Have feminists brought this upon themselves?

[Lessthanaballpark]

I’ve heard this opinion so much lately, mostly amongst men who seem to be enjoying the struggle between feminism and trans-activism and the threat to women’s rights.

The opinion is that feminists have been attacking male spaces for years and now are getting their comeuppance.

Or that we’ve created the language of inclusion and gender that has led to this.

It’s a mean spirited attitude for sure. But is there any truth to it? Has feminism hoisted itself with its own petard?

“all these moaning feminists won’t get anywhere as they’re just annoying everyone“

Blimey, did they dig this up from 1975 and dust it off? When haven't feminists been perceived as annoying? There was a purple patch was there?

@Felix125

wellbehavedwomen

I'm not saying that history isn't strewn with glaring inequalities where females had no rights. But modern day is pretty much equal across the board. And i'm not saying there isn't prejudice around, because there is and this can happen.

2% charging figures for rape is not the fact that 'nobody gives a shit'. Its more about the offence being difficult to prove beyond reasonable doubt. Its often word against word, mix into this the victims who do not wish to pursue the matter through the courts (and i can appreciate this, as its an absolute horrendous crime and as a society should we not respect the victim view point on this?) And there are a host of other evidential difficulties that come into play. Its not the case that no one cares, we want to put away bad guys for a long time but we can only act within the law.

Murders - again horrendous - about 100 women per year are killed in the home from domestic violence which is about 50% of female murders - the other happening on the streets etc. However 30 men a year are killed from domestic violence which is only about 8% of male murders - the vast majority happening on the streets for men.

Females not being the CEO of major companies is a huge subject but I don't think is purely down to male dominance - we have lots of female Chief Constables in the country, lots of Government Departments have female leads etc. The vast majority of males in the country do not fit into the category of CEO's and will have no chance of getting any where near it. I would also suggest that the vast majority of people (male and female) would not want the role in any case. You're pretty much working all the time and have little sleep or family time - and i think only men are stupid enough to take these roles on in the first place (but hey, that's just my point of view)

The gym thing - fine to have single sex gyms and saunas (if they want to engage in nude saunering). The issue would be that a group joins a mixed gym, but then has an area set aside just for their particular group. I wouldn't expect men to have a 'men only area' in such places. Personally, I'm not too bothered with set areas for women if that's the consensus of opinion and if it works at the gym - great.

But I can see an argument being made that it appears unfair that one group has an advantage over the other. And isn't that the basis of this thread? Two wrongs don't make a right. If its wrong back in history for one group to have advantages over the other, then it must be the same now.

I'm not here to wind people up by the way - its a discussion forum where i'm just voicing my opinion. I'm not saying that I'm right and not saying that anyone is wrong and all viewpoints are extremely valid. I'm just interested in having a discussion - and if we don't talk & discuss these issues - how can we move forward as a society together?

Well, that's movement, because frankly in your early posts that is precisely what you said. I am grateful (sincerely - I am not sneering here) that your view has shifted and you now acknowledge a long historical context, which perpetuates today, of wholesale and entrenched disadvantage.

Re. the rape figures (other people are contending with the rest) to be blunt, you are wrong. Yes, of course your comments are true, but for your argument to have merit, the figures would need to be consistent, as those difficulties are... and they aren't consistent. Charging rates have plummeted in very recent years. Those very low rates are entirely new.

This state of affairs was brought to the attention of the public, most of whom had no idea, when The Centre For Women's Justice launched a Judicial Review against the Crown Prosecution Service, asking them to justify this collapse in prosecution rates.

A woman who was raped at gunpoint was told there was insufficient evidence of threat, and a lifelong lesbian was told she might have sent mixed signals. Here are a few more stories for you.

Prosecutions and convictions have more than halved in three years while rapes have risen.

[[https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/jul/14/we-are-facing-the-decriminalisation-of-warns-victims-commissioner
Dame Vera Baird, the Victim's Commissioner, commented that rape now has, effectively, been decriminalised.]]

A BBC article: www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-57511425

Another, noting that the charging rate is at the lowest in a decade: www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-45650463

This isn't the age-old problem where there are blurred lines on consent. This is a wholesale failure to prosecute, in a very new and disturbing development. It's too consistent to be anything but a policy direction.

The Centre for Women's Justice forced this into the public sphere. There has then been a shift, and the Telegraph reported this:

Priti Patel and Robert Buckland have apologised to rape victims, as they admitted they were “deeply ashamed” that thousands of them have been denied justice.

“We owe this to every victim and are extremely sorry that the system has reached this point,” they said in a 60-page review setting out measures to reverse plummeting rape prosecution rates.

Until a tiny charity, focused on combating abuse of women, forced a Judicial Review and then public attention, only a handful of women knew or cared. This is why we need feminism: because we are not seen as equal and not treated as such.

Again, please read Invisible Women. Sincerely, I don't blame you for not knowing these things. People don't, unless they care to seek the information out. That's the problem, so please do buy the book and read it. Did you know, for example, that crash testing is performed on dummies designed for male bodies - so cars are safer for men than women? Did you know medicine is tested primarily on men, despite the fact that women metabolise it differently - so it's safer for men? The whole book explains things such as this.

You seem to expect society to have to actively hate women for it to count. Invisibility is a huge part of the issue. The default has long been male, and so women's concerns are dismissed as being trivial, or invented, or inevitable. And that is a huge disservice to half the human race - and in some ways, actually, to most men as well.

As nicely as possible: you really don't know much at all about any of this, and yet you are stating untrue things as factual, and being sceptical when given evidenced fact. May I suggest that you read up on the resources you have asked us to provide, consider the evidence given, and reflect upon the reality that as a sex class, women are systematically disadvantaged, and that despite gains our foremothers fought desperately hard to secure we continue to be so, and that instead of loftily dismissing that - you might recognise it, instead?

Society is not formed in a vacuum. We are the product of our history. I have given you that history - a history your comments very plainly showed you were ignorant of, so I appreciate it's not chosen malice, just obliviousness. Please recognise that we live within a society that is, presently, reversing, even as the younger members complacently congratulate themselves on how much things are improving, because they can navel-gaze in a virtual environment even as rights are erased in the material world.

I have no idea if you are in good faith or not. How can I? But I am engaging with you in that hope. Please read the book many women have asked you to, and consider the facts you have been given. This is not an invented story - any more than racism is, in order to make white people feel bad. Of course that's not a situation in which most need feel individual guilt. It's a societal problem. But denial is not the solution either - ever. Facts and open discussion are the only possible route to progress. And in the past few years, women are being shouted down if they voice any of this, in a way I've not seen before. Rape threats and death threats are not being condemned any more, if made to women who point out that biology impacts us, and we need to be able to collectivise as a sex class to try to protect our rights. That is new. I have literally never known that before in my lifetime. And it alarms and angers me, that this is the world our daughters are growing up in.

Edit:

This isn't the age-old problem where there are blurred lines on consent.

should read

This isn't the age-old problem for a criminal jury whenever there are blurred lines on the truth about consent.

Typing while attending to children - never great for clarity; this, however, is a case where I think such clarity is vital. Apologies for the need to edit.

@wellbehavedwoman another superb post. And yes, the level of open hostility towards women which is currently seemingly acceptable within society is breathtakingly awful. Throughout my life it has always felt like women were making advances and now it feels like it's all slipping backwards.

There were very, very few women tank crews and theres no evidence the rape of berlin spread to red army women. And as i said in my last post, ussr was the 1st in the world with a female minister, to legalise abortion and beat britain with political rights for women. Its not simply progressive compared to tsarism, but the whole world circa 1917. It gets tedious talking about soviet history through the prism of morality and cold war propaganda. We all know it was an awful regime, that doesnt mean there wernt good aspects or interesting aspects in the sphere of women's rights.

Having read the thread, the answer to the OP is no.

wellbehavedwomen Brilliant response, thank you. Everything I wanted to say in reply, and a lot more too. The ignorance around women's legal position and of the causes/effects thereof in society, economics, and politics, is astounding sometimes.

I'm not sure where the comparision between battlefield mortality and childbirth-related mortality came from (well, there's Euripides' Medea: 'I would rather stand three times in the line of battle than bear a single child') but I am finding it odd that the modern mortality rate related to expectant and new mothers [new-born infants haven't been mentioned, I think], including Black women, turns out to be low relative to... men going out and getting killed in war, where one crucial aim is to, you know, kill as many of the other side as possible (or render them unable to fight back).

No-one will deny that war has always taken its highest toll on young men. The casualty numbers in WW1 in particular are terrifying. But we have to consider that, until comparatively recently, conscription wasn't a Thing. Centralized control over nation-states of a kind to make conscription possible wasn't even achieved until the mid-late 19th c.; a state has to be equipped with a massive bureaucracy and a police service or standing army to enforce its rules easily in order to build a conscript army. The changes (massive industrialization imprimis) that transformed wars into wars of technology and GDP both exploited and helped create ever-increasing bureaucratization (and eventually the Hollerith Company's [i.e. IBM] punch-card system made it possible for the Nazis to identify, locate, and round up Jews and other "undesirables" easily).

For centuries before that, in contrast, military service was largely a choice (with exceptions, I know: press-gangs etc.). If service was expected, it was often accepted gladly, as appropriate to one's status (those upper-class young men going into the Guards); even earlier it already came with one's social position (e.g. feudal responsibilities to fight or provide soliders for one's lord). Nowadays the US armed forces have to outsource so much to what are basically mercenaries in part precisely because it's a volunteer service, and the last time conscription was used it didn't go so well. And mortality is so low compared to, say, the Civil War because of advances in battle-field care and in subsequent medical care—medical care that doesn't necessarily extend to pregnant women: There is no doubt that in the US at least Black and other minority women receive less and less good ante- and post-natal care than do whites and Asian-origin women:

www.ywboston.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/FACT_SHEET_MATERNAL_HEALTH_AND_WOMEN_

There are plenty of female soldiers, sailors, and airforce personnel now, of course, who have had a fight on their hands to be allowed to go into battle; but the history of warfare is peppered by their presence, usually in support rôles—not just cooking and cleaning for them (and the children who also had a place in the "baggage train"), but bringing the ammunition to the guns, cleaning weapons, and often, especially after medium- and long-range artillery became common, running much the same risks as the soldiers and sailors they assisted. Unlike their Russian counterparts, women pilots in the UK were allowed only to move aircraft between airfields; they weren't "safe" by choice. Women in the UK in WW1 and WW2 volunteered or were conscripted to work in steelyards and armament factories, doing the same jobs as men, for less pay, even during the Blitz... and then got chucked out as soon as the men came home.

Childbirth, of course, has never been a choice for women (with the tiniest of exceptions for Serbian sworn virgins, Roman Vestal Virgins, etc.). It still isn't, for millions of women around the world. From the WHO:
'The World Health Organization estimates that more than 300,000 women died from pregnancy-related causes in 2015 [This is down from over 500k in 1990.]. That’s 830 women every day.

'In the chart here we see global maternal deaths by region. Two-thirds – 201,000 – occurred in Sub-Saharan Africa. 22% – 66,000 – occurred in South Asia.

'This is partly attributed to the fact that many more babies are born in Asia and Africa than in other regions. But it is also largely the result of the much higher maternal mortality rates found in lower-income countries. Per birth, a woman in Nigeria is more than 200 times more likely to die in pregnancy or childbirth than a woman in Sweden.''

Please recognise that we live within a society that is, presently, reversing, even as the younger members complacently congratulate themselves on how much things are improving, because they can navel-gaze in a virtual environment even as rights are erased in the material world.

Statistics not being disaggregated by sex is dangerous for women. Very very recent example and it's going to be interesting to see if the sport's authorities are going to act. You may have noticed that in the Olympic boxing (Amateur only) the men don't wear headgear but the women do.

They (all amateur boxers) started wearing headgear because it was thought to be added protection. Statistics have now shown that far from added protection, they are in fact, more dangerous and boxers are more likely to suffer concussion wearing one than not. As a result of these studies and statistics the men are not allowed to wear "protective" headgear in the ring. But they only studied male statistics and so despite the doubts about headgear women boxers are required to wear them because nobody bothered to see how or if the results are the same with women as with men.

Women are invisible. But the minute we make the tiniest bit of noise about having our concerns addessed* we are told that we're putting people's backs up.

I am angry and i will stay angry and i don't care who thinks that's uncomfortable for men. I am beyond pandering to men way way more than they are even giving me a modicum of consideration.

*again: for the removal of doubt. I am not GC. But i do think we need to work together to make the future safer for everyone.

I am not GC

I'm interested to know what you think 'GC' means, because to me the opposite of 'GC' is "believes that societies expectations of how a man and woman should behave are correct".

Sorry, 'Society's expectations'.

I'm interested to know what you think 'GC' means

Possibly I have misunderstood the meaning? I do believe TWAW - but I also believe that there is a need for sex-segregated spaces too.

If you believe 'TWAW' you aren't gender critical.

I don't understand any of the logic behind 'TWAW', because I don't understand the purpose of the word 'women' when used in that phrase. However, that is a whole other thread!

@CuriousaboutSamphire

Not sure Felix is going to come back to that one!

I hope that the prolonged silence is because Felix is doing some reading, or maybe having tea, rather than ignoring some inconvenent facts.

I would like Felix to have been posting in good faith.

I am heartily tired of bad faith posters.

Come back Felix!

Sorry - I was at work last night and did not finish till after 3am. Taking the kids out today and working again tonight

I will catch up on this thread and read the posts as I am interested in conversation. I have only got as far as this post so far!

The post above about the military death rate compared to birth death rates - just to clarify that it was not me that brought this up - i merely commented on it.

And I'll try and get a copy of the book

felix

Its actually a very interesting book, well worth a read

I bought it for my Dad but he couldn't deal with it - he said it was "relentless" and too much. Try living it, I said

Yeah quentin

Some of it is jaw dropping…like the boxing head gear thing

Im not fussed about the olympics but its given me plenty of conversational gambits

Possibly I have misunderstood the meaning? I do believe TWAW - but I also believe that there is a need for sex-segregated spaces too.

If you understand the need for sex-segregated spaces, do you also carry that across to all aspects of when sex matters and needs to be acknowledged.

For instance:

• males being allowed to participate in female sport despite even the OIC now acknowledging that male puberty conveys benefits that are not decreased to allow fair competition?
• males taking Women's Officer roles because they identify as women and therefore have influence over policies being set, events and many aspects of women's needs in that organisation. Do you believe that a male (who may have transitioned only six to twelve months previously as has been the case in a few instances so far) will be the best advocate for ALL females in that organisation.

This is just two different applications of TW AW that to my mind highlight conflicts in women's rights and protections against discrimination. Are you comfortable in these instances that males are women?

The insistence that TWAW has not, as many people think, been about social courtesy and respecting pronoun preferences and such like which is why I think we see statements like 'TWAW but I believe in single sex spaces' but instead been the conflation and replacement of sex with gender. I have seen many, many TRA's on here insist that human beings as a species can literally change sex and that saying that this isn't a biological reality is transphobic.

I'm perfectly happy to respect pronouns etc in the majority of cases (sexual offenders being an exception) but I'm not prepared to be compelled to believe in something which is not true (hunan beings changing sex).

Possibly I have misunderstood the meaning? I do believe TWAW - but I also believe that there is a need for sex-segregated spaces too

How can you hold the position that TWAW and TWANW simultaneously?

If you believe TWAW, then why would they be excluded ever? If you believe that TWANW, then why would you ever assert that they were?

I mean, why would we exclude any women from things designed for women?

You wither believe that they are women, like every other woman, or you don't.

Before I really realised what believing TWAW meant, I thought it was just about being kind, using female names & pronouns and not pointing out that they were obviously still male despite how they presented.

I didn’t understand then that I was expected to believe TW were actual literal women and entitled to be treated as a woman 100% no matter what

Once I understood that, and that any disagreement with anything meant you were transphobic, I very quickly realised that there was no way I could sustain TWAW

@Brefugee

I'm interested to know what you think 'GC' means

Possibly I have misunderstood the meaning? I do believe TWAW - but I also believe that there is a need for sex-segregated spaces too.

Can you clarify what you mean here?

When you say you believe TWAW, does that mean that you think their sex has changed and they should be included in single sex spaces for women?

Or are you saying that TW should be excluded from such spaces? (This means you are contradicting yourself because this exclusion means you don't believe that TWAW.)

I bought it for my Dad but he couldn't deal with it - he said it was "relentless" and too much. Try living it, I said

Brilliant. Did you get a reply?

I think there is a way in which not feminists but many activists have ‘brought this upon themselves’. There has been a fashion over the last decade or so for statements along the lines of eg: “if you’re not gay you don’t get an opinion - gay people decide what homophobia is”,
; or “white people don’t get to define racism, black people do”; or “men don’t get to tell women what sexism is”, etc.
I think most people kind of believed - or at least accepted, or decided not to argue - with this type of statement, and it’s brought us to a place where trans activists are claiming only transpeople get to define ‘transphobia’. People are used to going along with this type of claim, so many (especially white heterosexual males) have just shrugged and agreed without realising what these definitions are.
So now we have trans activists saying ‘transwomen are women’ and while most people find this laughable they have been trained to accept it’s not their business.

I usually get shot down pretty quickly here on MN when I write about this sort of stuff, and it usually turns out I’m wrong, so feel free to fire away :). I’ll get back to making bad puns and weak one liners.

Quite Quentin!

I love that book. Dh & I were discussing it the other night, he hadn't realised that everything is based on his body type, not mine; and that things might prove more complicated for me because of that.

The physicality of being a small woman in a world built for men is not just inconvenient, ie. Can't reach the top shelf at the supermarket. It also has H&S implications. Car seatbelts cross my throat not my shoulder. Welding gauntlets drop off & don't ask about the price of safety boots in my "abnormal" shoe size .

That may come across as a bit of a moan, I just adapt & get on with stuff. But I get the feeling most women are forced to adapt to a world not made for us.

I have seen many, many TRA's on here insist that human beings as a species can literally change sex and that saying that this isn't a biological reality is transphobic.

Human beings are not clownfish?

Sounds like an inspired time for a music break...