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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Feminism: chat

Original poster

I'm in danger of alienating people with my outrage in discussions. Any tips?

70 replies

floppyflappy · 22/03/2019 13:56

I need to be able to talk with people in a way that encourages engagement with the material, rather than screams of 'BIGOT!!' at me.

What are your best questions or talking points to achieve this? For example, I've seen here that a good starting point is always, 'what is the definition of a woman?'

I particularly want to be able to talk with my lib fem friends who I know are just trying to be nice and supportive of everyone.

OP posts:
TransposersArePosers · 22/03/2019 16:42

hackmum

Regarding talking about transwomen, in real life I tend to channel my inner Posie Parker and refer to 'a man who calls himself..' or the softer and more courteous 'a male born person who goes by the name of...' and then repeatedly use that name when talking about that person. For me, it avoids the he/she conflict. Tedious, but it doesn't give ground.

I have yet to come out as GC on line

MsTiggywinkletoyou · 22/03/2019 16:50

Newtlover where was this stall? And yes, there ought to be a way of getting the good doctor's attention. I know he works or has worked for the NHS, government Nudge Unit, The Guardian, so may be subject to all sorts of policies, but his books sell well, don't they, so he might not be financially hamstrung.

IrenetheQuaint · 22/03/2019 16:54

Talk about risks. "Most transwomen are lovely and no danger to anyone, but it's clear from cases X and Y that there are a minority who pose a real danger to women, so we need a way of identifying them. Just as we run DBS checks on teachers, because while most are great, we know there are a few bad apples." Etc.

madcatladyforever · 22/03/2019 17:00

Why should you be nice. Men aren't nice. People don't have to like us.

Freespeecher · 22/03/2019 17:04

I saw a Brett Weinstein interview (he was the professor who had a bad time with woke students at Evergreen) who said the thing to do was to try to break the programming, with the aim of trying to make them think rather than just knee-jerk react.

So I suppose rather than saying that biological males shouldn't be allowed in the women's toilets (which would just set off the 'bigot!' auto response rather than having them engage brain) you'd ask them why separate bathrooms were set up in the first place, at which point the back and forth ceases and they mull this new approach over.

(Well that's the theory anyway...).

newtlover · 22/03/2019 17:06

the stall was at a small city in NW England

cornflakegirl · 22/03/2019 17:08

I disagree that you can't reason people out of a position they didn't reason themselves into. I think it happens all the time. If they have a lot of emotional skin in the game it might be true. But I moved from a fairly uninformed "let's share nicely" position to gender critical through reading well-reasoned arguments on here.

picklemepopcorn · 22/03/2019 17:13

I don't think it helps to announce "I have strong opinions on this already, and I'm right" at the start of a conversation, which is effectively what we often do.

I'm a fan of "I've been reading up on this and..." or "I've been thinking about this a lot and..."
Then "what worries me is..." "the problem I can't get past is..."

That way people are more likely to engage their brain on the subject rather than just knee jerk reacting to defend their position.

picklemepopcorn · 22/03/2019 17:14

Freespeecher, I wish I'd read your post before writing mine! I feel like an echo....

cattycattycat · 22/03/2019 17:28

I have spent this week wondering how we can bring feminists with differing opinions together.

People like Grace Petrie and Josie Long are full of comments like "look who agrees with you" (I.e trump etc) and "transwomen are women". A lot of people here would disagree with them but I am convinced that there is a lot of common ground. How can we get to a point where the common ground is recognised? Ultimately we all want a better world for women so we are on the same side. Once we start finding the common ground I think finding solutions to the arguments will be easier.

Freespeecher · 22/03/2019 17:45

'Look who agrees with you' is a terrible line of argument. One of the reasons these times are so interesting is that I probably have at least one belief or opinion in common with just about any public figure you care to mention.

Lamaha · 22/03/2019 17:46

"I disagree that you can't reason people out of a position they didn't reason themselves into. I think it happens all the time."

I agree that reason is not the best way it's why I go for the personal approach let them put themselves of a 67 year old woman who is just trying to have some privacy in the shower. Most people can "feel that it's wrong (not just for 67 year olds but but for any women -- but my age does tend to make it a bit more dramatic!) Or the bit about, how would you like it if your 14 year old daughter was having a shower at the pool and a 40 year old man with a beard but wearing a dress walked in?
So, I favour the emotional approach rather than the rational; getting people to put themselves in that position. How do they FEEL about it.

Original poster
floppyflappy · 22/03/2019 17:46

wow, I had to go out and I've come back to all your responses - THANK YOU! this is all really helpful. I'm going to read it again a few times.

A major point I'm taking from this is that I need to chill the fuck out when the topic comes up (and it's not always me that bring it up!)

I like that, 'the thing that worries me is...'

Don't make people feel like I'm telling them they're wrong.

Start with sports and move on to prisons probably - don't just wade in with the Challenors or something.

Don't start with AGP.

But I think I'd like to have some of those statistics under my belt, are they on the FPFW site?

OP posts:
R0wantrees · 22/03/2019 17:48

BowlofBabelFish's question, 'but can humans change sex?' is always worth asking.

cattycattycat · 22/03/2019 17:49

Yes I thought the same with "look who agrees with you". I have always come to my own conclusions about issues, I can't control who agrees with me!

Original poster
floppyflappy · 22/03/2019 18:00

yes, that's a good one, 'can humans change sex?'

I always want people to think about the reasons why we separate the sexes in toilets and changing rooms but lots of people think it's a none issue. "I really don't care who is having a pee in the next stall!"

Which obviously gives me the RAAAAAAAGE - and I lose any chance at a decent conversation...

OP posts:
DodoPatrol · 22/03/2019 18:03

DH quite clearly thought I was weirdly obsessed with this and was keen to point out that men were equally unkeen on women in their facilities but would kindly overlook it.

The two things that made him actually think about it were
(1) pointing out the relative size of men and women and therefore the inequality of risk (honestly, it hadn't occurred to him that physical size and strength might matter. Must be nice to be 17 stone and built like the proverbial brick privy); and
(2) asking if he truly thought that our friends' daughters were now boys, and if so, how did that work, in his mind? When he said that of course he didn't think they were really boys, it was easy for him to see that equally of course men can't be 'really women'.

Original poster
floppyflappy · 22/03/2019 18:10

yes, the fact that most men are bigger and stronger than most women is a good point. And it's never the trans men fighting for access for men's prisons. Why is that? hmmm

OP posts:
starzig · 22/03/2019 18:12

If you have trouble with getting friends to agree with your more extreme stance then maybe take it as a hint and come back to mumsnet for more like minded people to agree with you.

pearlkent · 22/03/2019 18:21

Hi OP, I was about to start a similar thread as I've recently had a rather upsetting "discussion" with a couple of people and was shocked at how it escalated so quickly. It wasn't me who instigated the topic, but they started asking me about it as they knew I'd gone to a couple of feminist meetings and wanted to know why I was so involved. I knew I couldn't cover my views in the short space of time we had, but they kept asking so I tried to give some examples of stuff in the news ("cervix- havers", assault on the girl in Scotland, sport, Karen White etc). They just didn't seem to believe me, saying these weren't "facts" (!), just my opinion. They said that they had never seen any gender neutral toilets so therefore I was just exaggerating. Also, if there were any problems they would sort themselves out eventually (!!!). I tried to explain that there was very little media coverage because of the trans-agenda, but it made me sound like a conspiracy theorist.
I felt like I was being piled on, belittled and disbelieved. I think I stayed fairly calm and rational in the onslaught, but was repeatedly reprimanded for being angry. I was actually called hysterical.
It's made me really wary of speaking out again. I feel bruised.
By the way, the people I was speaking to were men, and men who I had thought would understand, and even be sympathetic. It has really shocked me how aggressive they became. One of them even came out with the classic "men get raped too" when I mentioned sexual assault.

littlbrowndog · 22/03/2019 18:29

Sleeper trains youth hostels
Yeps the good one is askin* if you can change sex an£ how

Crime figures so a guy who commit# a crime and says they are a woman. It’s now recorded as a woman’s crime

Nobody I know believes this stuff
Especially the men

pearlkent · 22/03/2019 18:42

littlbrowndog "Nobody I know believes this stuff Especially the men"

That's what I thought, but it was men who didn't believe what I was telling them.

RunningWild12 · 22/03/2019 18:42

Know the feeling! Everything can escalate to defcon 1 very quickly. I taught myself to remain calm by telling myself it didn’t matter what anyone said, it wasn’t one conversation, I’d still be able to get up in the morning and get on with my life. No point in losing my shit over it.

So I started doing the questioning thing: “sorry, I might being a bit thick here, but I don’t think I understand what you mean by transwomen are women” or whatever. Then they have to drill down a bit and think how to explain their views instead of spouting mantras.

Or introduce the subject with “I came across this really interesting article/documentary and it really made me wonder about x,y, z and what is actually going on. What do you think?”

Keep it specific e.g sports. That’s easier now as we can talk about Sharron Davies and Kelly Holmes and what they’ve said.

grasspigeons · 22/03/2019 18:55

i've avoided this as a topic with friends as most of us like to be inclusive.

The only time i've ever said much was to express sadness that a friend of a friends child was heading down a path that led to taking drugs with massive side effects and would be having risky surgery and wondering what the future held for that child.

everyone went very silent and shuffled about for a bit, then changed the subject but I think that made them think as they didn't round on me.

Antibles · 22/03/2019 19:00

fallingirl that is incredibly helpful advice. You are right, people find it psychologically very hard to admit they are wrong because it is damaging to their self-esteem. I think I read about that in the book 'Black Box thinking'. It documented the staggering lengths people can go to to not be proved wrong. Police pursuing innocent people as suspects and not wanting to admit they've got the wrong person and so forth.

That 'new information' angle is great because it allows their self-esteem off the hook. I will remember to use this!

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