Women: stop listening to your instincts, they are wrong

[WombOfOnesOwn]

i.imgur.com/jexsq2f.jpg

This sign appeared at an acquaintance's university recently.

Imagine this logic applied in any other arena: "If you see someone who looks like they might be here for the wrong reasons or who doesn't belong here, don't criticize them or alert anyone, and instead make them feel supported and safe." Imagine it at the airport. On factory floors. In corporate board meetings.

Why do you suppose it is that only women's private spaces, where women go without cameras and surveillance and often go alone, are being targeted by this kind of messaging and rhetoric? Why is it that we have spent years as a society talking about the importance of caution and noticing our environment, only to say "yeah, but anywhere women have their pants off is an exception!"

It baffles me that "say something if you see something" is applied to a huge variety of situations involving security and safeguarding, but women's vulnerable spaces are areas where they are apparently supposed to completely ignore the same instincts they were told to hone in other situations.

Toronto University had to completely repeal their bathroom policy as female students complained. Although it was bathrooms not toilets.

gendertrender.wordpress.com/?s=Bathrooms&submit=Search

Maybe the posters were made in response to this incident in 2013 gendertrender.wordpress.com/?s=Toilet+&submit=Search

Scroll down 4 paragraphs for the real story.

My friend is a very butch (her word) woman who looks a bit manly and wears men's clothes. She always asks one of her friends to accompany her to the loo in case she is challenged. I think that's sad tbh.

I think that is sad and probably the reason she worries is because she is actually a woman.
In my personal experience a woman, no matter how butch, still feels like a woman. And a man, no matter how trans still feels like man. There is something brusque and assuming about male body movements and something acknowledging and accommodating about female's. You sense this nowhere more acutely than the women's toilets.

If a man walks into a womens space, our anxiety levels go up. Its an automatic response to a potential threat. We then go on to assess his behaviour to see if he is an actual threat or not. If he brings in a child for example, everyone breathes a sigh of relief.
Some predators know that and work to reassure us that they are not a threat. We should never tell ourselves we are over reacting and not to be so silly, even if they seem nice and chatty.

Notafish

That link. Bloody misleading to the point of deceit. Loved the exposure:

I’m going to go right out on a limb here, and flat out state that NO WOMAN EVER wants to change her tampon in a room with a guy whose most important statement about himself is that his beloved penis is a weapon that can fracture bones.

DJ

Which is why any male who wants to force his unwanted presence on women and trample over their boundaries is a huge red flag for me personally.

Yes , I should drag out some more quotes Datun. It's worth the read. I was quite shocked when I read it.

Notafish

This is the reason why I love Gallus Meg. I don't know if she's some kind of software genius, but she manages to find all the dodgy profiles of these people, where the media have not. Either deliberately or just negligently.

She takes no quarter.

venusinscorpio Precisely. And its why I won't parrot Not All Men Are Like That. If you have to use that argument the man you are talking to is putting their hurt feelings over your safety - he's not a nice guy or an ally.

But nobody is asking women to ignore behaviour they find threatening or worrying.

if someone with a male body is deliberately going into a place designed to give female-bodied people some privacy from males, then that behaviour is threatening and worrying, That1950sMum.

OK, I'll accept I'm in the minority here.

I still don't see it as an issue, but clearly lots of you do.

Thanks 1950s. All we are asking is for our feelings to be worthy of consideration too, and for a compromise solution to be found.

Toronto University had to completely repeal their bathroom policy as female students complained. Although it was bathrooms not toilets.

I had a look at that link. I seems their solution, is not solution at all. See below.

Melinda Scott, the dean of students at University College, said some bathrooms in Whitney Hall have now been designated specifically for residents who identify as men or women. However, several gender-neutral bathrooms remain.

“The purpose of this temporary measure is to provide a safe space for the women who have been directly impacted by the incidents of voyeurism and other students who may feel more comfortable in a single-gender washroom,” said Scott.

"and for a compromise solution to be found.........."

1. Posters and political activism in the GENTS to suggest that it isn't okay to make gender non-conforming males, or males who you think might be gay, or effeminate males, or men in dresses, or drag queens, or transwomen, or in general any other male who is just going about his business and wants to pee -- feel uncomfortable, challenged or threatened.

2. Leave the ladies loo alone, since dykes, bulldaggers, laydees in suits and ties, ladies with hairy legs and short hair, ladies in trousers, ladies in sensible footwear, and in fact females in general, tend not to get threatened or beaten up by other females. And let us carry on double-checking when a butch dyke saunters in, then being reassured when we realise they are just another female...........

Job done. Let the males sort out their own shit :-)

YY Some!

Thanks, That1950sMum. I hear "but I'M not bothered so it's not an issue" so much, and it completely leaves behind all the women for whom it is an issue.

I saw A TW tweet an MP about how they felt unsafe using the mens loos and needed access to the women's. I clicked on their profile and you had some late transitioning male publicly extolling the joys of their sissy bondage fetish, pic after pic of them in their sexy outfits being tied up and gagged - sll very explicit. Do i think all TW are like this? Not at all but i've seen enough and read enough to see that this isn't that unusual. Like folk have said, red flags going up on many of those demanding access to all women's spaces - with absolutely no thought to how their presence might affect women and girls.

Also the poster was in the UK but these are of course appearing everywhere, and in North America it's very common for public bathrooms to have huge gaps down the sides of the cubicle door. I don't know why they're designed that way but they're not private. So obviously most of us go about our business without looking but it doesn't mean there aren't creeps who will take advantage.

I think they were deliberately designed tp put off addicts and perverts or folk trying to shag. Just talking about them on another thread.

fakenamefornow

I think in this case 'identifying as a woman' means an actual woman. They kept gender neutral loos for transpeople or people who don't mind.

I'll re-read though just in case.

This makes it slightly clearer.

thevarsity.ca/2015/10/05/voyeurism-threatens-whitney-hall-stirs-gender-debate/

When I was at university, and working in a university, men "invading" women's loos, as someone else mentioned, was very much A Thing.

Men would steal things out of there as trophies, and in halls, going into a female corridor and stealing their bathroom door was considered the height of hilarity. If men's sports teams were involved, there was a possibility that some of the perpetrators would be wearing dresses and bad wigs.

I don't remember anything really untoward happening, but seeing a man heading for the Ladies, or for your shower room, was a cause for panic and action. regardless of whether he was wearing a skirt, or had long pink hair.