Anti-Social on R4 now on the girl guide and single sex spaces

Christ that man. What a fucking selfish sexist prick. Poor old boys, slaves to their hormones (though also, we shouldn't just think of people as their sex, that's so old-fashioned, we're all basically the same, except the lads can't be expected to behave because hormones), and why shouldn't the girls sacrifice their learning to sit next to them and calm the down. Awful, awful man.

I was amazed about how the guide badges were so rigorous they were basically qualifications

Relevant to that book I was shocked to hear that during the war over 500 girl guides were hanged by the Nazis for their resistance work.

Janie Hampton ‘s book is well worth a read

janiehampton.co.uk/books/how-girl-guides-won-war/

Just started listening and my first thought is why the heck is one of the guests male? (And a dj). What possible relevance could his viewpoint be to the guides????

Just started listening and my first thought is why the heck is one of the guests male? (And a dj). What possible relevance could his viewpoint be to the guides????

Oli another disgusting man putting responsibility for the behaviour of adult men onto 4 year old girls.

I thought that the most surprising thing about that article was that the BBC considered those findings surprising.

Oliver needs to read this:

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c62je1g000eo

Yes, and he just so clearly doesn't understand what he doesn't understand!

How dare he denigrate single-sex girls' schools - it's his DD who would be attending, not him! So what if he finds them "intimidating". It's probably because he subconsciously sensed the single-sex girls' school wasn't designed for him.

Idiot.

Thank goodness for Milli.

Yes these errors made by the so called legal expert were infuriating.

She should have explained that a boy identifying as a girl is still a boy, and whether or not he has the protected characteristic of gender reassignment (and I think she was wrong to say it is not possible for a child to have the PC Of GR) he has no more the right to join the Guides than any other boy. She fell into the trap of implying that possessing the PC of GR means that someone gets to change their sex for the purposes of the PC of sex, when actually they are two different protected characteristic which do not, for Equality Act purposes at least, have anything to do with each other.

It is lawful to exclude someone with the PC of GR from a single sex space reserved for the opposite sex.

I think it's more than lawful; I think it's mandatory. But yes, that was one of the issues - she said that because there was no PC that properly captured trans-identifying children that meant trans-identifying boys couldn't be included in the GG. That's complete rubbish.

What she should have said was that the section of the EA2010 on charities doesn't permit mix-and-match membership criterion. If membership is based on more than one PC the members must hold all of them. Female and Gender Reassignment - permitted. Female or (Male and Gender Reassignment) - not permitted.

Incidentally I don't see that a child couldn't qualify as holding the PC of Gender Reassigment: anyone intending to undergo a process in the future (etc.) is covered too, which could well include children. So if she said that GR could never apply to a child that would be another error.

Then she agreed with the presenter that you could only have associations based on PCs, and that for example a club for left handed people wasn't permitted. That's a complete inversion of the law. You absolutely can have an association whose members are distinguished by some characteristic that doesn't impinge on any of the listed PCs, like, for example, their being able to write with their left hand. Discrimination for society membership or in any other way on the basis of a characteristic which is not protected is lawful. The protected characterstics are the only protected ones. That's why they're called 'protected'.

Finally I think it was a material omission in what she said, as 'the' legal expert invited on to the programme, not to mention that the GG Trustees are obliged to follow the charitable purpose in the establishing document, which is to benefit 'girls', or else they are liable from their own pockets.

I listened this morning and thought that it was great overall, far better than most crumbs we get tossed. The statistics of men/boys talking the most, for longer, interrupting etc were indisputable, indeed the only interruption I noticed was from Oliver. I also didn’t understand Oliver’s point about boys becoming adolescent and being pumped full of hormones so not responsible for their behaviour 🤷‍♀️ Don’t girls also get flooded with hormones at adolescence? The effects on either sex should be recognised and the adults should deal with it if, indeed, dealing with is needed. But only the boys and their parents/adults can’t be held accountable for their behaviour

The very irritating thing about Oliver’s suggestion that the girls in each individual guide pack be allowed to decide whether they wanted to include boys is that it totally overlooks the inevitable accusations of transphobia and bigotry that would follow if they said no. He appeared to be oblivious to the evidence that women and girls pay a heavy price for asserting their boundaries and asking that the law be followed.

@MyAmpleSheep you mentioned that they got the law wrong. Was it the bit where they had someone talking about the Equality Act? The presenter asked about the PC of gender reassignment, and she said children won't be undergoing the process of transitioning so the PC of GR doesn't apply when it comes to the Guides. This jumped out at me because it suggested that if someone did have the PC of GR then it would supercede sex and the Guides wouldn't exclude them, when that isn't the case. It is lawful to exclude someone with the PC of GR from a single sex space reserved for the opposite sex. And if she was supposed to be an expert, how are they still getting this so wrong?

I was in the Brownies and Guides in the 70s and 80s. We sang the song:

"There once was a soldier and a general too,
who found out the good that the Boy Scouts could do,
so he started a band for their sisters too,
in the Rangers, the Guides, and the Brownies."

I could go on. Anyway, it seems they are rewriting history. Girls were not allowed to join the Scouts! The Guides were for girls, just girls. Anyone else remember singing this? I couldn't find it on Google.

Just listened and this sums it up beautifully.

He really did demonstrate perfectly why women and girls benefit from not having men and boys in the room.

Not least because, as anyone who's worked or volunteered with kids knows, the scope for disagreement, bullying and ostracisation is huge. As, indeed, Oliver points out himself. So, to add to the above...

• Girls must be allowed to decide for themselves, you authoritarian! (And will, no question, make the "right" and "inclusive" decision).
• Don't you know how unpleasant to each other girls can be?! Bullying's rife in female-only spaces - rife!

I don't think I've ever heard quite such a contradictory and downright confused "argument" in a context like this before.

Girls must be allowed to decide for themselves, you authoritarian!

This one of the stupidest things I ever heard. Children should be allowed to choose what they want for supper (and that, only within reason), and what colour crayon to use for the sky and the water.

Letting children be children, which is something I am in favour of (and so, apparently is Oliver) means the adults make the tough decisions on behalf of and in the best interests of the children.

I just listened. Expected to do some internal screaming, too, but honestly found Oliver's contributions seriously satisfying.

• The law? It can be ignored (and is reeeally confusing anyway).
• The stats on playground use? They don't justify single-sex spaces (btw, the boys totally dominate it at my kids' school, so they instigated a single-sex Tuesday).

• Single-sex spaces? Girls must be allowed to decide for themselves, you authoritarian!
• Single sex schools? I positively forbade my daughter from so much as considering one, in as many words.

• Parents take responsibility for teaching boys better behaviour?! But these boys are children, Milli, children, the poor lambs.
• My own son as a teen? Shocked by his monstrous behaviour, I was - horrified!
• So, yeah, girls used to mollify badly-behaved boys? That's the way to go.

The man was an embarrassment. So - thank you, Oliver.

If there’s anyone here who doesn’t know Milli’s own backstory (in the surprisingly vicious world of pregnancy and birth!) then it is well worth a read:

https://millihill.substack.com/p/i-will-not-be-silenced

That was nearly an hour of my life I will never get back. The presenter was terrible, the so-called expert on the law got it all wrong, and the Oliver person was a complete fool. Milli was reasonable, but I wanted to scream and punch my laptop all the way through the programme.

Typical bloke - fairness feels like an attack to him -classic male entitlement. No matter that 51% of humans are female, they only want to throw us the scraps from their table.

Scouts admitted girls because their numbers were dropping.

Guides still pretend they did not admit boys.