Women's rights general conversations - Thread 10

See!

He has got amazing eyebrows.

I’m not sure I’ve ever come across a bloke with he/him pronouns who didn’t have a beard. There aren’t many pronoun people in our org, mainly just some of UK HR and one or two male managers who probably think (for a minimal value of ‘think’) they’re being ‘inclusive’.

He’s also the ‘Brother Day’ Cleons in Foundation and one of the lead characters in Halt and Catch Fire which I heartily recommend. Its wiki page describes it as a ‘period drama’ - which makes anyone engaged in software development during the 80s and 90s and who has peek’d and poke’d a Commodore 64 feel very old. Despite the initial dominance of Pace’s —eyebrows— character it’s the female characters who really make this series.

I’ve wondered if it’s a bit of a flex combined with “look at how considerate I am, telling you about my inherit manliness.”

Though I was once at a conference and one of the speakers was a tall, broad shouldered, bearded and manly bloke who popped a quick incidental He/They on his slides. And I wondered how we were meant to parse that as an audience - he’s just manly on the outside? He’s nicer than the average tech chap? He has a feminine-coded hobby? It was quite distracting given he was talking about cyber security.

Lee Pace was a snooty elf in the Hobbit films, painted blue in Guardians of the Galaxy and Captain Marvel, and the pie maker in Pushing Daisies, which was an enjoyably odd TV show with Anna Friel about 15 years ago.

I fell across this article trying to remember where I'd seen Lee Pace before (The Fall). I discovered he'd also played a trans sexual (that's the word he used) in a film, Soldier's Girl. A film I'd never heard of. A true story of a US soldier who was murdered by one of his comrades. Murder motivated, at least in part, by a relationship the victim, Barry Winchell, was in with a TiM

archive.ph/NP2eL

https://www.nytimes.com/2000/05/28/magazine/an-inconvenient-woman.html

This article was published in 2000. It's interesting as so many of the elements of gender ideology are there. Including the internal homophobia of the TiM, the use of 'female', etc. The homophobia of the US army is quite overt. The murder is horrific. The TiM comes across as very 'me, me, me'. I suppose that could be because he's the subject of the interview. He seems to have done quite well since the murder. The excuse for not meeting his murdered beloved parents seems paper thin.

I was talking to a shop assistant earlier. He was a tall man with broad shoulders, hairy hands and a decent sized beard. He had a male name.

He also had he/him pronouns on his badge. What is the point? Nobody in their right mind might mistake him for a woman.

"Morris saw a number of doctors, several of whom suggested he try homosexuality"

😂😂

I'm assuming a prescription, with dosage instructions.

Nora Ephron wrote about James/Jan Morris in her 1975 book, Crazy Salad: Some Things About Women.

Four pages of the essay/chapter can be read here:
https://archive.org/details/crazysaladsometh00ephr/page/n11/mode/1up?q=Morris

Screen shots attached.

If you create a free account with the internet archive, you can download the whole book for free.

No interest in giving that appalling woman any more of my time.

Helen Webberley has been on a bit of a podcast tour over the last week. Three debates - Julie Bindel, Helen Hoyce, Andrew Gold. She's absolutely infuriating, as is to be expected. All free to watch on YouTube.

allegedly

Though the women are all lifting progressively heavier weights so we're able to carry our own luggage.

Yeah, that was good.

I particularly like the 'girl/woman' section of the Ephron piece. Plus ça change ...

So good - I'd read the Ephron before, but not the Tweedy - thanks @NoBinturongsHereMate .

More than 50 years ago, and some people have been trying to drag us back.

See also Nora Ephron's absolutely coruscating review of Conundrum, in 1974. If anyone can find a link, please post it - I can only find these screenshots https://x.com/treesey/status/1601958265784508416

That is marvellous to read!

“A tailored skirt, neat stockings, discreetly-heeled shoes and talk of shopping with the ladies of Bath”

How times have changed. Interestingly, the third transsexual I ever met (a university lecturer by trade, in the 1980s) went for exactly that look, which was about thirty years out of date by then. I found the desire to dress like that rather more baffling than the desire to change sex, at that point.

I think I've said before that as a long-time Graun reader, I've often wondered what Mary Stott and Jill Tweedie would have made of the current farrago. And the Graun's response to it.

Wow. 1974. Could have been written today - she absolutely captures it.

“Instead of blazing an overdue trail for men to live out the female principle in a man’s body (and vice versa for women) she [James/Jan] prefers to alter her body to society’s sense of fitness.

And once able to pass for a woman, she proceeds to reinforce the bars of a woman’s cage.” [by behaving in a stereotypically head tilty, skirt spinny way - a way that women of the time were trying desperately to escape].

One from the archives. Jill Tweedy on Jan Morris. I've often wondered what she thought on the subject but have shied away from looking it up for fear of disappointment. I should have had more faith - of course she got it. x.com/VerityKalcev/status/1991916958783299635?