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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Women's rights general conversations

986 replies

Kucingsparkles · 06/12/2022 15:14

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>

OP posts:
duc748 · 15/12/2022 13:43

Presumably, in that story, for 'gender', read 'sex'.

CyanCyan · 15/12/2022 14:18

StellaAndCrow · 15/12/2022 12:34

When James O'Brien is asking "if you're getting changed, and I'm on the other side of the curtain, what do you think I might do" I can't help but feel he's getting off on it, and hoping for further info about her fears for his fantasies.

Thanks for sharing this. Such a brilliant, powerful response. I don’t know how she kept her cool with him for so long. Listening to the original exchange reminded me of the way an ex boyfriend used to argue and I’d be tearing my hair out unable to get a word in edgeways. Awful behaviour.

Kucingsparkles · 15/12/2022 14:49

Thanks for the South Korean story moto, it's instructive to see how sexism seems like a human universal.

OP posts:
NeighbourhoodWatchPotholeDivision · 15/12/2022 15:47

StellaAndCrow · 15/12/2022 12:34

When James O'Brien is asking "if you're getting changed, and I'm on the other side of the curtain, what do you think I might do" I can't help but feel he's getting off on it, and hoping for further info about her fears for his fantasies.

Why doesn't James O'Brien address this question to trans-identifying male people who say they are too uncomfortable to use men's changing rooms, because of the presence of men? Why doesn't anyone else?

"If [insert name of trans activist] is getting changed, and James is on the other side of the curtain, what do you think he might do to [name]?"

How come trans-identifying males are allowed to be scared of men, but women aren't?

Kucingsparkles · 15/12/2022 16:22

How come trans-identifying males are allowed to be scared of men, but women aren't?

I'm sure JOB would deny it, but the underlying reason is because he doesn't think women are full human beings, that being a state that only male humans are entitled to.

OP posts:
duc748 · 15/12/2022 16:27

It's a very good question, which should be directed to JOB, and many others too.

IReallyLikeCrows · 15/12/2022 17:11

It shows the limits of his intelligence to ask a woman "what do you think I might do?". And to then go on to say you can be assaulted anywhere. "Oh, wow James! We did not know that, you're so right given that we can be assaulted anywhere at any time it makes no sense to have any privacy at all, so we should all get undressed in front of men all the time and not worry about it because we could just as easily be felt up on the tube or raped at home or down an alley or murdered by our partner. What on earth are we making such a big song and dance about, silly, silly us!"

She was incredibly calm and I don't think he liked that at all. He was trying to make her angry so he could dismiss her as a nutter which in the end he did by cutting her off when she sarcastically said "Yes, I'm a religious extremist" (not exact words).

She was right, of course. My take on the whole gender thing is that instead of saying to kids "Oh, you want to wear a dress. YOU ARE A GIRL AND NOT A BOY!" you say, "fair enough, you might get teased for it at school but you can wear whatever you want." If a girl wants to play with cars and toy soldiers it's not "YOU ARE A BOY AND NOT A GIRL!" you just let her play with what she wants to play with. Gender restrictions are the issue and the fact that instead of dealing with that we are reverting to some insane decades-old notion of what is a woman and what is a man. The numbers of people who want to fully and completely transition are very, very low. When I was much younger I thought they should be allowed to. When I was older I thought that maybe throwing surgery at something that was not so much a mental illness but definitely a disorder wasn't such a good idea. I still don't think it's a good thing, not because I'm a transphobe but because while I can see that it helps to "look like"what you feel you are, but men who transition have medical issues for life because the vaginas that are made for them are basically a wound and to keep it open there are infections and all manner of difficulties. Likewise, give a woman who transitions a penis and it's not a penis. It might look like one but it doesn't behave like one (might be an advantage given how some penises attached to men behave, but I digress). However, if someone is given all the information about the medical difficulties and they still want to go ahead after proper therapy then I guess that should be possible but I think at some point in the future of humanity it will seem to have been a very barbaric thing to do. The percentage of people who go down this root is tiny.

Most of the TRA are people who want the "benefits" without surgery which is fair enough, I wouldn't want my body disfigured either, but the "benefits" they want are ones invented by them, forced on others and stolen from centuries of work from women trying so hard to get out from under patriarchal oppression. Just as we're getting somewhere TRAs find a way to take it away from us.

My other issue is when it comes to children an awful lot, especially among young girls, are gay/lesbian and somehow they are being informed - by not necessarily well-meaning adults and our society at large, that's it better to be a straight trans person than a gay wo/man.

And breathe. Sorry. That was a bit tl;dr. Apologies for any grammatical errors/typos that sort of thing.

DeanVolecapeAKAelderberry · 15/12/2022 18:18

There was an interview on RTÉ radio this morning with a young woman who is going to have an elective mastectomy next month (possibly later an elective hysterectomy) because she is at genetic risk of breast cancer.

Despite this being very advisable for medical reasons, her consultants wouldn't let her go ahead with it at the age of 18 because her body was too young, still developing, and they didn't feel it would be safe. But girls of 16 and younger are getting it done in the USA for 'gender' reasons. So crazy, so cruel.

www.rte.ie/radio/radio1/clips/22185971/

SinnerBoy · 15/12/2022 18:22

NeighbourhoodWatchPotholeDivision · Today 15:47

How come trans-identifying males are allowed to be scared of men, but women aren't?

Aha! I know the answer:

Because reasons and magic unicorn sparkle gender woo woo.

Do you see now?

CyanCyan · 15/12/2022 21:03

Have they said it’s because they’re scared of men? I guess some would argue that it’s not because they’re scared of men, it’s that they identify as a woman and therefore feel they have a right to unrestricted access of all women’s spaces. Like Beira’s Place has shown, transwomen have a access to a trans-inclusive rape crisis centre run by a transwoman but it’s not enough, it’s not fair that ‘ciswomen’ are part of a club rape crisis service they’re not invited to.

I enjoyed Janice Turner’s column this morning:

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0caeb050-7bed-11ed-bcd8-855e06175970?shareToken=6c36afa4062e5f272928b154f2c4d94b

‘It wouldn’t occur to me to be angry that a group had created a service for themselves which excluded me. I’m delighted there are gay men’s health clinics, an LGBT anti-abuse charity, a Jewish women’s refuge or one for women of colour, such as Southall Black Sisters. One size doesn’t fit all.’

NeighbourhoodWatchPotholeDivision · 15/12/2022 21:21

SinnerBoy · 15/12/2022 18:22

NeighbourhoodWatchPotholeDivision · Today 15:47

How come trans-identifying males are allowed to be scared of men, but women aren't?

Aha! I know the answer:

Because reasons and magic unicorn sparkle gender woo woo.

Do you see now?

Now I get it!

CyanCyan sometimes, yes. See this "transgender female", who felt unsafe that there was a male cleaner in the women's toilet at McDonalds.

Women's rights general conversations
CyanCyan · 15/12/2022 22:42

Oh ffs. Irony deficiency

SqueakyDinosaur · 15/12/2022 23:30

Eddie Izzard, before he went mad, used to talk about "total clothing rights", which made (& make) perfect sense to me.

Am loving paulfryorkshire getting his arse repeatedly handed to him. It must be getting motion sickness by now.

DameMaud · 15/12/2022 23:37

SqueakyDinosaur · 15/12/2022 23:30

Eddie Izzard, before he went mad, used to talk about "total clothing rights", which made (& make) perfect sense to me.

Am loving paulfryorkshire getting his arse repeatedly handed to him. It must be getting motion sickness by now.

Is it still going?

NeighbourhoodWatchPotholeDivision · 16/12/2022 00:07

CyanCyan · 15/12/2022 22:42

Oh ffs. Irony deficiency

I've remembered a certain newsreader that James should question with the same dedication he questioned KJK.

So. A woman posted about how delighted she'd been to find that Manchester Airport had single-sex toilet provision as well as "all gender" toilets. That's in image 1. In image 2, we see that two adults of the male sex popped up in her replies to indicate that they had been unwilling to use the "all gender" facilities and had walked across the airport to find the specifically female-only provision. They "made a point of it".

Women's rights general conversations
Women's rights general conversations
ErrolTheDragon · 16/12/2022 00:12

Ah...that last twit links back to ”online radicalisation” www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/4698398-online-radicalisation for more irony deficiency.

Plasticfreefantastic · 16/12/2022 09:52

CyanCyan · 15/12/2022 21:03

Have they said it’s because they’re scared of men? I guess some would argue that it’s not because they’re scared of men, it’s that they identify as a woman and therefore feel they have a right to unrestricted access of all women’s spaces. Like Beira’s Place has shown, transwomen have a access to a trans-inclusive rape crisis centre run by a transwoman but it’s not enough, it’s not fair that ‘ciswomen’ are part of a club rape crisis service they’re not invited to.

I enjoyed Janice Turner’s column this morning:

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0caeb050-7bed-11ed-bcd8-855e06175970?shareToken=6c36afa4062e5f272928b154f2c4d94b

‘It wouldn’t occur to me to be angry that a group had created a service for themselves which excluded me. I’m delighted there are gay men’s health clinics, an LGBT anti-abuse charity, a Jewish women’s refuge or one for women of colour, such as Southall Black Sisters. One size doesn’t fit all.’

This takes me all the way back to student days, when the university women's campaign had to admit male students to our events because they made such an almighty fuss about being able to come, regardless of subject. Of course, once allowed, none of them ever bothered, as they weren't interested. But they derrailed efforts to Get Shit Done enough that we gave in.

On the other hand when women campaign to be allowed into male spaces, we are told it's very trivial, and there are more important battles to be fought, and why does it even matter?

SqueakyDinosaur · 16/12/2022 10:12

I'm absolutely slack-jawed at the sheer lazy stupidity and lack of empathy on display here:

mobile.twitter.com/trippingjupiter/status/1603077973799755784

Basically, "Well I know somewhere that does things differently and it's just fine, so you are wrong." When did people get so THICK? When did it become acceptable to show absolutely zero critical thinking?

ErrolTheDragon · 16/12/2022 10:22

Completely oblivious to the women who self exclude from mixed sex services. ^^

well its worked well here in US and continues to

  • this person has no fucking idea. There's a US poster who periodically appears on this board under variations of the name Detroit, who is a woman who needed single sex accommodation after leaving an abusive marriage. I'm not sure where she is now (last I heard she'd got some accommodation but not sure how secure it was) but for months, including in bitterly cold weather she was living outside, often in campgrounds because all the shelters had become mixed sex. For women like her the system was utterly broken.
mach2 · 16/12/2022 10:26

This one is particularly stupid:

Should there be a place for white people who don't want to interact with black people? Why can't they have their own space?

SinnerBoy · 16/12/2022 10:29

Blimey, there are some seriously thick and unpleasant people on that thread.

Figrolls14 · 16/12/2022 10:47

I was thinking this morning of another way to illustrate to my friend why women might possibly be getting ansty about poking of boundaries, safeguarding and language, and I was thinking that marital rape was only successfully prosecuted in 1991 in the uk, and only properly made illegal in 2003. I think that’s correct. That’s wet flipping ink.

Plasticfreefantastic · 16/12/2022 12:46

SqueakyDinosaur · 16/12/2022 10:12

I'm absolutely slack-jawed at the sheer lazy stupidity and lack of empathy on display here:

mobile.twitter.com/trippingjupiter/status/1603077973799755784

Basically, "Well I know somewhere that does things differently and it's just fine, so you are wrong." When did people get so THICK? When did it become acceptable to show absolutely zero critical thinking?

A man with a beard replying there to say if a woman has a problem being in the same space as a penis she has a serious problem. Well, yes, she does, and she's probably very aware of that, and accessing therapy to try to help her live her life in a more bearable way, and REALLY DOES NOT NEED A PENIS TO BE IN THAT THERAPY SPACE.

I assume the beard has never thought of the women who genuinely do live their lives attempting to avoid men, who end up rarely leaving their house, outside relationships, traumatised to the point where they are desperate and their lives are in ruins? Because that would be 'ludicrous'.

CyanCyan · 16/12/2022 12:55

Also, it’s not just about being in x proximity of a penis. Talking about rape and sexual abuse can make you feel very vulnerable and it’s of course perfectly understandable (at least it should be, to any sort of decent human being) that women might not wish to discuss those things in the presence of a man, regardless of how they feel about men in other spaces.

CyanCyan · 16/12/2022 12:58

I can’t believe we’re having to justify these things. Things that have been in place for a very long time. As if it’s not completely fucking obvious. Wilful ignorance.