please help me reply to a doubter

[hackneyandbow]

I'm not great with words and I don't remember stats etc very well. I'm mortified to say that when a man asked me 'go on then what basic rights do you not have?' I froze. Because I felt put on the spot and because I didn't feel prepared with a good researched answer

There should be no legal rights you don't have that men don't have. Unfortunately the judiciary, enforcement authorities and society waive those rights on a daily basis, with society/patriarchal support.

It's not enough to have rights on paper.

According to the law we have equal rights in the UK (except when it comes to bodily autonomy - we can still be told what to do if we are pregnant and need an abortion).

Rights on paper are useless if nobody gives a shit about them. E.g.:

• rape is illegal yet only a tiny number of rapists are convicted

• maternity discrimination is illegal yet more common than it was 10 years ago and has gone up 60% in the last year.

• FGM is illegal in the UK yet there have been no prosecutions, despite known cases of the procedure taking place in the UK, despite an estimated 20,000 girls in the UK thought to be at risk and despite a new cohort of 5-9 y/o 'visiting home' each summer.

Rinse and repeat.

If you want to know whether feminism is still needed you need to look at how women and girls are actually faring, not what it says on a bit of paper somewhere. After all, the UN and WHO and other worldwide orgs have said some lovely things about women's equality. Anybody reading international laws, treaties, initiatives bla bla bla would think women are enjoying equal rights all over the world and everybody's fighting to make this happen but this is clearly not the case.

And the rights we do have on paper are under threat. It is getting harder and harder to identify female people as a group. If we can't name ourselves as a group, if we can't name sex-based oppression, we can't fight it.

For men to not be patronising.

I wouldn't even bother, he is clearly a knob

The right to not have to justify yourself to men.

Yep to QS. My question would be who is this guy in relation to you and can you really be bothered? It is so obvious that in our society we have yet to achieve equality between women and men. A man who doesn't see that is either trying really hard not to, completely ignorant, or both. Life is far too short.

That too, Quentin.

hackneyandbow , now that you have had time to think about it, do you have answer for him ?

thank you thank you thank you. You've all said what I BELIEVE and in fact what I know but I just couldn't get the words out in such a way. As you say there isn't much in paper but that's not what matter and in the real world

So what you are saying, is that there ought to be the 'right' not to be the victim of crime and the 'right' not to be offended ? - and that these ought to be 'rights' owed to you by other private individuals rather the State (which are those type of rights contained in the Human Rights Act), it seems ?

Hackney... the kinds of people who ask things like this and those who defend them are snarky useless fuckwits and best ignored. They just do it to get a rise out of people, I'd not waste your breath.

The right to full bodily autonomy. The right to end a pregnancy without permission, or authorisation, or justification, or threat of criminalisation.

The right to be objectively and legally defined as a closed sex category, measured statistically for the purposes of assessing whether any of the 'rights' conferred on paper are executable in practice.

'Giving' someone a theoretical right is pointless if that individual is prevented from exercising that right.

No point telling me I have a right to privacy if you've granted others the right to overrule me and invade that privacy.

There's also something around whether equal rights in law means equal rights in practice.
Although it's illegal to discriminate on the grounds of pregnancy/motherhood, in reality it's still a problem.
Although it's illegal to pay women less, the gender pay gap still persists.
Although it's illegal to rape your wife, men still do that.
Although it's illegal to perform FGM, girls in this country and around the world are still being cut.
On and on, ad nauseum. He doesn't want to hear this though, which is why I wouldn't bother personally.

'go on then what basic rights do you not have?' is a red herring.
Its not just about rights in law, its also about respect in everyday life.

In the UK 3 women are killed every week by a partner or ex.
Men leave their families in poverty and avoid paying child support.
DV shelters and Rape Crisis are chronically underfunded.

Theres more work to do.

The right to have your own experience respected and not having an asshole who knows nothing trying to tell you that you are not oppressed under patriarchy.

Ask him why he doesn't walk around asking MRAs why they hate women and what rights they don't have that women have.

There he has his answer.

But I'd just not bother. Tell such men "The right to not be asked stupid questions" and walk away if you don't have to stay there for some reason.