To be alarmed at the number of women who are throwing support behind causes that are clearly anti-woman?

[DorothyGaleFromKansas]

With the recent threads about flags/immigrants and Charlie Kirk etc, there seem to be a bewildering number of women supporting causes that directly go against their own interests, and it’s baffling and frankly a bit disturbing.

Reform have voted against tougher laws on stalking, sexual harassment and upskirting, against clamping down on revenge porn, and against further protections in the workplace. Farage cited Andrew Tate as “an important voice for men”.

Then you have Trump, who was found to have committed rape, forced himself into changing rooms where teenagers were undressing, made sexual comments about his own daughter, not to mention 34 other felonies, and that’s before we even get to the Epstein files.

Charlie Kirk said that women should only vote if they were voting for the candidate chosen by their husband, that women shouldn’t go on to higher education unless it was to find a husband, that women should have to submit to their husbands, and that little girls as young as 9 or 10 including his own daughters should be forced to give birth to babies conceived as a result of rape.

What has happened to us that there are so many women willing to endorse attitudes like this? And how do we fix it?! How have we sunk so low that there are women who think this is what we all deserve? It’s terrifying.

For example Stephen King has just retracted a tweet on Twitter claiming Kirk said X, Y & Z and I've seen other people unable to give links / sources when challenged.

Here you go. No doubt it's 'fake news'.

Did you read the same book as me?

How can you possibly think this is a side issue? Where on earth have you been? Have you not been listening or thinking?

All the things you mention in your OP (if they are true - I know very little about Charlie Kirk) are abhorrent and bad for women. It is also abhorrent and bad for women to strip away their hard fought-for rights just to prevent a small minority of men from feeling sad.

Women in the UK are currently in the shitty position of there being NO party that stands up for our rights. Indeed, there are parties actively campaigning to take them away, while having the breathtaking gall to act as though that is virtuous.

’Trans rights’ are not the issue, women’s rights are. Your ability to swing your fist ends at my nose.

If you’re so keen on women’s rights, why is it that you think women should should be left less safe and lose their ability to self-determine or win women’s prizes, because some men want to muscle in? Why would you centre men in this way if you’re supposedly interested in women’s welfare?

Also, why are you so interested in shutting this part of the discussion down?

@meeleymanatee fair enough.

I will say that prices have gone up everywhere. Not in the UK and we have a right-wing govt here and the price increases are painful. I don't think it's politics in the UK so much as world wide price increases and what I'm absolutely certain about is that somewhere some unpleasant people are trying to fan these flames of hate. If nothing else, Musk is trying hard to get the EU to roll back rules on disinformation (lies). Something is going on and it's not only about the extreme right and the extreme left, both of whom are as revolting as each other.

The old chestnut that the huge companies are still raking in massive profits while paying very little tax while ordinary people struggle is still true too. A lot of smoke and mirrors is going on to point away from them.

Charlie Kirk's whole career was based on debate and you think we shouldn't have a debate??? His words are immortalised for all to read or watch and so it is not slander, it's straight from his own mouth. In any case, Imagine not talking about the words of anyone who has passed away? I mean, really.

Well that's depressing. Yes, I guess it can come down to caring about getting the best tax deals to grow your personal wealth more than than the safety, dignity and rights of half of the population...

I don't know. I've read the Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood.

I don’t think so. I think you’ve misquoted the first two.

I’m a liberal atheist, so I don’t agree with CK on much. You probably think what he did say is not much better, but you ought to be honest. He never hid what he believed or tried to sugar coat it, so he’s not made it difficult.

1. He objected to Democratic ads that suggested women should lie to their husbands about who they had voted for. He felt that undermined marriage. He’s a conservative Christian. I would be very surprised if he thought that men should lie to their wives about their vote either.

I don’t think husbands and wives should lie to each other about who they voted for either. I’d also be irritated by a political ad that suggested they do.

That’s very different from saying only married women should vote and they should vote as their husband tells them to.

2. As far as I can find, he has said that going to college to look for a husband is a good reason to go.

Frankly I don’t think it’s a bad reason either.

That’s a million miles from saying that women should not go to college except for that reason.

3&4) Yes he believed those things.

He’s a conservative Christian so presumably at least some women who agree with him do so because they are too.

Whether they should be or not’s a different question.

But I think atheists need to acknowledge that many religious people come to their policy positions because they are seeking what’s actually true, as divinely commanded or revealed, not because they want to do women down. In that narrow respect I admire them. I also want my beliefs to align with what’s actually true too, not just what’s popular or benefits my group.

Why do people vote for their oppression? Because it is hard to be free and do things for yourself. To sustain yourself. To think that there are problems in your society which you can’t change and hope someone else will.

I don’t think any party is good about violence towards women and children. It is ignored. Yet it’s likely the reason why we have violent men, men who hurt and abuse their families. Most men in prison had abusive fathers. It all starts at home.

Women are more blind to the reason why men are violent or abusive. It’s not a complex reason. The man doesn’t have to fear her or his children because they are weak. He does it to control them, because it works. It means he gets what he wants.

This is not complicated but somehow we never want to admit it publicly because it’s so many men, and we spend our time pointing at immigrant men who might do this publicly as if that’s worse. Let’s be honest, it’s the same. Men pushing those who are weaker. Women voting for “protection”.

I think this when I see females protesting in the stand up to racism protests. I’m not sure they understand that they are protecting guys that despise western women and western culture. Infact they don’t value their own women.

I just don't remember all the porn.

Do you actually know any Muslims? Have you been to a Muslim country?

There wasn't "all the porn", she was considering some of the drawbacks of a liberal society for women. That just because Gilead exists - doesn't mean the previous society was some perfect egalitarian utopia.

Totally agree but Labour did promise more money in my pocket and I’m seeing absolutely none of that! Net zero seems to be doing nothing apart from raise bills and grind us all down… I live in the south east so am expecting a great big whack up in my council tax. Constant price rises in transport. My local rail network back under government control and remains crap and expensive. My employer can’t raise wages this year at all due to the NI taxes. Commuting sucks because everyone is on strike. This week I have had to pay for breakfast club because of the tube stikes meant I had to leave at the crack of dawn. Pay for it. No free breakfast clubs here. So yes, I am a woman and labour can go fuck themsleves because I feel less safe, have less money and less time to spend with my family.

and yes price rises are everywhere - I went to anerica in the months before the election and it was insane. To the point a lot of people were simply voting for change.

He was a political influencer but he was NOT a politician. He was never elected by anybody.

Is this a different version of the book to the one I read?

@meeleymanatee it's hard to know where it will end isn't it. But the way that politics are going and the heat and the hate don't make it seem like things are going to improve :/

I know right.

and not helped my OP telling me how I should think.

This may come as a shock to you but many “females” are not white.

Many “females” are from those cultures you find abhorrent and still oppose racism and misogyny (and also don’t feel devalued.)

Many “females” are as, (if not more) impacted by racism as they are by misogyny.

OK you implied a bigger emphasis on it than I remember.

Maybe read it again. It's all there.

Have to say that I agree with the OP that Tate and Trump are both horrible in terms of women's rights and personally I see Charlie Kirk as the handsome face of an anti-women's-rights moment that is very much on the path of Gilead, but that's where we can agree to differ!

You used the term 'all the porn' - not me.

You see, i don’t see things that way, I see it that those who fall for populist policy as the ones who see things, simplistically. All societal ills are simply the fault of immigrants or people on benefits and trans people if only we got rid of them, everything would be better, but it doesn’t bear out in fact. There are constant lies about the country being ‘’lawless’’, immigrants being sex offenders, living in luxury accommodation, given everything. It’s all bullshit. And that’s just on one topic.

The right base their views on emotion and regurgitate lies fed to them by the right wing media, they are under the illusion they are thinking for themselves but they aren’t. It’s all just driven by hate. There never seems to be any nuance, or any objectivity.

The right accuse the left of being violent, yet this has consistently been disproven. It’s the right that call for violence most often, as widely evidenced.

They expect the left to be empathetic and not dehumanise others, yet they are quite happy to dehumanise people based off nothing but the colour of their skin and lies they’ve been told. Celebrating people drowning in the channel and calling other people ‘’rats’’ and ‘’aliens’’, yet, when CK gets murdered, they’re up in arms, they don’t like it! I haven’t seen anyone ‘’celebrate’’ his death, I’ve seen people expressing indifference, that’s it.

Then they say things like ‘’the left live in an echo chamber and are brainwashed’’ yet they themselves constantly repeat misinformation and tired arguments that are easily debunked. I constantly read on social media like, ‘’80% of the country think the same’’ No, they don’t, that’s because you’re in an algorithm spiral and the people you associate with have the same views.

The hypocrisy and lack of self awareness is astounding.

What I think is wrong is mistaking women being shocked at a controversial opinion leader being shot to death during a debate on a university campus, with their being “supporters of causes that are anti woman”. It’s ok to just think murder is wrong. I said on another thread, I’d be equally shocked and disturbed if it were a left wing speaker.