that brings to mind how older women were seen in Victorian times.

Ridiculous ageism. Of course older women should listen and learn, as should younger women, but that doesn't mean stepping aside. Women have been listening and learning a lot recently - unfortunately for Laura Hudson lots of people have learnt that the trans activist demands are in direct opposition to women's rights. It seems that the more people learn about it, the more they see the emperor's new clothes. It's Laura who needs to do a bit more listening.