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/

@GCAcademic, I agree that the SU is largely ignored or despised by students. However, staff interact with them significantly and they influence policy and curriculum. Also, there's a smallish number of often the vulnerable students (and often women) who look to them for support. The SU is also seen as a "CV points" vehicle, and can give students a taste of influence and power, no matter how small a circle this is in. I'd like to think this is an irrelevance, but I really don't think it is.

I think women's history needs to be in the school curriculum. I agree that young people seem really ignorant of women's struggle against oppression throughout history and now.

WTF.

When I was a student, the WO was the port of call for pregnancy tests, reports of sexual harassment, and queries about sexual health clinics, with especial reference to where to get a MAP on a Sunday without paying Boots prices.

Maybe they don't do that now - Google being far more effective. But how can a young male person, however lovely and well-intentioned, represent young female interests? How can they understand the experience of growing up female? Why would they believe that they can - whatever happened to the essential importance of lived experience? If nobody can understand identity-based phobia and discrimination but the demographic affected, why is someone evidently male-presenting, whatever the internal beliefs, representing those experiencing such treatment from infancy up?

The sheer hypocrisy of this movement's extreme fronts, in erasing women's lived experience under the banner of liberation, shocks me. Of course we should have LGB and T reps. Of course. Inclusion is important. But how can women's reproductive experience be represented by someone who doesn't share our biology?

Sadly, I think this is yet another example of the way we're socialised to prioritise males, and feel good about it.

So the BAME officer is black, the Trans officer is Trans, the Disability officer has a disability, the internatiin officer is from abroad and the LGBT officer is gay but the women’s officer is a man??? Have I got that right?

That made me chuckle, Rita.

@Ritasueandbobtoo9

So the BAME officer is black, the Trans officer is Trans, the Disability officer has a disability, the internatiin officer is from abroad and the LGBT officer is gay but the women’s officer is a man??? Have I got that right?

That appears to be the common pattern in terms of the various -isms among the woke. The one movement expected to lose all boundaries and change its definition is feminism.

It is very odd to see something as old and traditional as sexism clearly at the forefront in the trans movement. The way the female biological sex is erased but nothing is done to the male biological sex is a text book example sex-based behavioral patterns.

What a nerve, they have taken the role from a woman. Shame on them. The characteristic that most distinguishes people like this from the women they claim to identify as, is their complete disregard for women. Shame on them.

When I was a student, the WO was the port of call for pregnancy tests, reports of sexual harassment, and queries about sexual health clinics, with especial reference to where to get a MAP on a Sunday without paying Boots prices.

Thanks, I was going to ask what a WO was for. Never had them in my day, when I was a student rep (briefly) I campaigned on creche facilities for my course, which the tutors pointed out were unnecessary because 'there are no mothers on the course'.

I suppose that Dan has other topics to represent on. Tbh I wouldn't want to approach a male-bodied person with any concerns I had about sexual violence or reproductive justice. Nothing against Dan, who I'm sure is lovely, but on the topics relating to womanhood he has no empathy or lived experience.

@ilovejennimurray

What a nerve, they have taken the role from a woman. Shame on them. The characteristic that most distinguishes people like this from the women they claim to identify as, is their complete disregard for women. Shame on them.

I absolutely agree with you. The inability to recognise or respect the lived experience of being female is so fucking male.

YY.

sadly, I think it might take the complete takeover before realisation dawns in these youngsters, when they need advice on things unique to women and girls but the Dans of this world are too busy sorting out the problems of the other type of women. Let's hope not too many casualties are sacrificed in the meantime, I fear for my DD.

Oh my god, Dan is a physicist. DH is a physicist and so far his lot have still seemed grounded in physical reality. I suppose it was only a matter of time...

DS finished his degree at Leicester this year, and went from being largely GC to full on ‘you are who you say you are’ during his 3 years.

Leicester is woker than woke 🙄

He’s gone from agreeing with my view - sex is immutable, treat everyone with respect but single sex spaces matter - to viewing me as out of date.

If I was anyone else, he’d be calling me a bigot, but he KNOWS different. He knows I’ve never been hateful, or unkind to anyone.

He’s not ready to confront the cognitive dissonance, it’ll come when he’s ready.

For now, we mostly don’t talk about it, and when we do, we both try very hard to keep it respectful. I gain a better understanding of how some see ‘woman’ - to me, I’m a woman because I have a female body, nothing more.

He believes that for some, it’s down to an internal sense of self - his jaw literally dropped at my very prosaic view.

If the younger generation, like your DS, Sparkyduchess (and anybody else) are willing to believe that a man and a women are those who say they are, as opposed to the traditional manner, and they can't tell the difference, until they get down to the nitty gritty, are they just going to be accepting of whatever they're presented with?

Sure enough you’re a woman to be the woman’s officer but she/THEY

Buy obviously yay for the improved representation of women in physics

For a newly-minted woman in a male-dominated field, there must be so many women in STEM shortlists for posts and grants and awards to apply for.

It could be a real career booster.

@Sparkyduchess

DS finished his degree at Leicester this year, and went from being largely GC to full on ‘you are who you say you are’ during his 3 years.

Leicester is woker than woke 🙄

He’s gone from agreeing with my view - sex is immutable, treat everyone with respect but single sex spaces matter - to viewing me as out of date.

If I was anyone else, he’d be calling me a bigot, but he KNOWS different. He knows I’ve never been hateful, or unkind to anyone.

He’s not ready to confront the cognitive dissonance, it’ll come when he’s ready.

For now, we mostly don’t talk about it, and when we do, we both try very hard to keep it respectful. I gain a better understanding of how some see ‘woman’ - to me, I’m a woman because I have a female body, nothing more.

He believes that for some, it’s down to an internal sense of self - his jaw literally dropped at my very prosaic view.

Oh duchess you must have the patience of a saint!

I bet your DS knows what a woman is when he’s looking for a gf or if he wants to become a father though!

@NewlyGranny it is. I already know of a transwoman physicist who took up a female-only professorship; the professorship is named after one of the only famous female physicists from the 20th C too. The post specifically states that the woman should use it to act as a role model and mentor to younger/training female physicists.

It's so ironic, claiming to be a woman, while taking away prizes and positions of leadership and influence from actual women. Do they not know that women are massively underrepresented in leadership roles, in prizes and grants, in politics etc, or do they just not give a shit about women?

.... or do they just not give a shit about women?

Nail. Hit. On. Head.

Presumably they don't consider women real capable people so they think it's better if they do the job.

I remember being a spectacularly rubbish women's officer briefly for the Labour Club when I was at uni. I actually was pissed off about having the role pushed on me as I wasn't really interested in "women's issues". I didn't really learn what they were until some years later.

I suspect that's why men find it quite easy to take these roles, as a lot of issues only become obvious in later life.

[quote BobbinThreadbare123]@NewlyGranny it is. I already know of a transwoman physicist who took up a female-only professorship; the professorship is named after one of the only famous female physicists from the 20th C too. The post specifically states that the woman should use it to act as a role model and mentor to younger/training female physicists.[/quote]
And there was the physicist who took a fellowship at Newnham, resulting in Germain Greer resigning hers:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rachael_Padman

When I was a student, the WO was the port of call for pregnancy tests, reports of sexual harassment, and queries about sexual health clinics, with especial reference to where to get a MAP on a Sunday without paying Boots prices

I have no idea if such a thing as a Woman's Officer existed when I was at university. I'm not sure why female students need this sort of hand holding to deal with life.

Tricky one that. If only someone had just told us..

I’ve just started an MA in Gender studies.

Oh Lordy.

I’ve had to shift to distance learning and joining the lectures through Microsoft Teams.
I cannot be in a room with the other students and trust that at some point I’m not going to be removed from the degree for saying something that upsets someone.

The list of pronouns is continual.
Self righteous , navel gazing, pretentious and smug is how I’d describe at least half of the cohort.

I have been cissed repeatedly.