Why I am not applying for the Fawcett Society CEO job - Maya Forstater

[stumbledin]

When they first advertised for this job in October 2020 I applied, in order to make clear to the Fawcett Society Trustees the choice they had. Would they go ALL-IN with gender ideology, would they be BRAVE and hire someone willing to stand up for women’s rights or would they try to be CAUTIOUS and hire another fence sitter?

mforstater.medium.com/courage-calls-to-courage-why-i-am-not-applying-for-the-fawcett-society-ceo-job-52f96de21e05

(For whatever reason Fawcett appointed an interim CEO last year.)

There are loads of threads about Fawcett but this was a recent one www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/4234244-Fawcett-Society concering interim CEO

And Maya attends Fawcett AGM (to be read with added perspective!) www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/4091698-Maya-attends-the-Fawcett-Society-AGM

About previous CEO leaving www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/4072069-Sam-Smethers-CE-Leaving-Fawcett-Society

Doubling down on her assertion she's being "attacked" by GC women. She has no fucking shame at all.

twitter.com/ayeshahazarika/status/1405193997828698113?s=20

I don't get it. Why would AH make something up, that could so easily be disproven.

Also, the anetodote about TW in menopause support groups was bound to inflame GC feminists. Why include it, if not true.

If true, a motivation may be to garner hostile responses from women, so, AH could sit back and say, I told you so, that's why I don't discuss this stuff .

Very strange .

Sorry that was quite poorly written. Sorry need sleep.

It was also dead patronising to the TW

@JustcameoutGC

That article has given me the absolute rage. So being moderate means accepting males into discussions on experience of the menopause. I thought I was relatively moderate in the scheme of things, but I suspect by her definition I am a raging trans hating TERF.

I too used to think I was a moderate. Until Stonewall decided to oppose the ban on transwomen in rugby when I realised these people would compromise on nothing.

The "call for compromise" basically means "give us everything we ask for and in return we won't call you evil witches".

[quote PurgatoryOfPotholes]A woman who is part of a menopause support group with Ayesha has expressed confusion about Ayesha's description of the group's make-up. She says there are no transwomen in it.

I'm sure it's all a big misunderstanding.

twitter.com/StanFastic/status/1405299321688498186?s=19[/quote]
It's possible that this will be spun as 'you didn't know she was trans as she passed' (due to the clever accessorising?) and the possibly fictional TW member of the group 'doesn't owe femininity to the other group members' to muddy the waters and try to undermine Mel.

I would also guess that a person who was not female in a menopause group would be quite obvious, if not by appearance then by what they say, when talking about symptoms, medication etc and simply repeating the NHS website on the menopause will not be convincing as a real life 'lived experience' to women who are actually experiencing the menopause.

Very strange

Indeed. I also wonder if she has done this to try to create a hostile reaction so she can she say 'I told you so'

A number of transwomen are also pissed off at her because she has reduced them to a superficial stereotype involving the ability to accessorise

I’m assuming she’s in another group, it’s too weird to make up. It’s such a terrible addition to a pathetic ‘opinion’.
@AnneLovesGilbert where is David As comment? Somewhere in the general Twitter thread? I don’t see it.

@littlbrowndog

It was also dead patronising to the TW

Exactly, if I were a transwoman I wouldn’t like the implication that most people will get from reading transwomen are in menopause groups 🤔

@TheRebelle

Also, I’d be interested to know how many women have left or not joined her menopause group because there are transwomen in it? I sure as fuck wouldn’t be discussing my body with men, why would they even want to be there? What could they possibly be getting out of it?

Yes, this is puzzling.

I wonder if it's actually just a support group for older women and AH thought she was making a joke about the menopause.

If I was in an older women's group and a TW wanted to join I'd probably be OK with it but I'd be very suspicious of one who wanted to join a group specifically about the menopause. What would their motives be?

Dear Fawcett Society,
Please fuck off.
Yours,
Self respecting cunty women everywhere

Great response

twitter.com/scully1066/status/1405299595568164866?s=20

Ayesha of course you get to choose how you engage in a debate, other women also may find your choice wanting.
I found your article really depressing, women may well air their frustration but to equate that to the death and rape threats sent to women is disingenuous.

This is not a toxic debate, there hasn't been a debate. There has been backdoor lobbying, proposals to change laws & guidelines, women have called foul. Women have been harangued intimidated and sent death and rape threats. Women have been called bigots for calling for debate.

Some women are angry and upset, they feel decisions to change rights without consulting them. Having worked in a refuge for over 30 years it is abysmal that single sex spaces for refuges, prisons hospitals changing rooms, toilets could be changed.

The equality act accepted the premise that men could be excluded from womens spaces (if required) although "not all men.." it is a proportionate response. The same rationale is appropriate for excluding trans women from female only spaces. It is a pro women not anti trans measure

I thought the very least I would expect of womens organisations and women in influential positions is to speak up for the most vulnerable women in society. I fully supported
@MForstater
even donated but women in refuges often can't get legal aid for basic family matters

Women in front line services are battling & advocating for women trying to get them basic services, resources to live, legal aid, housing, while fending of intimidation from abusive men.
I've been retired for about 7yrs and I still repeat the things I heard and seen in my mind.

Maybe we don't have have enough patience or sympathy for how women with a moderate position find a way to engage. It would also help if you also understood that we all come to this issue different experiences and don't label us as extreme or aggressive.

Valuing the contribution of male bodied people to a menopause group (a female body phenomenon) is your right. But you trivialise the issue when you make a quip about accessorising. It's a sexist stereotype and you know it.

This wasn't an attempt to dip your toe in the issue of gender ideology and gender critical debate. It was an article to call out gender critical feminists for being mean and you claim putting some more "moderate" women off speaking. While ignoring the abuse from Trans RightsAs

After the tweet claiming input into the EA, I'm beginning to think the opening "I'm too scared to dip my toe in the waters" was all performance.

It is a sorry, sorry excuse of an article and Fawcett are on the wrong planet.

Seriously, Mumsnet, you deleted my comment? Fgs. Have just about had enough of my language being policed.

Are we not allowed to call TW “trans identifying males” then? Sorry but that’s fucking ridiculous, particularly after the maya judgement.

That is such a powerful response screaming.

I so hope that people read it and realise it truth.

Another thread.
twitter.com/HairyLeggdHarpy/status/1405464795881611270

That’s excellent.

“Your despicable desire for self-preservation, led you to prioritise your popularity OVER our efforts to prevent harm.

I don't know how you live with yourselves.
This isn't an academic debate.
It's not abstract, and it's not philosophical.“

@StandUpStraight

Are we not allowed to call TW “trans identifying males” then? Sorry but that’s fucking ridiculous, particularly after the maya judgement.

No we aren't. I believe it's felt by HQ to be uncivil.

It should be noted that other posters are allowed to generalise with the word 'cis' as that is felt to be useful terminology for trans people and trans activists. Despite women repeatedly saying they find it a derogatory term.

ovahere, thank you. Interesting. I wonder whether the MN guidelines should be revisited in light of the court’s decision that “in the absence of any reference to specific circumstances in which harassment might arise” [the requirement on the claimant to refer to a trans woman as a woman] is in effect a blanket restriction on the claimant’s right to freedom of expression insofar as they relate to her beliefs”.

I cannot fathom how you can write approvingly about how brilliant it is that a person who cannot, by virtue of their immutable sex, go through menopause, joined your menopause support group, their contribution being an ability to accessorise, and call that “a moderate position”.

It is not a moderate position. It is all in on gender based thinking. It’s fully embracing the most extreme end.

I have been on the receiving end of a male born person here telling me that they have been through the menopause. Their doctor said so. They had had “six months of hormone hell” due to “too much oestrogen”. The clueless appropriation was quite flabbergasting.

Six months is nothing.
Oestrogen goes off a cliff during menopause.
That’s not how any of this works.

They were extremely sniffy with me when I pointed out they had no idea what they were talking about. My feelings about having someone play acting at an experience that has been quite devastating for me counted for nothing. This person didn’t care. It didn’t matter. I was a bit player in their narrative, not the star in my own.

So I sincerely doubt that a transwoman has hoodwinked a group of women into accepting them somewhere that is not meant for them, and if it did happen, it’s frankly horrible that anyone would think that was a good thing. The thought of actually making this up because a woman thinks it’s a winning argument for why she won’t steer her women’s organisation towards standing up for women is more boggling still.

Women’s experiences matter. Women’s feelings matter. Women’s discussions matter.

Anyway, just a musing. Don’t want to derail thread.

[quote Melroses]Another thread.
twitter.com/HairyLeggdHarpy/status/1405464795881611270[/quote]
Blistering.

I think you need to see AH comments in the context of her actual work. Too many women (and men in other groups) go onto MC boards / become Trustees because it looks good on their CV.

Her main work is being a paid commentator (on the basis of once at some time in the past maybe did or didn't contribute to a party's politics) etc. And as we all know the media are the main pushers of the trans agenda.(*)

She probably wrote it and got it published to make her still seem relevant.

And as I said at the start of this thread the evening standard asked how to make the debate more "civilised" when the problem is the only print the trans narrative about their victimhood and suffering because of horrid old feminists.

The debate might never have got "uncivilised" if from the start the media had balanced every article or tv appearance of someone pushing the trans narrative with someone speaking up for sex based rights. Its not uncivilised it is the natural response of a group (in this case over 50% of the population) being erased and talked over by the media.

(*) This is a bit of an aside, but was thinking recently after the MF ruling how many people were due an apology. and although I appreciate more women than men have been victims of the presumption you cannot say trans women are born male, the Matthem Wright show lost its presenter because he wouldn't apologise for a guest (not even him) saying a trans woman was born male. Now that toady JV has acquired his show because he adheres to the double speak of the media. You would like to think the media would take a step back and think maybe we were too easily pushed into the trans narrative. Although for me I always think that part of it is that as with all male dominated industries the underlying disprespect for women, let alone their rights, is why so many people who probably dont care on an individual level have found this position something the "legitimises" their disrespect of women.

Alan Rusbridger likes Hazarika's piece:

twitter.com/arusbridger/status/1405476187636371457

I’m sure many people feel approximately what ayeshahazarika is articulating here

(People arusbridger follows or mentioned can reply.)

Fortunately he follows Susanna Rustin and Hadley Freeman of the Guardian, so they get to school him.

Susanna: Wouldn't you be angry in Maya F's position? Meanwhile people who didn't stand up for her and feel bad about it project all sorts of feelings on to her - so she's the bully. But Maya is the person who lost her job & an employment tribunal - for the sake of feminist ideas. Hero.

Hadley: How shd these allegedly non-existent moderate voices should sound? I’ve read lots of moderate takes from you, Helen Lewis, etc. So when someone - in charge of a feminist org! - complains about lack of moderation, it sounds like telling women their voices are just too darn shrill