Have feminists brought this upon themselves?

Re. the rape figures (other people are contending with the rest) to be blunt, you are wrong. Yes, of course your comments are true, but for your argument to have merit, the figures would need to be consistent, as those difficulties are... and they aren't consistent. Charging rates have plummeted in very recent years. Those very low rates are entirely new.

This state of affairs was brought to the attention of the public, most of whom had no idea, when The Centre For Women's Justice launched a Judicial Review against the Crown Prosecution Service, asking them to justify this collapse in prosecution rates.

A woman who was raped at gunpoint was told there was insufficient evidence of threat, and a lifelong lesbian was told she might have sent mixed signals. Here are a few more stories for you.

Prosecutions and convictions have more than halved in three years while rapes have risen.

[[https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/jul/14/we-are-facing-the-decriminalisation-of-warns-victims-commissioner
Dame Vera Baird, the Victim's Commissioner, commented that rape now has, effectively, been decriminalised.]]

A BBC article: www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-57511425

Another, noting that the charging rate is at the lowest in a decade: www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-45650463

This isn't the age-old problem where there are blurred lines on consent. This is a wholesale failure to prosecute, in a very new and disturbing development. It's too consistent to be anything but a policy direction.

The Centre for Women's Justice forced this into the public sphere. There has then been a shift, and the Telegraph reported this:

Priti Patel and Robert Buckland have apologised to rape victims, as they admitted they were “deeply ashamed” that thousands of them have been denied justice.

“We owe this to every victim and are extremely sorry that the system has reached this point,” they said in a 60-page review setting out measures to reverse plummeting rape prosecution rates.

Until a tiny charity, focused on combating abuse of women, forced a Judicial Review and then public attention, only a handful of women knew or cared. This is why we need feminism: because we are not seen as equal and not treated as such.

Again, please read Invisible Women. Sincerely, I don't blame you for not knowing these things. People don't, unless they care to seek the information out. That's the problem, so please do buy the book and read it. Did you know, for example, that crash testing is performed on dummies designed for male bodies - so cars are safer for men than women? Did you know medicine is tested primarily on men, despite the fact that women metabolise it differently - so it's safer for men? The whole book explains things such as this.

You seem to expect society to have to actively hate women for it to count. Invisibility is a huge part of the issue. The default has long been male, and so women's concerns are dismissed as being trivial, or invented, or inevitable. And that is a huge disservice to half the human race - and in some ways, actually, to most men as well.

As nicely as possible: you really don't know much at all about any of this, and yet you are stating untrue things as factual, and being sceptical when given evidenced fact. May I suggest that you read up on the resources you have asked us to provide, consider the evidence given, and reflect upon the reality that as a sex class, women are systematically disadvantaged, and that despite gains our foremothers fought desperately hard to secure we continue to be so, and that instead of loftily dismissing that - you might recognise it, instead?

Society is not formed in a vacuum. We are the product of our history. I have given you that history - a history your comments very plainly showed you were ignorant of, so I appreciate it's not chosen malice, just obliviousness. Please recognise that we live within a society that is, presently, reversing, even as the younger members complacently congratulate themselves on how much things are improving, because they can navel-gaze in a virtual environment even as rights are erased in the material world.

I have no idea if you are in good faith or not. How can I? But I am engaging with you in that hope. Please read the book many women have asked you to, and consider the facts you have been given. This is not an invented story - any more than racism is, in order to make white people feel bad. Of course that's not a situation in which most need feel individual guilt. It's a societal problem. But denial is not the solution either - ever. Facts and open discussion are the only possible route to progress. And in the past few years, women are being shouted down if they voice any of this, in a way I've not seen before. Rape threats and death threats are not being condemned any more, if made to women who point out that biology impacts us, and we need to be able to collectivise as a sex class to try to protect our rights. That is new. I have literally never known that before in my lifetime. And it alarms and angers me, that this is the world our daughters are growing up in.

“all these moaning feminists won’t get anywhere as they’re just annoying everyone“

Blimey, did they dig this up from 1975 and dust it off? When haven't feminists been perceived as annoying? There was a purple patch was there?

I was correcting this fake fact.

I went on a date the other week and the bloke (a child psychologist) said he thought that the whole trans thing was “rubbish” but “all these moaning feminists won’t get anywhere as they’re just annoying everyone“.

I've recounted this before, but I've found that many non woke men on social media, who aren't allies of the trans movement, are so dismissive of it that they would rather make bog standard MRA talking points at any women speaking up against the political agenda, even though in some ways they agree with us that gender identity ideology is absurd.

That's aside from the ones actively using it as a cloak to be openly misogynist to a group of "bad" women with impunity.

It appears there is a misunderstanding around the term 'labour' here. Yes Labour means work, but in terms of black women and childbirth it also means actually giving birth, as in 'in labour'

In the U.K., women couldn’t vote on equal terms with men until 1924.

Just correcting myself - it was of course 1928.

I am not going to enter into the first one but the GG one...

I susect that GGs like the MoJ don't actually keep count. The reasoning will be along the same lines, TWAW... and anyone who identifies as a woman would be housed in the female estate - as confirmed by a recent court case - it basically said "yes, we know it is wrong but, erm, tis the law"! The MoJ can't tell us because they don't record gender, just self identified sex!

GGs initial statements were very similar in intent.

I'd like to say to @Felix125 that you personally might not be hear to goad and annoy. I'll reserve my judgement on this.

I'm an ancient old crone who has discussed feminism and equality for many many years with many many men who, frankly, do not engage brain and either don't want to learn/listen or who want to goad. And they use the same type of language and arguments as you. So I simply cannot be bothered to engage and educate any more. Read Invisible Women. Read some Angela Davis (to get the intersection of race and class and sexism)

And yes, there are issues that are pertinent to men (m on m violence, male suicide rates) and frankly? I have stopped talking about those too because the only men who talk about them only ever bring it up when we are talking about things that affect women Funny that.

And to get back to the thread title: again a resounding no. Feminists didn't bring this on themselves.

I am trying to get my head around this…. Are we minimising the fact that black women have a frightening risk of dying in childbirth, much higher than white women?

Are people saying that this risk is smaller than certain war zones so should be disregarded?

And are people saying not to discuss it so we don’t scare white women? I hope I am going crazy here….

And as for the GG… are people trying to state that it isn’t an issue as there is no factual statistics which we not are allowed to collect?

Not sure Felix is going to come back to that one!

I hope that the prolonged silence is because Felix is doing some reading, or maybe having tea, rather than ignoring some inconvenent facts.

I would like Felix to have been posting in good faith.

I am heartily tired of bad faith posters.

Come back Felix!

How many instances are we talking about here then where males have shared tents with girls at GG's outings - as i think the numbers are important here.

This is just ignorant. And actively undermines safeguarding.

You might as well say well, look, how many DBS checks can we discount, I think numbers are important here.

The policy allows for mixed sex environments from tents to showers. It also expressly says parents and girl guides do not need to know.

Girl guides are being manipulated into a mixed sex environment without their consent, or that of their parents, or even their knowledge.

"How many". Strewth.

How many instances are we talking about here then where males have shared tents with girls at GG's outings - as i think the numbers are important here. You've had quite a variety of answers to that one now @Felix125

What do you think now?

This thread shows how little Guiders at least were consulted about the changes - www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/4247374-girl-guiding

How many instances are we talking about here then where males have shared tents with girls at GG's outings - as i think the numbers are important here.

Yes, the numbers are important as without safeguarding measures in place, the number should be 0. It's not.

Seriously enough women suffer from anxiety about childbirth such that we don’t need false claims that it’s safer to be on the front lines of a war than to have a baby...... 🙄

False equivalence....
US has withdrawn from Afghanistan, it is no longer an active war zone. So it’s laughable to claim that only 2 US soldiers usually died in that war zone per year in an effort to show it’s less dangerous to fight a war than for a 35 yr old black woman giving birth.

watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/costs/human/military

You also have to look at death rate not total deaths. The war in Afghanistan had a death rate spanning from a low of 5 per 1000 soldiers per year to 19 per 1000 soldiers per year.
academic.oup.com/ije/article/36/4/841/670068

This is much higher than the death rate of black women in childbirth of 37 in a 100,000.....which translates to 0.37 in 1000.
www.heart.org/en/news/2021/02/10/why-black-women-are-less-likely-to-survive-pregnancy-and-whats-being-done-about-it

So obviously a soldier in Afghanistan War death rate of 5 in 1000 during quieter year to a peak of 19 in a 1000 during the hotter year, is magnitudes larger than a black woman’s risk of child birth death of 0.37 in 1000.

The fact that the early post-Revolutionary Russian Empire was in some ways an improvement on Czarist autocracy is a low bar that would challenge a world-champion limbo dancer.

Regards the women in the Red army in WW2, the female tank crews led the charge, then as the 'Rape of Berlin' spiralled out of control, became victims of it themselves on a massive scale.

It's a hard balance to strike.

I am taking Felix at face value. Answering what seems to be a very confused poster who might be asking for help in thinking outside the box, in a wider context!

How many instances are we talking about here then where males have shared tents with girls at GG's outings - as i think the numbers are important here.

No, it actually is not as important as the many girls who are now excluded from GG outings because they simply don't know who will be in the tent and who might be allowed in the showers with them.

As a parent of a GG, this effects many girls and their families. Religious families. Abused girls. Girls who simply are going through puberty and wish to have privacy and dignity.

That is just as important a consideration.

How many girls being excluded due to this change?

That parents weren't consulted with, and many, many parents only discover from news reporting or word of mouth.

The answer from all trans activists is n+1. Because girls are not their priority.

Oh it's not an issue and I'm not at all concerned about their data storage! I've been around here for a decade or so and just was caught up imagining how many times this dynamic has repeated itself. Perhaps you're right about lurkers, I just hate it when an interesting discussion gets turned into something else.

[quote AssassinatedBeauty]@SmokedDuck, I'm not up to speed with feminist theory and research, apologies. Are there any well known feminists who argue for this strict 50/50 in all areas approach to equality? It's just not something I'm familiar with, having always seen feminism as about liberation from patriarchy and recognising women as having some inevitable differences (and consequent needs) but still as valuable/important/equal/human as men. [/quote]
Gosh, well known feminists who would say that - I am not sure if they would say it directly. You certainly see a lot of equivocation about motherhood or even childcare as real work from some. Gloria Steinem comes to mind in this way of thinking. But I don't actually think asking about more famous individuals really speaks to the way feminism as a movement has manifested in our culture overall.

Things like the way literature or film have changed in response to feminism have significantly shaped people's thinking, even though they may not represent a sort of academic feminism.

What you will see is feminists who advocate for bringing women into the workplace on the same basis as men in order to create equality. So for example the idea that fathers must take half of parental leave. Or when we talk about the wage gap, you rarely see much willingness to consider that the problem is as much to do with not supporting motherhood as it is about labour laws or wages or pensions.

So, the American Black woman over 35 giving birth who lost their lives last year didn't die from medical issues that the Drs & nurses battled to avoid. There will be a decision made by medical staff not to try too hard to save her life because she was a woman? Well I stand corrected. I certainly wont risk taken my wife or daughters to any hospital if they fall ill if that practice still continues.

Again, please read Invisible Women.

I do think it is useful to continue to post just for the lurkers. I was one once upon a time and a now defunct poster who always responded to safegurding issues really opened my eyes!

I've not called posters on here liars Read what I actually posted. Your continued disbelief effectively calls posters here liars.

How many instances are we talking about here then where males have shared tents with girls at GG's outings - as i think the numbers are important here. How could we know? Nobody counts them. Just as the MoJ has no idea how many male bodied people are in the female state - they don't discriminate, they are inclusive!

China was very different to the ussr. Im not saying the soviet system was doog but it undeniably brought in greater equalities. Alexander Kollontai (still read as a great feminist) was the first ever woman minister in a government in the 1917 sovieet government along with a great many more women with government roles. They brought in radical divorce and marraige laws,equal voting rights and were the first state to legalise abortion. The numbers of women going into things like engineering far outstripped any other country. The army was a natural progression. Look up the Night Witches air squadron. schoolshistory.org.uk/topics/european-history/russia-soviet-union/women-in-the-ussr/

Can I refer back to my previous advice? MN databases must be full of threads with posts like this from posters like this.