University of Leicester student union

[GratedExposure]

The women's officer this year is a transwoman. I have no reason to doubt this person's commitment to working with issues like sexual violence (for example), as they say, but surely their experience and understanding of this will be different from most women's? There is also a trans/non-binary officer, and an LGBT officer (who is, incidentally, also non-binary), and yet the women's officer is not a biological female who has grown up with all the complex trappings of femaleness.

www.leicesterunion.com/voice/yourofficers/part-timeofficers/womens/

Student politics is playground politics. I doubt this would have bothered me as a student (and I was in the Women's group at my Uni).

Fair enough, GratedExposure. Urgh.

I thought it was very telling that the only officer without pronouns was the woman who was the mature/part time officer.

@CriminallyCharmed

I started uni a few weeks ago, my university is full on woke. Pronouns after names in all presentations and emails. I carefully read the terms for the student pledge and basically you can get thrown out for being discriminatory towards vulnerable groups and hurting their feelings. I am a mature student and far more confident than I would have been at 18 though I am still quite young, in my early 20s. But I daren't speak up. I need this degree for my career progression and I'm scared to even challenge the need for pronouns after everything. I dont doubt that there are people who share my beliefs at uni but how are we ever going to be able to find each other if we're terrified to speak up about our beliefs.

youtu.be/tGLUk48u5l0

There is a podcast which is the subject of discussion in another thread. I think it might be useful to listen to because Glenn Loury, a US professor, discusses the problem of having the integrity to resist the incipient totalitarian tendencies of the woke ideology. He cites Vaclev Havel's analysis of 'living in the lie' during Soviet hegemony.

But in my experience the SU is also consulted on lots of things, for example when lecturers want student input/representation on committees. Sadly, it matters

Indeed.

And involvement in student poilitics can be a calling card to working in/with most "grown up" political parties. I was at university with quite a lot of a past government (this lot were all still at school). I remembered quite a few from SU elections and campaigns ...

Dan claims that 'reproductive justice...affect[s] women students'

y i k e s, sounds terfy

You may be overestimating Dan. "Reproductive justice" has been redefined to include sperm freezing for transwomen. Womb transplantation, despite its purely hypothetical nature, has also been included in the concept by some of the lunatic fringe. And I bet there are also some creeps trying to widen the "reproductive justice" umbrella even further to include the right to exploit surrogates... I haven't seen that yet but it seems almost inevitable.

I remember reading ab out Dan back in March this year. Leicester renamed International Women's Day - International Womxn's Day, to make it "more inclusive for ALL WOMEN.
Quote from Dan:

"“Feminism is nothing without women of colour, migrant, disabled, queern, trans, black and sex working women”

www.thegryphon.co.uk/2020/03/09/campus-watch-international-womens-day-edition/

Feminism is nothing, as spouted by Dan. Because that's not feminism, it's misogynist, racist, abelist shite.

@CriminallyCharmed

This is how Glenn Loury puts it:

the personal challenge of do I adhere to my convictions and live within the truth or do I by degree submit myself to a kind of tyrannical domination?

I was at university with quite a lot of a past government (this lot were all still at school). I remembered quite a few from SU elections and campaigns ...

Yep, @ItalianHat. Although I hardly noticed the SU when I was an undergrad, I'm now aware that a good number of them (whose names I vaguely remember) from when I was at uni are now in parliament.

(sorry, in parliament or other influential and related roles)

@BovaryX It's a difficult decision. The thing is speaking out does have consequences. I scrutinised the student agreement and I have no doubt that any sort of opinions differing from the woke majority (or what feels like the majority!) would be heavily stamped down on with the justification of protecting people's feelings. I have other complications in life and have neither the energy or time to have battles

This is all about validation for the individual - it's like being on all-women shortlists for seats, women's groups, prizes, grants etc.
Make it stop!

I believe there are two factors for why young women do not understand the importance of advocating for biological females.

1. They have yet to experience the vulnerability that comes from child bearing. The physical, emotional, and economic realities of pregnancy and infant parenting are impossible to truly understand from a simply theoretical perspective.
2. They didn’t have mother’s who dealt with the extreme restrictions women faced. I can remember my mother talking about being required to wear a dress and gloves to university classes. I recall her access to bank accounts and credit cards being dependent on my father. I even recall her having to search for a new job because her boss just wouldn’t stop trying to corner her for sex. Even though my mother’s rights were a huge improvement over my grandmother’s, she still dealt with overt sexism on a regular basis. It’s much easier for my generation to understand just how fragile and new our current rights are.

The Government is knocking very loudly on the door. I read that they will be withholding funding if free speech is not upheld. They are also trying to knock out as many politics/sociologist grads and have business/science based grads for government posts. Maybe this will bring some balance but I'm not overly optimistic (thought grandkids are GC). Got there hands full with covid

@MichaelMumsnet

Hi all. We've deleted some posts in this thread because they're personal attacks on a young named person and that's not really in the spirit of the site. We'll try to keep the thread for now but please do report anything that veers too much away from discussing the issues and strays into personal attack territory.

I give in. Never had deletions and now 2 in one day! I only said there was an attitudinal slope to the cranium that was stereotypically indicative of femininity... and that other posters hould be ashamed of themselves for not acknowledging the reality of that sex indicator!

Maybe I do swear too much, I said fucking in both deleted posts!

By the by, I'm pretty sure when I was a PhD student I wouldn't have characterised myself as a 'young person' any more. By that stage you're the allegedly mature older part of the student body. This is an adult in a leadership position.

[quote CriminallyCharmed]@BovaryX It's a difficult decision. The thing is speaking out does have consequences. I scrutinised the student agreement and I have no doubt that any sort of opinions differing from the woke majority (or what feels like the majority!) would be heavily stamped down on with the justification of protecting people's feelings. I have other complications in life and have neither the energy or time to have battles[/quote]
@CriminallyCharmed

Yes, that's totally understandable. I think it might be helpful to know that you are not alone in your skepticism. There are interesting, critical voices such as Coleman Hughes, Glenn Loury, James Lindsay who speak on the topic of the malign influence of woke ideology on campus. You might also find The Coddling of the American Mind by Jonathan Haidt worth reading.

@CriminallyCharmed

I started uni a few weeks ago, my university is full on woke. Pronouns after names in all presentations and emails. I carefully read the terms for the student pledge and basically you can get thrown out for being discriminatory towards vulnerable groups and hurting their feelings. I am a mature student and far more confident than I would have been at 18 though I am still quite young, in my early 20s. But I daren't speak up. I need this degree for my career progression and I'm scared to even challenge the need for pronouns after everything. I dont doubt that there are people who share my beliefs at uni but how are we ever going to be able to find each other if we're terrified to speak up about our beliefs.

Good for you! Nobody can force you into using pronouns. I received at least 20 emails from students last week and not a single one included pronouns, and in a class several said they were specifically interested in the experiences of women - within the themes of the course I was teaching. There are others like you - I promise.

Why not just fail to give pronouns in these contexts? If you do - others may feel emboldened and some may reach out to you. It may feel as though they all think the same way, but honestly - I assure you - they really do not! I really do hope you manage to make some connections with them.

Thanks @BovaryX I'll look those up

You may be overestimating Dan. "Reproductive justice" has been redefined to include sperm freezing for transwomen. Womb transplantation, despite its purely hypothetical nature, has also been included in the concept by some of the lunatic fringe. And I bet there are also some creeps trying to widen the "reproductive justice" umbrella even further to include the right to exploit surrogates... I haven't seen that yet but it seems almost inevitable.

This is quite an old article, but you'll note no mention of any biological mother, but reference to MTF trans people being able to "reverse sterilisation" by stopping hormones temporarily, and "become pregnant" by which they mean get a woman pregnant.

everydayfeminism.com/2015/11/trans-women-reproductive-justice/

@Terrace58

I believe there are two factors for why young women do not understand the importance of advocating for biological females.

1. They have yet to experience the vulnerability that comes from child bearing. The physical, emotional, and economic realities of pregnancy and infant parenting are impossible to truly understand from a simply theoretical perspective.
2. They didn’t have mother’s who dealt with the extreme restrictions women faced. I can remember my mother talking about being required to wear a dress and gloves to university classes. I recall her access to bank accounts and credit cards being dependent on my father. I even recall her having to search for a new job because her boss just wouldn’t stop trying to corner her for sex. Even though my mother’s rights were a huge improvement over my grandmother’s, she still dealt with overt sexism on a regular basis. It’s much easier for my generation to understand just how fragile and new our current rights are.

I think all of that is very true. Rape within marriage was not formally criminalised until 2003 in the sexual offences act. They have no concept of how hard & long women had to fight to even get lip service for equality of opportunity

I think They see it as a strength - look how strong & powerful a young woman I am that I can offer help to these poor men who aren’t like the other men because they wear make up (sometimes) & feminine style clothes (sometimes)

It’s an awkward position isn’t it. You make a comment that suggests someone might have a ‘different’ experience of womanhood if they’ve identified into it and have a male sexed body, and you get grief, ostracisation, accusations of bigotry etc...Suddenly the people who come to your defence (although they may have other agendas) include people who don’t give a fuck about politics, misogynists of other stripes, homophobes and Lawrence Fox-types who you wouldn’t wish to spend time with. You’re effectively silenced or deleted. And if you try and articulate your thoughts, twats on Twitter will play that ‘are we the baddies?’ clip by Mitchell and Webb. Or is that just me?

Good luck to all young women in Uni at this period of history. Imagine being holed up in halls with Wokey McWokefaces who mistake dogma for decency.

The Students Union is largely despised by students at my university, and I’m sure that’s the case elsewhere too. Our academic departments score on average 87% in the National Student Survey, while the SU got something in the 30s last time around. I think there was a thread about this particular women’s officer a few months ago when they were elected, and it turned out that only a tiny percentage of students had voted in the election.