Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Only the apps you allow.

Meet the Other Phone.
Only the apps you allow.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Feminism: chat

Original poster

Last night the Fire Brigade Union gave in

75 replies

TimeForDebate · 21/09/2018 08:19

The FBU has voted in favour of self ID - one of the few unions to abstain from voting at TUC has fallen. Women are a minority in the Fire & Rescue Service. 30 women firefighters have signed a letter of protest so far:

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/09/20/backlash-fire-brigades-union-votes-favour-gender-self-identification/

OP posts:
arranfan · 21/09/2018 10:28

Ereshkigal wrote: I think we are going to have to do a lot of non violent direct action

No apologies for quoting Martin Luther King Jr, yet again.

Letter from a Birmingham Jail feels especially relevant.

You may well ask: "Why direct action? Why sit ins, marches and so forth? Isn't negotiation a better path?" You are quite right in calling for negotiation. Indeed, this is the very purpose of direct action. Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored. My citing the creation of tension as part of the work of the nonviolent resister may sound rather shocking. But I must confess that I am not afraid of the word "tension." I have earnestly opposed violent tension, but there is a type of constructive, nonviolent tension which is necessary for growth. Just as Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals could rise from the bondage of myths and half truths to the unfettered realm of creative analysis and objective appraisal, so must we see the need for nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that will help men rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism to the majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood. The purpose of our direct action program is to create a situation so crisis packed that it will inevitably open the door to negotiation. I therefore concur with you in your call for negotiation. Too long has our beloved Southland been bogged down in a tragic effort to live in monologue rather than dialogue. ...

I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom;...Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.

www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html

We need to be "non-violent gadflies".

CrackpotsArePots · 21/09/2018 10:30

Yes

Manderleyagain · 21/09/2018 10:32

Ereshkigal you are right to think in terms of moving the overtones window. I think the nus call to end coercive assignment at birth blah de blah is part of an effort to move it the other way.

Manderleyagain · 21/09/2018 10:33

Overton not overtones! But it might be apt.

Charliethefeminist · 21/09/2018 10:48

The Overton window currently does not include the truth. Politicians and journalists should consider that. The truth is not inside the window of acceptable public discourse.

redshoeblueshoe · 21/09/2018 10:55

Please excuse my ignorance here. But I assumed that the FBU was against it in the first place was because in that job it's not just about using toilets, but showering and getting changed, which doesn't apply to most other jobs.
I am disgusted by this.

ClothOnASloth · 21/09/2018 11:20

Is Paul Embery with the FBU?

If so, he seems to be someone who is against all this. He's taking a lot of flak on Twitter at the moment for retweeting Fairplay for Women and for supporting the 30 women firefighters who signed the letter.

twitter.com/PaulEmbery

Ereshkigal · 21/09/2018 11:26

The Overton window currently does not include the truth. Politicians and journalists should consider that. The truth is not inside the window of acceptable public discourse.

Agree. So Orwellian.

BiologyIsReal · 21/09/2018 11:29

If these crazy proposals re the GRA do go through I can honestly see a day when either a fully male biologically bodied transwoman or a man self IDing as a woman for nefarious purposes finds themselves in e.g. a changing room with a lot of women who object and who claims "I am a woman" and refuses to leave because, you know, the law..... And the women simply won't take this shit and forcibly eject him.

The ensuing ruckus, publicity, legal action whatever ensues will be very interesting.

You read it here first...

R0wantrees · 21/09/2018 11:32

Yannick Dubois is the Business Safety Manager East Sussex Fire & Rescue Service.

Ereshkigal · 21/09/2018 11:34

We've got another cluster haven't we?

West Yorkshire, Manchester, Brighton.

CrackpotsArePots · 21/09/2018 11:35

Liverpool

Ereshkigal · 21/09/2018 11:35

I mean it's a fairly obvious place but might be good to look at the web of connections there.

ShotsFired · 21/09/2018 11:44

Yannick Dubois, chair of the FBU’s LGBT group...She said...."

Yannick is a man's name.
Their twitter profile pic is slightly blurry, but I would not be astounded if Yannick was doing womaning just by having ladyhair.

CrackpotsArePots · 21/09/2018 11:49

I wondered...

seafret · 21/09/2018 11:57

This is outrageous.

I really am increasingly thinking that trying to do this through normal channels and trusting in due process, writing letters to MPs etc is pointless. As anyone who reads the relationship board knows; you cannot engage with narcissism, personality disorders and toxicity via the normal social contract, because they don't exist in that reality or accept those boundaries. This needs to be a flat refusal by women to go along with it.

Totally knickknack. We will never reason with the TRA and their allies. The rest of us need to say no in every way we possibly can.

Original poster
TimeForDebate · 21/09/2018 12:58

Female firefighters I've worked with ( in a different capacity ) tend to be fit, strong and incredibly brave. Same as the men are. I can imagine a situation where they will just say no, get together and remove any interloper from their space. I hope so.

OP posts:
seafret · 21/09/2018 13:20

Realisitically Time i think the women would have leave en masse.

Right now we are at a stage where they would be positioned as the agressors, and "oh look women are just as violent as men" and "oh aren't they just as strong too" which is all bollocks obviously, and I don't think this will last, but I think striking/ protest is the better option.

Surely there would be grounds for any woman who felt pushed out of her job because of this to sue for constructive dismissal - faiure to provide a safe working environment, failure to follow equality law which allows single sex exemptions. Always up to women to fight though isn't it

nopeni · 21/09/2018 13:24

Good way of getting the "right" kind of women in - you know, the ones who look and sound an awful lot like men, with manly muscles and body shapes, and who are men.

After all, who'd want just female firefighters? Bloody women's lib nonsense all around eh.

xxmarksthespot · 21/09/2018 13:48

Lots of men in the fire service think women shouldn't be there at all. Lots of sexism throughout. Good bet that some of them are on the executive and know how much harder it will make it for female officers being forced to bunk in with males calling themselves "women".

Knicknackpaddyflak · 21/09/2018 14:03

Since the advice is usually 'anyone expressing unhappiness should be offered alternative provision and not the person they are uncomfortable about', possibly women need to start bluntly, in groups, asking to be shown to the Bigot Provision please. Since y'know, words no longer mean anything anyway. Third space please. You can call it any derogatory term you please so long as it's for people with xx chromosomes only.

DukeOfSussex · 21/09/2018 14:20

Are there quotas for women entering as fire fire fighters? Will those quotas be filled by males?

Also I am assuming they take different sex specific physical exams for entry like in the police? So will TW be given the male or female entry route? As that will put them light years ahead of their female colleagues.

Ereshkigal · 21/09/2018 14:28

Third space please. You can call it any derogatory term you please so long as it's for people with xx chromosomes only.

YY. Couldn't give a fuck what they call it.

theOtherPamAyres · 21/09/2018 16:05

I think that's a very clear signal that the Fire Service is hostile to the recruitment and retention of women firefighters.

Please take note Her Majesty's Inspector of Constabularies and Fire Services.

In your annual inspections you have criticised the fire service for failing to recruit and retain women. You listened to the fine words and recovery plans put forward by Chief Fire Officers. Please note the culture of male supremacy that over-rides those good intentions and undermines the strategies. Thank you.