Well, that's us told

This is all such a shame.

But with so many advances for women it's been 2 steps forward 1 back. As men find a way to turn it to their advantage .

The good things here that have been bastardised and turned around-

Intersectionality. A really straightforward term used to articulate how multiple axes of oppression/ lack of power, voice etc can combine to multiply everything. A really good and important thing to get to grips with.

It was always meant to help people look outside their own experience. That what might help some people is still out of reach for others.

There was always a strong focus on race here and that's obviously important with disability, poverty etc making an appearance as well.

It suddenly occurs to me that it didn't get used as much as it should. EG we have a closed Christian community. Think Amish level closed. The girls and women in there have no chance. No frame of reference as to what is 'normal'. No access to any kind of media to read or see what support is available. They're white (as far as I have seen), Christian, and I don't think there is poverty.

The way intersectionality was bastardised into oppression Olympics, a competition, misses the whole point. In the oppression Olympics the women in that community are ' privileged'. In real life. Really not.
The nuance was discarded and the competition on for those who felt they were demonised because their characteristics put them at the 'top' looked for ways to destabilise the whole thing.

Similarly with lived experience. It simply meant, people who have experienced a thing should be listened to when talking about the thing. Which is exactly right. And it was needed because of the tendency of those who don't have the thing to assume they know best and speak over the people who have the thing.
Turned into if you don't have the thing you're not allowed any opinion whatsoever shut up and fuck off.

So that's what I think.

I remember having an argument on Facebook once with a young woman (probably about my age, I was about 30) who insisted that no ‘cis’ woman could ever have experienced as much trauma as a trans woman. And just thinking fuck, how can you believe that?

Lived experience’ is only privileged as the be-all and end-all if it’s the ‘correct’ lived experience, apparently.

So true.

Lived experience’ is only privileged as the be-all and end-all if it’s the ‘correct’ lived experience, apparently.

This is a strong and disturbing movement in a number of areas, but notably in healthcare. It's much needed but the implementation bears watching as it is oppression and trauma top trumps too much of the time.

“I couldn’t sit back a watch this final episode of ‘Gentrification Deptford’ invade the only thing that working class women have left: their experience.”

I’m another who hasn’t forgotten reading that thread from 2018 about the Deptford project. This quote to me says it all about the ‘top trumps’ nature of the current push for trans access to female spaces and language and ... everything.

‘Lived experience’ is only privileged as the be-all and end-all if it’s the ‘correct’ lived experience, apparently.

Yes nice, and divide and conquer. Sub groups are easier to manage. Wouldn't want women getting together and organising in big groups.

'To label women - white, middle-class, privileged, frothing, young mother, old mother, hysterical, fear mom gering, complacent, prudish, ranting, mean, middle aged, radical, pearl clutching - any old contradictory rubbish.'

There is a real thing that I talk about a lot about how society in general often sees the default male as people and everyone who is not default male in terms of types, stereotypes. This very much applies to women.

Some groups above and more generally stuff like
Old dear
Jail bait
Milf
Ball breaker
Neurotic
Etc

There's often confusion and unhappiness when women or girls step out of what they have been labelled.

It also splits us into sub groups that society and the media etc like to try and pit against each other. And not really a cohesive group with similar experiences worries etc.

Just occurred to me that the new approach is more of the same.

People with cervixes
Menstruators
Pregnant people
Etc etc

interesting.

And I wonder whether the insistence that we shouldn't mind comes from an underlying idea that women already are not really connected, but are lots of sub groups. So why the fuss.

Hmmmmm.

R0wan, I frickin' adore you!

That is all.

So the young woman who wrote this article is standing up for the right of privileged white men to stamp all over the rights of vulnerable women. And congratulating herself on how progressive she is

For many women (myself included) spending time on FWR in recent years raised consciousness of the specific patterns and dynamics of narcissistic/ coercive control. Patterns frequently demonstrated by those men determined to prevent and/or disrupt women discussing the protection of Safeguarding and their sex based rights.

Within the understanding of such patterns and dynamics is recognition of how people can be used as 'flying monkeys' in smear campaigns / abuse by proxy.

Having this awareness when I was in my twenties and thirties would
have made a radical difference to my life.

'Flying Monkeys (The Narcissist’s Tool for the Smear Campaign)'
Inner Integration

May 13, 2018
(extract)
"Flying monkeys make the narcissist feel like they’re important and special. They help the narcissist feel like they’re grandiose, like they have high status, like they’re famous or a celebrity, which is what the narcissist wants to feel. Narcissists often have a whole entourage around them just like a celebrity needs an entourage in order to feel secure about themselves.
So who can become flying monkeys?
There are two different categories of people.

The first category is the naive.
The naive are people who are just clueless. They can’t see it, they can’t fathom it, they’ve never been through anything like that, so they can’t even imagine that somebody would do such a thing to just make up all these lies about you and spread them across town. They just can’t even fathom that a human would do that or maybe the naive is also the fawning type.
This is the type of people who when faced with a fight or flight dilemma, they choose fawning instead where they just melt into into a strong, dominant personality to feel safe and they don’t realize what’s happening. You might have noticed that even you became one of these flying monkeys when you were in your naive state before you woke up, before you figured out what was going on.

The second category of people who can become flying monkeys are the toxic.
These are the people with no boundaries. They love gossip and drama, they’re addicted to that stuff. They have an integrity problem and usually they want something from the narcissist. They want status, they want flattery, they want favours. They’re getting something out of the narcissist, which is why they’re willing to do their bidding." (continues)
[[https://medium.com/@OwnYourReality/flying-monkeys-the-narcissists-tool-for-the-smear-campaign-798daf7a59c0]

resource thread: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3452784-Coercive-Control-a-need-for-better-awareness

Seems to be a flare up, but there's been pretty consistent monitoring and griping in other places for some time. Hence the Bunbury thread being established in the first place.

Is it me or is their witchhunt against MN right now?

I have never forgotten that Deptford piece. It articulated so well what he had all been talking about here, and shines a stream of light on the vacuous, spoiled indulgence of journo pieces like the one under discussion here.

It really does.

*We not he.

I love the smell of crops withering in the morning.
I have been out sowing foxgloves .

I have never forgotten that Deptford piece. It articulated so well what he had all been talking about here, and shines a stream of light on the vacuous, spoiled indulgence of journo pieces like the one under discussion here.

Datun, RO

Oh my giddy aunt! Those articles & links. (Scrapes chin off floor, stuffs eyes back in sockets.)
It is totally a class thing, those students were pulling a Pulp, Common People.

PMK

Apologies for scrambling link above:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3829786-James-Morton-scottish-trans-alliance-quote

A social experiment is being conducted on disenfranchised and marginalised women without their consent.

STILLTish article, September 2019:

'Ministry of Justice: Updated Policy on caring for Transgender Prisoners.'

(extract)
"The policy exposes how far the, legally protected, characteristic of sex has been eroded, by allowing anyone, regardless of biology, to declare they are a woman. The prison system is illustrative of just how far Gender Identity ideology is embedded within our legislature and enshrined in public policy.

Below is a quote 👇 from James Morton, of the Scottish Trans Alliance, which shows that Female prisoners are the subjects of a dangerous laboratory experiment. James is listed as an author of the Scottish Prisons Policy which deals with Transgender Prisoners. As James is a lobbyist for Trans Rights there is only one group at the forefront of the policy. Spoiler. Its not Women.

‘We strategized – we strategized – that by working intensively with the Scottish Prison Service to support them to include trans women as women on a self-declaration basis within very challenging circumstances, we would be able to ensure that all other public services should be able to do likewise’.

The above quote is illustrative of a complete disregard for the female prison population; one of the most vulnerable groups in our society. Domestic violence refuges, rape crisis centres and female prisons do seem to figure prominently in the targeted locations. Captive females are being targeted for this new branch of Men’s rights activism." (continues)
gendercriticalwoman.wordpress.com/2019/09/19/ministry-of-justice-new-policy-on-caring-for-transgender-prisoners/

Relevant thread:
thread [[www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3829786-James-Morton-scottish-trans-alliance-quote]]

But its bizarrely touted as a win for LGBTQ...how exactly this is a win for lesbians or bisexual women?

Except that LGBTQ has nothing to do with lesbians or bisexual women... it just retains the letters to pretend it does.

Phew

Thanks Datun and Rabbit

I feel like I should say, I hope my post didn't come across like I feel I have it worse than homeless women, prisoners, women relying on shelters. (I'm so clumsy when trying to express myself )

Not at all, just a reminder that we're not one homogeneous group of women. Gender ideology is rejected by a diverse range of women.

I feel like I should say, I hope my post didn't come across like I feel I have it worse than homeless women, prisoners, women relying on shelters. (I'm so clumsy when trying to express myself blush )

Not at all! You were just disproving the author's entire premise.

I just meant to point out that I'm none of the things we're always accused of being: middle class, middle aged, privileged, ''just mums'' etc, but my input still isn't acceptable to our critics either.

So it seems the only people ''allowed'' an opinion are those homeless women, prisoners, the women relying on shelters...but they don't have a voice and are relying on the people who do.

That's why I adore JK Rowling for speaking up. She didn't need to, she could have ignored it and avoided the horrific abuse she received. Like she said, she's never likely to be sent to prison, to need to flee to a shelter. But the women who are have no way of being heard and are easily dismissed, which is one of the reasons JKR used her platform to speak out.

It doesn't matter what class we are or what our backgrounds are, we're women coming together to support women. That's all I'm here for.