Women won’t be silent as our rights are stolen - Janice Turner in the Times

[Igneococcus]

I don't see this shared yet:

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/6f623338-bcef-11ec-94e5-2197dead5942?shareToken=0cfe030d7779bd004d25b840fdbed8b7

@Abhannmor

Ahem. I don't believe in this hyper individualist rubbish because I am a left wing man. How can any socialist betray women and gay people in this fashion?

Do fellow socialists talk to you about their reasoning?

My experience is that they perform exorcism on GC women so there's never been an opportunity for discussion about the reasoning.

Excellent article JT. Sums it up perfectly. The underlying assumption that the current situation could never happen. And yet it did.

The underlying assumption that the current situation could never happen.

And that we mistakenly thought we had parity of esteem within organisations and unions to which we paid subscriptions.

I've belatedly recognised how many of my resources I've wasted by believing that if I give people/organisations enough space, because they're autonomous adults and fully capable moral agents, they'll do the right thing. I have been shamefully and repeatedly wrong about this.

@EmbarrassingHadrosaurus. It is difficult here in Ireland. The left is small and incestuous. And captured. Because we have PR there are Greens and People Profit members if parliament.Even the conservative parties like Fine Gael are keen to display their socially liberal credentials - without doing too much thinking about it. Because it looks good European and doesn't cost money. There is a FB page Gender Critical Irish Socialists. There are also brave individuals like the writer Frankie Gaffney who dared to question the value of Identity Politics. As a result he was denounced by over 200 prominent Irish 'feminists ' alas. These are the people who know how to access funding and have Writer in Residence sincures etc. Unfortunately their response to any GC question seems to be the block button . Things are changing lately with some GC articles in the Irish Times . It will be interesting to see all these drones drift away from the issue. Perhaps they will find new targets. One of my sons calls them the 'off the peg' left with shop bought politics 🙄. Sorry I rambled on a bit ...

The left is small and incestuous. And captured.

The same is true of the UK and it's getting smaller as the purity spirals become vortices of #NoDebate and exclusion. Because of the baseline population size differences it must be far worse in Ireland where people do seem to be so inter-connected without taking professional matters such as residencies into account.

Everyone’s favourite fox killing QC has thoughts about this article, and as usual they are ..quite something. Jo says: “ Given how you can barely open a newspaper without reading that what cis men do is trans people's fault, I really don't think there is much danger of Janice being silenced.”

What’s he referring to here ? When have we ever blamed trans people for what “cis men” do? I have a suspicion that he means that male predators who claim to be trans aren’t really trans and are just “cis” , but that sounds awfully like denying people’s self declared identity.

He does on “it's a great deflection, though, isn't it. Not hard to get loads of powerful white men - Putin, Bannon, Trump, Johnson, Dacre, Rothermere, Murdoch - on side. Just hold trans people responsible for the consequences of the misogyny they promote.”

He then drops this teaser: “anyone who works in the media - and many who don't - have heard the first hand accounts of how young women are treated in those newspapers. And how their editors are either directly responsible or look the other way, because the wrongdoer is a powerful writer.
have the stories. I have the screenshots. I would like to share them. The newspapers know. But the women victimised by these newspapers and writers are (quite reasonably) fearful of what it would mean for them if these stories broke.
Those decisions are for them and I would never breach their confidence. But, by God, those newspapers have some cheek pretending to care about women's rights.“

This is awkward timing given that the big story about sexist newspapers at the moment focuses on the bullying accusations against Owen Jones. But wait , Jo came out all guns blazing to defend Owen the other day. So does he care about sexist bullying at the guardian or not ? I have to say that I always enjoy Jos contributions to this debate because he is so sure he is clever and correct while coming across as having zero self awareness.

That looks like DARVO. Women are blamed for male violence as a standard thing. JKR recently blamed directly for the horrific murder of two men in Ireland, I believe. By taking women out to lunch she caused it, somehow.

What’s he referring to here ? When have we ever blamed trans people for what “cis men” do? I have a suspicion that he means that male predators who claim to be trans aren’t really trans and are just “cis” , but that sounds awfully like denying people’s self declared identity.

I think it might also be him trying to imply that , when it comes to patterns of criminality, males who identify as women are different from other males. Unfortunately for him statistics and research show no difference in crime patterns, so to deflect from that he tries to suggest that males who identify as women should not be blamed for such crimes.

I honestly think at this point it's just random making shit up that sounds convincing and might raise sympathy.

If you want to see raging misogyny and hatred of women with rape threats and death threats one only needs to turn to twitter for example and leading figures in the activist movement - all of whom are male, regardless of how they identify.

Confused attempts to wail that male people with different gender identities should be granted special exemption from sex class boundaries that exclude males in the name of safeguarding and other people's rights does very little with the increasing pile of evidence that this does not work for females.

We've seen the performative naivety and 'don't look at the reality' thing this week on several threads: for example the one about the realisation in horror that letting Ukraine refugee women go to single male volunteer hosts was a really bad idea and had to be stopped - resulting in male and female people reproachfully virtue signalling about NAMALT and males in respectable jobs should obviously be exempt from this awful slur against males yada yada, and class based analysis is really naughty because prejudice. One gets the feeling that a pile of injured and life-destroyed females is much better than a policy that may upset male people who don't want to have to look at the facts and realities of their sex class. And that naice females would understand and facilitate this in an oddly kind of masochistic way.

She’s such an excellent writer

Many thanks for the share token. Excellent article.

Other organisations that let down women, children and other groups depending on women's rights and/or safeguarding include the NSPCC, most of the unions, the Women's Equality Party, every single other mainstream UK political party (the Tories are rowing back a bit now but let's not forget that Crispin Blunt is a Tory and Maria Miller was the one trying to push through the GRA reforms without consultation with women's groups), M&S, Monsoon, Lush and a good many other businesses who went over to unisex or gender-based changing rooms/loos, most UK sporting bodies, the IOC, the British Psychological Society, most of the Royal Colleges, the Crown Prosecution Service, the Courts, every police force in the country, the Prison Service, IPSO, a great many schools, universities and local councils, and the NHS.

A total lack of critical thinking and common sense, arising because very few of these organisations and their senior staff had ever done more than pay lip service to women's rights and safeguarding.

Absolutely love this piece.

I work for a charity which has swallowed this crap, but am noticing more and more women deleting the pronoun line on the company signature .

Tide is definitely turning- long way to go though

A total lack of critical thinking and common sense, arising because very few of these organisations and their senior staff had ever done more than pay lip service to women's rights and safeguarding.

With very superficial interest in what is fashionable and no underlying understanding or actual commitment to the values behind the words flung around like confetti. Like 'inclusion' and 'kind'. And absolute abandonment of all that the minute the next fashionable and glittery thing comes along to virtue signal with.

Shallow as all hell.

@stillherenow

Absolutely love this piece.

I work for a charity which has swallowed this crap, but am noticing more and more women deleting the pronoun line on the company signature .

Tide is definitely turning- long way to go though

Meanwhile:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/4531357-Home-Office-staff-are-told-to-add-their-pronouns-to-work-emails

Some women were uninformed and disinterested, but many were silenced, threatened and intimidated by employers, colleagues and the state. Many still are and the situation has been made worse by the sheer number of men who either don't care or who would like to see women's rights removed.

That was in response to a comment under the article implying that women have only themselves to blame for not paying attention. Made by a man, of course.

Turner has writter 50 articles about trans people in the last year and only 5 about domestic violence, 2 of which were actually about inclusive language. What do you think is affcting women's lives the most right now?

A quarter of all rape cases a girls under 16. Number of articles about this? exactly

Janice Turner writes about women's rights and child safeguarding and their removal by lots of dangerous men. And you'd silence her for that?

Thanks for bumping this thread though - as many women as possible need to read that excellent article.

Janice has written countless articles about all sorts of issues including rape, prostitution, VAWG and reproductive rights. She's also on the board of the Centre for Women's Justice. Bet you disapprove of all that as well.

Yes, indeed. So called 'trans' issues represent a grave threat to women's rights. Many of us would far prefer to be dealing with all the other pressing issues that feminism involves; but we can't because if we lose the ability to distinguish between males and females we lose all rights and protections that we've fought so hard to win.

I know males find it very hard to grasp this. They still can't begin to understand what it is to live as a woman, what we face and what we survive.

But the idea a man feels entitled to come into a feminist space on a site for mothers and berate us for doing feminism wrong is so fucking outlandishly ridiculous I scarcely know where to even start.

It's a good demonstration of some of the issue, I suppose.

A quarter of all rape cases a girls under 16.
And just like all other women & girls they deserve the safety & dignity of single sex spaces.

Many of us would far prefer to be dealing with all the other pressing issues that feminism involves; but we can't because if we lose the ability to distinguish between males and females we lose all rights and protections that we've fought so hard to win.

I wonder if those who criticise women for being able to multitask and to express concern about several issues at the same time were among the protesters at Manchester Standing for Women in Manchester, 28 Sept. 2018 that prompted this from Jean Hatchet:

Woman last night : “really it’s a shame you all have to waste your time on the trans issue when there’s so much to do in feminism”

No. There isn’t. All the rest depends on this. If men can say they are women and women have to believe them - they killed feminism. It’s over.

When men take the word “woman” from women and use it for themselves it is the most aggressive collective act of male violence against women and girls you will see in your lifetime.

These men know .... oh yes they know... that if we can’t define “woman” ... we can’t name our oppressors “male”. We can’t fight them. We can’t overthrow them.

Let this pass and it’s over women. The whole game is up.

Fight now. For feminism and for your lives as women.

twitter.com/JeanHatchet/status/1046022461945524225

'Kathy love, we could really do with some more tea over here! Could you put the kettle on? And find some more of those cracking biscuits you brought last time ... What's that? You were hoping to talk about the council's cuts to the social care budget and teaching assistants disproportionately affecting women and whether they did an equalities impact assessment before voting it through? Ummm. The thing is, love, we have this resolution to draft about the council's commitment to changing all the pedestrian crossing symbols to a gender neutral silhouette, and then we were going to move on to the Day of Action against Zionist Imperialism, so we're a bit pressed for time ... We'll see if we can find you a couple of minutes at next month's meeting. That OK, love? Also, I took the liberty of putting your name down for a bit of canvassing this weekend. You're so good on the doorstep ...'

Almost every single comment praises the article.