Women's rights general conversations

(Autocorrect stuck an apostrophe into the possessive 'its' . I corrected it, hit Post and the bloody apostrophe reappeared. I had to have several tries to get the one above correct. At least it's stopped turning male into Male now though. )

I need to read the invisible women blog more often, though I'm not sure it's good for my blood pressure. The Alzheimer's part maybe merits it's own thread either on here or AIBU.

Slightly off at a tangent - I work from home and usually have James O'Brien on LBC radio in the background. I agree with him about a lot and can't help laughing at the way he allows/ helps people to tie themselves up in knots over things like Brexit, racism, BLM, Trump, and refugees (which is what he's doing now). But yesterday he did what he does from time to time. Displayed His Beard.

The target of his ire was people who talk about Lefty Snowflakes and The Woke, and I'm sure he meant Bad Righties but still said - in his lengthy general diatribe to a hypothetical opponent - I can't remember the exact words but very much along these lines: "Yeah but you're scared of pronouns. Think about that, you call other people snowflakes but you are Scared. Of. Pronouns.”

This encapsulates the things that I find unforgivable about people who otherwise share so much of my worldview: the laziness, the intellectual incuriosity, the ignorant, subconscious misogyny. As I say, he doubtless thinks that he’s attacking Rightwing Trumpists. The misogyny is his apparently failing even to notice the women’s groups shouting from the rooftops about this stuff.

Maybe this has cropped before but if not I commend to the house https://newsletter.carolinecriadoperez.com/p/invisible-women-default-male-miracles?utmsource=twitter&utmmcampaign=autoshare&r=e1j .

Thank you for the summary, @Tricyrtis2022

I've just come across this marvellous quote:

“If particular care and attention is not paid to the ladies, we are determined to foment a rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any laws in which we have no voice or representation.” – Abigail Adams

I can go with that!

Thanks - done with symbols on my phone keyboard. Traditional asterisks make the formatting go weird.

Apologies for confusing references to the Old Place - we'll probably get over it soon, and it's lovely to have new people to talk to.

I was impressed with the stars too. How does one do that?

Can I just say excellent use of stars in this post. Looks lovely.

www.independent.co.uk/tv/lifestyle/cambridge-dictionary-woman-gender-definition-b2244579.html

LIght blue touchpaper...

I should add that being corralled for years is why a 'general conversations' thread was set up here, because that's what we got used to, though it does actually work pretty well here.

The short form is that a group of us used to post on another forum, small and fairly obscure. It was an off-shoot of the now defunct Guardian Talk forum. Anyway, many of us knew one another on both forums for many years, friendships were made, marriages happened, meet-ups were held. All was fine for ages, but then a slow and steady rot set in. Feminism, especially GC, became increasingly frowned upon and we who wished to discuss it were corralled into one thread. After a while, even that was unacceptable to the site owner and, basically, we were kicked out.

I am enjoying the thread, but I am struggling because I don't know what this 'old place' was/is, or the story behind people leaving.
(Though I can guess that last bit.)

IReallyLikeCrows

Please don't, even though it would be brave.

Look up Chris Packham and the crow puzzle. It's great.

There was a similar plot in ER, around 2000ish I believe, where a mother wouldn’t accept her young trans son/daughter and cut off all of his/her hair. There was another episode where a woman came in and they found out she had testicular cancer.

Interestingly☆, at around the same time as the last of the Grey's storylines mentioned above, the terrible Sex and the City reboot☆☆ had similar storyline, with a young teen and a mother who felt something must be done. In her case the advice from the Gay Friend was 'She's 14! She doesn't know what she wants! We'll deal with it in the future if there something to deal with.'

So enthusiastic, unquestioning affirmation may have had its day in the world of trashy telly.

☆ Values of interest may vary.

☆☆ Awful. Don't watch it.

Why on earth wouldn't someone be honest with Jan Morris?

From the little I know, I'd say fear of being punched is a strong motivation.

With you on Adele Anderson.

Grey's is an interesting one. I've recently done a rewatch of the whole thing. There are various trans storylines scattered through it - all sympathetic, but with slightly different takes.

The first was about 15 years ago - a transwoman in for the final stages of feminisation surgery, discovers cancer, has to choose between treatment and remaining on hormones. But it also spends quite a bit of sympathetic story time on her wife's struggle with her husband becoming a woman.

Next, about 10 years ago - a late teens or early 20s transman with father who refuses to accept his daughter's transition, and an impassioned speech (complete with the 'it's this or dead' argument) from the transman's partner.

About 5 years ago, one of the residents reveals in passing that he's trans, it is never mentioned again.

Last year, very early in the season there's a bit of a hooha about a 4 year old boy liking to wear a sparkly Elsa cloak and sometimea a tutu. His mother agonises through the first part of the season about what does it mean and should they do something? Then it all goes very quiet. For weeks. Then after a brief chat with one of the other doctors (who has a non-binary partner) there's a rushed 'maybe we don't need to choose yet' scene and that whole family of main characters is bundled off to Germany, probably never to be seen again.

Adele Anderson was (and to some extent, is) my test. I would not want to upset her, but if my choice is between upsetting her and endorsing policies that allow abuser to identify as female and occupy female spaces, I know where I stand.

Why on earth wouldn't someone be honest with Jan Morris? - hardly the epitome of 'most vulnerable' who you'd feel mean upsetting.

A poster there said several things along the lines of: 'I bet you wouldn't tell Jan Morris she wasn't a woman'.

Various people used to pop into threads here to use that as a gotcha, "it's all very well wanting female only spaces, but would you really expect the saintly JAN MORRIS to use a men's toilet?" They practically needed smelling salts and a fainting couch when I said that in the absence of any third space, I would.

There is no answer to satisfy all. That’s the issue, that’s always been the issue - if you don’t agreed TWAW then you’re a transphobic bigot. Men can’t be women so it’s not possible to compromise.

I think I might throw myself to the wolves, Mavis and say a woman is someone who is born female. And then my career would be over.

I know! Which is why I wondered if there is any answer that would satisfy everyone.