The WI non-members questionnaire: quick and easy to make your point

[pattihews]

The WI is concerned that numbers are falling and fewer and fewer women are signing up. It doesn't seem to have occurred to them that women aren't keen on so-called women's organisations that accept men. Quick, easy and loads of room to say what you want.

womensinstitute.surveysparrow.com/s/wi-non-member-survey-for-women-who-are-not-wi-members/tt-xwsByTfSPd3Jomcuza74KF?

That's true. I don't think the GAA have fallen yet though, have they? It was the Ladies' Football that caved.

I am truly gutted about Ivana and Mary. I held both in such high regard.

I think with most women working now and particularly often working in service industries we don't want to go out and do "good deeds for the community" in our leisure time, we're doing that all day.

@NitroNine - good on CGI. It's just such a shame that it's only the religious based organisations that seem to know what a woman is. I don't know how Catholic they are in practice though.

Be careful of doing that and saying on here. They'll use it as evidence they can remove some of the comments.

I have just moved to a new area and was keen to join WI. I can't now. It goes against dhs beliefs even more than mine. Am actually really disappointed.

Same here. I’m happy to join a mixed-sex group or a women-only group. I just don’t want males in the women’s group. Can’t see what’s so difficult about understanding that.

I'm another one who would have been a potential WI member, had they not decided to admit men in dresses.
Not a chance now, as I have told them in the survey.

Submitted and written in every Other section of each question

That was satisfying.

@OchonAgusOchonOh
Not as Catholic as they used to be - they’re now open to non-Catholics - but I think still have a strong Catholic influence. Beyond their Brownie section being named for St Brigid I mean 😁

Indeed, on faxing a wee look, if you check the info page on Brigíni the Brigín Principles, in particular, are Very Catholic Indeed; & the Guide page practically has incense wafting off it…

Faxing?! That’d be TAKING. Jaysus.

I'm their target audience too and love cooking and crafts, so pretty much a WI stereotype. My knitting group died (not literally) during covid lockdown, so I'm in the market for another outlet and have investigated local WIs in the past.

I can't join while they are TWAW and welcome men into their ranks. In all honesty I would rather they went mixed sex than their current stance. I would be more uncomfortable with the type of man who gets his kicks from invading women's spaces in this underhand way than I would an actual man.

I agree with some other posts on here that the WI is dying for many more reasons than their allowing transwomen to join. This issue is just the nail in the coffin, but an important principle to fight them on nevertheless.

I also don't think this survey will make one iota of difference. How on earth can they backtrack on this? The publicity and outrage from certain groups would be more than the WI could stand. It's still worth telling them straight, but I'm not holding my breath.

My gran passed recently and I have lovely memories of her and the WI in her village.

I think most of the women in her group didn't work/volunteered though so perhaps had time for that / church flower arranging/ other truly lovely arts and crafts and bakery.

I would love to go when the kids are older just to follow in her footsteps. But not of transmen are admitted.

Do transwomen want to join lots of women only spaces? Is that part of the validation. Or is it more the political side.

Validation and kicks.

I'm not - yet - target audience, but my mum is. She looked into it and was undecided (thought it might be a bit dull and already does various specific crafting groups that interest her) and when she was chatting to me about it I brought up their trans policy. There was a tut and an eye roll (isn't that what we're meant to do if we encounter an unexpected penis in the changing area?!) and the next time I was at her house the leaflet was in the recycling pile.

I was wondering. Haven't seen one of them in decades.

@OchonAgusOchonOh

That’s the HSE being all ✨fancy✨ for you - not like the NHS still using them almost 3 years past the point it was to be fax-free 🙄 (I think I’ve found where the pronoun-badge money’s come from lads…)

(Although saying that, the HSE aren’t averse to the odd fax themselves.)

@NitroNine I'm not in the HSE. I work in a university and I bet if I rummaged hard enough, I'd find one in a press somewhere.

@OchonAgusOchonOh
We’d encounter them on the patient side sometimes - though that makes it sound a bit as if they’d be skulking in dark corners waiting to leap out on patients; which is rather more exciting than them merely being visible/present in GP surgery receptions & some bits of hospitals 😂🤣😂

Oh now, if you’re in a university you can probably find anything if you pick the right press. I mean, CS Lewis found Narnia kicking about in one at Magdalen (not, of course, to be confused with Magdalene) 😉

😅

Thanks for sharing off to do this now!!!

^^ - this is the key part - the continuing to think like a man. And yes I know there are spectrums - not everyone thinks in the same way etc but women and men really do often approach things differently.

I did exactly the same.

I filled it in.

Just contemplating doing it again...

Did it again so I could make some different points.