Why are appeasers afraid of being unkind?

[JellySlice]

People seem to think it is unkind to deny someone something they want.

Surely it is more unkind to promise them something they can never have?

Surely it is more unkind to perpetuate lies about them?

He he. I got some female colleagues to tell a somewhat assertive male colleague that he wouldn't be deciding for himself what jobs he would be doing, but would in fact be doing what they told him to do. I'm quite happy to tell the cheeky sod to get off his backside, but they were all very reserved about asserting any authority at all, even though they are all in a supervisory role. So, in the parlance of the woke, I 'empowered' them and he did as he was told. 'Twas a beautiful moment of solidarity.

Ok, that's female socialisation. But governments aren't female. The ECHR isn't female. Why did they do this?

And is democracy in fact just an illusion?

JellySlice, I had a go at answering that conundrum on the previous page.

Sorry, Floral, I must have missed it. Everyone seems to be focusing on the female socialisation aspect, and I'd like to explore outside that. Will read back and look for your post.

I've been thinking about this in a roundabout way recently.

I think like a lot of women I used to be fully, unquestionably supportive of the trans movement just on the basis that 'of course everyone should be equal' etc, and because I spent a large part of my career advocating for vullnerable people and standing up to bullies.

As someone upthread (sorry. can't scroll properly) said - I have people in my family and real life and my online social circle who are trans. They are not bad people, they are not activists, they just want to live their lives and not draw attention to themselves.

I have already lost a good friend because of my gender critical views. If I posted every thing I want to post I would lose more friends. I would deeply upset good friends and family.

I am finding it an isolating viewpoint - it is the first time I can think of when I haven't been majorly aligned, at least in broad brush strokes, with my social circle.

I like to think that by not posting a host of gender critical things on my social media, or by not bringing the topic up around my friends who I know it would hurt to do so, that I am being kind to those individuals.

I do however know that you cannot make policies or laws for individuals and so I am in the process of filling out the consultation and do support other GC women on twitter (as that has less real life cross over into other platforms for me).

I'm finding it hard to have such a different and divisive viewpoint from good people I am close to in real life.

turph I loved your post of 8.51 and have saved it on a sticky to remind myself that I am sane (ish).

Fear of censure, group rejection. We are all social animals.

It takes courage to speak out and our culture does not celebrate courage: it's too risky.

As for organisations I think that the language of group rights has become all important, all political parties are now on board and individual rights (freedom of expression, right to say no to a customer, freedom to be a pain in the arse: a long held British tradition) have been overridden.

As I say to my kids to explain my seemingly contradictory views on suitable language : It's nice to be nice but it shouldn't be a
binding rule let alone a legal requirement.

Why are governments and major organisations embracing this? Money.

There is a huge amount of money to be made from widespread use of puberty blockers and from people needing lifetime supplies of cross-sex hormones. Big pharma is all over this and that's why there's so much money swimming around for pr, lobbying and legal test cases.

drradfem.org/enforcing-mens-sexual-rights-in-international-human-rights-law/

Sorry posted too soon! Sheila Jefferies has a fantastic analysis on what is going on at an International level. As we all suspected there is an international body attempting to replace sex with gender. They are advising governments.

Here are the International principles that were agreed upon:

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yogyakarta_Principles

This is the smoking gun as far as I am concerned.

(Sorry to spread this over so many posts. In the middle of something and wanted to be sure I was getting this onto MN but being interrupted)

Why are governments and major organisations embracing this?

Also Fear (reputational attacks on social media, organised campaigns, lawsuits, leaving practitioners exposed )
Also fake training (people will kill them selves)
Fake analogies (this is the same as LGB rights)
Ignorance (not thinking the results through for women and children)

ChattyLion if you read Shiela Jeffries she explains how the T lobby piggybacked on top of LGB issues at the international level.

They are doing so much gaslighting and confusing/misleading the general public.

Cheers Ida I will take a look.
I was just posting from what I see happening in the public sector at organisational level.
It scares the absolute crap out of me what must be going on higher up.

I've always been deeply sceptical of conspiracy theories like 'big pharma'. But since Dieselgate... And I'm finding the idea of Russia intervening on SM to destabilise Western democracies scarily believeable... Then you show me Yogyakarta....

To be fair also there is a lot of ideology here that is being actively taught to young people at school and university so they believe they are on the side of the oppressed and have not yet critically engaged to see how that ideology plays out.

That is a very good point and one worth repeating.

I think people are afraid of being called bigots, its horrible to be labeled that

I'm ok with being called a bigot because it show the lack of reasoning skills by the person who does that. The moment you are reduced to namecalling and using slurs you admit that you have either lost the argument or had no argument to begin with.

We actually (if we are counting) I said it first

Sorry Chrysanthemums

I also think that there is still an element of perverse delight in men (and it's mostly men pushing the issues) deciding where women's boundaries should be, consciously or not. Who decides what gets debated?
How much is actually decided for women by women? And is the outcome still maneuvered and policed by men so becomes effectively yet another tokenistic gesture to appease women's voices or signal your 'woke' credentials?
To me it indicates that there's always going to be that fear of women getting together, co-ordinating action and saying 'no'.
Women standing against piss poor policy decisions are seen as subversive. But then, if you add enough dissenting male voices in there with the women's it's not perceived in the same way and is more likely to be a topic for consideration.
TBH the whole set up gets on my nerves.

OK, I think this is an unholy mix of old-fashioned misogyny / homophobia, porn-driven male sexual rights activism, overexcitement about evolving tech and its ability to help us subordinate or perfect our bodies, and business interests. It's exacerbated by inequality which allows a relatively small but powerful group of men with a special interest in the subject (for whatever reason) to impose it on the rest of us. I am certain our political establishment has been bought in some way because a) that's how it works atm and b) if not, then wtaf are they thinking?

I also think it's being encouraged because it distracts us from developing a robust analysis of the ways in which inequality is contributing to widespread misery and mental ill-health, particularly in children.