Just feel a bit despairing today

OP . You are definitely not alone. Not that his helps much, but we’re right there with you.

Oh look, our regular plopper. @pumpkinspicewoman Anything of actual value to add or just your usual one-line and then no return?

You'd think with the amount of time you spend on here, making comments, that you'd actually engage with the discussion.

Any comments about women not being covered by Scottish Government's Hate Crime Bill? Any comments about Police investigating stickers saying 'women won't wheesht' as a hate crime until forced to back down in the face of public ridicule? Any comments about the rise of incel behaviour?

Anything? At all?

LOL, you really, really want to convince yourselves that someone will end up in prison over some ribbons!

what if truth becomes a crime?
would you say it, given time?

what if I hit you in the head?
what if I claim you want me dead?

would you say it for a judge?
why oh why will you not budge?

Irischild: I will not say it

How would you go about explaining systemic sexism to someone who just doesn’t see it?

I've been thinking about this - and I realise this has correspondences for disaffected groups, but I keep reminding myself that women hold up half the sky. What comes to mind is Vasily Grossman's character, Viktor Shtrum, in his novel Life and Fate (Shtrum is living under a totalitarian regime but I think systemic sexism has strong similarities with the visceral writing here):

But an invisible force was crushing him. He could feel its weight, its hypnotic power; it was forcing him to think as it wanted, to write as it dictated. This force was inside him; it could dissolve his will and cause his heart to stop beating; it came between him and his family; it insinuated itself into his past, into his childhood memories. He began to feel that he really was untalented and boring, someone who wore out the people around him with dull chatter. Even his work seemed to have grown dull, to be covered with a layer of dust; the thought of it no longer filled him with light and joy.

Only people who have never felt such a force themselves can be surprised that others submit to it. Those who have felt it, on the other hand, feel astonished that a man can rebel against it even for a moment—with one sudden word of anger, one timid gesture of protest.

I usually think about this in the context of freedom - but when you asked about systemic sexism, this is what came to mind.

I'm the same, OP. What is frightening is that on the one hand you have a real-life example of a hate crime - a man driven by his loathing of women to go on a killing spree.

And then on the other hand you have the criminal law being used against women who say things that men don't like - Marion Millar, for example. And in Scottish law hate speech against trans women (including cross-dressing men) is criminalised, but hate speech against women isn't.

So you have this massive disparity where everything is loaded against us: men can say whatever they want about us, do whatever they want to us, and face no consequences, but if we show any signs of wanting to fight back (by, say, tweeting a picture of a ribbon) we can face up to two years in jail. It feels as if there is nowhere for us to turn.

I’m with you, feeling utterly depressed today about what’s happening to women, and would add the abhorrent comments from that person who runs the Edinburgh Rape Crisis centre. It shows how far we have to go when that person is still in their job and being defended. Plus the horror which happened in Plymouth being called a. “Domestic”

I’m fucked off and scared.

The whole lot has to come crumbling down soon surely. How is this happening. How?

That is a good response.

I also have to remember that sometimes BB makes statements for people to dissect; though I know he had some disagreements with CJ around this.

The Left particularly seem intent on embedding this in our culture whatever the collateral damage because the Left in the USA are captured and see it as their ideological destiny. They are intent on pushing it through via lobbying and legislation without majority acceptance.
Regan’s ‘War on drugs’ comes to mind, it was ideological, cost millions, went against all reason and scientific evidence of outcomes and the poorest suffered the worst consequences.

Dennis Kavanagh has also put up a robust and thoughtful response to Boyce:

There’s no simple verbal equality to these terms as is implies. Nuance is required. A simple request met with a polite declination is not often described as creepy. Frigid, by contrast is an ironically searing judgment on sexual proclivities. I think these are different Ben.

mate I mean this in the nicest possible way but I would never send a tweet like this about gay blokes who don’t wanna respond to my advances. I have no right to do that. Boundaries are boundaries. They don’t need to be negotiated or discussed. [cont.]

archived for readability: archive.is/bJsnP

Let’s compromise: men won’t call women “frigid” for saying no, and women won’t call men “creepy” for asking

twitter.com/BenjaminABoyce/status/1426315134901755905

JCJ's thread addressing it: archive.is/YvHj7

Me too. The Scottish stuff especially.

And reading some guff by Benjamin Boyce who I thought was ok. (See Clare Jones on twitter.)

rogdmum, "I think it’s the sheer futility of it all, knowing that it doesn’t matter what information and evidence you send to politicians, they just don’t give a fuck and are happy pandering to lobby groups"

The strangest thing being that the group they can't see, the one they're tossing overboard, is half of all their voters.

I truly believe people are waking up to the insanity. The more people find out about what’s going on, and the more it’s exposed, the weaker those bullies become.
Sisterly good wishes, Mallow, xx

I’ve been very upset all day in the back of the Scottish schools guidance and I don’t even know why given that we all knew it was due to be published and knew what it was going to say!!!!

I think it’s the sheer futility of it all, knowing that it doesn’t matter what information and evidence you send to politicians, they just don’t give a fuck and are happy pandering to lobby groups. With the exception of one current MSP (and a small number of female former MSPs), none of the opposition have uttered a peep of concern.about this over the last two years.

Sort of reassuringly depressing, Embarrassing!

I'm with you, OP. Feeling dark this week. My DP has just gently reminded me to close the 'world news' section, which is probably a good idea.

and to you all.

It's all feeling very hopeless, when things are so glaringly wrong and they are still glossed over, with mainstream media barely noticing.

When scandals are exposed we all ask each other how no one at the time noticed/ said anything. I'm only seeing now that people are not as blind as I believed previously, truth tellers are silenced, shamed, dismissed. Nothing to see here.