Women's rights general conversations - Thread 10

I keep a kitchen roll in the bathroom as well as a plentiful supply in the kitchen. Seems sensible.

Then there are the practicalities of dealing with uncontrolled bleeding every month - requiring foresight and fortitude and pragmatism and coping strategies.

Ah. Hmm. Yes.

I think that may have just given me some insight into a conversation on another thread about men and their (in)ability to carry out sequences of actions in a logical and efficient manner, particularly in response to an unexpected event.

I would never take the 6th easiest option¹ for mopping up a spill, because I always know where the nearest towel is (and the nearest disposable towel for spills that won't wash out). Because I've spent 40 years always keeping a note at the back of my mind where the nearest towel is.

I've spent 40 years having to plan according to the calendar, doing things on this day instead of that, here instead of there, with this bag instead of that one, in the black outfit not the pale blue one. Forward planning months in advance that I don't even think about.

¹ I counted and it actually was the 6th best, which amused me immensely.

Having now finished my periods twenty years ago, I can testify to the relief of never having to think about that.

Obviously we are not defined by our biology etc etc etc.
but the experience of having levels of pain from the uncomfortable to the agonising every single flipping month for years on end HAS to shape us in many ways - neuroplasticity and all that.

As a PP said, we become familiar with pain, and it is not the signal of something very wrong which it is for men; it is something that can be endured if necessary [i.e. almost always, if you are a woman🙄] and which does not necessarily prevent continuing with everyday activities.

Then there are the practicalities of dealing with uncontrolled bleeding every month - requiring foresight and fortitude and pragmatism and coping strategies.

Then for some but not all women there are difficult hormonal/emotional aspects to be dealt with.

As the age of menarche is getting younger and younger, little girls who are still young children are having to take on all these difficult and challenging experiences.

This is pretty heavy stuff, which boys and men do not experience. That is a hugely different experience of growing into adulthood.

No, they are just not used to having pain. For men pain is a warning that something is wrong. For women pain is always just round the corner. We get used to it and have bodies built to bear it.

This is why we should take women's pain more seriously. If we can climb walls while in pain, when we complain of pain, it's probably much more severe than men's.

I had undiagnosed fibroids for many years and it was only once I got to 48, after decades of complaining, that it was taken seriously. My periods were hideous and I'd hurt from my elbows down to my knees, but still had to just got on with things. I'm sure many men would or could put up with that.

There was a big difference in how the man and the woman reacted. She had a sort of tired 'Ugh, here we go again' look while he looked genuinely shocked at how painful the higher levels were. It was weird seeing her just get on with the climb while he kept dropping to the floor and curling up. Was it performative?

I've used a TENS machine for pain relief and it worked, but I don't understand how you'd use one to induce pain.

I didn’t watch it all because it’s quite long but it was interesting. I had PCOS, undiagnosed as a teen…I don’t think the cramps induced by the TENS machine made either of them throw up.

It is of course quite funny that the pain is being induced by the device used for pain relief in labour. That’s all I ended up using, DH kept helpfully turning it up but at some point it became merely irritating.
Afterwards before he returned it to Boots, he was curious as to its effect and tried it… yelled and fell down. Ok so that’s a ‘turn it on and watch men cry’ anecdote but he was pretty awestruck!

¡Heh! They were definitely women. They had that keen look about them that made me think they would probably “be kind”. On reflection, it was almost undoubtedly a specific trip to show how embracing of diversity they were.

Squid - I can definitely remember people posting on Mumsnet about their daughters not wanting to use the toilets, but thinking about it, I don’t remember seeing any articles about it. Why would I: they are only girls in the eyes of journalists and therefore difficulties in their live are not important. See also boys playing in their sports teams. The only time young women are treated as important is when they are the soon-to-be-victim of a murder on TV shows.

I faintly remember reading articles about girls avoiding unisex and trans inclusive toilets at school and some of them getting UTIs, but Google is of no help and suggests this only affects poor poor trans identified boys. Could you or anyone else please link one?

Are you sure they were nuns? Maybe they were men dressed in nun clothing.

I’m in Barcelona at the moment and went down the street and spotted a lot of the baby pink/baby blue trans flags along with some pride flags ahead. It turned out to be some sort of LGBTQ+ Market.

I had to go past it and it was quite interesting (quite a variety of fetish gear), but slightly ahead of me was a group of four nuns who seemed to be interacting with the stallholders quite well.
They were deep in conversation with a very tall man who says he’s a woman who has a business giving lessons in walking to other men who say they’re women. I wonder what they were talking about.

He just came over as creepy and weird. Ordinary biological women don't behave like that. They just go in and do their shopping without any fuss. It's like he was demanding attention from people in the shop to validate his perception that he is a woman.

My ex once observed that men who imitate women (I think we used to call them 'transvestites') usually put on exaggerated "female" gestures and speech mannerisms that actual women don't do. I've seen it from time to time, such as the man, dressed in feminine style, doing a strutty model walk along the pavement while the actual women just walked with normal gait.

Things I did not know: Kellie-Jay Keen has a theology degree!

Randomly came across this

The struggle to protect children from conspiracy theorist parents - BBC News https://share.google/czJnCW4JiZ45iff0W

Vaccine deniers for the most part. Unsurprisingly, to me, there's one major omission. Although a good chunk of the grate great and good would think I was the conspiracy theorist for not believing humans can change sex and for thinking it's wrong for kids to have their normal puberty blocked, to be hurried down the road to wrong sex hormones, risky surgeries, anorgasmia, sterility and a lifetime spent as a patient.

Here's the text, for those who can't open the link.

Hashem Al-Ghiali

Male and female embryos take different paths just 7 days after fertilization.

One focuses on growth, the other on immunity, and it reshapes health and growth for a lifetime.

Sex-based differences in biology begin far earlier than once thought—just seven days after fertilization, according to new research from Cornell University. In a study of cow embryos, which closely mirror human development, scientists found that male and female embryos activate entirely different sets of genes almost immediately. Males prioritize rapid cell division and energy production, while females begin investing in immune system and reproductive gene pathways.

These distinctions arise long before the presence of hormones or organs, hinting at deeply rooted genetic blueprints that steer development from the very start.

These early divergences may have profound implications for health and medicine. Since many diseases affect men and women differently—from cardiovascular issues to neurological disorders—understanding sex-specific development could reshape how treatments are designed and tested. Historically, medical studies have relied on male models, potentially overlooking critical factors that influence drug response in women. The findings also open new possibilities for improving IVF outcomes and optimizing livestock breeding. More broadly, this research suggests our biological sex is not just a feature that emerges during puberty—it’s a fundamental part of who we are from our very first week of life.

source
"Sex-biased transcriptome in in vitro produced bovine early embryos." Cell & Bioscience, 27 August 2025.

I'm not sure whether this FB link will work, but it points to some interesting research at Cornell about just how early male and female embryonic development diverges - long before any visible differences emerge.

www.facebook.com/share/p/17PYJf8F3B/

There are loads of 'men trying period pain simulator' videos out there, but I thought this one more interesting than most.

Rather than just 'turn it on and watch men cry', they have a man and a woman both actually trying to do something while wearing it. Both try the same tasks at the same levels (roughly equivalent to normal background, normal active cramp, and endometriosis) and talk a little about about how they experience it and how it affects sport training.

It's the law!

When will they understand this?

The Greens are at it again. Green Women's Declaration banned from conference at the last minute: https://x.com/GWDeclaration/status/1973448790280643003?

Oh look! It was absolutely FINE when it was just girls restricting their food and liquid intake to avoid using the school toilets, but now that it's trans children, the UN must get involved.

https://www.reddit.com/r/transgenderUK/comments/1nvkfda/teachers_say_trans_pupils_limiting_food_and_drink/?chainedPosts=t3_1in69dv

British Judo has revised its policy for women's competitions. Previously they allowed in men who'd had puberty blocked; now the women's catagory is for natal women only.

I don’t think it reflects the way therapy happens nowadays though. My DD is a psychotherapist in the Gestalt tradition and I had therapy in that mode too, and it was nothing like that either theoretically or experientialy.