Women win guarantee over female only public lavatories - the Times

My family were weird with gender stereotypes in some ways. My dad did all the DIY, budgeting, bills (I actually once found a contract between him and my mum saying how much allowance she could have a month, and stating the minimum she needed to spend on household and kids stuff out of it), but he did all the cooking and sewing as well. He encouraged me to help him with any and all of it, and he and my mum gave me the same opportunities as my brother. However, I was expected to get a good degree, a decent job, get married to someone on a good income, and have babies (but hey, I could still change a tyre and put up shelves if I wanted)

My brother had the good degree, decent job, get married, father kids and have a great long term career aspirations cast at him instead.

My dad insisted that I learnt to drive as soon as I could, because it was safer for a single young woman than buses and taxis etc - I'm really grateful that I was given that opportunity.

My mum did the cleaning and childcare. She worked part time as a supply teacher once we were at school, and dedicated most of her free time outside work to her job.

I was just thinking about her in terms of the passivity and pamperedness recently described elsewhere as "womanly".

Last I knew, she still didn't know how to use the remote control to change a tv channel. She left my dad once (once we kids had left home) after years of violence and abuse towards us all, but went back to him after viewing a council flat. In her words, she wanted to still have a nice front room and foreign holidays, and was terrified at the thought of being responsible for paying bills and living in a rough area. She ticks the passive and pampered boxes to an extent, but to her detriment.

I went to an all girls school and got to do car maintenance, CDT, and got a fairly decent feminist message with my education - there was never any "girls can't do that, sorry" . I think the only thing I can criticise is that our car maintenance and CDT teachers were all male - that was a long time ago though, and maybe women are better represented in those roles now?

I am having a full on waffle- sorry. I'm full of full caffeine coffee, with the US election on in the background and doing a lot of overthinking.

Maybe the 'helped build a car' thing threw him?

Yep. I used to pull my car apart and do some servicing jobs on it as a teenager. Certainly never made me a male, or even that I might be. Maybe it was seeing Kylie Minogue as Charlene on Neighbours.

Going tangentially back to the first time I was misgendered in any context:

I was fifteen in the mid nineties, so the era of long haired indie boys, I guess.

My older brother and me had helped my dad build a car, and I went with him to a garage run by someone who knew my family but hadn't seen us for a decade or so.

I was wearing a patchwork dungarees style dress, with sunglasses, hairy legs, doc martens and my confusingly flat chest, and had shoulder length hair in a ponytail.

The bloke at the garage thought I was my brother (even though me and my dad both corrected him). I still am not sure exactly how or why, but...

Maybe the 'helped build a car' thing threw him?

The most recent one was at the bank. I was wearing jeans/hoodie/docs and bulked up a bit clothing wise because winter, with a grade 1 cut and no makeup.

A flustered woman was using the cash point next to me, and told her toddler not to go too near 'that man' (without properly looking at me). Her kid said 'it's a lady', she said 'no, it's a man' (again, while trying to do whatever at the cash point) , and I just told the kid that yep, I was a lady.

I got an apology (that I hadn't been looking for) from her, after she took the time to actually look at me. I definitely didn't take offence, I was kind of amused tbh.

I had a lovely friend. 6ft, broad shoulders, square jawline and relatively flat chested. Never mistaken for a man. A very beautiful and striking woman.

Sorry, I just got a flashback to Some Like It Hot, the scene on the railway station when Curtis and Lemon are watching Marilyn Munroe walking down the platform and one says to the other, "I tell you, it's a whole different sex". That film was clearly all the stereotypes in one economy size package, but they were right about being able to tell a woman from a man by the way he walks: it's generally a complete give-away even if he is foolishly wearing six-inch heels.

Have these idiots lived their whole lives in a Barbie theme park. Do they have any idea whatever so ever what a real woman looks like. Short haired non make up, high heel wearing, flat chested woman with body hair here. We are legion.

The really interesting thing is that this "eviction of the unwomanly" stuff somehow never happened during the years between say 1920 and 2020.

The eviction of men from the Ladies by women, yes; but I have never come across a single case of a woman being asked by a woman to leave the Ladies because she wasn't a woman.

I’d like to think I could still tell a tell, flat chested and hairy woman was in fact a tall woman with PCOS or another condition and I don’t look at breast size (or clothes, hair cuts etc) as a cue for working out the sex of a person.

As I mentioned in another post up thread, as a flat chested women myself, this is laughable. As is the ‘sticking my boobs out’ to make sure women know I am a woman, just because I don’t wear clothes associated with women ffs. In fact, that Sainsburys TU advertorial about NB clothes pretty much covered my wardrobe.

Ah. Tall women, hairy women and flat chested women will all be kicked out, if we wish to keep single sex spaces single sex. Interesting.

Here is the deleted tweet!! So appropriate for this thread. Maybe Esther has been reading some of the posts here .

Quote from Esther. ‘But making non-conforming cis women (tall women, flat chested women, hairy women, etc) a scape goat in the process IS feminism? Because that is the crux. If you deny women access to spaces based on how they look, plenty of cis women will get caught out. That is not feminism.’ Sorry about the ‘cis’ing.

As a 36F 'gender non conforming woman' who everyone apparently thinks is a bloke, I am massively jealous and wonder if you would maybe swap with me. Especially being able to go bra-less, that would be bloody amazing!

I mean, everyone thinks I am a man anyway, so smaller boobs wouldn't change anything for me, but it might allow you to be able to use female areas without worrying you will be kicked out for not having giant tits?

Good god, the 'flat chested women wouldn't be able to use female areas' is such a ridiculous reach..I don't know whether to laugh at these people, or genuinely fear for their health. Funnily enough, women know that other women are not just walking pair of boobs!

If you want to cling to the reality-denying belief that we are not able to accurately perceive people's sex most of the time that's up to you, but it's not going to convince many people, least of all most of us, who are gender non-conforming. The idea that women stop flat-chested women going into changing rooms is fucking absurd.

Well, quite

I felt this tweet thread was relevant.

twitter.com/janeclarejones/status/1323886250269528065?s=21

Pics for those not on twitter.

Loved the line ‘we don’t work it out by tit size you fool!’ I wish I knew what the tweet was that got deleted now.

Spot on. I am amazed that the only female right jj appears to care about is the right for "visibly gender nonconforming" women not to be mistaken for men in female single sex spaces (which is obviously wrong but not a problem created by feminists), completely coincidentally ensuring that no woman should ever feel entitled to challenge anyone who appears to be male in female single sex spaces. Amazed, I tell you.

The arguments to me look like the usual 'male feminist' shtick really

'A LOT of women chose prostitution, you are denying them the CHOICE. If you are against it for any reason you are denying those women their voices and being BAD FEMINISTS!'

'Most women chose to work in the sex industry. Stop taking away other womens choices. There are more important things ging on that you should focus on'

'Loads of women make thousands per night and can pick their own partners and only ever go with someone they fancy and are paid loads. Haven't you seen pretty woman?! Its exactly like that,. You are just bitter and jealous and ugly clearly.'

*other feminist matters. Crickets.

journals.sagepub.com/eprint/HQCEMQYUYXDTCBKYCSBQ/full

Scrutinizing the U.S. Equality Act 2019: A Feminist Examination of Definitional Changes and Sociolegal Ramifications

In the interests of balance to upthread spamming.

Because outright just sayig that 'I think some me should be able to use womens areas because some other men are mean to them and they 'feel like women' because they enjoy feminine things' would be ripped apart in seconds, and would not gain any public support. Attaching it to other causes is all that can be done, as an example, see selfID slipped through under cover of equal marriage, rather than as its own matter. Hence, 'no debate', otherwise people wake up ad smell the bullshit.

Spot on. I am amazed that the only female right jj appears to care about is the right for "visibly gender nonconforming" women not to be mistaken for men in female single sex spaces (which is obviously wrong but not a problem created by feminists), completely coincidentally ensuring that no woman should ever feel entitled to challenge anyone who appears to be male in female single sex spaces. Amazed, I tell you.

Yeah single areas withlockable doors would work too.

The main shopping centre here has a large area for mixed baby changing (useful if in a rush, theres about 6 spaces IIRC), just open, with 2 private lockable ones. And 1 private lockable one that also has a loo in. And one private lockable area thats not used for changing but has a seat for breastfeeding should one shoce to do it there.

Ontop of this they have mens and womens loos. Disabled ones that are much larger than usual, and a disabled one with loads of different..support things that can be pulled down. And I did see a while back talks of adding a gender neutral one also.

This is a very good setup IMO. But obviously takes a lot of space too so is not doable everywhere.

Womens, mens and changing, so either sex can use the baby changing rooms (though he did once say he waited for a woman to finish, as he had gone in and she looked nervous..hes a very big guy so I get it) though maybe..some changes there might be good, an area designated for women only perhaps.

Or simply a lockable door. We have a baby changing area in my town that is open to both sexes. One family at a time, lock the door when you go in. No problems at all! (There's a loo in there, too. So good for people with prams.)

I would also 100% be behind any drive to install additional mixed sex ('gender neutral' is a silly term to me, as current setups are gender neutral, noone gives a shit about ayones gender) spaces. Especially for men who take their kids out alone, who do seem to be increasing recently (lockdown excluded of course!), which in turn is good progress.

DH never had issues with baby changing, as those now seem to be mainly seperate areas anyway. Womens, mens and changing, so either sex can use the baby changing rooms (though he did once say he waited for a woman to finish, as he had gone in and she looked nervous..hes a very big guy so I get it) though maybe..some changes there might be good, an area designated for women only perhaps. The issues were more when DD got older, as he felt shit taking her into the mens, though had no choice about it., Would be much better, for him and people like him anyway, if there were family loos or something. Changing rooms are cming on in this respect, all te places near us have mens areas, womens areas, disabled areas and family. Which seems the right balance to me.

*have never felt the need to go along with the stereotypes associated with my sex.

Qualifying this bit

Have never felt the need to go along with the stereotypes, true, even from being a kid I largely ignored dresses and dolls and stuff. But ever felt free to actually go against said stereotypes, visibly until my ex. I would break a few at a time, but did follow a couple out of pressure (or in cases such as job interviews, where makeup and such is expected). I didn't agree with the stereotypes might have been a better way of putting that. It took a special woman to actually coax me out of my shell properly, I tell you. Now I would never go back in, fuck that!

Came back to see what gaslighting bullshit jj came back at me with. And I also feel I should maybe say at this point, not that its relevant as such, but I am not a lesbian. People usually assume butch women are lesbian. I am bisexual and currently actually married to a bloke, however have never felt the need to go along with the stereotypes associated with my sex. I feel uncomfortable in dreses/high shoes, I can actually feel makeup on my face (possbly not, but my brain thinks I can and it feels awful!), longer hair just fucking annoys me and gets in the way, and so on. Tbf I did 'discover' this when in a relatinship with a woman, my ex actually. She made me be able to be confortable in myself, without trying to 'be like others', which I will be forever grateful for tbh. Not saying there is aything wrong with being feminine btw, its just not for me and I kind of felt I had to make an effort to do it..

Not even sure why I went into that really, as it doesn't matter if people assume I mst be a lesbian. Its just something I have noticed a lot, its rarely butch women, and usually 'butch lesbians', though I do understand most women who are butch ARE lesbian. I think its more 'acceptable' for women to be butch when they are openly lesbian, though the fucking abuse from men is shocking I know about homophobic abuse, given I was with my ex for nearly 3 years, during this time, I was both the most comfortable I have ever been, and also the most scared to be quite honest, the misogyny was off the scale too, much worse than anything I ever got before becming 'visibily gender non conforming'. Abuse, physical and verbal ramped up from men. I won't bore people with that as I am sure you can imagine.

But yeah, never ever has a woman mistaken me for a man. Men say they do, but I think this is pften just a way of them voicing displeasure that I don't conform to what they think I should. Saying women might mistake me for a man, and this means single sex areas should be mixed sex (as thats what it is, when you open it to male people really) is just ridiculous to me. And its fucking annoying being used to prop up yet another 'men are really women' type argument. Butch women are not men, and never will be. Our existance does not back up your bollocks in any way. No more that people with DSDs existing means that sex is not binary. Fucking hell, argue your own merits, instead of constantly dragging unrelated groups into it as some kind of 'gotchya', if your argument has weight, you wouldn't need to constantly 'but lesbians' 'but intersex' 'but SOME WOMEN LOOK LIKE MEN!!!!!' all the time. I know why its done of course. Because outright just sayig that 'I think some me should be able to use womens areas because some other men are mean to them and they 'feel like women' because they enjoy feminine things' would be ripped apart in seconds, and would not gain any public support. Attaching it to other causes is all that can be done, as an example, see selfID slipped through under cover of equal marriage, rather than as its own matter. Hence, 'no debate', otherwise people wake up ad smell the bullshit.

@NiceGerbil

If there was a drive to introduce more gender neutral/ mixed sex facilities, more family changing, more changing tables in gents etc women on here would get behind it.

What we are pissed off about is our facilities being made mixed sex. We don't have enough already.

I agree it's been done in a completely haphazard way in a lot of places and those decisoons should be reversed. There is another side to this though which is that there seems to be a reasonably good case that more gender neutral spaces, if done properly can cut waiting times for women. There's an article here, somewhat tastelessly written by two blokes, but I think the reasoning is probably sound: www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/dec/01/gender-neutral-toilets-better-everybody-rage-latrine-trans-disabled

I think's what interesting is that it seems that even gender neutral toilets with no urinals have qute a big impact on waiting times for women. That feels like the answer to me, proper safe cubicles, with washbasins ideally. There's an event I used to go to that had a set up similar, ones women's toilets, one men's and one gender neutral with cublicles which did actually feel like a gender neutral space, and so was used by lots of women, and gender variant folk (it was a queer type event) and the odd bloke who would tend to behave respectfully. I think as soon as gender neutral toilets contain a urinal they will end up a de facto men's space, so increased gender neutral cubicles, either idenpently standing or in a space without urinals brings the benefit of cut waiting times without compromising safety or dignity, with the option remaining of single sex spaces for those who want them.