...to be baffled, sad and angry that Paris Lees is speaking at the Women's March tomorrow?

[ArcheryAnnie]

So, Paris Lees has been invited to address the "Time's Up" rally opposite Downing Street tomorrow, organised by the Women's March London. The "Time's Up" initiative "provides advice and support to women across all industries who have experienced sexual harassment or abuse at work."

But wait! Paris Lees is in favour of street harrassment of women, and writes articles in places like Vice, making sure lots of men know that catcalls are cool and sexy, and making sure lots of women know they have been "infantilised", and aren't nearly as brave as cool, sexy Paris, if they don't like it.

www.vice.com/sv/article/zn7b79/enjoying-catcalls-paris-lees-column

AIBU to be absolutely baffled, as well as sad and angry, that Paris Lees has been asked to speak for women at an event opposing sexual harrassment?

A cat call has fuck all to do with appreciation of ones womanly assets. Its humiliation.
An act of terror really.
A trans woman would never, in a million years of hormones or hair removal, ever truly understand what that felt like as their body is an ode to their fetish. Her acceptance of this behaviour just makes it clear she has objectified the female body as a man, it ought to be available to men and to snub male attention is rude

And yes, 100% THIS!

I remember when Gok Wan was doing his show about clothes thinking, great, now women are supposed to need a man to tell them how to dress. the clothes were terrible anyway
So now we have Paris Lees telling us how to be a woman.

There are some terrific female sex writers now. I refer you to Kate Sloan, for example.

So now we have Paris Lees telling us how to be a woman.

Yes, except Lees is not telling us how to be a woman, they are telling us how they see women.

What's that thing on the relationships board? When a man tells you what he is, listen.

re Gok Wan, men have been working designing women's clothes for centuries anyway, though that certainly explains the complete lack of practicality involved.

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.glamour.com/story/finding-my-anterior-fornix-unlocked-best-orgasm-of-my-life/amp

Well I kind of felt those articles were kinda instructional in their tone, is what I meant by “tell us how to be women”

And when it comes to men designing women’s clothes, I give you... high heels. Work of the devil IMO.

I see you and raise you with foot binding. #fetish

Katy Bowman wrote a whole thick book on how women's shoes fuck up our bodies:

www.amazon.co.uk/Every-Womans-Guide-Foot-Relief/dp/1936661071

Thanks for the email address. I've emailed them. Paris is disgusting. Utterly disgusting.

never wore high heels

really mystified by their popularity tbh.

I’m quite tall and heels make me giant, hehehe - like a giraffe. Not sexy, just very tall.

I'm short
I've even had employment agencies try to tell me to go to interviews in heels.

Paris Lees doesn't speak for me. A very odd choice to pick Lees to speak about harassment. Someone who likes getting 'cat-called' should not be speaking about it at a woman's rally.

Geronimoleapinglizards

I agree those lines that Paris likes seem to be taken from a porn film no doubt directed by a man

I think what Paris doesn’t get is the fine line that then feels uncomfortable and often threatening and degrading.

A man admiring your looks and if you find him attractive that can feel good of course but it can so easily feel degrading, two men looking at you when you are walking down a street in broad daylight can feel very threatening (even one man). Dirty talk between a couple great but still the boundaries are there becuase for women (and I don’t believe for men it is the same) are so easily crossed becuase in the end we are more vulnerable physically Paris isn’t

Who said that what men fear most is being laughed at by women and what women fear most is men being violent it’s so true

@EnthusiasmIsDisturbed - indeed

en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Talk:Margaret_Atwood

"The most common way the quote is phrased is above: "Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them.". However, various other phrasings are also found:

Novelist Margaret Atwood writes that when she asked a male friend why men feel threatened by women, he answered, "They are afraid women will laugh at them." When she asked a group of women why they feel threatened by men, they said, "We're afraid of being killed.""

No problem with trans.

I do have a problem with trans telling me as a woman how to behave or representing me at marches etc.

People have no right to assume they speak on behalf of anyone besides themselves.
3rd rule of misogyny: Women speaking for themselves are exclusionary and selfish.

The second annual women's march was enormous. Filling the streets, taking up space, is significant in a world where 17% female participation in a group is viewed by men as half and 30% is viewed as most.
As more women realize they need to take a stand against the war on women there will be more women speaking up and speaking out about being displaced by males.
My question regarding trans identified males displacing women remains the same.
Can you mandate belief?
Can you codify into law the idea that some people can mind over matter themselves out of material reality and into the opposite sex and must be treated accordingly?
It is like transubstantiation. A belief that no one actually believes.
Will you allow people to drug and mutilate children based on this belief that no one believes?

The women’s march has been completely hijacked by the trans movement. Some of them have banned pink pussy hats for being transphobic. There’s a trans dominatrix speaking at one in Canada. Janet Mock, the transwoman who described women as ‘fish’ spoke at one last year. They don’t represent me.

RedOnion the US Women's March had a self-confessed rapist, Cherno Biko, speaking from the platform. Biko had written about raping a woman who identified as a transman, with the intent of impregnating them. These were not allegations from a third party - Biko wrote the article identifying Biko as a rapist. This didn't stop the Women's March from inviting Biko as a speaker.

It's so, so fucked up.

I do not dispute that the effort to displace women with trans identified males has been ongoing. But uppity women are disobedient women and the efforts have been swamped by millions of women taking up space in public in solidarity with women and it warms my cold old women's libber heart to see them say no to men and make it stick.

Filling the streets, taking up space, is significant in a world where 17% female participation in a group is viewed by men as half and 30% is viewed as most.

That bears repeating: it's so important. This is how 51% of the population is viewed. And that more than 30% of us is "too much."

Just taking part and being in public is hard for many many women around the world. So the Women's arches are really important.

But how can we stand in the crowd and have Paris - nasty, misogynist, ridiculous Paris - lecture us on feminism? In a crowd like that we face the choice of speaking up and getting beaten up as "TERFs", or of having our approval of all this nonsense assumed?

Yes it is bloody ridiculous