Why do we bother?

There is a huge backlash against women’s rights, misogyny was always going to rear its head. Didn’t expect it to manifest itelsef in this way, but here we are.
I live in Scotland and have got to know loads of amazing women in our campaign against self id proposals. That’s positive. We have made a change, the government cannot now push its changes through without debate.
Personally? I’m 54. I know my country has no use for me and sees me as worthless and on the wrong side of history. I do what I can for girls and women who come after me. I know what we have done and the women before us went through to get the rights we have now. We’ve just learnt that those rights are always in loan and we have to keep struggling for them.

I’ve been lurking on here for a few months. I’ve always thought of myself as a feminist but now I realise I simply did not have a clue. I’ve learnt so much from posters on here. I’ve discovered women like Magdalen Berns (who I am in awe of) and Posie Parker.

So I want to thank all of you. For teaching me and, most of all, for making me bloody angry.

Things are definitely better than they were in the 70s but are at great risk of going back to the bad old days with the erosion of women's rights

Although I do think things are much better now for women and girls I think one difference is that in the 70s things might have been grim but I could see things were changing for the better. So I felt excited and optimistic (as well as angry), whereas now I mostly just feel angry.

But not from here. Here is good.

Feck me. The teeth stories. Thats godawful. Anyway OP understand how you feel. Agree with others its good to take a break every now and then as it often gets overwhelming. Im on twitter and its particularly bad just now. Especially after snps announcement on self id. Realised earlier today that the tirst thing i do on my days off is open the app and how angry i get at the awful misogyny. Ive become obsesed with ir. Time for a break again i think!

I'm surprised at that - it was comparatively common before the NHS, not just for women. Some people had it done as a 21st birthday present. But I am surprised it went on as long as 16 years after the NHS was founded.

A lot of my more elderly relatives (born c1910 or earlier) had this done - male and female. What I was told is that it would prevent problems with teeth later in life. Getting it done as a present seems a bit weird, the people I know who had it done had it done for themselves.

My mother did this in 1964.

I'm surprised at that - it was comparatively common before the NHS, not just for women. Some people had it done as a 21st birthday present. But I am surprised it went on as long as 16 years after the NHS was founded.

My dgm had all her teeth taken out before marriage as a "gift" to her husband so he wouldn't have to pay for future dental treatment (1929)

My mother did this in 1964. She thought it was something that all married women did. I'm appalled that the dentist, at the very least, didn't try to dissuade her from having perfectly healthy teeth removed but perhaps he thought it was something all married women should do too.

She couldn't get over the fact that I was able to apply for a mortgage in 1986 as a single woman, in my own name and without a male guarantor. Better still, the mortgage adviser was a woman too and it's hard to say which one of us felt more empowered by the experience.

I couldn't get over the fact that subsequently as a married woman, my income was treated as my husband's for tax purposes until 1990. However, what I really can't get over these days is that we are still having to fight battles that I thought had been settled years ago. It's disheartening but we have to keep going for the sake of generations to come.

Stay strong, your posts mean a lot to everyone on this board, and remember, there are lots of lurkers too, so you are informing many women, even those that don’t post.

I have one friend who is GC, we both get to the point where we feel total despair over the dismantling of women’s rights and have to step away for a short break. We just let the other know, so that we don’t do the whole ‘ OMG, did you see this?’ , and step back in when we are ready.

Sometimes this seems all encompassing, and having a few days of respite helps to get things back into perspective.

I was really involved in online feminist radfem blogging about 10 years ago. We did a lot of talking in private groups. One of the conclusions we came to was that the reason feminism has failed so spectacularly is because your average woman on the street can sense there is no point, that we are doomed from the start.
Furthermore men enjoy a fight, it excites them. But the punishments are swift. ( I'm remembering the witchcraze here). I'm afraid they've thoroughly beaten us, and the only women who haven't caught onto it are us feminists. That's why non feminist women are appalled and amazed by us and why we regularly get called "unhinged" or mental.

Jessica I am very grateful for you posts on so many threads.

I live in Scotland and the trans jugganaut has received a huge blow recently because of women fighting back. There is so much more to do but I do genuinely believe that we will see a light at the end of this horrific tunnel. Once one country sets a precedent others will hopefully follow.

And we are certainly still regarded as sex objects.

I remember looking through a stack of my dad's 1970s car magazines and there were women draped over the bonnets on almost every page. Even advertising car wax - bikini woman holding a bottle.
In the late 90's DH used to read a car mag and in one episode they had a pull out poster with bikini models on - well there was outrage from their (mostly) male readership that it was sexist and not acceptable.
If it happens these days, it's rare, and it's immediately criticised widely.
I'm thankful for this.

Another thing, in my GPs generation there was a (male) "head of the household". Even on official forms. This has gone now (even if banks sometimes defailt address to the man).

My dgm had all her teeth taken out before marriage as a "gift" to her husband so he wouldn't have to pay for future dental treatment (1929)
This though!

My gms worked in manufacturing mainly. I didn't know about the civil service married woman ban. See then, things have changed an awful lot in a relatively short space of time.
I did know about women struggling to get mortgages. One of my gms bought a house on her own. I'm not sure how she managed that..some dodgy deal possibly! Or naybe she paid cash. Lots of resourceful women in my family.

Hey you, don't you retreat - I love your posts

But seriously - I really do understand. Sometimes it all feels so futile and lost. I read story after story of violence against women, I read about what is happening in the US, India, Canada, here ... everywhere (!) and I sometimes feel pretty desperate to be honest.

And then I meet other women and we talk and plan and act and listen and I remember I keep on for them and for all the daughters and because I believe in women and their strength.

I was out with a load of women for a feminist event and one of them said - this is why I bloody love women and I thought 'me too'.

So, I suggest taking little breaks away from Twitter, social media even here and do something frivolous, meet up with like minded women. Allow yourself time to recuperate and well, we have to take it one step at a time don't we?

You aren't alone in sometimes feeling like this - and you aren't alone at all, as we are here for you. We need to be here for each other and to keep fighting for each other.

Because of these boards and all you dedicated women, I've been 'radicalised'. My eyes have been well and truly opened and I have learnt so much.

A few years ago I used to work with a transwoman (ffs my phone autocorrects that to remove the space!) who introduced herself to the company by linking to a video of herself before her transition as a man being very successful in his career. I wondered at the time how someone with such extreme dysphoria that they needed surgery and lifelong drug regime managed to overcome this to be so successful. I now know that surgery probably doesn't feature at all!

I also now see her shouting on Twitter about 't*rfs', getting involved in shutting down women and women's meetings left right and centre. Horrible person. And everyone fawned all over her. She was the only one in the entire HQ building who ever wore a skirt and heels (very practical industry where the uniformed lot including me wore safety boots every day as normal gear). If I knew then what I know now I would have been a lone dissenting voice in the worship and would probably have been sacked 😄

My DH used to roll his eyes at me groaning about yet another 'trans thing' until he too started noticing the prevalence of the narrative. Once seen cannot be unseen and he is now very GC to the extent of challenging 'gender' training at his work. I'm so proud.

And it's because of these boards and the tireless work women on here do. I mostly lurk but I read and I listen and I quietly spread the word.

It really is worth it. Someone has to stop the transborg and it's going to have to be ordinary women being determined and extraordinary.

Oh Jessica. I think at times we all need to take a step back, just to breathe. This fight, and it is one, is both mentally and emotionally exhausting. There is no shame in taking some time out to regroup, because there is a continually growing number of women willing and ready to take up the slack.

Plenty of us have done it. You take the time you need then you see “something” that will reignite the passion and the anger. It is infuriating to need to do this, but do it we must. The tide is turning, oh so slowly, but it is turning.

We bother because if we didn’t things would be so much worse.

JessicaWakefieldSV

We bother so that we can sleep at night, so that we can say we didn't stand by and watch whilst women's safety was compromised and their rights eroded, so that we can look the next generation of women in the eye and honestly say we tried, we tried really hard.

This forum has been an incredible source of education, support and inspiration. Having discovered MN FWR I found the confidence to visit my MP, to discuss the proposed changes to the GRA, and to insist on that meeting when they tried to fob me off. I've developed a habit of politely (and sometimes not) telling men to shut up when they try to talk over me or down to me. I insisted on a referral for a longstanding health issue that many GP's had dismissed and went to that appointment with a clear agenda for treatment and a determination that I would be listened too. I got what I wanted.

Without contributors like you none of these things would have happened. They are small acts of demanding to be heard, on their own they make little difference but forums like this swell the number of belligerent women who are not prepared to take shit lying down and together we bring about change.

Please don't become disheartened and stop, your contributions matter more than you know.

Thanks

I can relate to what you say OP. I sometimes wonder why I bother with the trans widows stuff. Just when I think our voices are being heard there is always another stunning and brave onslaught, or somebody else will call me bitter and bigoted.

I try and tell myself that I am helping to very slowly turn the tide- just as all feminists are, and that this is a drip by drip effect. (Not sure if this is a mixed metaphor). Progress seems slow when you're in the middle of it.

I'm also trying to get involved in some grass roots helping of other women (where I will hopefully be able to see me making a difference) to counteract the feeling of battling a huge immovable force.