Equality gone

[creeeepy]

Over the years many of us fought for equality for women.

Equal rights financially so we could have our own mortgages, bank accounts, credit cards and own our own property, to ensure our property wouldn’t become our husbands upon marriage.

Equal rights educationally so we could attend further education, be plumbers, be carpenters, barristers even judges - perhaps professors in universities

Equal rights sexually so we could be in control of our own bodies, rape could he reported whether in marriage or not, the right to contraception and abortion (whether you agree or not) it was not in control of anyone else but ourselves.

Equal rights in the workplace, so we could be paid the same money for doing exactly the same job, so our rights were the same as men, so that we didn’t have to leave our jobs when we married so we received the same pension at the same time as men (quite rightly for men who were penalised for many years)

so many things had to be fought for, they’re not all listed here

but now

Women aren’t even recognised as being deserving of
the right to their own changing rooms
the right to female own hospital wards
the right to female on female searches
the right to female only nurses/doctors
the right to their own female sports teams
the right to their own toilets.

etc.

AIBU to think equality for women has taken a HUGE backward step?

For context I’m a very happily married woman who thinks men are wonderful.

Can't you just scroll on past if you aren't interested? Because what's more boring than deliberately clicking on a thread that you have no interest in, is clicking on a thread to read and having it clogged up with pointless posts from "disinterested" people who can't help sharing their unimportant opinion about what's boring. No one cares.

This isn't an anti trans thread. It's about women's hard won rights that are diminishing daily. HTH

And yet you try to turn this into a thread about trans women (who are not women).

It is possible to be pro women’s rights without being anti trans.

This.
This is how allowing transwomen to access women's spaces and services rolls back women's hard won rights.

This also, but then in addition monitoring the gender pay gap will no longer be necessary, as men in dresses will have nicely plugged the gender pay gap.

ffs why frame women’s equality as anti trans. DFOD

Well you don’t speak for me, any the female members of my family or the majority of women.

Do feel free to go and use the mixed sex facilities to keep the men banned from female facilities company. You can spend all the time in the world ‘validating’ them as ‘women’. Fill your boots.

Correct me if I’m wrong but this is Mumsnet so by definition will be largely used by women (as only women can be mums obvs).

Women’s rights affect women so it would seem perfectly legitimate to discuss on a predominantly women’s forum - no?

It is easy to underestimate the determining some men to invade female spaces. We saw the ‘piss protest’ on the steps of the EHRC (where men in dresses poured bottles of urine over themselves), the violent protests every time a group of women meet in public to speak, the topless protests in London (where men showed their moobs to the world impressing few) and most dangerously, the brainwashing of entire governments (Scotland, Wales, Westminster) who are all purposely ignoring the law and keeping in place unlawful policies that allow disordered men with any motivation into women’s spaces if they say the magic words.

They’ve been fighting for this for 20+ years, they will not give up easily.

Women just want them to stay in their lane - they have two choices male or mixed. If a trans works in an industry with a pay gap does he opt for the lower pay?

Do you not think its important that woman is defined as bio woman though, whatever the right. If you can't name it you can't defend/ fight for it.

OP, if you've been here more than a few hours then you'd know that you'd be told you were NBU.

When you look at who benefits from trans rights activism (males) and who loses (females), it’s very clear that it’s just another men’s rights movement but with a ‘progressive’ sticker on it. The push back on women’s human rights is coming from the political right and left, they just frame it differently.

I think female equality remains something of an illusion. Which is why the entire idea of it hangs by such a delicate thread.

For example, women achieved equality in the work place but habitually not in the home. The majority of women still take primary responsibility of the family home, and in lone parent households the majority of said lone parents are women.

I think the reasons for this lack of continuity between work/home are complex. I did the career and, when I became a Mum, I wanted to leave and be a SAHM. I wasn't expected or pressured to do the latter, indeed everything was geared against it. All my child care options/incentives involved someone else caring for my child. In addition, it was deemed entirely socially unacceptable to adopt 'gender roles' (for want of a better expression!) where my husband was earning and I was looking after our daughter (even though that was what I wanted).

I felt obliged to do it by stealth almost, dropping days gradually. I left entirely 6 or so years ago, and (even though my daughter is now almost 16) I have no intention of resuming my career. I have my own savings and pension pot, and I could resume my career at any point by choice. I don't want to though, I like being a housewife (I love it actually, much as that will horrify some!).

I think women (with children) are conflicted, many want to be their child's primary care giver, but society has made it nigh on impossible in both a practical (financial) sense and in the socially acceptable sense (being a SAHM is perceived as almost a shameful pursuit). That's why I describe the situation as complex, because I think women have gone from being obliged to stay at home to being obliged to be in the workplace (reluctantly I think, for many women. Most of my female friends would chuck it tomorrow if they could. I can't think of any male friends who willingly would, indeed none of them want to retire).

Has female equality (or the perception of it) inadvertantly contributed to this 'gender melting pot'? I'm not giving an opinion here by the way, just trying to make sense of how we've arrived at this crazy juncture.

Given that the person who introduced trans peiple into the thread was, presumably, a supporter of trans rights you might want to take it up with them rather than women talking about women's issues

It is depressingly tiresome to have every discussion about womens rights turned into a "what about trans" argument

Try not to do that again

I’m sorry, but this is extraordinarily naive.

Male predators can spot chinks in an armour from 200 miles away. Once ‘men’ are allowed into women’s (supposedly) safe spaces, we’re all under threat. All women, and all good men.

Same. I think the ultra right BS spouted across the internet on a daily basis is a much bigger threat. Reading about the US turning into Gilead in real time gives me the creeps and it IS coming for us if we don't watch out. (The below is just a tiny sample of the BS I'm talking about)
newrepublic.com/article/204519/right-taking-aim-undoing-coeduation

Do I? I am not bothered in the slightest about trans women (aka men) using women's changing rooms or joining sports teams etc

FTFY, @BigYellowBus.

To reframe this for a sec: in the last sensus (2021) only 0.1% of the population of England and Wales came up as transwomen. Last year, an Ipsos study found that 59% of UK male respondents thought that promoting women's equality has gone too far and discriminates against men.
So we have:

• Males who identify with/as us (0.1%, tiny segment of the population)
• a SIZEABLE majority of men who would like to see us LESS equal and more controlled.

I think I know which category is the main problem here.

Interesting that you believe that you can consent for other people.

And just FYI Trans women are men.

Celestialmoods · Today 02:13
There are valid reasons why trans women shouldn’t be in female
sports of prisons etc, but they have nothing to do with rights to abortion, equal pay and all the rest of it.

Once you have redefined woman to include men it becomes a meaningless term. It means that any rights that women have become invalid because it also includes men.

Your two groups are the same thing - sexist Men.

If there is no definition of woman that doesn’t include males then women do not exist as a sex class.

If women do not exist as a sex class then all the issues and discrimination we suffer due to our biology cannot be recognised.

If the issues and discrimination due to biology including risk of sexual assault, pregnancy, motherhood, menstruation, menopause, higher risk of autoimmune diseases, different responses to medication, different heart attack symptoms, size and strength differences in sport including greater concussion risk, different dementia and osteoporosis risk, even the way seatbelts fit etc are not recognised then women’s needs will be sidelined.

This is why we must actively protect the definition of woman to mean an adult human female otherwise the world will revert to focusing on males as the default and women’s needs will be secondary.

It was never just about toilets or even changing rooms - it is about women’s rights and needs having equal status and recognition to those of men.

Power corrupts and no one cedes power willingly.
We should not be surprised that men are trying to put women back into the places that they would like them to stay in.
We have to keep pushing back and facing them down.
Trans women are NOT women. Trans women are a subset of men.