Solidarity in Aldi today!

[JaneyHenderson]

This is my first thread in a very long time but I wanted to share the uplifting and fabulous experience I had today in Aldi😂

I reached 'peak' during the last lockdown and lurk regularly on here while trying to make sense of the madness.
DH is supportive to a degree but very nervous of me being vocal about my GC views as we are both teachers. I am a middle leader in a secondary school and he worries about me getting sacked
So I can't discuss this much IRL.

Anyway, queing outside Aldi today and saw a woman a few people ahead of me with a 'Woman
Noun
adult human female' tote bag. I was thrilled and as soon as there was an opportunity (by the fruit and veg) I told her I liked her bag and that I knew what it meant.
She said I had made her day; I replied I she had made mine. Then she said 'Solidarity sister and see you on the next march'
We went on our separate ways but bloody hell it was brilliant. To vocalise it and be recognised. Felt a bit emotional and even now re-writing it, am a bit teary.

Just wanted to share. It was wonderful.

Secondary teacher and radical feminist. Everyone knows where I stand. School is deep in with Stonewall but the vast majority of our kids are not in line with the mantras (they find the biology denial risible). A sign of hope from lockdown is that fewer young lesbians are declaring trans identity this year: social contagion is difficult when they're at home. Haven't spotted any email pronoun sign-offs yet and despite many regular staff training events, the pronoun declaration game has never been initiated.

I'm on the vulnerable children side of education: our Safeguarding training is rigorous and thorough. I think this is why the staff are so sceptical and so grounded. I am open on my views and have had only one unpleasant encounter with the rainbow haired activists in school - over sex-work-is-work, which I refused to concede. I have not met any pushback from discrete one-to-ones with fellow staff - if anything, I've rarely identified anyone enthusiastically mouthing the mantra.

Courage, women. In the real world of shared material reality, GC ideas are prevalent!

Don’t forget!

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3936313-list-of-businesses-throwing-women-under-the-bus

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3935090-Up-to-date-boycott-list

I’ve heard people talk about ‘militant’ feminists when in the context they just meant radfems. They make it sound like we have uniforms and go out on the weekend on exercises

I recall the women handing out Fair Play for Women leaflets a couple of years ago were accused of being the ‘street violence wing’ of the gender critical movement

@TheFleegleHasLanded

I recall the women handing out Fair Play for Women leaflets a couple of years ago were accused of being the ‘street violence wing’ of the gender critical movement

Maybe it was the scary red T-shirts .

I remember the TRAs being furious with one woman who told people in her community what was going on because she lived on Moss Side & they thought that meant she & all her neighbours must be thugs.

@HashtagLurky

Secondary teacher and radical feminist. Everyone knows where I stand. School is deep in with Stonewall but the vast majority of our kids are not in line with the mantras (they find the biology denial risible). A sign of hope from lockdown is that fewer young lesbians are declaring trans identity this year: social contagion is difficult when they're at home. Haven't spotted any email pronoun sign-offs yet and despite many regular staff training events, the pronoun declaration game has never been initiated.

I'm on the vulnerable children side of education: our Safeguarding training is rigorous and thorough. I think this is why the staff are so sceptical and so grounded. I am open on my views and have had only one unpleasant encounter with the rainbow haired activists in school - over sex-work-is-work, which I refused to concede. I have not met any pushback from discrete one-to-ones with fellow staff - if anything, I've rarely identified anyone enthusiastically mouthing the mantra.

Courage, women. In the real world of shared material reality, GC ideas are prevalent!

Yeah. Hard when you are not with your gang of social contagion

Great work

@legalseagull

She's brave! I live in Brighton - If I wore that bag I'd be stoned to death with avocados.

I realise I'm sounding a bit pathetic but this is what worries me. I get flustered and embarrassed easily and would struggle to not leg it out the cafe. Then onlookers would assume by my lack of response that the slogan was not a good one and I'd do the cause more harm than good confused

I hate feeling like this, it makes me do cross at myself when so many of you are proper warriors.

LangShip, I feel like this often, too.

But honestly, you are still able to feel vulnerable and question your motives, to be upset or not like confrontation - doesn't mean you are not able to help. Bear in mind that women have been threatened with the loss of their job for 'liking' Tweets. Tiny things matter, too. This is a very, very grassroots movement. It's made up of lots and lots of ordinary women making tiny gestures, flinging fivers at court cases, wearing pin badges, writing to their MPs, sharing social media posts, asking questions, (while simultaneously working day jobs, raising families, caring, home-fucking-schooling, I might add) and generally, in whatever quiet or loud or stumbling way they can saying 'no' to the oppression of women and girls. It all makes a difference.

I was bloody terrified of militant radfems, all my adult life.

Then I found Mumsnet's feminist pages.

Now, I'm ten times more scareder.

I remember a book event so you can imagine the audience. There was a rad fem and a wiffley lib fem. By the end the entire audience of older middle class women were utterly behind the rad fem lady everything she said was so clear and obviously right. She was extremely complimentary of Mumsnet. Was great to see. If you lay it out clearly most women are radical.

Thank you everyone for solidarity. It is all of us standing together that makes the difference. I have bought the AFH T-shirt but rarely wear t-shirts so inspired by this will also get the tote. Loving the Thought Criminal one too! I cannot wait to use my stickers when we are all allowed out again. I love the Suffragette ribbons too.

Additionally, it's a big subject with a big history. Hang around, read around, and you'll pick it up as you go along.

There used to be a really good lot of resources around "Feminism 101" - Twisty's "I Blame the Patriarchy" was fab.

blog.iblamethepatriarchy.com/about-the-blog/

I just searched for the old "Feminism 101" site, but it's been superseded by "Feminism is about equality for all genders" rubbish.

Women are not young men's support system, d'uh

I’m picturing June (OfFred) whispering to another resistance Handmaid in the grocery store

Margaret Atwood famously said on first publication of A Handmaid's Tale that nothing in the book hadn't happened somewhere in the world.

@QueenoftheAir

I’m picturing June (OfFred) whispering to another resistance Handmaid in the grocery store

Margaret Atwood famously said on first publication of A Handmaid's Tale that nothing in the book hadn't happened somewhere in the world.

And yet Atwood is now fully TWAW.

She wouldn’t even be whispering now - she’s be calling security.

I love this thread. Would love to see someone wearing a t-shirt or with a bag.
I'm definitely going to get my own- plus some stickers for when I leave my house again!

I know @FamilyOfAliens - it's so disappointing ...

I was not even a bit surprised about Atwood selling women down the river; she sold out science fiction as soon as she'd been given the Clarke award for The Handmaid's Tale. Took the money, didn't want to stay in the nasty science fiction ghetto.

I remember the TRAs being furious with one woman who told people in her community what was going on because she lived on Moss Side & they thought that meant she & all her neighbours must be thugs.

YY. A nasty bit of class prejudice.

The FPFW leafletter recounted handing leaflets to a group of lads on bikes on Moss Side. This was reinterpreted by the snobs on Twitter as her inciting motorcycle gangs to rough up trans people. But fantasists gonna fantasist, I guess.

Every time I pass the Aldi threshold, I shall wonder if I've just missed crossing paths with another feminist.

@JaneyHenderson and everybody. Posie/Kellie-Jay is talking about you right now😁

Loving this thread. I spent quite a bit on Red Bubble today procuring some GC clothes and stickers for myself and a friend. We are going to brave the streets of woke East London with our outfits and accessories.

Lots of bars and cafes here have issued written warnings on their doors that they will "not permit transphobia" so wearing my Woman Adult Human hoodie when I go on the coffee run is going to go down a treat

OMG! She's talking about us! That was so exciting and brilliant😍🥰😀

Thank you for posting😀😀

That was for @Fallingirl

And the here we are in Scotland where a Scottish government minister tweeted this today