Women’s Charter

[Notoriouslynotnotious]

I saw a really good post from another poster where she said that her focus was speaking out about her needs as a woman which got me thinking about what a woman’s charter might look like. So here is mine:

1. I want to be called a woman and not a person who menstruates, a birthing person, a cervix haver. I believe it is degrading and dehumanising to women to refer to us in terms of their body parts or biological functions.
2. I want the sexual objectification of women to decrease over time not to continue to increase exponentially as has been happening, so that women can be valued as the multidimensional people that they are and not merely as objects for sexual gratification.
3. I want the constant drip, drip of abuse and objectification of women that is normalised in movies, in the media and on social media to stop.
4. I want extreme and degrading sexualised behaviour that has become normalised via porn to stop.
5. I want the attempts at validating sex work as an aspirational career for young girls to stop.
6. I want the recognition that surrogacy carried out in significantly poorer countries is exploitive of vulnerable women.
7. I want recognition that the trafficking of sex workers from poorer countries to richer countries is exploitive of vulnerable women.
8. I want single sex spaces for women where no one with a penis is allowed in regardless of their gender identity.
9. I want single sex sports for women so that they can compete in sport on a level play field and are not significantly disadvantaged by the physical advantages of strength, endurance and other physiological advantages of being born male.

10. I want the behaviours that are widely used to control and dominate women, to prevent them from speaking up about their needs, to be recognised as the abusive behaviour that they are. Attempts to dominant and control women who speak out is relentless. It is happening from men, from trans rights lobbies, from other women who have been deeply let down by social structures that they must rely on for survival or a even just a good/reasonable quality of life and so they defend this dominating, controlling and abusive behaviour towards women even though it is deeply harming women as a group.

What would yours look like.

I’m going to do a sneaky bump here. I’d love to hear others thoughts on this.

I can't think of anything you've not mentioned - but I love this

Love this. So refreshing to see this stated in positive terms that should just be unarguable.

I want my daughters to have at least as many opportunities as their mum had, reserved for them through all women shortlists, women's prizes, initiatives and the like, to counteract the distinct disadvantages that their biology brings them when pursuing career and acclaim.

That all sounds ver reasonable.

I want children to be supported to wear whatever clothes they wish, play with whatever toys they wish, without being pushed towards stereotypical ideas.

Thomas that is so true. You would be hoping that the opportunities originally designed to level the playing field for women wouldn’t be taken away to accommodate other disadvantaged groups, rather new prizes would be created to create opportunities for other disadvantaged groups.

I want care and child care to be recognised and valued and rewarded by society as other work is.

This may end up quite a short thread as you've covered almost everything in your OP. An excellent list.

I would add equal pay for women who input the same value to a business as men, regardless of their role. The recent news about the Asda shop floor female workers being paid less than men who work in the warehouse brings this to mind. I can't believe we are still fighting for this.

I want all that you've listed to have the status of irrevocable rights because what I thought were women's rights turned out to be mere privileges that can be removed on a whim.

@ThomasPenman

I want my daughters to have at least as many opportunities as their mum had, reserved for them through all women shortlists, women's prizes, initiatives and the like, to counteract the distinct disadvantages that their biology brings them when pursuing career and acclaim.

Yes. This is a great addition.

I want all that you've listed to have the status of irrevocable rights because what I thought were women's rights turned out to be mere privileges that can be removed on a whim

That is what is scary. It feels like they was a golden moment that is now being pulled away.

A tweak to your excellent charter, if I may:

8. I want single sex spaces for women where no one who has, or has ever had, a penis is allowed in regardless of their gender identity.

Because having a surgical emasculation does not make you a woman.

I wonder if it's possible to tweak 10 so that it encompasses the vexed issue of Child Maintenance.

I'd like to see commitment to seeing women as credible rather than from a default position that questions reliability and credibility.

I want all that you've listed to have the status of irrevocable rights because what I thought were women's rights turned out to be mere privileges that can be removed on a whim.

The past year has demonstrated this so strongly.

Thanks op - totally agree with all the items on your list. As Thomas says I am horrified at the idea that my daughters are currently growing up with fewer protections than I did (and in the 70s and 80s that’s saying something!) and their legal rights are under threat.

I would like to add a bit of an umbrella point.

I want all decision makers to prioritise safeguarding for women and children and consider their sex specific needs when creating rules, policies and with facilities planning.

At the moment that exactly what is not occurring.

We know that bad people will always do bad things. A normal society looks at a bad thing that has happened (Holly Wells/Jessica Chapman for eg) and decides whether it needs to take steps to try and prevent it happening again (DBS checks).

A normal society does not look at what happened to the victims of Katie Dolotowski or Karen White and then set or maintain rules that make it more likely to happen again!

It started as a charter and ended up as a list of actions...

Equal pay and equality of opportunity.
A proper recognition of care work, be it for babies, disabled people or the elderly. This needs to be resources and supported, just as we fund the roads or commission power stations.
Proper acknowledgement and enforcement of financial support for children after a divorce or separation - too many women have been shafted caring for their kids whilst the men continue their career unencumbered.
For the police and courts to be overhauled and minimum levels in place for tackling DV, rape and abuse. I would like to see 50/50 female and male ratios on the bench.
For zero tolerance of low-level harassment and sexism on the street.
For porn to be regulated, stamping out sex trafficking and under-age viewing. Scenes involving gang rape, child abuse and domestic violence to be banned.
The dismantling of gender norms and the recognition of the impact of biological sex, especially in healthcare and sport. All drug trials to incorporate and study equal sex ratios as part of their testing, except where it is sex specific (e.g. male impotence).

The ABC that is so right it does need to be actionable.

I really think at the heart of the issue is the inability of women to speak their needs because at every turn there is abuse for women speaking their needs to keep them under control.

We are in the very unfortunate position where we love and rely on many of the people who try to dominate us using varying levels of abusive behaviour. It is so difficult to challenge abuse from those we love. If you think of other forms of oppression, it is so often easy for the oppressed to hate their oppressor it makes changing things so much easier.

applauding ... all of this and more!