Support thread for weary women

[AvocadoBathroom]

I think periodically I start these but it might be helpful for others too.
Just a thread of support for everyone who is feeling upset and burned out by this today. A thread to say how you feel but also add little lights to.
Sometimes my daughter says "I hate being a woman because of what we gave to deal with." and I say "We have to fight for women. We dont turn our back on ourselves." She likes this response.
She said this week that of it wasn't for all the sunlight JK Rowling has poured on this she would be trans now. Two girls in her class and counting are saying they are at school to teachers. The teachers are affirming it.
My win this week is that my beautiful Aspergers girl remains a girl.
My losses this week are energy and time. I'm also fighting a bullying case in my work with my abusive boss so I am wiped out.
I feel like this is my only safe space where you good women share energy and the will to keep fighting.

I am so tired. I'll get over it, but I'm so fucking tired.

to everyone who is finding it hard.

Remember everything you have already done has made a difference. Without all the small everyday pushbacks we would already have self ID.

Every letter, email, postcard and tweet has taken away the excuse that nobody is affected, nobody disagrees. No MP who has been contacted can hide behind “none of my constituents have raised concerns”.

Do you think we would have got the DfE guidance for schools without parents raising concerns?

When you are mired in the situation it’s sometimes hard to see what we achieved and what we have stopped.

Your DD is lucky to have you on her side, OP. More and more people are finding out what’s going on and having a WTF moment. One day we’ll look back on this with disbelief. Meanwhile we all have each other.

This could be me and my daughter.
It gives me sleepless nights. X

Cup of tea for you this morning Avocado , I hope today is better. I have girls and sometimes I feel so desperately sad thinking about what the future might hold. I also feel a bit overwhelmed by how much work still needs to be done and still a bit broken by Covid and working from home whilst homeschooling, just exhausted really. I did though have a lovely conversation yesterday with a young man (who I think was gay) about how wonderful JKR is. He was admiring some purchases I'd made for my DC and asked them questions about Harry Potter, which he loves. It cheered me up no end. Small mercies.

Morning op, I hope you are feeling better today.
I'm very new to this, (I feel so stupid for not seeing it before) yesterday I felt so ground down, today I work up ready to fight.
I have the upmost respect for all you women who have been fighting this for the past few years your strength and courage really is inspirational.

Annasgirl your post actually made me cry, I guess I'm feeling more emotional than I realised.

The positives are there are more people aware of what's going on now, I believe there will be a lot more voices, plus there is more evidence.

Thanks everyone for being the voice for those women who for whatever reason can't be a voice for themselves.

I'm signing into this thread today. I have been thinking about what UN Women said about the role of feminism being 'to be there' for fucking everyone else, and bloody Sam Smith wanting to be 'mummy' (but not just yet because he 'still has ambition) whilst women who have carried and given birth are 'birthing parents', and I am just so sick of it all. Obviously there are loads of other issues, but for some reason those things have really fucking tipped me over the edge with rage, arrrgghhhh!!!

I think it's because they are just two examples of how all the work that has been done is being unravelled at such an alarming rate, but somehow it is still being packaged as 'progressive'. How is this being allowed to happen?

I'm signing into this thread too. for all.

I've had to take a temporary step back from this all for my mental health.

I'm thinking about the women on the flight sexually abused in Doha. Sometimes when things like this happen that clearly and unequivocably treat women as 'adult human females' and lay bare our sexed oppression it just gets too much - especially when one hears the 'old sexism' of 'they asked for it' or 'they are overreacting' at the very same time.

Coco

I’m joining but not under my usual MN name, as I am recognisable and do not wish to be outed. It is very sad that I have to do this. I worry for my job if it was found I was GC, as my company is very woke. I work in a male dominated profession and a couple of years ago they celebrated International Women’s Day with an interview with a transwoman asking them what it was like to be a woman in a man’s role. I had got halfway through putting together an email to work asking why they didn’t interview someone who was actually a woman, when I realised it could get me sacked for being non-inclusive. So I didn’t send it. It drives me round the bend that you can’t even have a day to celebrate women without a man pushing their way to the front.

DD has decided being a woman is crap, and has joined a group of girls at school that are all labelling themselves trans or non-binary. I have always tried to be a role model to both my children that you do not need to let stereotyping get in the way of being whatever you want to be (DS once refused to be a shepherd in his school nativity after being told boys were shepherds and girls were angels. He proudly declared that Gabriel was a boy angel and turned up in a white dress and halo, and why not?) but I feel I’m going to have to be a bit more forthright with DD, encouraging her to stand up for the rights of women rather than turn her back on being a woman.

When I get annoyed I read Animal Farm. I then am reminded why extremist regimes hated intellectuals.

The Crucible is also good.

I have a collection of dystopian quotes I like to read through.

And lastly an inspirational one:

“He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression”

Actually it’s interesting how they (TRAs) go after the intellectuals; artists and writers say or display things that are controversial. In history eg the Cultural Revolution and in the Eastern Bloc they hated intellectuals and worshipped the peasants didn’t they?

When I get really depressed about the recent developments and the gas-lighting which we are faced with all the time (we are the bigots, erasing women is good and inclusive, nobody is discriminated on the basis of sex) I think that if things go as bad now as they might then real feminism will rise again, perhaps during our granddaughters' era. It will because sexism hasn't taken any kind of break and will get stronger as it is no longer punished much.

So from a longer historical angle we are just living in one of the backlash eras. I didn't want to do that, of course.

I have an eating disorder and everything right now is really triggering it. It feels like double whammy to be attacked by an illness that mainly affects women and girls while the rights of women and girls to name our oppression are being taken away. Feel I'm either glued to upsetting news on my phone or to the kitchen cupboards. Neither healthy.

Valancy, do you have access to support?

I'm public sector and completely depressed. I spend my work days biting my tongue watching as women's rights are completed eradicated and our identity erased. I've seen women lose their jobs by speaking up and go from feeling guilty for not speaking up enough to angry for being silenced.

I feel gagged, invisible, old, tired and defeated. But I will press on with speaking up in spaces I feel safe like this one and I'm proud to be raising sons who understand and share my concerns.

It is so, so hard to keep plodding on.
I have a nephew who thinks the GRA has never caused anyone any problems and elderly women (like me) should stop complaining.
My sister refuses to read anything, only watches the BBC, one friend who thinks feminists are entirely to blame for everything because wanting equality upsets the men. Another friend who doesn't believe that any men would want to access women's spaces. It is depressing. I am really having to reassess my friendships and relationships, which is hard at my age.

I'm reading textbooks that talk about gender being a patriarchal hierarchy on the one hand and then an 'internal feeling' on the other. No one sees the contradiction. All my colleagues have their pronouns in their sig files. It's like they are under a spell...

The one thing that lifts mood is humour. What lifted my mood yesterday was the tread about an OP who was expected to give pronouns at a zoom meeting. She was advised to not do so and didn't. She found, to her delight (and mine) that only the meeting organiser did the pronouns. That really gave me a lift

Hellooooo. I started replying to a TRA on a different thread then deleted it and decided to come calm down over here. It's crazy that after all these year this stuff can still make me feel so angry. It's so offensive, so regressive, so utterly illogically absurd. And the worst thing is that the people babbling on about it just sound soooo confused. They're destroying our rights and saying the most unbelievably misogynistic things and don't even seem to have a coherent understanding on either our or their own position. They're literally undoing our rights for their own brain farts that they've given 5 seconds of honest thought to. So instead of engaging with them and spending the rest of the day seething with rage and frustration, I'm plopping my butt down on this thread with a calming cup of tea. Good morning to you all :)

I think that's what makes me angriest; they are perfectly happy to shaft women without bothering to give any of the issues even the barest thought at all, beyond the misogynist notion that women are sub-human support drones. Much like the executive from UN Women who basically said exactly that the other day.

Just to let a PP know that you can have a trans person in the family without drinking the Kool-Aid. I have one and so does a friend and we were having a major fulminate about it all the other day: both of us GC to the backbone. Which doesn't mean that we don't love and care for our trans relatives.

Feeling v pissed off today because the pronouns thread was deleted as NITS. The last time I looked at it, it was really funny.

@ByGrabtharsHammerWhatASavings

Hellooooo. I started replying to a TRA on a different thread then deleted it and decided to come calm down over here. It's crazy that after all these year this stuff can still make me feel so angry. It's so offensive, so regressive, so utterly illogically absurd. And the worst thing is that the people babbling on about it just sound soooo confused. They're destroying our rights and saying the most unbelievably misogynistic things and don't even seem to have a coherent understanding on either our or their own position. They're literally undoing our rights for their own brain farts that they've given 5 seconds of honest thought to. So instead of engaging with them and spending the rest of the day seething with rage and frustration, I'm plopping my butt down on this thread with a calming cup of tea. Good morning to you all :)

hello ByGrab - that is such a good idea - I am at the point where I cba with engaging in arguments with a couple of very persistent posters who seem to be on broadcast only - I am impressed with everyone's patience with them and obviously I would contribute if I had any value to add but it does seem to go round in circles endlessly - I think it is of great value to new visitors though so will help out where I can.

A nice cup of tea (I will join you and have a coffee in a min) and a break from the crap does wonders. PPs ideas above about getting out and having a walk - I think many things can be helped with some fresh air and exercise.

Remember we ARE making progress though and while it seem like the top of the mountain keeps getting further away, we are still taking important steps onward and upward and we will get there.

Thank you to (almost) everyone on here for helping my sanity and helping me work through the facts of this hellish situation and get to the point where each day I am taking more action and trying to raise awareness and writing letters - it makes feel better to do something about it, however little - if we all do a little it will add up to a lot.

We have some amazing people working on this.

Just to let a PP know that you can have a trans person in the family without drinking the Kool-Aid. I have one and so does a friend and we were having a major fulminate about it all the other day: both of us GC to the backbone. Which doesn't mean that we don't love and care for our trans relatives.

Me too. My niece is a transman and I love the bones of her. My GC opinions had formed before she decided to transition.