Is this going to end? If so, when? What will be the catalyst?

[SybillTrelawney]

Sorry if these are pointless questions — I realise no one really knows the answers. But I need some hope, because I'm feeling so fed up. The attitude many of my colleagues have to gender and sex scares me, and the way that all diversity initiatives at work now revolve around gender ideology (while ignoring women) leaves me in a constant state of low-level anger. I just can't see an end to it, and I'm wondering what it will take for there to be a big shift in attitude amongst the sort of people who are sustaining the current climate of fear.

@zzizzer

"What seems to anger you is as women". Fixed that for you

"Where are the threads on here, the protests, the letter writing, the crowdfunders?"

Crowdfunder links aren't allowed. However, jj, if you're willing to stop posting so frequently telling us all what we're doing wrong, we might have a bit more time for other issues. Dealing with 'whataboutery' is a known energy-suck within activism.

@JoodyBlue

It WILL pass because of us. Because of Keira, Posie, Glinner, Fairplay for Women, Jane Clare Jones, A Woman's Place UK. Who have I missed?

Women working tirelessly and refusing to lie. It will pass because women support women. Do not give up. Get hopeful.

This is the energy this thread needs!

@JoodyBlue

It WILL pass because of us. Because of Keira, Posie, Glinner, Fairplay for Women, Jane Clare Jones, A Woman's Place UK. Who have I missed?

Women working tirelessly and refusing to lie. It will pass because women support women. Do not give up. Get hopeful.

Yes. Women won't wheesht.

I'd say that's a pretty big priority for feminists, or it should be

Agree. It's classic whatabouttery to argue otherwise. A bit like complaining the ANC weren't doing enough to address black South Africans' pay gap or housing conditions while they still lived under Apartheid. It's not that those aren't very important issues, but you can never address them meaningfully if people don't have basic human rights.

In the case of women, there is little point campaigning for women's rights if the word woman now encompasses people not born female. So the issues of VAWG, FGM haven't gone away and remain very important, but we cannot make much progress on them if we are having to fight a rearguard action to defend the very concept of woman, girl and female.

there is little point campaigning for women's rights if the word woman now encompasses people not born female

This.

I'm sure many of us are quietly feministing in the wild without announcing it on MN or Twitter or being part of a campaign.
The most powerful way women organise is face to face, amongst their peers and at home.

Apparently the 5050 Parliament event to get LGBTQ women into politics that was on this afternoon hasn't hugely inspired at least one female listener... I wonder why?

I agree with pp above, we will keep pushing and making progress, I hope for some sudden realisation from enough people in positions of influence one day.

Don't forget, on a site called Mumsnet, that many of us here are doing the most important work of all, which is raising our children to be critical of gender, supporting them to question stereotypes, teaching them about consent, self respect, and confidence, and helping the next generation find new ways to empower and support women.

@ArabellaScott

Don't forget, on a site called Mumsnet, that many of us here are doing the most important work of all, which is raising our children to be critical of gender, supporting them to question stereotypes, teaching them about consent, self respect, and confidence, and helping the next generation find new ways to empower and support women.

Absolutely.

@ArabellaScott

Don't forget, on a site called Mumsnet, that many of us here are doing the most important work of all, which is raising our children to be critical of gender, supporting them to question stereotypes, teaching them about consent, self respect, and confidence, and helping the next generation find new ways to empower and support women.

The hand that rocks the cradles rads the world

@JoodyBlue

It WILL pass because of us. Because of Keira, Posie, Glinner, Fairplay for Women, Jane Clare Jones, A Woman's Place UK. Who have I missed?

Women working tirelessly and refusing to lie. It will pass because women support women. Do not give up. Get hopeful.

Glinner ...

Given his recent behaviour my worry is the elevation of the Glinners of the world is partly where this ends. A whole bunch of men seem to have been given a licence to act like utter pricks, often utter misogynist pricks, and as long as they are hostile enough to trans women they get to call it feminism. I hope that is one legacy of the gender critical movement which does not endure whatever else the future holds.

@ArabellaScott

Don't forget, on a site called Mumsnet, that many of us here are doing the most important work of all, which is raising our children to be critical of gender, supporting them to question stereotypes, teaching them about consent, self respect, and confidence, and helping the next generation find new ways to empower and support women.

Yes absolutely.

I am very proud and relieved that my DC have healthy critical thinking skills.

A whole bunch of men seem to have been given a licence to act like utter pricks, often utter misogynist pricks, and as long as they call themselves women they seem to think they can repeatedly tell women what to do and what they're doing wrong.

Don't forget, on a site called Mumsnet, that many of us here are doing the most important work of all, which is raising our children to be critical of gender, supporting them to question stereotypes, teaching them about consent, self respect, and confidence, and helping the next generation find new ways to empower and support women.

It's heartening. MN is a rare female centred space.

And I do pay attention, I see lots of third wave feminists challenging stereotypes in popular culture and things like body shaming, as well as organising to challenge male violence whether that's the #metoo phenomena or the campaigns by Sisters Uncut and others to preserve VAWG funding. I don't see much of it in gender critical circles
though, at best these things seem secondary

Mmmhhmmm, yeah sure, I only ever care about one thing at a time. Or maybe lots of these issues are connected and my limited funding goes to more than one issue.

Although I'm damned if I know how women challenge male violence safely.

Given his recent behaviour my worry is the elevation of the Glinners of the world is partly where this ends

Right, yes, Glinner is clearly the number one threat to women, and not Karen White, Fallon Fox or TRAs making effigies of women or carrying baseball bats and threatening t**fs with them.

Isn't it amazing how TRA apologists like you can overlook serious assault and rape, but get all worried about Glinner or Posie, and whether they will lead us poor, unsuspecting rad fems into trouble? We are touched by your concern.

It's heartening. MN is a rare female centred space.

Yes, and it's been lovely lately, when issues have escaped into the wider site, to see how clued up and clear most women are on these issues. Tain't just us six sock puppets, after all.

Tain't just us six sock puppets, after all

That's the best bit of all this. Once I found this place I realised it wasnt just me being autistic about this issue.

Sisters Uncut? Is that the same Sisters Uncut who stood outside a building full of women in London and repeatedly shouted 'Burn it down'?

@LangClegsInSpace

Sisters Uncut? Is that the same Sisters Uncut who stood outside a building full of women in London and repeatedly shouted 'Burn it down'?

I have no idea about that, but I mean the feminist group who formed as part of the resistance to austerity and carried out direct actions targeting cuts to VAWG services.

@LangClegsInSpace

Sisters Uncut? Is that the same Sisters Uncut who stood outside a building full of women in London and repeatedly shouted 'Burn it down'?

After having sabotaged our original venue and followed us to the new one, despite our attempts to shake them off. That’s one evening I’ll never forget.

theyre good feminists, see, not like the awful ones on mumsnet who do nothing.

History shows that there is really no room for complacency. How many authoritarian regimes terrorised, tortured, disappeared and enslaved populations? These regimes continued for decades or centuries in some cases. Sure all things pass eventually. Empires rise and Empires fall. The oppression and enslavement of the female sex on the basis of our sex has been fairly constant to varying degrees for most of recorded history.

I am not quite at the hopeful stage yet. In 2004 I was told not to be so silly, not to worry my pretty little head because the things I was worried about would never happen. Yet here we are they have all come to pass and I thought I was alone in having such concerns and possibly also an unkind person until about a year ago when I discovered there are others who are worried too and that it really isn’t unkind to have boundaries, to want to keep myself, children and all women and girls safe. It really isn’t unkind to say no.

Those hanging effigies are scary, we know what they’d like to do to us but we wish them no harm at all we just want our boundaries respected. Somehow that warrants threats of extreme violence.