Women's rights general conversations

[Kucingsparkles]

This is an experimental thread, all input much appreciated!

There is so much excellent information and so many active discussions on FWR that I wondered if it would be useful to have a thread to sort of "cross-fertilise" between them - airing little thoughts or vignettes that wouldn't themselves merit their own thread, to highlight other posts/threads of particular interest or to point to notable developments on fast-moving threads so that casual observers know where to look.

(For example, "the X thread has meandered onto a fascinating discussion of Y" or "Poster P's amazing analysis on thread Z might have relevance to the scenario in thread W" or even "Random bloke asked me to smile while I was choosing onions, grr"- that sort of thing).

Right, bring on the flames or flowers! <cowers>

And then women lost the broad support of 'liberal', Guardianista Left, who a abandoned them in favour of a trendier cause? Which didn't require them to examine their own prejudices?

Exactly!

www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4692645-natacha-kennedy-for-open-democracy-ha-anti-trans-activists-are-using-mirror-propaganda-heres-how-to-spot-it

was the thread I meant. Hopefully.

Do I need to click on that link or did they do exactly as it says on the tin?

I've been pondering the prostitution issue. I really want everyone who speaks of prostitution as "sex work" to be asked "please tell us how many times you have used sex workers, in which countries, and how many family members (immediate plus cousins/aunts/nieces) you have who work as sex workers".

I suspect not many politicians would feel comfortable answering that.

Joining. Great thread OP!

The link is about Germany, Elsie, where prostitution is 'more' legal than in the UK, AIUI. But yeah, all the rest.

It’s actually worse than it says on the tin as a 22 year old prostitute was murdered by a man who was in prison for killing his girlfriend. Apparently murderers and sex offenders need a release for their pent up need to rape. In the article there are quotes referring to a man’s ‘right’ to sex.

Great idea for a thread. Can I just leave these here? I may come back for them.

Behave yourselves...you two...

And

That song from the Sound of Music, My Favourite Things popped up in my head, but the words had changed to 'These are a few of my transphobic things....'. So far I've got 'women with ribbons and women with stickers'.

Hello@MotherOfCatBoy !

Another recurring theme that keeps popping up is the deliberate silence of whole sections of the media and other information channels. Hadley Freeman's story, and the lack of wider reporting about the ongoing Mermaids debacle being only the latest in a very long list.

And so we end up in a ridiculous situation where the Righteous will say that XYZ isn't happening because there are no reports about it, or that it's an Evil Conspiracy because only the Bad Media are reporting it.

I cannot get my head around how any man can pay for sex. OK, I can see an obvious subset of men being fine with it but it’s disgustingly common and comes up all the time on the relationships board. How on earth can you enjoy doing that to someone when you know full well they don’t want it. I agree that consent cannot be bought and all men who use these ‘services’ are rapists. Never mind a so-called justice system enabling it. The article made my blood boil.

I'v never admitted this before, but I've used the services of sex workers twice

Both times I was totally disinterested in actual sex when push came to shove (as it were) and ended up just chatting and sharing a few drinks for the evening, which was quite pleasant; one gave me a kiss as I waited with her for her taxi when it turned up

I guess some blokes need the emotional attachment for it to be more than a surrogate wank

Crikey, wasn’t expecting that, fair play for posting it. How do you feel about it now?

Thanks for the links. I may need to track down a glass of something fortifying before diving into the prostitution one.

On a more cheerful note this seems a good place for book recommendations, so I would like to commend to the thread Gina Rippon's The Gendered Brain. I've been recommending it to people for a while based on going to see her give a talk about it, but it has finally worked it's way to the top of my to-read pile and it is brilliant. Although it's doing terrible things to my to-read pile

Bother, posted too early.

... doing terrible things to my to-read pile because I want to look up all the things she references.

It is the perfect riposte to the Pink Brain/Blue Brain nonsense.

‘…Sisters who don’t want to lend you their knickers’

I was working across Europe and hated being away from home

The first time, I was in a pub in Switzerland and a lady started chatting with me

Being totally dozy, I didn't realize she was a sex worker until she finally spelled it out, I said OK and we went next door where there were a few eastern European guys next door, we went upstairs and I ended up chatting with her and the Madam, explaining about better conditions in cooperative brothels (I wrote the first ever UK website for a brothel, which was a co-op)

The second time I was really lonely and sad, and brought the sex worker to the hotel where I was staying; we ended up in the bar chatting until 2am drinking good brandy (and I paid her a double because she wasted all night with me)

I've heard sex workers (that I knew previously as friends) describe their work as half sex, half social worker

(paid her double)

That song from the Sound of Music, My Favourite Things popped up in my head, but the words had changed to 'These are a few of my transphobic things....'. So far I've got 'women with ribbons and women with stickers'.

Mr Menno has great parody songs on YouTube. Very catchy - they’ll be stuck in your head for days.

I don’t understand the support for ‘sex work’ on the left. Years ago I lived in Amsterdam and the Red Light District was so seedy. Does anyone still do proper class analysis? It’s so obvious which class of people are harmed in this situation.

I think Julie Bindel has written about sex work from a class perspective and I am willing to bet Suzanne Moore, too. Julie Bindel has really informed me about how awful modern Germany is for women, in terms of prostitution. It made me feel I might never visit the country again.

I’m familiar with Julie’s writing in this area - she’s phenomenal!

It just seems that there is no mainstream party on the Left who is seeing it this way. They all seem to be ‘sex work is work’, let’s decriminalise it…It’s depressing!

It just seems that there is no mainstream party on the Left who is seeing it this way. They all seem to be ‘sex work is work’

Yet another common theme that we keep seeing! The Righteous and their bizarre adherence to the Bundle of Good Beliefs Required for Good People and vice versa.

It depends, of course, when I went to do the website for "Les Girls" in Soho it was mainly young women helping with their degree or earning a lot more money than they could otherwise (and with a plan)

That doesn't negate the other aspects of sex work that are far darker (trafficking and drug addicts, for example), again it's complex

No. Not complex.

I couldn't bring myself to read the article, that's even worse than I thought though.

Men's "right" to sex being written down right out there in your face is just so scary, we aren't so far off the handmaids tale really are we, and we (women) just seem to be losing all our rights and personhood in their minds just as fast as we seem to regain the odd inch of ground here or there.

It's all just so depressing.

"That song from the Sound of Music, My Favourite Things popped up in my head, but the words had changed to 'These are a few of my transphobic things....'. So far I've got 'women with ribbons and women with stickers'."

Women who just won't budge up on their sofas
And who won't act as my servants and gophers

Why should I not use the Ladies to pee?
Everything's very transphobic to me!

People who won't tell me I look like Venus
Lesbians who don't want to look at my penis

Women who won't tell me they're on my side
These are all literally genocide!

People who say that a fifteen-stone fullback
Is not a Black Fern but rather an All-Black

Swimming 'gainst Lia, and losing the race
Why can't they just be good losers with grace?

Women who talk about ovarian cancer
And when I join in, tell me I'm a chancer

They're my support system - how dare they be
People with needs that they put before me!

When the TERF speaks
When the courts judge
When Mermaids gets slammed
I simply remember IT'S ALL A BIG PLOT
Of genocide 'gainst the trans!