Are you scared?

[Jeanhatchet]

I. Am. Terrified.

The pace and scale of the attack on women and specifically feminists is like nothing I have seen in my lifetime.

Women are being arrested for speaking about being female. Women are insulted with derogatory terms for using words referring to their own bodies and the functions of those bodies. Suspended from their own political parties. Hounded from their jobs. Thrown out of their online spaces and denounced as bigots. Prevented from meeting to speak together. Prevented from hiring spaces to speak to each other. Being forced to say things that aren't provably true and that they really don't believe. Called terms that make them unsure of themselves. Gaslighted into accepting those terms. Made to feel guilty for wanting space where they feel safe and that has always been theirs and protected legally. Feeling uncomfortable for wanting to assert their legal rights. Feeling uncomfortable for saying no to male bodied people. Feeling uncomfortable for being lesbian and wanting only female partners. Feeling unsure if they can speak because they are terrified of upsetting a body of people who seem to have more power in every area of their lives even though those people are a tiny tiny minority.

As I just said elsewhere.... some women can take the temperature of the social/political/cultural water and feel their feet getting hot. I hope other women can feel this happening before women as a sex class is boiled alive. It is already uncomfortably hot for women speaking out. We are risking an awful lot.

I continue speaking out. I will be speaking at events wherever I'm invited about what is happening. Am I scared? Damn right I'm scared. Speaking about my body and beliefs about that body has become a revolutionary act.

Rather than ask if I'm scared that women are under such an organised, aggressive and escalating programme of attack I ask this of women who aren't scared .....why aren't you?

Yes. Very.

When I had my sons I was ashamed of the relief I felt at not having a girl. That’s how scared I am!

Oh Jean, I'm scared.

I'm the laziest person on the planet. I'll do anything for an easy life. Haven't got actively involved in any causes in my life.

But this one has got me moving. It's a fundamental threat to women's rights.

It's also cheeky fuckery of the highest order, which as a long term mumsnetter is actually the greater crime for me.

So I can't answer your question I'm afraid because I'm simultaneously fucking terrified and furious.

Terrified for my daughter and all other women. Incandescent because the people in power who should be protecting us are hanging us out to dry. Incredulous that so many women are kow towing to the MRA/TRA dogma.

Yes.

I am, very. And like Fatbergs my guilty secret is that I am relieved I have a son. I'm of an age where the only thing likely to affect me personally from this shitfest is finding myself in a care home in old age having my arse wiped by someone who is biologically male (which is unlikely, given that TRAs mostly seem to want to identify into their glittery stereotype of femininity rather than the literal shit work of actual womanhood).

But I could weep for younger women.

I'm more angry than scared. And it spurs me on.

Actually what scares me is young people. This isn't just middle-aged harrumphing, I am constantly shocked by the ignorance and intolerance I see in those who are supposed to be the best educated and brightest. And the narcissism - that NUS debacle from the other day was funny but horrifying at the same time.

When I had my sons I was ashamed of the relief I felt at not having a girl. That’s how scared I am!

I can relate to this. I felt the same.

When I watched The Handmaids Tale through my fingers last year, debating with DH whether a society could really get away with curtailing women’s freedoms so quickly and insidiously, I had no idea we’d be watching something similar unfold here in the UK. But you know what? We’ve been here before and men always underestimate women’s ability to organise and fight for a collective cause. They’ve been wrong before and they’re wrong now. We can turn this tide. So I am angry (very) and I am alarmed by what I see around me, but I am not defeated. Nevertheless, she persisted.

Yes, it’s terrifying.
What really scares me is how few people seem to know that any of this is happening.

I am not terrified, but I always do risk assessments for things like meetings.

I more get disappointed that so many women are still fighting against women's rights, by supporting TRAs. Like being told to 'go easy' on this peach of person. Yeah, not the sort of 'woman' I want to be sharing spaces with.

Brilliant post, Jean. And yes, I’m scared.

I’m scared of how far this may go. I’m scared for me, I’m scared for my fellow women who are speaking out, I’m scared for the women who have been attacked and who are feeling more and more attacked as the days go on.

But you know, I’m also hopeful too. I look around and see so many brave women. Women like you who are standing up and daring to speak. Women who have never felt the need to speak out before but are doing so now. Women who are terrified of their real identities being revealed because of all of the things you mentioned before but who are speaking anyway - I see the fear in their faces, but they are doing it anyway.

There is so much power in all of these women, in all of us, and I’m in awe of that bravery. We HAVE been underestimated, we are still being underestimated. One of our biggest strengths is in our history: we have been through this over and over again across many generations. We know how to fight for the long haul. We know that we should never, ever give in.

As boatyardblues said above me: Nevertheless, she persisted.

I have sons. This is about them too.

I don't want them to believe that if they want to be sensitive or kind they have to change their beautiful male bodies and call themselves women

I don't want them to grow up so porn soaked that they don't understand that half of the human race are people, can't have a meaningful relationship with the mothers of their children if they have them

So I'm in this fight for me and my mum, who understand that males are males whatever they look like, and don't want to be touched or share spaces where we're partially dressed with strange men. But I'm also in it for my beautiful boys.

No not scared but very angry

What really scares me is how few people seem to know that any of this is happening.

Same here. It’s so frustrating and when laws have been made to erase women’s rights, it will be too late. And then women won’t be allowed to speak out.

Some days I'm sure the truth and reality will win out, we just need to play the long game.

Other days, I see women's right to abortions, the reality of rape trials and how the CJS and trial process is so biased in favour of the rapist/s, Donald Trump being president (and a hundred other examples) that I think women are actually being simultaneously attacked on EVERY front at the moment. And we can't win that sort of a strategic assault from men.

No I'm angry and when I'm angry I'm less inclined to be polite or give a fuck about being open about what I think.

The more they abuse and harass women, the more they indulge in vile displays of misogyny like the SF Public Library debacle the angrier women will get and that anger will turn to action.

Take hope from the small cracks of light that are appearing. This week Sam Gyimah, the universities minister, has said he will punish universities that prevent free speech. He wants to see an end to no platforming, for anything other than talks that break the law, such as encouraging Terrorism. Yes, there is also the chance that the delicate little flowers will try to use discrimination laws, but I don’t think he’s going to permit that. If the likes of Germaine Greer and other wonderful gender critical feminists an get into the unis, then you will definitely see the tide turning. The young people will have a better chance of seeing the realities of what is ahead, if the TRAs get their way. Keep fighting sisters. raises hand in female solidarity ✊🏻✊🏽✊🏿✊

I'm angry. This is a war of survival and I will fight to my last breath.

The thing that scares me is female socialisation. It runs so deep that even among gender critical feminists the first instinct is often to protect the feelings of the abusers.

Yes I'm scared, and fucking angry.
There is a concerted attack on women going on, to put us back in our box, to shut us up, to bake us meek little hand maids.
Well they can fuck right off. We won't be silenced, we will carry on.

We must continue to post on here, on twitter and in RL to challenge this agenda.

I've been thinking about this lately, and I know this is a detour for the thread, but given I've only been here for five minutes, starting a new thread seemed a bit presumptuous. I've been asking myself, why now?

I am scared at the way women's rights seem to be sliding backwards, but I'm also bewildered at the emergence of the whole TRA thing.

There have always been people, who, for whatever reason, chose to live as if a member of the other sex. James Barry for example, or female soldiers in many wars, but they were individuals who made those choices for their own purposes.

But all of a sudden this desire for men to want to become women seems like a social movement. Is it because masculinity has got so toxic that men see the only escape is enacting femininity?

Is it patriarchy reacting to women's rights? Is it fashion?

What they are really enacting is the stereotype of girlhood - the cultural representation of girlishness is pretty, light-hearted, flirtatious, obsessed with clothes and make-up, and not coincidentally, the centre of attention and without responsibility.

It seems that few men want to enact womanhood because a womanly stereotype emphasises maternity, responsibility, caring, emotional labour and commitment to family.

Someone on another thread commented that TRAs weren't wheeling their granny around the supermarket. Womanhood in this narrative is not about wiping bums, taking the cat to the vet, taking time off to care for elderly parents, or trying to do a day's work when menopause makes you an insomniac.

Is it because society has fetishised and sexualised young women so that desiring them is no longer enough, men want to be them?

I know this is trivialising the issue, but is this a dangerous version of the tamagotchi craze or is there something deeper and more important happening?

Dances I think these are great points and I'd love to be able to discuss them more. Toxic masculinity in particular is such an important topic. As I've said before, what does it say about us as a society, when it has become easier for us to believe that a man can become a woman than to believe that a man can wear a dress? Disclaimer: I appreciate that it's more complex than that but this is rhetoric innit.

But all the #nodebate means that we can't have those discussions.

EmmaG - The truth is that its unlikely we’ll ever know. This whole topic is toxic for academic researchers and the sublimation of sex by gender in official records and stats mean it would be hard to assess patterns, identify a representative sample for meaningful research or measure impact or outcomes. It’s a hideous mess. Whether deliberate or otherwise, who can tell? Might be an interesting topic for a separate thread.

Im scared. I have 2 girls - one my own, the second a vulnerable young woman who has been through the 7 rings of hell in her short life.

what frightens me is that these keyboard warriors seem to have no jobs, and be sat with a massive sense of entitlement. They're entitled to our spaces, our voices, our bodies, our children, our language.

And weak politicians are too scared of offending a tiny minority to step up and say "enough".

And my DDs are bending over backwards to accommodate them because they have never had to live through inequality and prejudice based on biology.

ANd now Mumsnet is capitulating.

I am 54 years old, and I am grateful that I will probably only live another 30 years or so, In that time, I will watch as my daughters rights are eroded year on year.

As others have said, I have less personal skin in the game than a lot of women, many of whom haven't yet woken up to the threat they are under.

I'm middle-aged. I'm solidly married to a bloke who isn't a misogynist dickwad. My children are sons. I'm alright for cash so can choose and pay for services if I need to and won't be forced into spaces where women are particularly vulnerable. I live in the back end of beyond where life just carries on regardless of wider social forces hitting the cities.

But I - a leftist myself - am terrified of the authoritarian left.

It feels like the start of The Handmaid's Tale when women's rights were quietly being eroded.

I'm not scared for me but I am for my daughter. Speaking up is empowering. Three more influential women and a man made contact quietly yesterday after I spoke up. Speaking up doesn't take strength from you, it gives you strength. We are all Winston. We aren't here to scurry around the corners of life. We are women. We hold their lives in our hands. Hear us roar.