Daily Feminism.

[Stealthymcstealth]

I was hoping to start a broad thread where we can ask questions, share thoughts, opinions, resources, acts.

Hopefully it can be somewhere that lurkers can ask questions instead of needing to start a thread of their own or ask on a thread of women already well educated on current issues (it's daunting).

Somewhere to share everyday rebellions and triumphs.

Somewhere to just check in and get stuff off your chest.

I'll start, yesterday I began my boycott of M&S and went elsewhere, it just so happened to be the same day I got vouchers for them through the post, they were ripped up and thrown away as was was the Lib Dem leaflet.

My husband has joined my boycott of M&S and the Lib Dems, he has also offered to carry stickers for womens rights so he can put them up when out and about. I have been talking non-stop and told him everything I have learnt, it is good practice for when I discuss it with others! I think being able to discuss it freely is very important.

My next act will be to check local doctors/council/school websites to see if they are using the term gender instead of sex.

I am currently wondering if it is a good idea to follow/comment/share womens rights pages on my personal Facebook? Does anybody do this or have you made a separate account?

Could any seasoned posters please share resources/websites/womens rights activists to look for, for those of use who are new.

I am pretty much hoping this thread will draw out the lurkers and be a jumping off point for anyone new to the feminism board.

I've just bought tickets for this event (www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/feminist-campaigners-talk-back-tickets-79921965751) in Bristol. It'll be my first "gender critical" meeting although I've been following all this stuff for a while.

I'm not too worried about the blue fringes turning up and shouting terf at me. I grew up in a pretty rough part of the UK so I've had worse. What I'm more worried about is talking about this with my peers. I'm pretty new to Bristol and just getting to know people here. I'd like to invite some of the women I know along but I have a sneaking suspicion they're the kind of people who will think GC feminists are just being very unkind. They're hippy, arty, Steiner school types who have had pretty sheltered lives. I don't want to be a coward but I also don't want to burn bridges with the few mates I have here and I wonder if this event might be throwing them in at the deep end. Any thoughts?

@definitelygc I've been wondering how to broach the subject without giving away that I am gender critical. I was thinking maybe bring up what is happening currently with the M&S changing rooms? Say something along the lines of "Have you heard about people boycotting M&S because of their changing room policy?" try to get a sense of where they are at and take it from there.

The term 'feminist' has been mocked and spoken of in such a derogatory way I worry how people will respond and if I say I am gender critical I worry people will label me transphobic, it's a minefield!

I am currently wondering if it is a good idea to follow/comment/share womens rights pages on my personal Facebook? Does anybody do this or have you made a separate account?

I follow on my personal Facebook - I don't like as then my woke clients will cause trouble for me. I commented on something GC on a local group for my small town and a client who doesn't live anywhere near me saw it, as that's the nature of Facebook.

I have a fake account for Feminist stuff, so I can join in and comment.

I'm also boycotting M & S for the first christmas ever. Hey, they don't need my money, they have the genderist dollar now. It's made harder by the fact that I'm also boycotting Next for environmental reasons - they delivered a flatpack bed 'protected' by enough scrap MDF that i could have built myself a second bed out of it. That's without counting all the fucking polestyrene and excess cardboard they needed to protect the 'second bed'. Tried complaining. Got nowhere. Fuckem. Maybe this will be the year i finally wean myself of large scale mass produced shit. Also boycotting all political parties for GC reasons.

Amazon are terrible for packaging too but their not exactly ethical in many regards!

I am inadvertently boycotting many shops because I try to buy only second hand clothes, a documentary on fast fashion very much opened my eyes on that front.

In terms of feminism today, I played patriarchy chicken on the school run as per usual, it is actually becoming second nature to not move for men and I really like that, I think it shows that the habit of bowing to misogyny can be broken. Checking in on the feminism board everyday helps to keep the subject at the forefront of my mind, a little reminder to tackle even little acts of sexism everyday.

What is patriarchy chicken? Truly never heard of that.

I too use second hand for environmental reasons.

@PlanDeRaccordement here is the link to the thread where I found out about patriarchy chicken

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/_chat/3519160-PATRIARCHY-CHICKEN

Ha, i think i know what that is - is it when you fight the urge to move out of the path of able bodied men walking towards you at high speed, who can also clearly see you are about to collide if one of you doesn't move?

I think my dd accidentally played that with a man coming downhill on a bike the other day. Who knew that bikes belonging to men have no breaks, and that these men on bikes have neither eyesight, spacial awareness or any ethics whatsoever? Shook me up for the rest of the day, the fucking prick.

Oops xpost

Thank you stealth, I will go read the thread right away. And ruffle for summary.

Great idea for a thread OP.

I have wanted to get something off my chest for ages but without starting a new thread IYKWIM.

A few months back I posted my very first GC comment on a FB video uploaded by a real life friend and was instantly slapped with a long-winded, word salad reply. Closely followed by angry face emojis and people taking screen shots of my comment for future ‘reference’.

My comment contained no hate or malice, but yet the comments directed at me were close to school yard bullying had it been face to face.

A PM discussing what I had said was then screenshot and uploaded on FB calling me a T*RF and other names.

I was absolutely mortified. I deleted my MN account and Twitter instantly and blocked everyone in the conversation. For weeks afterwards I was terrified of bumping into someone who had read the thread.

Has anyone else felt like this?

Yes, and its whey they do the virtue signal dogpile, to silence us. If you'd had just a couple of more balanced comments you wouldn't have been silenced.
You and they all know that not one of them thinks that humans can actually change sex.

Yes I have felt like this, I changed my personal details and names on my FB and Twitter account, and MN user name and stopped posting on FB and Twitter because I did not feel safe.

Ironic really, because where is MY safe space to be me and voice my concerns and tell people / companies that I’M offended by Stonewall, Mermaid and Trans Cult?

Lovely thread, I do post on chat here but not shared much in real life. It is worry that seems mass sways of people really can’t see any issues. I imagine little of what Nazi Germany felt like back in the 30s. Those who do feel uncomfortable or want to voice any opinion dare not for fear of being dragged out and not a single soul would support them.

Not that a mean to belittle the war, just that when Government; local authorities, schools, major bands are all trotting out the same stuff you really have wonder how we got here and indeed how so fast. This isn’t a gradual society evolving naturally for the greater good. This feels like something else.

It very much reminds me of the Cultural Revolution where they just have to call you the label or CAPITALIST Roader (transphobic, bigots now) and you have the mob set on you and you are made to recant and repent for your ‘sins’. It was driven by the youth and the poor peasants. Millions died, incredible how a whole nation was brainwashed by the personality cult of Mao.

I can see it happening very fast in my county. The people who drove me off MN and FB are very active in the local council. They should conduct their online lives with more grace, but yet no one bats and eyelid.

I went to an Extinction Rebellion meeting in London just purely out of curiosity. It kicked off with a long speech about how this was a "safe space" and it was important no one felt uncomfortable. They then put up the meeting rules and the first one in capital letters was "RESPECT PRONOUNS". The first rule! We then had to go round a circle of 50 people and say our name and pronouns. I said "you can use whatever pronouns you like" and was met with looks of suspicion and derision.

Everyone apart from a few "they/them"s had pronouns that were immediately obvious. I then spent the rest of the hour desperately trying to remind myself to use "they" for what were clearly females lest I DISRESPECT THE PRONOUN and get hounded out for being a vile transphobe.

So much for a safe space!

Why wasn’t the first rule ‘Respect each other’ or something along those lines?

I have often thought how to use their language and narrative to out woke them, or use humour, rather than use reason and logic. You have to think in such twisted ways to beat them in their own game.

E.g. I think about how I would handle the inevitable ‘pronouns’ situation at work ( sad to think that I actually invest time and emotional energy to something that hasn’t happened yet). I would say my pronouns are HRH or something.

Yesterday, at work , among the woke bros, I was expressing my disapproval of The Guardian and jokingly judging Guardian readers ( you are not a Guardian reader are you?) to which the response was a dismissive eye roll and a patronising ‘ you need to read balanced news’.

‘Well, lets just say, the Guardian offends me, that Owen Jones offends me, I need my safe space from uncomfortable opinions, so I’m no platforming them. It’s my human right.’

@Lowhum indeed. Today I finally had the guts to bring up all of these issues with my mates and had a long discussion with them about it. They don't come from particularly middle class backgrounds and certainly wouldn't read the Guardian but I wasn't sure where they'd stand on this stuff (or if they'd even thought about it). Was really cheering to see that they're all as terven as the rest of us (without ever having heard the word terf before). One even said there's a little boy who now calls himself a girl in her kid's class and that she felt part of it was driven by the dad not being able to cope with having a male child who likes dresses and glitter. One thing everyone immediately agreed on (and was angered by) was the effect on women's sports - I wonder if this will be the thing that turns the tide on all this.

Yes. Most people know at a gut level men in women s sport is wrong, but they may not have formed a coherent argument to articulate against it, especially if they have not delved into the trans rabbit hole like most of us here.

Then the woke throw in the word INCLUSIVE, then it’s like suddenly, you cannot argue against it.

What I can’t get my head around is that I have always been ‘inclusive’ to others as a default without feeling virtuous.
For most it is completely normal to be kind and non judgmental. All the GC people I know (men and women) in RL would never want to cause offence and would hate to make anyone feel uncomfortable in their presence.

Feeling the need to vent about this. My female friend and I decided to treat ourselves to a massage and when we arrived realised there was one man and one woman available. I told my friend I didn't feel comfortable getting a massage from a man as I don't trust them. I could tell she was quietly judging me as she said she didn't care either way.

As we left she was already out of earshot when the male masseuse said to me "what do you do for a job then? Modelling?" and looked straight down my top. I feel like this is the final straw for me. I was feeling guilty and sexist about not wanting a male masseuse (despite having had a very weird massage from a man before) and now I feel vindicated.

I've had enough of this constant gender neutral gaslighting. I've had enough of people telling me that men aren't a risk when I've been sexually assaulted more times than I can count. I will not have men in my changing rooms, hospital wards or single sex spaces. Enough is enough.

@definitelygc it really is gaslighting on a huge scale, it's everywhere!

I have just had a lib dem campaigner at my door and when they asked why I wasn't voting and I said "because of your stance on women's rights" she just pointed out that our local candidate was female and when she asked for more details and I mentioned men being allowed in women's bathrooms she replied with "but only self identified ones"
I just don't even know where to begin with what the hell just happened!

Do you think people are just genuinely thick? And they want us to vote for them running the country?