Invisible Women - WITS

[thereplycamefromanchorage]

So WITS, who appear to be a Women in Stem organisation in Ireland are saying their choice of Invisible Women for their bookclub is 'problematic' because of its lack of inclusion of transwomen and non binary people.

twitter.com/WITSIreland/status/1285980180784336896?s=20

They describe the irony of a book called Invisible Women sidelining transwomen - whilst being completely unaware of the irony that the premise of the whole book is how biological women's needs and safety has been sidelined and ignored in favour of men.

Twitter replies are heartening though.

@MadamBatty

Witless more like. Leave your brains at the door. Anything here in Ireland that hints at women’s issues taking centre stage is ‘transphobic’. It’s a mortal sin.

Wokeness has replaced religion & we’re all required to submit or be burned.

It's tragic how little has changed really, and based on previous experience it'll take Ireland another 50 years to grudgingly admit they treated women badly (again)

I read this somewhere else on this board and it really made an impression: there is no legitimate human rights battle that requires an oppressed group to relinquish their language. Thanks to whoever wrote this.

This really encapsulates what is wrong with this organisation: I have no issue with trans people discussing their oppression, or indeed how they are discriminated against. But women must also be allowed to do this too - I can't believe scientists (of all people) can't see this.

Good god, this is just so bloody ridiculous!

Yes the language control and the insertion into front and centre stage.

A grovelling statement from WITs too. They could have just said ‘interesting discussion point - what are the impacts on the trans community and how can we improve for all’

I really don’t understand why women are expected to accommodate a fringe group. We make up 51% of the population and there are so many problems we face as a result of our sexed bodies. Why would we ignore the problems the vast majority of women face to focus on the problems this group face. I don’t get it, why is it our responsibility? I’m fed up of being kind, especially when it doesn’t seem to be reciprocated.
Invisible women to me was a really interesting book and got me thinking about how much medicine does the same. I am now much more critical of guideline recommendations when applying them to patients and try and look up the original evidence myself.

I think the problem is that these days a lot of organisations ostensibly set up to support women are not grounded in any kind of feminist analysis. They see a problem (e.g. women are underrepresented in STEM) and they see some potential solutions to that problem but they will not be able to go any deeper than that.

So ask questions like: "what does a woman have in common with a transwoman/transman"? Or "how much of the problem is rooted in female social conditioning and how much is direct discrimination"? And they will fall apart and just parrot the latest woke mantra (even though it makes no sense).

@twoHopes

So ask questions like: "what does a woman have in common with a transwoman/transman"? Or "how much of the problem is rooted in female social conditioning and how much is direct discrimination"?

Yes - build on commonality not difference.

When difference is the feature then I always see that it is actually about something else and the 'issue' is simply the vehicle.

Surely this is another for the Baroness?

It encapsulates a lot of the issues so succinctly!

@CuriousaboutSamphire

Surely this is another for the Baroness?

It encapsulates a lot of the issues so succinctly!

Possibly not as it is Ireland not uk.

I’m amused by the suggestion they rename themselves as Trans Women in Technology & Science (TWITS).

I’m actually pleased they posted as I’d listened to a discussion about Invisible Women on the radio on my commute home ages ago and wanted to read it but forgot the details. I’ve just ordered it on Amazon, £4.50 a good price, and am now following Caroline Criado Perez in Twitter. Looking g forward to reading her work. Thanks WITS

But self-id has caused no problems in Ireland at all. Or so we're told. Well, I consider women feeling as though they need to put male feelings first even in an organisation to support women a pretty big problem.

I'm in the middle of reading this right now so it was really disappointing to see this statement. It's such an important read and has been eye-opening in terms of understanding just how many areas of every day life are informed by research that has ignored women. WITS seem to have missed the point entirely in a spectacularly knee-jerk reaction to one person's mention of transphobia. It's embarrassing that this is a group who work in STEM.
I can just imagine Caroline Criado Perez holding her head in her hands somewhere wondering how on earth a group of intelligent adults could, without any sense of irony, accuse her of ignoring a group of women!

True Aesop I hadn't allowed for that!

Wokeness has replaced religion & we’re all required to submit or be burned
@MadamBatty I am sure I've read somewhere that the Pope doesn't agree with TWAW. How would this affect the whole debate, if there is still a debate to be had.

@highame Irish Catholicism is peculiar, almost puritan. I grew up in the 70s/80s. When all the church abuse came to light in the early 90s there was shock & horror. people felt they’d been sold a pup. Suddenly people turned away from the church. Recently it’s been deeply uncool in Ireland to declare that you believe in any kind of religion.

In an effort to move away from Ireland as a religious country people embraced woke ness. Irish people are right on & we all hate & laugh at religion.

I know i’m generalising but that’s my experience.

@MadamBatty

Not just Ireland, I think. Affecting a lot of people who want to associate themselves with forward thinking ideas but are not sufficiently grounded in any underlying principles or baa lies and I think are very vulnerable to propoganda.

Baa lies? Values!

This is student activism again, in the style of Lily Madigan. The person who contacted WITS to complain is a medicine student at Trinity College and involved in LGBTQIA++etc etc activism on campus. It’s amazing to me that the word of one person who is just a student can have so much power. I guess WITS were scared the person could ‘unleash the hounds‘ of student activists on them [insert Monty Burns meme here ] and they would be deplatformed.

Such a stunning and brave way to strike a blow for feminism!

I love how Irish women got to enjoy, like, 10 minutes of actual feminism in between the eras of being oppressed and silenced by the Catholic Church and now being oppressed and silenced by the trans activists. Lucky for me it was during that short window of time that I grew up in Ireland... I feel sorry for young Irish women today, and young women everywhere, that they are too scared of being labeled ‘transphobic’ to even discuss their lives as women.

Madness! I’m reading the book and enjoying it a lot. It’s clearly about the female sex not gender identity or trans. As said above, trans men would be included anyway.

I think the dolt(s) who complained had probably never even read the book, just saw the awful unspeakable word “woman” and went off on one. “But what about me, people. What about me ?”

I sincerely hope they waste every minute of their time trawling through the thousands of other such books that don’t mention them either.

The narcissism is gobsmacking, and the attempt to stifle any mention of women or concern about us and our lives is pathological and utterly vicious.

@MadamBatty

Thank you

Caroline Criado-Perez has (quite sensibly) not commented on this. You can’t argue with stupid.
She does believe that TWAW but this shows that for some of the most bonkers TRAs you can never do enough.

One complaint, from one little wokelet, and that's all it takes?

[quote MadamBatty]@highame Irish Catholicism is peculiar, almost puritan. I grew up in the 70s/80s. When all the church abuse came to light in the early 90s there was shock & horror. people felt they’d been sold a pup. Suddenly people turned away from the church. Recently it’s been deeply uncool in Ireland to declare that you believe in any kind of religion.

In an effort to move away from Ireland as a religious country people embraced woke ness. Irish people are right on & we all hate & laugh at religion.

I know i’m generalising but that’s my experience.[/quote]
I agree Madam. It became uncool to be Catholic, specifically, rather than religious in general.

I had friends who went to Japan and came back full of reverence for Shinto rituals. Or, who decided to join the Church of Ireland. Or Quakers.
But to remain Catholic was/is anathema.

But, the underlying need to have an authority that will tell you what to believe, delineate your behaviour, and blame women someone else for the ills of society; well, that has never gone away.

People badly need to grow up.

yep, @EarlofEggMcMuffin, ironically my mothers mates at 80 (who raised large families on very little). some ‘get’ it more than my own mates at 40

Some are full of scorn for their mothers generation but buy into the whole woke shite & so much much moreover enlightened

buy into the idea that they’re enlightened