“Women’s rights to control and protect their own bodies is diminishing across the globe” The Guardian

[Kit19]

This is a really good strong editorial about how women’s rights are going backwards.

So can I ask (or rather shout) how is it they do not see that publishing articles saying women are people who identify as one or musing on ‘gosh what is a woman anyway??’ Or perpetuating the idea That performing female stereotypes = woman? is part of the bloody problem??

Screams into void

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jul/30/the-guardian-view-on-falling-prosecutions-womens-rights-are-regressing

Complacency and banal political or bureaucratic imperatives can damage women’s lives just as ideologically driven campaigns can

Seems like they DO know....

‘It is enraging to be forced to refight the same old battles, yet progress can and is being made. Women have every right to despair, but are refusing to do so. There is too much work to be done.’

Whoever wrote this definitely understands the issues at hand.

Women's tights are pretty powerful!

Possibilities:

a) Gaslighting
b) Infighting - different factions within the paper GC vs TRA
c) gross incompetence, no one has any idea who’s publishing what on any given day so it looks hugely disjointed.

I’m going for a). This is an editorial, so it’s the paper’s stance, so to speak and the must know what’s being churned out underneath this is in direct contrast, but they don’t care and they’re trying to pretend otherwise.

Please correct the typo in the subject line. I was totally bewildered at first

Look! Look over here! Look what’s happening in Poland. They are so right wing and homophobic. God. Isn’t the right wing in a far away place awful? Poor women - we feel for them here at the Guardian.

It's (b), I think. (One of?) the leader writers is a woman who's apparently quite GC-inclined. As she only (afaik) writes in the form of the editorial, she's relatively anonymous, so seems to have received remarkably little stick, considering her position. I can't remember her name myself, but I saw her posting on Twitter on the subject a month or two ago - (forget what, exactly - it may have been supporting Suzanne Moore)

My women's tights may control but they certainly don't protect!

I have reported the typo in the title - early morning clumsy fingers!

I just don’t know how they can publish a sentence on the importance of women’s rights to control & protect their bodies whilst simultaneously doing everything they can to remove that right in the UK

I clicked on is because I thought it was going to be a discussion on the evils of tights which I truly think are the work of the devil.

@Binterested

Look! Look over here! Look what’s happening in Poland. They are so right wing and homophobic. God. Isn’t the right wing in a far away place awful? Poor women - we feel for them here at the Guardian.

Under the title: Progress is being rolled back around the world. Rightwing governments are not the only ones to blame

So I'm not sure that's entirely fair.

Maybe the editor is sending subliminal messages. They are writing this with these sentences amongst discussion about violence for women. Pointing out that with these latest indisputable facts that people should indeed understand women’s rights are receding.

I imagine though that on twitter, the activists will be all including males in the definition of women and shutting their minds to understanding that doing so further dilutes and clouds the issues.

@NecessaryScene1

It's (b), I think. (One of?) the leader writers is a woman who's apparently quite GC-inclined. As she only (afaik) writes in the form of the editorial, she's relatively anonymous, so seems to have received remarkably little stick, considering her position. I can't remember her name myself, but I saw her posting on Twitter on the subject a month or two ago - (forget what, exactly - it may have been supporting Suzanne Moore)

That’s interesting. We know there are people who are genuinely in favour of women’s rights who work there, but I always imagine them as a small group with a secret WhatsApp group and secret signal in the corridors. They have to discuss things secretly to avoid being overheard by the woke little intern who reports them to Chief Snitch (Owen Jones). They don’t know who to trust 👀.

That’s the relevance of the Poland piece imho. The obvious thing to talk about was UK govt threats to women’s safety or the willingness of authorities not to pay attention to women when they say what’s going wrong. Not Poland and its homophobia. It helps the Guardian reader move into its more comfortable zone of general wokeness.

This is a weird sentence too:

Complacency and banal political or bureaucratic imperatives can damage women’s lives just as ideologically driven campaigns can

Where is complacency? I’ve never known women so fired up. Even the Guardian isn’t complacent - it’s complicit. And what are banal bureaucratic imperatives ?

It feels like two different articles spliced together. The first half well informed and clear. The second half vague hand waving.

Also the Guardian today...

My pandemic epiphany: learning my man bun didnt define me.
My hair had become such a part of my rebellious identity, I found it hard to think about letting go. But eventually I realized that what I once thought was non-conformity was in fact a cover for vanity; I was scared to be bald.

And

He took the clippers to my man-bun. There was so much we had to go at it in multiple bouts. We laughed the whole time. How did I let my hair get this bad for such a non-reason? It was pleasant, a moment of bonding. I was free.

The timing couldn’t have been better. Immediately after I shaved my head, the shutdown order in New York closed offices like mine for the foreseeable future. Without eyes watching on the morning commute or the stares of people in bars or friends at work, I could relax into my haircut. I had no hair, but somehow, I was still the same person.

Looking back, I realize that growing my hair had been freeing for a while, but also limiting. I defined myself in opposition to others, always. I so resented their expectations that I built my identity around not being like them. Now, I could just go back to being myself.

Its obviously a story about hair. Obviously.

@Winesalot

Maybe the editor is sending subliminal messages. They are writing this with these sentences amongst discussion about violence for women. Pointing out that with these latest indisputable facts that people should indeed understand women’s rights are receding.

I imagine though that on twitter, the activists will be all including males in the definition of women and shutting their minds to understanding that doing so further dilutes and clouds the issues.

Either that or Guardian writers are making up stories about hair to prove their editor is a total nugget.

It's (b), I think. (One of?) the leader writers is a woman who's apparently quite GC-inclined. As she only (afaik) writes in the form of the editorial, she's relatively anonymous, so seems to have received remarkably little stick, considering her position.

Probably Susanna Rustin. She's been openly gc on Twitter.

Where is complacency? I’ve never known women so fired up.

There are lots of complacent women (many young) - the 'third wavers', 'libfems', the 'be nice' types etc who blithely assume we now have equality, that the battles are done with.

On MumsNet - where the demographic is older and many of us are indeed mums - we've more experience of life in general and 'structural sexism' in particular.

I'm proposing

d) The Guardian trying desperately to have its womancake and eat it.

They KNOW, even if its a matter of huge struggle in cognitive dissonance, that the current gender ideology is damaging women's ability to identify themselves, organise and fight for women's rights.

But they are too bloody cowardly to own it.

So they're continuing merrily with their fucking crybully pieces on the oppression of blue-haired enbies, continuing to prop up the bullshit, while occasionally letting out an almost unconscious aarhahrrgh when they notice, in the corner of their eye, the sight of women's rights slipping inexorably into the pit.

Gosh, who would have thought it, when the dominant narrative has been for the past few years that women have won. How can it be when we are so fucking empowered that we are still being murdered, raped and oppressed? Gosh, how did that happen? Oops butterfingers, we let the rights of women slide while we were distracted with the deep angst of how to pronounce 'womxn'.

It is, of course, mostly the fault of hateful bigot feminists who are responsible for really pissing off MRAs and thereby encouraging them to keep killing us. Look what we made them do. How problematic. Or maybe it's just that feminists do keep drawing attention to the statistics, which is genuinely horrible reading. If we ignore the statistics and just keep chanting the mantras, most of us don't even know that there's anything bad going on! Hooray!

Women have every right to despair, but are refusing to do so.

Don't know about you, mate, I am fucking despairing.

@ScrimpshawTheSecond

Women have every right to despair, but are refusing to do so.

Don't know about you, mate, I am fucking despairing.

Indeed. It's only watching the creeping realisation amongst the whole population about what is being removed from women and children by the demands from trans activist groups that is keeping me going. My fear is that it's too little, too late. As for the Guardian they are totally complicit and the occasional obscure piece like this designed to throw a bone in women's direction while keeping the bullying trans wokerati quiet does nothing to excuse their previous appalling biased 'journalism'

Yes, the general population is starting to wake up to what's happening, but the institutional/regulatory capture is pretty comprehensive. I don't really know how we even start to roll that back.

As for the Guardian they are totally complicit and the occasional obscure piece like this designed to throw a bone in women's direction while keeping the bullying trans wokerati quiet does nothing to excuse their previous appalling biased 'journalism'

I think what's more likely is there's a fierce internal battle going on at the Guardian. It's very similar to what's happened at the BBC - but at the BBC feminists have had a couple of very notable victories recently, such as the Newsnight report on the Tavi, and the removal of Mermaids from the list of resources. At the Guardian, the TRAs have long had the upper hand but that isn't necessarily always going to be the case. So don't give up hope.

I'm wondering how long before the article is condemned as problematic because it doesn't mention transwomen.