Bette Midler

Look what IW subjected her to

Brilliant and thoughtful responses to my post - thank you, I love mumsnet and I love the solidarity between women here.

@Datun has it. Everyone knows who women are for the purposes of oppressing us and removing rights. Everyone knows when it's time for a pay rise or a promotion. Everyone knows when a man wants to sexually assault a woman who we are. Everyone knows when needed healthcare has to be banned.

It's only when someone's feelings needs to be most important everyone is confused.

I’m not sure how the actual words she said being broadcast can be totally misrepresented 🤔

That’s going to make them worse. A full scale denunciation of TERFs might redeem her (they like to gloat about these things), but even then only provisionally.

Absolutely nailed it.

She hasn’t withdrawn what she said. Just said she supports the transgender community. Good. So do I. Men can’t be women.

Well she's not wrong that it will be grossly misinterpreted. As hate, death wishes, threats.

I hope she holds the line.

Hm. Not sure. That's not enough abasement and repentance to save her, I'm afraid.

'i got nothing but love for
lgbt+ and transgender communities.
i've been a supporter since day one and never a fake one.
my statement on piers morgan was GROSSLY misunderstood.
i respect everyone's right to be whoever they wana be.'

Macy’s capitulated. Tweeted an apology and affirmation of support.

It's not a people thing. It's a woman thing.

YY.

The tweet about the ‘pregnant girl in the classroom won’t have to sit under the rainbow flag whilst she’s shot’ - was it on this thread? Trying to find it to share with friends.

I hope Bette is clued up enough about the tactics to see that for the condescending, arrogant, controlling crap it is.

They aren't erasing women physically, obviously, but they are severing the connection between women and their female biology.

Which wouldn't be of quite so much concern, if we weren't oppressed on the basis of that biology.

And the latest incarnation of that is banning abortion. Again, it's about female biology.

If you can't align oppression and sexism to the sex at whom it's directed, you can't address it.

Women are oppressed. Sometimes it's through the control of like marriage or making them reliant on men, sometimes it's through denying them bodily autonomy, sometimes it's through selling and buying their bodies.

Men who identify as women want the concept of women to be superficial. Hair, make up, pronouns. So they can claim it.

Therefore women and female biology must be decoupled. Hence women being known by individual body parts, depending on the context, and not a collective term.

it's not always obvious how decoupling women from their biology can be detrimental.

But it's women who are being denied an abortion. People know full well that it's not random. It's not a 'people' thing. You don't see any suggestions for men having compulsory vasectomies, do you? And it only being reversed when society at large seems it appropriate. Or their girlfriends and partners say it's ok. It's unthinkable.

Men aren't being disadvantaged in order to stop pregnancies. Even mildly. They're not even included in the equation.

It's not a people thing. It's a woman thing.

And such is the rage over the overturning of Roe v Wade, that removing the means to describe the very cohort who is affected is really hitting home how this ideology affects women.

Re gaslighting, don't fall for it.

So called inclusive language puts women into a subset - the term woman is now merely an umbrella term, also meaning trans women and trans men.

In this subset trans women become as valid as women who are hearby known as Cis women. In fact Trans go a step further now because they have a privilege (TW more so) to use any space or category they chose and we all know the issues with that. Our cis privilege on the other hand is yet another stick to beat ordinary women with, and they are already doing so, it'll get worse.

Never relent.

Never a better time than now for as many high profile like minded, influential people, to show support to Bette and Macy.

Unfortunately we all could have predicted this response. I hope they are both okay. It must be horrific pressure.

Bette's being told to "do better."

Macy is getting death threats.

All sounds rather witch trial like.

@nepeta

They mean you ‘can’ say woman when you actually mean females who identify as women and males who identify as women, but when you just mean females you can’t.

What they’re missing is that telling women what they can and can’t say and when they can and can’t say it is inherently oppressive, and not exactly new.

Love Bette, the Divine Miss M forever, And the Fabulous Macy Gray!

I'm not on twitter so have purchased more of their music to show support and have upticked on youtube.

I have written this before, but it's as if the trans activists ask for a chair at the table where societal decisions are made, and when most others tell them to pull up a chair, they explain that they don't want an empty chair, they want the chair on which women's rights activists sit.

And so the latter are pushed to the floor and asked to leave the room and if they protest they are seen as denying the trans activists a chair at the table.

Good analogy.

Inclusive language excludes the possibility that for many (I think most of us, actually) being a woman or a man is based on biological sex. When uterus-havers or similar euphemisms are used, it is quite clear that 'women' is no longer allowed to refer to anything based on being of the female sex.

So inclusiveness does NOT include those who have embodied gender 'identities' (in a loose sense), but forces on them a new abstract floating feeling of femininity or masculinity. This is erasure and not inclusion.

@nepeta

Yes, first it was they wanted to be ‘included’ (which ‘women and transwomen’ might do in certain social situations and ‘women and transmen’ might do in certain biological situations), and then it was that they wanted us not to use language in that way for ourselves at all. We were to be ‘cis women’ and then ‘menstruators’, or ‘women’ was to include males. Kindness was never going to be enough, they want compliance and to be in charge of other people and their thoughts. I’m not even in charge of my thoughts, I’m not outsourcing them to random social justice warriors!

Twitter's algorithm shows you specifically chosen replies first. Not chronologically, not based on most likes but based on the way the people who wrote the algorithm want the discussion to appear to be going.

As of two minutes ago, that tweet had 91,300 likes. Her sentiment is popular but Twitter controls how the conversation appears.

Also her tweet has over 90k likes which says a lot I think. The silent majority agree with her.

Yes they are gaslighting us. It’s just like calling us breeders.