Thoughts on this tweet?

I don't think it's an old fashioned understanding of rights at all.

It's a lack of understanding of why rights were introduced at all in the first place. What was the need, what purpose did it serve and what was the objective?

Every time we talk about single sex provision, the fundamentals are about why it was introduced and whether that needs, purpose and objective are still legitimate.

These are the arguments the men's rights activists and Incels can not counter. They don't know the history and they don't agree with the purpose so they pretend the need doesn't exist. Women know it does.

It's a lack of understanding of why rights were introduced at all in the first place. What was the need, what purpose did it serve and what was the objective?

Isn't that the same thing? I'm thinking of commentators like Rory Stewart and Alistair Campbell who are politely baffled that we can't just help the most marginalised. Also the Remainiacs podcast gang.

Class.

It's all about a privileged experience of life.

Single sex provision is needed by and used more thr further you go down the social ladder.

These two fuck wits are totally clueless.

I think that is what I am saying.

Many people who identify as progressive consciously or unconsciously do not want the class structures from which they benefit to be threatened.

It's safe to help 'the most marginalised', just as long as those 'most marginalised' people stay marginalised and don't threaten the established order.

The argument that 50% of the population have needs that men don't, and those needs should be met simply because it is fair (even in a world where women aren't marginalised) is a threat.

I have been tossing an idea around for a while, seems as good a time as any to share it....

Should social progress be like a roller blind or a roman blind?

When you raise a roller blind, all the blind moves up. The bit nearest the top reaches the top first, then the next and so on. The bit at the bottom is the last to catch up to the top.

When you raise a roman blind, only the lowest section moves. First the very bottom comes to meet the next lowest. Then they move together to meet the next next lowest, and so on. Higher levels remain untouched until all the lower levels come up together.

At first thought, the Roman blind seems best. Elevate everyone on the very bottom to the next rung before the people nearer the top move up.

But look at it the other way, and it also means the people at the top are totally insulated from being affected by change until the very end. Each step, it's only the relatively lower end that has to accomodate the one below moving up.

Whereas with the roller blind, everyone is moving up. There's no punching at the lower levels because the people who were there are also moving up. Now it's the top end that feels the bunching.

I don't have a "right" answer here BTW. I just found it a helpful metaphor for thinking about social progression and support for different, sometimes competing disadvantaged groups, and how the top can promote social change that impacts those groups knowing they themselves are inured from it.

All this.

I think for some women there is a subconscious comfort in believing these men are vulnerable and need women to support/protect/save them. It puts them in a position of power and the man in the position of needing them.

And they couldn't be more wrong, the one with the power is the man manipulating the women into believing the bullshit vulnerable, most oppressed rhetoric. As far as these men are concerned the women pandering to them are nothing more than useful idiots they are viewed with the same levels of contempt that women who don't fall for their lies are. There will come a day it will dawn on these women just how they have been used and played and I have no sympathy for these women when it does.

it is unkind to call them men

It is more than unkind to force, coerce, demand, or expect someone to participate in a lie.

Men are not, cannot and never will be women, that is a fact, that is the truth. Men can lie to themselves all they like about their womaness but there should never be any compunction on anyone else to do so and if that upsets those men, tough.

I agree.

I often think I'd be interested in a psychologist's view of these behaviours, and a few different variants are visible.

Codependence is one that flags a lot in listening to such women talk.
Beauty and the beast/saviour fantasies - certain political figures come to mind there in their romanticised views of such men.
The way some older women get very silly over some groups of young men, where 'mummying' seems to get a bit tangled up with Mrs Robinson
The kind of vicious sadism you see on the relationship board sometimes where a woman who has been hurt by a sexist system is now utterly determined to meet her own needs by seeing other women not escape sexist oppression and injury (the kind of poster on MiL threads who responds to 'my MiL burned the house down and ate our children' with accusations of 'you don't LIKE her, do you?')
The penis portion type women who just need to prove their own mummyhood or womanhood by loudly indulging men over women's interests and equalities.

Needs are being met, whatever cause for the behaviour could be pinned down. These women are using and abusing women through the power provided second hand to them through those men just as much as the men themselves are.

I agree, not specifically thinking about trans identifying people here but a general pattern where women or teenage girls are supportive of vulnerable men / teenage boys then find said men/boys can be just selfish, sexist and manipulative towards women/girls as other men/boys. "Not being like other men" turns out not to guarantee being any more sympathetic or caring towards women than other men.

I like your roller/Roman blind theory @FlirtsWithRhinos

I am reminded of the takeover of the Deptford Project -

https://www.feministcurrent.com/2018/03/23/leftist-women-uk-refuse-accept-labours-attempts-silence-critiques-gender-identity/

After Jon Ronson's 'bewildered' schtick, maybe 'baffled' men is the new way to weasel out of things. Just wander about being bemused, baffled, and bewildered, like you have no part in anything and can't possibly be held responsible. We see you, Louis Theroux.

thecritic.co.uk/a-castle-of-bewilderment/

Gosh us chaps are just so utterly baffled as to why women dont want to get undressed in front of men dressed as 70s hookers <shakes fringe and blinks eyes>.

I think it's more through luck than judgement that neither Theroux nor Ronson ever did a 'baffled' doc on the amusing oddness of Jeffrey Epstein.

Anyone ever met a woman who couldn't tell the difference between a man helicoptering his dick in a single sex space - or sitting wanking in a cubicle- because he was 'bewildered' or so bloody disorientated and incapacitated he needed help - and a man who is an utter bloody arse busy committing a sex offence?

No?

Another mad excuse dismissed.

A point that is not often considered by those who say that people can just avoid using pronouns for those who demand wrong sex pronouns is that if it is done for only those individuals, it can be described as discriminatory behaviour as well by some people and some organisations.

This was mentioned in this news report about Peter Vlaming in this video clip.

https://x.com/irenebritusa/status/2096019109620428984/video/1

as well as a link to the video the tweet says :

https://x.com/irenebritusa/status/2096019109620428984/video/1?s=46

“Never forget! In 2018, a teacher was fired for unintentionally using she/her pronouns. In a virtual reality activity in class, he said: "don't let her walk into the wall". The student identified as a boy. The superintendent said avoiding the use of pronouns altogether was discriminatory, too. She claimed the teacher only did that with the transgender student. After a lengthy legal battle, a $575 000 settlement was reached in 2024.”

Here is a summary about Vlaming’s case.

https://adflegal.org/case/vlaming-v-west-point-school-board/#case-details

Yeah, that does sound totally plausible.

It's fricken cowardly.