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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

DM: Women avoiding new gender neutral toilets in the home office because men can't close the door

162 replies

miri1985 · 16/08/2018 02:17

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6065075/Female-Home-Office-employees-refusing-use-new-36-000-gender-neutral-toilets.html

Great job wasting money as usual!

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Charliethefeminist · 17/08/2018 13:45

You are so right sceptical

R0wantrees · 17/08/2018 12:14

Feminist Current article:

'Penises don’t kill people, people with penises do
Everyone — including trans activists and allies — should demonstrate zero tolerance for perpetrators of violence and sexual misconduct, regardless of how they identify.'
AUGUST 16, 2018 by HOLLY LAWFORD-SMITH & EMILY VICENDESE

Discusses the current allegations against Jess Bradley which are being investigated by NUS and a response by CursedE

concludes:
"We are interested in this information if it does indeed exist, but until we are presented with evidence, we think there is sufficient reason to keep certain spaces off limits to males. The burden of proof is on those who would like to make exceptions for some males, and not on us. Cases like Bradley’s are striking not because they represent transwomen, but because they show misconduct that is characteristically male, but not characteristic of females.

In the wake of #MeToo, writers like “Cursed E” should consider cases like Bradley’s as an opportunity to take a stand against male violence and sexual misconduct. Instead of going into damage control and using minimization tactics for political reasons, everyone — including trans activists and allies — should demonstrate zero tolerance for perpetrators of violence and sexual misconduct, regardless of how they identify or their political affiliation. The short term imperatives of securing the privacy, rights, and safety of those who identify as transgender — without jeopardizing the privacy, rights, and safety of females — should be something we can all agree on. And in the long run, males especially should work toward making male violence and sexual misconduct a thing of past, if they wish to obviate the need for sex-segregated spaces."

www.feministcurrent.com/2018/08/16/penises-dont-kill-people-people-penises/

scepticalwoman · 17/08/2018 12:11

Despite the magnificent work being done on this board by women, regrettably this issue needs mainstream coverage. And that's what Sarah Vine and the Mail offers.
And I'm with Cesira on this - we must win. The safety and whole role of women (and children) in society depends on this.
If self ID goes through it won't just be gender neutral toilets everywhere. Women's sport will disappear. Women will end up in hospital wards next to the likes of Ian Huntley & JB. ROGD will escalate and generations of teenagers will end up having been medicated and mutilated before they were old enough to give informed consent, women of faith will withdraw from public life if they can't access sex segregated spaces.

The whole fabric of society will shift, not by consent but through intimidation, bullying, threats and fear. Nobody is ever consulted about whether they want gender neutral toilets or major societal change .

Those in power are enabling this tiny but wealthy group to reshape society in their own selfish interests - and the losers will be mainly women and children.

CesiraAndEnrico · 17/08/2018 11:49

I have to say I wont be lauding any articles by Sarah Vine on this

I will. I want to win.

I will be fucked if I totter off this mortal coil leaving this bullshit as my (hypothetical) grandchildrens' reality without putting up a fight that has a chance of succeeding.

I can disagree strongly with people, about other stuff, about their specific perceptions and positions within this debate. But as long as they aren't advocating for a legal "lesser human" status, violence, harassment and intimidation etc., we're good. Don't want the LHVHI crew, don't like them and they lack discipline among other things. Which makes them a millstone, not a gain.

Other than that, I don't care if somebody's God I don't believe in has told them being anything other than gender stereotype conforming, heterosexual and non-flamboyant is immoral. I don't care if the world their formative years occurred in has left them unable to budge an inch on how wrong men wearing lipstick is. I don't care if they come from a place where the unusual and atypical makes them seriously uncomfortable and their major motivation is to return to their comfort zone.

I work on the basis that the world would be a better place if I were allowed for form and express opinions that others don't share. Without them then refusing to give me even the smallest benefit of the doubt that I am not motivated by hate, I am not an intrinsically/irredeemably terrible person, I can't ever be right and promptly assuming the absolute worst of me.

And I'll be buggered if I am going to turn into a Mrs Do as I Say, Not Do as I Do.

So yup. I'll laud her. And hope she has MAJOR reach. Because we need all the different flavoured battalions possible to form the enormous army we could be. And storm to victory.

I'd rather go to Victor's Ball and wince internally at some of the people I have lumbered myself with for the evening, than attend the losers' wake while congratulating myself on maintaining my purity of association.

I want to win.

I accept that might not be classically femmine priority.

But I was raised in the military. And I know that a unit that is overly picky about who it will work and form alliances with... is basically fucked before they even pick out their favourite rifle.

They have a lot of military types on their side. A head start. Better kit. WAAAAAAAYYYYYYY more funding. An evident ability to go from herd of cats to well-trained flying monkey squad when the order is given. A script. The ability to cry/rend clothes on demand. And an ENOURMOUS number of state, political, association and business bodies well under their thumb.

All we have is numbers.
Currently clumped in various "personal priorities" factions. With no plan to mobilise as the huge, unbeatable "army of many flags" we could be,

We can walk this, with dirtier hands than we'd like.

Or

Stay nice and clean, and get crushed.

We all get to pick one of the above.
Based on what we personally can live more easily as the final outcome.

I chose muck over loss.
I don't give a shit if that makes me a less good person in some people's eyes.

I cannot in good conscience choose feeling good about myself and my "purity", over handing the next couple of generations freedom from and resistance to TRA bullshit.

R0wantrees · 17/08/2018 10:35

Important that people are aware that this is a cross-party issue:

July 2017 Janice Turner's interview with Maria Miller:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/2993425-Maria-Miller-interviewed-by-Janice-Turner-full-text

Hangingaroundtheportal · 17/08/2018 10:15

I have to say I wont be lauding any articles by Sarah Vine on this, no matter how good her points are. Her stance comes from a place of total transphobia and not a place of caring about women. Remember she was responsible for the vile 'Legs-it' piece and wrote that horribly homophobic article about Jack Monroe (who I can't stand, but didn't deserve that).

I can form opinions without the help of Sarah Vine.

R0wantrees · 17/08/2018 09:44

Is 'gender-neutral' euphemistic? The toilets are mixed sex.

The term gender means different things and is contested:

Rebecca Reilly Cooper's 2016 article:
'Gender is not a spectrum: The idea that ‘gender is a spectrum’ is supposed to set us free. But it is both illogical and politically troubling'
(extract)
"What is gender? This is a question that cuts to the very heart of feminist theory and practice, and is pivotal to current debates in social justice activism about class, identity and privilege. In everyday conversation, the word ‘gender’ is a synonym for what would more accurately be referred to as ‘sex’. Perhaps due to a vague squeamishness about uttering a word that also describes sexual intercourse, the word ‘gender’ is now euphemistically used to refer to the biological fact of whether a person is female or male, saving us all the mild embarrassment of having to invoke, however indirectly, the bodily organs and processes that this bifurcation entails."(continues)
aeon.co/essays/the-idea-that-gender-is-a-spectrum-is-a-new-gender-prison

BlooperReel · 17/08/2018 09:34

Nobody wants an 'inclusive' toilet FFS. People just want private toilets. If they don't it's a red flag for voyeurism, exhibitionism or worse.

CesiraAndEnrico · 17/08/2018 08:53

From the article

To dismiss those of us who oppose these so-called gender-neutral spaces as non-inclusive bigots is one of the biggest collective acts of sexual aggression towards women we have seen in recent years.

scepticalwoman · 17/08/2018 08:41

Sarah Vine has written a very powerful piece about this:

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6069359/SARAH-VINE-writes-sums-modern-world-better-gender-neutral-loos.html

She comments: Because in the twisted logic of the modern world, a woman has more rights if she has elected to become one via hormone therapy and surgery than if she were born one .

FlippinFumin · 17/08/2018 08:12

I hate public toilets anyway. I only use the ones at work when absolutely neccessary. And never ever use public toilets when out and about. The thought of it makes me heave. I am slightly, perhaps more than slightly, germphobic.

I could not ever use communal toilets. Men are disgusting.

shrumps · 17/08/2018 07:59

We have recently installed them where I work - a college, where students and teachers use communal toilets. The first time I went in since the switch, I was shocked by the boys leaving doors open. I guess it will be a learning process but I absolutely hate it and find it completely unnecessary.

fieryginger · 17/08/2018 07:48

Urghh. I was at a seaside town recently with mixed toilets, the amount of women complaining that their kids could see the men peeing in the urinals.

It made me recoil and I'm fairly broad minded, there was no door, they were positioned at the far end, but if you needed the loos further down, chances are, you'll see the blokes peeing.

Really badly thought out.

CesiraAndEnrico · 17/08/2018 07:23

Seriously, you all think these guys were just being concerned about the environment and not bullying these women?

No.

I think we were largely agreeing that in some quarters concern about the environment has been fashioned into a tool to allow the so inclined to bully women.

Charliethefeminist · 17/08/2018 07:13

No, the conversation veered

Kyanite · 17/08/2018 06:34

Seriously, you all think these guys were just being concerned about the environment and not bullying these women?

TheFemaleGaze · 17/08/2018 05:45

Constructing and hosing obviously. Why is there no edit functionality?

TheFemaleGaze · 17/08/2018 05:44

namechanged18
I ended up getting a Mirena five years ago. I wasn’t happy about it and I would have liked another option but my periode were so bad that I was constructibg my own pads and would routinely put a bin liner on everything I wanted to sit on. The day I spent sitting in the bathtub hosting myself down was the final straw. I felt I was too young for a hysterectomy. Now I still have ‘periods’ but a panty liner will take me through the day.

Charliethefeminist · 17/08/2018 04:09

Sarah Vine has played whack-a-mole with this issue today. In her Mail column she eventually gets to the reasons why single sex spaces are needed, but not before throwing in a lot of 'pc gorn mad' and implicitly blaming feminism for all the world's problems, accompanied by inaccuracies and claims that straight white people are suffering terribly from not bring able to do anything they want.

ArcheryAnnie · 16/08/2018 23:58

Am dropping by just to say that the purpose-designed, single-stall, totally foolproof gender-neutral loos in Camden Market, popular with teenage girls, usually have some bloke in them with the door wide open. Dirty feckers.

KennDodd · 16/08/2018 23:57

They replaced the toilets in a seaside town I know. They now have two rows of cubicles, back to back, about six in each row, where previously they had male and female traditional public loos. Each cubicle is completely private, and self contained. All fine, except, one row of cubicles are all urinals, the other side are gender neutral. I was fuming about it. As anybody (female) could have predicted, never a queue, or even more than half in use on urinal side, massive queue other side. Also, women have access to half the facilities men do. No woman would have ever designed or even approved this, I bet no women was even consulted on these changes.

traceyracer · 16/08/2018 23:26

despite all the cuts to hospitals and the care providers the Government can still find money to fund this.

Ereshkigal · 16/08/2018 23:25

Yes the MVR is perfect.

DuckingGoodPJs · 16/08/2018 23:13

The women don't want to go in there because men do.
I concur, the likely result will be women not using those toilets and going elsewhere, without the progressiveness to interfere with female bodily functions/dignity. The (female) employee retention won't be an issue, they won't care, instead later claim "but women choose not to work here". Once again, misogynist policies get turned around and blame women, instead of being recognised as misogynist policies.

Laws like the GRA that eliminate the right of 33million females to legal recognition as a class and rights of their own to benefit say 3000 men have an MVR of 11,000:1
I like the new MVR Barracker, perfectly illustrates the situation for what it is. That women are so devalued, their wishes are not even on the radar.

Tartle · 16/08/2018 23:00

I mean I love my cheap knock off mooncup but that's not really the point. This is one area where choice really is key.

But dishwashers are actually more environmentally friendly and use less water than washing by hand.