I'm angry. And I want to use it!

[WantSomeEqualitea]

I'm tired of it all, really fucking tired and angry. Tired of second guessing when it's safe for me to go for a run, tired of men trying to row back our hard won rights over our bodies, tired of the woeful conviction rates for sexual assaults.
I want to support women's rights and DO SOMETHING. I live in the sticks where there are no women's groups that I can support and short of signing every petition going I'm struggling to see where I can channel my anger at the state of the world into something useful?

I really think women should legally allowed to carry pepper spray or similar. Not a "weapon" but method of temporarily disabling. AFAIK we're not allowed to carry anything to defend ourselves unless you would feasibly have it on you anyway (holding your keys in your knuckles etc).

If the law won't prevent men from harassing or attacking us, it should enable us to have a fighting chance of defending ourselves.

@TibetanTerrah we are allowed a whistle or personal alarm to "protect " ourselves with 🙄

The world is the best now than at any other time in history, we have everything so easy it's easy to let the little things get our backs up. Focus on how you can be better and make yourself more positive. Anger can so often turn into negative energy.

Allowing women to carry pepper spray would be a disaster with the majority of cases ending up being used on themselves as they underestimate just how strong a man can be when put to the crunch. Random attacks are so rare I don't think anything justifies needing or carrying weapons.

So what exactly is so great about the world for women @Adelishious rape convictions are at all time low, women are losing their rights to their own spaces and the words to define them selves, women are being killed on a daily basis by men. Go on, tell us how good we have it.

What about one of those spray tins of dye stuff. I got one for the house. Attackers can't wash it off. It won't protect you but they won't be able to hide once it's on their skin.

I agree, a ring that has a spike on it for example if you squeeze it. Women wouldn't use it unless they were attacked.

Good idea, but how depressing. Almost like the numerous true crime shows I've seen where the woman knows she's going to die, and all she can do is get as much of his DNA under her fingernails as she can in the hope he'll be caught after she's gone

😂To quote Ed Balls: "all I have to say is my surname, sir."

I'm curious how one could prevent the little wims, and only the little wims, from carrying pepper spray in places where it's legal without violating anti-discrimination laws. Would it be OK for a weak men to carry it - despite the fact that he might also "underestimate just how strong a man can be" - if he somehow affixed it to his penis?

For the serious seats: it's very easy to restrict sale or license carry of items considered weapons and for the approval process to include some form of brief training, including a test if necessary. I've had to do that for mace in certain US states. Where basic training is not required, it's often still available as an option. (I was surprised that in South Africa I had no issue buying a taser without any kind of checks at all, and same with guns in certain parts of the Balkans - although you have to know where to go and what to ask for).

Of course women are going to look toward increasingly sophisticated weapons as a means to neutralise the male advantage of brute physical strength with the current rate of male VAWG, in the UK and globally. In my experience, most women who buy weapons of any kind DO know how to use them and are quite serious about their own safety even compared to the average for weapon-holders of all sexes, precisely because the physical strength variance that drives them to arm in the first place (often against long-held principles) puts them at significantly greater risk if they're disarmed or the weapon malfunctions.

@Conflictedunicorn "go on tell us how good we have it" washing machines tumble dryers and dishwashers to make "our" work easier presumably? How excited we are to have hoovers? Streaming tv services so when we get interrupted to be a support human to someone we can pause our tv program rather than just miss half of it? How awesome it is that we're allowed to have a job at all?

Remember rule 7. Women should always be grateful to men for everything.

Well for the first time in hundreds of thousands of years, we can control our own fertility! You think that's a small thing? And yes white goods mean we ha e been able to have a life outside the domestic setting. That's been ungeard of any other time in history.

It's considered relatively safe to walk around outside. I'm astounded people see these as little things! If course there will still be men who kill women daily, we still live on planet earth, its not a utopia where we all relax in warm misty pools all day, bad things will always happen, that needs to be accepted. But in general, life's good for us.

I'd also not see rape convictions being high as a bad thing! That would signify that there are less occurring as that's usually what lower convictions mean.

There are so many things wrong with that post, Adelishious, that I don't know where to start.

Please do try to make a start, as I didn't think this would be contentious

No need to be angry, OP. Women can have tvs and mobile phones and frozen Mars Bars these days🙄

I’d like to note that Adelishious is on the other thread saying it’s sad if you don’t have babies and a husband and will regret not having them.
So know what kind of views she has…

Watching with interest OP, I’m sick of this shit too.

I'd like to note that this poster is unable to verbalise correctly what they think they've seen in a post. What I found was sad was the amount of people who thought they could not benefit from having a partner. I also only doubted someone woukd likely change their mind if in their early twenties.

It's best to concentrate on what you think, and why you might disagree, rather than obsessing on what others think.

There is other stuff you can do.

Write to your MP asking them to commit to change a law that disadvantages women. I write to mine about cms.

Do you work? What’s the culture like? Can you mentor a younger woman? Call out entitled male behaviour

if you like to read, find an online book club with like minded women to support and uplift you.

Totally get your frustration 🍷

I write letters, meet my MP, respond to consultations, support crowdfunders for various actions.

It depends on what is realistic for you in your current circumstances.

What is the thing that would most make a difference to your quality of life and make you feel that your achieving something positive for a cause that matters to you?

OK I'll bite
"Well for the first time in hundreds of thousands of years, we can control our own fertility!" I am pro contraception, and pro choice but there is a factual error in your statement. (Some) women have had access to contraception throughout the period and at no period, including now, do ALL women enjoy access to freely available reliable contraception and abortion. Women suffer from partners that deliberately withhold or sabotage contraception and (predominately male) lawmakers who believe, in e.g. the USA & China but elsewhere too that women's bodies and lives are some sort of public resources and the birthrate can be turned up (and down) at the lawmakers discretion. More widespread access to reliable contraception is not a bad thing and I personally have been very glad of it but it's still perfectly ok for me to think one thing is bad and misogynistic whilst I (and my husband) have both benefited from additional family planning options. And it's ok for me to be angry on behalf of women who are deliberately denied these resources even though I had them.

"a life outside the domestic setting. That's been ungeard of any other time in history."
Hey I like my white goods as much as anyone but your statement uncritically accepts that washing clothes and cooking are women's work (which let's face it this is the feminism boards so yeah we're going to notice) but also no, having any kind of life in the public rather than the domestic sphere has not been impossible at almost any point in history. Just very very very hard. That then, as now, the stories or brave women straying out of 'their sphere' have been tended to be suppressed or forgotten rather than celebrated does not demonstrate that they did not live or exist but should encourage us to work to seek out their stories, see their point of view, tell their stories to our daughters and sons. Can I recommend Jenni Murray's excellent "A history of the world in 21 women"

https://www.amazon.co.uk/History-World-21-Women-Selection/dp/1786076284/ref=asc_df_1786076284/?tag=googshopuk-21&linkCode=df0&hvadid=372564929488&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=4974639494652263373&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=1006786&hvtargid=pla-817960047355&psc=1&th=1&psc=1&tag=&ref=&adgrpid=74752391165&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvadid=372564929488&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=4974639494652263373&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=1006786&hvtargid=pla-817960047355

As for the first point in (British) history where financially rewarding work outside the home became available to women in a widespread way - it was with the wool trade in the thirteenth/ fourteenth centuries where the monasteries where controlling the wool trade but the monks didn't know how to spin the wool. Working as a spinster meant that a woman could earn enough to keep a house of her own and even support children, elderly relatives or a servant. This made the women quite high status individuals and made marriage optional. So offended and horrified were some by the notion that women could choose whether or not they got married that it was considered that this would bring down society. IF women could choose surely they would all choose not to, right? The word spinster came to be used as simply meaning unmarried woman, and the negative sneering qualities of choosing to become a spinster, as a rejection of men, a rejection of your proper role is clearly seen by the fourteenth century. Nevertheless a woman with children who was abandoned by her husband could afford a place to live food and fuel and to house and feed her mum for childcare.

There that's a start...

Really there was no need to bite. I'm aware women were unable to work much prior to white goods and the like as they had families and much of the work was manual labor that suited men best. I'm a feminist but I don't believe we were necessarily held back by men at any point in time. Generally we worked together in what we're very difficult circumstances for men and women alike.

And I think we can agree that washing and cooking have generally been jobs for women throughout history only with the exception of the past 40-50 years maybe.

@Adelishious read this, then say rape convictions dropping is a good thing.

www.theguardian.com/law/2021/jul/22/cps-accused-of-betraying-victims-as-prosecutions-hit-record-low

OP I agree, I have a daughter. When I stop and think about the sexual assaults I have experienced. Those of my peers and the continuing excuses for male violence against women and girls along with "helpful" suggestions of how we should protect ourselves I too get angry and wonder wtf anyone with half a brain would think its either acceptable or our responsibility to solve.

Hi OP. Are you any good at writing?