Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Glosswitch's latest newsletter - a really cutting insight

25 replies

teawamutu · 27/03/2021 08:03

Just read her response to the Generation Woke piece (and why boomers should just agree with them; it was smug crap) in last weekend's Times, and offering a fairly long extract here because it's amazing and some of you might also need a 'triple espresso of rage' pick-up after this shitty week:

Men do love conceding things on our behalf. I am used to that. However, this I find particularly egregious, and here’s why: older men, you, more than anyone, saw, participated in and benefited from sexism at every stage of older women’s lives, and now you want tell us to be kind?

It is terribly convenient that older women can be ignored when older men decide that “those groups who today ask us to feel their pain are precisely those whose pain, until recently, was ignored and their voices unheard”. Kind of hilarious that the men of our generation, who groped us at school, harassed us in college, kicked the career ladder from under us, grew fat on our domestic and reproductive labour, watched as our salaries and pensions stagnated while theirs grew, didn’t lift a finger to stop the abuse women such as Rowling experienced behind closed doors – that these men can now decide that, privilege-wise, we’re all the same, one big, fat Generation Had-Its-Time who has already been heard and needs to defer to the young.

It’s convenient not least because, in seeing us this way, through a male-default generational lens, these men can consider themselves progressive without ever having to concede what they’ve taken from us, what they owe us, what they have done and are still doing now.

Genuinely after years of MN radicalisation I still hadn't quite thought of it in these terms. A real shaft of light.

OP posts:
YouSetTheTone · 27/03/2021 08:08

I read it last night too and had a similar moment of enlightenment! The passages you’ve quoted here really help a few little jigsaw pieces click into place.

Ereshkigalangcleg · 27/03/2021 08:08

It’s convenient not least because, in seeing us this way, through a male-default generational lens, these men can consider themselves progressive without ever having to concede what they’ve taken from us, what they owe us, what they have done and are still doing now.

I guarantee they wouldn't see it like this if they actually had to give up anything themselves. It's very easy to give up other people's rights, and tell others to get over their own feelings.

Nitgel · 27/03/2021 08:10

Where can I get this ?

teawamutu · 27/03/2021 08:13

Sign-up link here: tinyletter.com/Glosswitch

OP posts:
MiaChia · 27/03/2021 08:36

I’d like to read more! Does anyone know how to subscribe to Glosswitch’s newsletter please?

MiaChia · 27/03/2021 08:37

Oops! Sorry, your post hadn’t downloaded on my rackety computer when I posted 🤦🏻‍♀️

EsmaCannonball · 27/03/2021 09:10

I honestly think Glosswitch is the best feminist writer out there. If she wrote a book I would buy it.

teawamutu · 27/03/2021 09:22

@EsmaCannonball

I honestly think Glosswitch is the best feminist writer out there. If she wrote a book I would buy it.
God, yes. It's exhilarating to read something so clear and cutting. Although reeeeeaaaallllyyy fecking rage-making.

My own middle-aged man (entirely pro-women's rights, not remotely sexist but just doesn't get The Rage the way I do) had better not say anything well-meaning but clueless today... Grin

OP posts:
TheRabbitOfCaerbannog · 27/03/2021 10:00

Glosswitch is my shero

Olderstyle1 · 27/03/2021 10:04

Glosswitch is fabulous - and funny in to the bargain. I also get a newsletter from Caroline Criado Perez (Invisible Women) which makes me rage and chuckle in fairly equal measure.

Helleofabore · 27/03/2021 10:07

This articulates what has been in my thoughts for a while. Glosswitch is so clear.

Thank you for sharing!!

MoltenLasagne · 27/03/2021 10:28

I love Glosswitch's writing and hadn't realised she had a newsletter so have signed up.

MaudTheInvincible · 27/03/2021 11:22

Love Glosswitch and the clarity her incisive writing brings to my thoughts.

RoyalCorgi · 27/03/2021 11:35

I read this last too and had a similar moment of clarity. She's so good.

merrymouse · 27/03/2021 11:36

Also from Andrew Billen.

I wish he had re-read this article before claiming that sex is irrelevant.

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/nappies-at-50-older-fathers-and-the-male-biological-clock-tkkggm975

merrymouse · 27/03/2021 11:43

Actually, I wish he could re-read his previous article and think about this line:

We live in the greatest age of reproductive choice in our species’ history. It is easy enough to avoid getting pregnant, something that has liberated millions of women from poverty and domestic slavery.

The ability to avoid getting pregnant is completely and absolutely dependent on rights and services that can be taken away, even unintentionally (See access to MAP at beginning of pandemic). Many countries restrict access to birth control, and it can't be taken for granted anywhere.

Instead of thinking "Hmm, maybe JK Rowling knows something about this, given her well publicised involvement in charities that support women", he just assumes she is at best clueless.

That is sexism.

YetAnotherSpartacus · 27/03/2021 11:45

Bravo!

WendyTestaburger · 27/03/2021 12:06

The ability to avoid getting pregnant is completely and absolutely dependent on rights and services that can be taken away, even unintentionally (See access to MAP at beginning of pandemic). Many countries restrict access to birth control, and it can't be taken for granted anywhere.

This.
Also see becoming pregnant from rape.

Also when I was 13 I had yet to experience most of the crap that abusive misogynist males would throw at me. I'm sure I'd have given our rights away for short term feel goods too.

But he is a grown, educated man.

TabbyStar · 27/03/2021 12:30

If you're a teenage girl and react badly to any type of hormonal contraception, things really aren't that great.

CardinalLolzy · 27/03/2021 12:50

I had the same thoughts, OP!

Scout2016 · 27/03/2021 13:09

She is great, I appreciate getting her reading recommendations too.

Didn't know Caroline C.P did one too, just signed up. Thanks!

Floisme · 27/03/2021 13:21

It is easy enough to avoid getting pregnant
Jeez Louise. Yes contraceptive choices have been liberating and life changing for women, but only someone who has never lain awake at night over a thrown-up contraceptive pill, a split condom or a worn out cap, or never tried to get hold of a morning-after pill could come out with such a crass, tone deaf utterly plonkerish comment.

CardinalLolzy · 27/03/2021 13:54

The ability to avoid getting pregnant is completely and absolutely dependent on rights and services that can be taken away, even unintentionally (See access to MAP at beginning of pandemic). Many countries restrict access to birth control, and it can't be taken for granted anywhere.

Absolutely this.
In the US it's quite tricky to get hold of even the normal contraception pill. I still had to pay even though I had insurance, I had to get the right amount at the right time - they don't want to accidentally give you more than you're entitled to. It's bizarre.

And that's assuming you don't get raped, and know how to /have the ability to get the MAP.

Basically if you're in a country that restricts abortion and MAP, and you're a fertile female of any age, you're at risk of pregnancy that you have no choice over, because there aren't really any barriers to a man raping you.

alwayslucky · 29/03/2021 14:33

Thank you for the post, and the link.
Hands up, all women and girls in any country who can be confident that her own decisions about her own reproductive system will be respected?
Else-thread, women have recounted how they have been denied sterilisation, even when pregnancy would endanger or kill them, and even when the procedure was one which could readily be carried out in conjunction with 'permissible' procedures they were undergoing anyway.

Meanwhile, of course, a man can make his own choice to have vasectomy.

Erkrie · 29/03/2021 15:14

Very good. Thanks for the link.

New posts on this thread. Refresh page
Swipe left for the next trending thread