Times article: Protests over trans woman heading rape crisis centre

[stumbledin]

Quote: Rape Crisis Scotland, which runs 17 member centres in the country, said they were “proud” to have Wadhwa “as a colleague within our movement”.

Sandy Brindley, chief executive, said: “Mridul Wadhwa brings to this role extensive experience working in the violence against women sector. All rape crisis centres in Scotland work within equality and employment law. There is a lot of misinformation and targeted harassment in relation to Mridul. We think this is unacceptable.”

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/protests-over-trans-woman-heading-rape-crisis-centre-wp7hwbv09

Open for comments (I hope the Times isn't beginning to see this issue as click bait ). Very little to the article is about breach of the EA and more about the emotional aspect. Would have thought they would have done something more thorough.

[FindTheTruth]

Scrolling she is brilliant and her speech to Scottish Parliament was exactly what politicians need to hear and be required to respond to honestly.

[ScrollingLeaves]

FindTheTruth
I have just read that and think she puts it all
brilliantly. How admirable she is to speak out this way too.

[FindTheTruth]

re making a male born person, the CEO of a rape crisis centre, this Karen Ingala Smith article is worth a read...

kareningalasmith.com/2020/01/20/the-importance-of-women-only-spaces-and-services-for-women-and-girls-whove-been-subjected-to-mens-violence/

[MarieIVanArkleStinks]

It can be really traumatising for male rape survivors, as it makes them feel that they were complicit in the rape. If MW were running a centre for the male victims of rape, the comment would have been a reasonable one.

It appears that MW lacks a basic understanding of how women experience rape.

It's simply awful, and I've experienced rape twice: once a gang rape, once non-consensual sex with a 'boyfriend'. The atrocious lack of justice for victims and a system skewed against us is bad, victim-blaming is on a whole other level, but blaming their bodies for involuntarily responding exactly the way they are designed to respond is taking things to a whole new surface of low.

It's always the people who occupy roles like this 'CEO', or insinuate their way into women's spaces (not excluding our bodies) who pose the biggest danger in being anywhere near them. These views alone should disqualify this person from that post.

[Ereshkigalangcleg]

In what way can this individual have ever been considered to be an appropriate candidate? It's incompréhensible.

It really is.

[StrangeLookingParasite]

@StellaAndCrow

This is particularly unpleasant, in so many ways.

(from here:
threadreaderapp.com/thread/1297441056003444738.html
)
Being worried about self-ID is "similar to what I would call a false allegations of rape" ??

In what way can this individual have ever been considered to be an appropriate candidate? It's incompréhensible.

[MissLucyEyelesbarrow]

@BernardBlackMissesLangCleg

The first and only time I’ve ever heard anyone talk about women orgasming during rape was MW.

Fucking inappropriate and pretty damn peculiar

This person should be nowhere near a rape crisis service

It's pretty common for men to orgasm involuntarily when being raped, due to prostate stimulation. It can be really traumatising for male rape survivors, as it makes them feel that they were complicit in the rape. If MW were running a centre for the male victims of rape, the comment would have been a reasonable one.

It appears that MW lacks a basic understanding of how women experience rape.

[youkiddingme]

"Our centre is staffed entirely by self-identifying women workers who are trained to a high standard and share the view that gender-based violence is an abuse of power and should not happen."

www.ercc.scot/about-us/

[mrsmashedpotatohead]

Thanks @Leafstamp I will complain. I will tone down my language for the complaint but I feel like all women are being gaslighted by this mess and this literally takes the biscuit!

I think a lot of people think a 3rd space is the answer or at least anything but this.

Taking over female/women's space or specific sensitive jobs like these etc is not the answer to the issue that has arisen and the politics surrounding this are just awful.
I'm teaching my young dd what women have been through to get any kind of rights and what women in many parts of
the world are still going through before she's old enough to be sucked into all of this. It sickens me. Trans people don't sicken me but the whole system of squashing women does and those with the least morals ever seem to shine through when it comes to this subject.

Someone has a twisted mind allowing this to go ahead.

[StellaAndCrow]

This is particularly unpleasant, in so many ways.

(from here:
threadreaderapp.com/thread/1297441056003444738.html
)
Being worried about self-ID is "similar to what I would call a false allegations of rape" ??

[Gibbonsgibbonsgibbons]

It's all about politics & "getting ahead of the law" it's not about the women & girls who need the services

As for MW's comments on men not being suitable for the role surely this is just more w waving

[CuriousaboutSamphire]

Ooh! Just checked and no, I haven't had a response either, just the holding one!

[Leafstamp]

When MW was appointed, lots of us complained to the Scottish Charities Commision (OSCR) see here:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/4234774-New-CEO-of-Edinburgh-Rape-Crisis

See posts on page 16, around 20:21 on 4th May.

I've not had a reply yet, other than "there will be delays, because Covid"

[mrsmashedpotatohead]

I think this appointment is absolutely disgusting. As a victim of sexual assault and rape (one assault reported to all male police and brushed off like it was nothing, admittedly 15 years ago and I'm not white so I'm used to being brushed aside but still, I was threatened to be raped and killed on that occasion whilst being assaulted)

I do not believe for one second this person has any idea what it is to be a woman and live as a woman and go through the hardships limited to women in relation to these matters. I think you have to have an understanding of this for that role.
I am upset by it but don't know how to say anything without getting shot down. The times won't post my comments.

[JustPoppingToWaitrose]

*saying, not dating.

[JustPoppingToWaitrose]

Does anybody remember when MW posted this tweet? Maa Kali is shown in this image standing with her foot on Shiva's chest. This represents an episode where Kali was out of control on the battlefield, and was about to destroy the entire universe. Shiva pacified her by laying down under her foot to pacify and calm her.

There are so many Hindu goddesses and so many different scenarios that MW could have used to illustrate a point. I don’t think it’s accidental that MW chose this one.

It’s like he’s dating, “Women... be like Shiva. Or else.”

[ItsAllGoingToBeFine]

@ScrollingLeaves

I am confused: in the Student Article (2019) it said that,
“ [I asked] Wadhwa if she believes a man could be a successful rape crisis centre manager. She does not: “I don’t think men are ready to go out and set up services of this nature. Women’s aid organisations and rape crisis centres have been set up with the blood, sweat, and tears of women. It’s about the women’s experience of sexual violence.”

Yet is it the case that, in spite of having said this, she is now CEO of the Edinburgh rape crisis centre even though she is a natal man?

TWAW...

[ScrollingLeaves]

I am confused: in the Student Article (2019) it said that,
“ [I asked] Wadhwa if she believes a man could be a successful rape crisis centre manager. She does not: “I don’t think men are ready to go out and set up services of this nature. Women’s aid organisations and rape crisis centres have been set up with the blood, sweat, and tears of women. It’s about the women’s experience of sexual violence.”

Yet is it the case that, in spite of having said this, she is now CEO of the Edinburgh rape crisis centre even though she is a natal man?

[CuriousaboutSamphire]

@CharlieParley everybody lied abut that job. From the invocation of the single sex requirement onwards.

There is no legal defence against that! Should any of the candidates, or man who considered it and did not because of that invocation, choose to question the inherent discrimination then they would have a case. The job was specifically written and advertised for a female person, using the EA2010 as the legal basis, and they knowingly gave the job to a male person.

And MW lied by ommission in at least one previous job in the sector explaining that "They didn't ask so I didn't tell them"

[toffeebutterpopcorn]

The Sun didn’t do itself any favours. I can’t quite remember what they did but there was a bit of a boycott in Glasgow a few years back. Are the wanting a woman’s boycot now?

[stumbledin]

re accessing Times. I think if you create a free acount for the Times which you can do, they share token links seem to work. Or it maybe about having to clear your browse cache to make it seem like you are a new visitor. But I think share tokens dont last for every. Someone needs to archive this. But I always forget the link to the archive web site.

Too tired to actually comment, partly because of early threads, as I was more interested as to why the Times was publishing it now. As formal complaints about the appointment have been lodged with both the employing group and the charity commission in Scotland I was sort of hoping for an update.

Beginning to feel it will just be one of those things that drag on and never gets clarified, and will then become a precedent for future employment cases breaching the EA.

[stumbledin]

Just adding that I thought everyone knew about MW as there have been other threads about working in RC. See these search results www.mumsnet.com/SearchArch?mustmatch=Mridul+Wadhwa&dontmatch=&nickname=&src_displ_option=s_t_d_t&fromDate=&toDate=&topicmode=chs&chosentops=5365

There was also an AIBU thread.

Just pointing this out as there is a lot of information about how this newest appointment breaches the EA. Training for MC members and so on.

[andyoldlabour]

Here is another article about Mridal and the Yaniv comments. Maybe in future, Mridal should take time to research a subject before brandishing the "transphobia" trump card.

www.womenarehuman.com/rape-crisis-centre-selects-male-as-ceo-despite-position-being-open-to-women-only/

[ItsAllGoingToBeFine]

Those articles have Posie saying the position should have been explicitly women only. The thing is it was. And yet somehow Wadhwa successfully applied

[ArabellaScott]

Another article in the Sun

www.thescottishsun.co.uk/news/scottish-news/7133029/trans-mridul-wadhwa-edinburgh-rape-crisis-snp/