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.

To any of the posters who are not sure what is being discussed, maybe this thread will help.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3145470-Break-it-down-for-me

We are celebrating the fact that the OP connected with another women who believes that no one can change sex, no matter what gender they identify with. GC feminists centre females as per the definition posted up thread.

Males are not females even if they identify as a woman they do not share the life long experiences of the same oppression and discrimination. They certainly deserve and need their own protections but not those needed by and for women.

@MsInterpret

Me too! Our trust sent round a similar thing last week. I tied myself in knots because they asked about gender instead of sex.

I regularly trawl though the likes on an Australian GC Facebook site. I have yet to find someone I know but there are lots of friends of friends. I really want to find a friend, so I can send a solidarity message, and have someone else to chat to about these issues. I have one GC friend but she lives hundreds of kilometres away. My Mum ‘s and DH’s eyes glaze over when I have my rants now.

I suspect most people have fake FB accounts to post on GC groups, for safety but I am longing to find a mate.

[quote SingingSands]@Impatiens I'm not sure, I think it was an internal drive by the inclusion and diversity team.

We are a Stonewall top 100 employer though. And our firm is global so they'll be pleased about that. [/quote]
Ah that's interesting - have you seen the threads about Allison Bailey taking Stonewall to court?

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3950877-Allison-Bailey-to-sue-Stonewall

This is worth a watch if you are new here:

@MoodyMarshall

Ours was very early stages non-specific, more getting a baseline I think. Questions about IF I feel represented etc

I feel pro-representation and diversity in the sense that I wish our staff represented our community better and I think there are often times when we can accidentally exclude staff and the wider community on some social issues like fundraising events.

But will stand firm against compelling pronoun disclosure forevs.

This thread has reminded me to buy a couple more of the excellent quality ball point pens with the “woman” definition on them

I am really enjoying this thread

So much connection.

I have the t-shirt with the gold writing, but would love one with the EA2010 definition on it.

Thanks @HeronLanyon. You’ve inspired me to be a bit more forthright next time .

Absolutely loving this thread.

I have a friend who has brother who is now a sister. She has accepted her new sister and mourned the loss of her brother. She/he wants to fully tranistion but it's a lengthy process. She/he knows that until he does, she/he will be known as 'male' and treated as such. Both my friend and her brother accept this and deep down know that this is right. They may never go through with it or decide to become a penguin? instead. The point is, until someone has gender reasignment, they are what they were born as.
Apologise for the he/she and 'male' - just trying to make it clear who was who.

@MsInterpret I think we did the same questionnaire unless MATs all over the land are asking staff to fill out diversity questionnaires...

I have a number of teenagers at home. One is fond of saying when asked about pronouns 'My gender is yes' which treats the question with the contempt it deserves. Another enjoys explaining that it's complete bullshit to think that the kind of clothes, interests or personality you have determines your sex. Another one wears an I ❤ JK Rowling shirt because she loves JK Rowling, was asked about it once unpleasantly and told the school friend she didn't need anyone's permission to wear a t-shirt.

They're all like this because I have always calmly and persistently explained the difference between your sex and the stereotypes and assumptions latched on to it by different cultures.

Mums, wear your t-shirts round your teens. You're still their biggest influence, and there is no reason to think that they have to be inducted into the neo-religion of Genderism.

People are people, they are male and female distinctly, and beyond that, they can be, wear, do and love either men or women or both and it won't define their sex, which is defined at conception. I thought we'd grasped this in the 80s/90s, but Genderist fundamentalists have had a resurgence. Push back with reality.

I would love the bag or tshirt, but i work in one of the most TWAW industries there is and almost EVERYONE has been at the Kool Aid. And those of us who are over forty that haven't, know who we are, but we just quietly go about our day smiling and humming and reading JK Rowling on our break.

For that reason alone, I would have been very much like you OP and would have felt a little frisson of recognition and felt the need to give a massive thumbs up too. This has cheered me right up.

Thank you @Impatiens I'll go off and read that thread.
Always learning on this forum, thank you.

To me Gender-Critical Feminism is the belief that women/girls are oppressed globally by their sex and not by their so-called feminine brain/energy/aura/feelings.

Women and girls were not allowed to vote because of their being female, not because they liked wearing dresses and lipstick. Identifying as a man didn’t change that.

Women and girls are comparatively raped on a massively higher basis, due to their biology, having a vagina and being on average physically smaller and weaker than the more aggressive males.

Girls are aborted/abandoned at a much higher rate in Asian countries, it’s impossible to tell what the gender of the foetus/baby is. So what could be the common denominator there? The female sex.

It’s girls and women who freeze to death in menstrual huts in India.

Only women and girls suffer period poverty. Only women and girls have to fight for their reproductive rights (like abortion) on an ongoing basis.

To infer that women suffer this sort of oppression due to their “inner feminine identity” is a disgrace, it puts the blame on women for their feelings and pens oppression as a choice rather than women having been marked for oppression from conception due to the absence of a Y chromosome.

So I see it as the fact that women and girls cannot identify out of their oppression and males cannot identify in.

@MoodyMarshall

Highly likely that they are doing them up and down the land...

Or maybe we work for the same MAT!

I just recently received my lovely t-shirt , sweat-shirt and stickers with the woman adult human female definition!

I also had to complete a ‘Diversity and Inclusion’ survey for my child’s Academy primary school. The Stonewall definitions were included eg for gender, different sexualities etc. I hopefully added some sane comments, but I think I did rant a bit.

have the t-shirt with the gold writing, but would love one with the EA2010 definition on it.

I'm sure standing for women would consider getting one made up if there was enough people interested.

What a great thread.

Does this mean we've been paving the way with our Mama sweatshirts🤣

I'd love a women def bag, will I get attacked ? I'm asking seriously, if it will be positive like today or some over woke nutter will start on me when I'm with my kids.

Good to know that about your dc Bunting - it helps to know that not everyone under 25 has succumbed.

Diverseopinions
Gender isn't a recent made up word. It's been around for ages. It used to be thought to be like sex: male and female genders.

I am old enough to remember a time when gender used to apply (in ordinary speech) only to nouns in foreign languages you had to learn at school (so for instance "le" and "la" in French showed you what gender a noun was). There were a few specialist academic applications for the word, but in conversation outside those specialist fields it would not have been used. I think the ordinary use of "gender" to replace "sex" in speech came after the Race Relations Act of 1976 -- we wanted a similar law to say that women should not be discriminated against, but fairly obviously couldn't say we wanted a Sex Relations Act.

The idea of gender as a word which is a complete replacement for sex is recent, and the idea that gender is a biological fact while sex is a construct is very recent indeed.

Many years ago, when social media and the gender debate weren't what they are now., I used to lecture (uni) in electrical engineering. As a 5'1", slim female I used to delight in deliberately wearing pink and having my hair and makeup done. The first session with a new group of students - invariably male - they all fell for it and thought I was the secretary coming in to tell them the lecturer would be late. They found out different about 20 seconds later after I'd given them time to think about it.

Only a little thing, but none of those students will ever again truly be able to believe that engineering is only for men, or that if an engineer is a woman she has to be butch and sweary. Just a tiny step on the way...

This is a really interesting thread. I've only just started dipping my toes into 'all this' but now it's half term (secondary teacher!), I actually have time to do some more research. I haven't had to cover this in PSHE and hope I won't have to if I'm expected to teach them bollocks. In over 20 years of teaching, I've never been aware any boys wanting to transition but there have been an increasing number of girls wanting to over the last few years. One day I will find time to ask one of the Biology teachers and one of the Sociology teachers what they cover and if they get any pushback from the kids.

@SophocIestheFox

Like he was talking down at women for daring to have and defend their own words

I’d say you’ve very accurately captured the essence of Dr Harrop there!

"Essence of Harrop - the aftershave that every well-dressed TRA is wearing. An intoxicating blend of self-righteous and illogical, with top notes of misogyny. Very long lasting- just one little squirt, but he doesn't half go on."