Women's rights general conversations - Thread 2

[Kucingsparkles]

Continuation of Thread 1

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).

Andrew Doyle & TRIGGERnometry DESTROY 2022

Some discussion about Scotland

Interesting article, thanks Winterborne. Just made me think AGAIN (and again and again) how lucky I was to be born in the 1960s and to have had the best of everything.

The presentation of scientific untruths as valid points of view, for example: what does that do to a developing person?

Not only that but the presentation of scientific truths as harmful. The general prioritisation of subjective feelings over objective truths, and an expectation to be shielded from things that you dislike or which make you feel uncomfortable. This isn’t just age specific of course.

I agree with you @MavisMcMinty . I feel lucky to have been born in 1950, in the generation that could afford university because we didn't pay tuition fees and we got a grant to live on. We had a much more free-roaming childhood than my children, born between 1978 and 1986, had. We didn't even have a TV until I was 9, so I read enormously. Even my children didn't encounter social media until they were mid teens/early twenties.

It's interesting to hear you say that, @MavisMcMinty. I was also born in the 60s and, in keeping with a progressive world view, saw myself as having come from a dark age as we emerged into lighter times. In recent years, as I've become critical of contemporary developments or as some things started to remind me uncomfortably of stuff I thought had been left behind, it's been quite unsettling. I wondered if I was just falling into that stereotype of being older, where you start to come over all myth of the golden age. This is reinforced when people make that appeal to enter 'modern' times.
However, the good thing about being older is that you start to recognise a pattern. I know this pattern, I'm experienced enough to recognise this pattern, it was shit then, and it's shit now.

Interesting stuff. I was pondering this in the context of a comment from a poster at The Other Plac who said the mere existence of the thread on sex based rights upset them.

May be I am an unfeeling bitch but I am not sure I could ever feel that way about the existence of people who disagree with me or have views I find difficult.

@Britinme We had a much more free-roaming childhood than my children, born between 1978 and 1986, had.

I was saying to my Dad how sad I found it that my niece (born in 1994) had such a closeted unfree childhood compared with our own feral freedom, and my Dad was surprised because he’d always thought my siblings and I had a much more repressed childhood than his, spent playing on bomb sites in war-time war-torn Coventry.

I am not sure I could ever feel that way about the existence of people who disagree with me or have views I find difficult.

I used to post on the earlier iterations of the Islamophobia threads in the old place. I engaged because I was terrified for my (culturally) Muslim friends and their children (had recently returned from living in Germany in a very Turkish area) and the generally hostile climate that they were experiencing in the aftermath of 9/11 and various other terrorist acts. Had also lived briefly in Lebanon. I can definitely relate to some of the emotions expressed by posters with trans friends and family and the feeling that people you care about are being traduced and demonised for something outside of their control and how that can be upsetting. And the need to defend a particular demographic that you view as being unfairly targeted.

Eventually it became too much for me (was accused of supporting terrorism - not true) and I withdrew. Not once did it occur to me to try to get the thread closed down. I think I might have vented in off thread snark which probably wasn’t justified in retrospect but the idea that I needed to be protected from the existence of such a thread, where people were far less cautious in how they expressed themselves than in the Women’s Rights thread, would have seemed absurd.

This is a good illustration of how children have much less freedom than they did although there are probably some good reasons for it:

mobile.twitter.com/timrgill/status/1567137918199668736

@Britinme I was born in that period and my childhood was feral.

I was rather dumbstruck by a colleague who recentlt stressed they had to leave a meeting early as they did not want their daughter to come home to an empty house. Said dughter is 14 and has no cognitive issues as far as I am aware.

My colleague commented that "she is very unwordly" - no wonder! At 14 my friends and I were hopping on the train to the nearest city (and sometimes London) and spending the day roaming the shops.

My childhood was feral too, wonderfully so. Me and my brothers walked to school and back on our own from the age of six. It wasn't far, about half a mile, but meant that we could dawdle and explore on the way. There were spinneys to walk through and I always chose those rather than the pavement. Then, we also spent a lot of time on the Long Mynd at the gliding club. While the adults messed about with gliders, us kids used to run wild among the heather and get up to all sorts.

Gin, I also know someone who did that for her daughter. She'd get home early to put the lights on so the girl didn't come home to a dark house. This wasn't a small child, she was in her mid teens. In her early 20s she's now one precious princess and has been so coddled I feel sorry for her.

I’m also a millennial and had a fairly feral childhood. I walked to school on my own from around age 7 or 8 and would go to the park or wander around the woods afterwards. I was in town with friends from age 9. I would call home from a pay phone, three rings so he’d know it was me, and my dad would pick me up or I’d make my own way home on the bus. In my early teens I’d get the train to Newcastle or Sunderland. I didn’t tell my parents about that but I don’t think they’d have minded much. My mum’s a boomer and my dad was of the silent generation. We didn’t do anything as a family, my brother and I were just left to get on with things. If we didn’t go off and do our own thing we’d never have done anything.

Amen to that!

When Working from home kicked in, a colleague who’d previously dropped her sixth form age child (enby) at school in the town where we worked continued to do two school runs from home a day, despite there being a bus every 15 minutes and two trains an hour between the town where she lives and the town where the teenager goes to school. I can’t wait until mine are old enough to walk or cycle to school alone - will get a big chunk of the day back. It’s not allowed by the school before year 5, although my nine year old has been ready for ages. I fear I will be frogmarching the younger to school for some time yet though - completely different personality and not nearly so reliable.

@Tricyrtis2022 Are you from South Shropshire? Love the Long Mynd - used to live in Ludlow and had a friend in Church Stretton.

I don’t have children but I coddle my cat terribly, I’m ridiculously overprotective of him and I’d no doubt be the same with a child. My brother, who also doesn’t have children, is the same with his dog. I’ve been wondering why that is. Is it so much exposure to horrors, of stuff that can, and does, go wrong? Stories on the news, stories on social media, warnings on resources for pet owners? I’m sure a contributing factor is also that we had very difficult childhoods. I can’t bear the thought of my cat or hypothetical child suffering in any way like we did. Although I agree coddling and overprotection can be damaging, I can completely see how it happens.

But then again, the worst porn we were likely to be exposed to was dodgy magazines found under a hedge, we might get flashed at (horrible, but known to be a bad thing done by dodgy individuals) but we didn't have dick picks mailed to us regularly, we weren't expected to imitate hard porn performances.

They are over-protected in some areas, horribly unprotected in others.

Winterborne, my family lived for a short time in Church Stretton, but not long. I have so many lovely memories of the Long Mynd and the huge expanse we had to freely run in. It was truly beautiful there and we were so lucky to have that time. The grownups weren't really interested in what we got up to, except for a single occasion when a thick fog came down and they went out looking for us.

My brother, who also doesn’t have children, is the same with his dog

I was like that with our dog. He was from SE Asia, unusual to look at, and people kept trying to buy him from us, which freaked me out as some offered ridiculous sums of money. I was worried someone would steal him so always kept a close eye on him.

I was born in 1970 and we lived semi-rural, a few miles out of town. We roamed free in the holidays and sometimes, I'm amazed I made it to my teens! From the age of 12, I cycled 7 or 8 miles to school, on pretty busy roads.

So some interesting things, some omissions and I’m uncomfortable with the one-sided nature of it. Yes there is a lack of resilience, but young people have had a lot to contend with. The question is how best to support them.

I think he mainly talks about the influence of social media. I can't remember if it was him or someone else (Peterson?) who talked about aggression. That girls are just as aggressive as boys but that it's social violence with girls (especially through social media). All very interesting. I do agree about porn use amongst boys impacting on girls' wellbeing but there's also more girls accessing porn and how this impacts them.

I was particularly interested in defend mode where “you’re not creative, you’re not future-thinking, you’re focused on threats in the present.”

I see that in my young relatives and friends' children. So anxious about saying or doing the right thing/wrong thing. It's worrying.

I agree with the kids in space analogy. I was on another thread in AIBU about whether an 11 year girl should have Instagram and Snapchat on their phone. Er, no, absolutely not. This is the kind of stuff Haidt talks about. I feel he's the adult in the room, talking sense.

As for scientific fact as a point of view. When it's "unsafe" for people to hear facts because it impacts their beliefs and well-being, when emotions are more important, it does not bode well for society, does it?

Growing up in a London suburb, I walked or got the bus to and from school from a young age (my older brother was at the same school until I was six but after that it was really down to me). Took the bus and tube to get to secondary school so it would have been a bit weird if I hadn’t also used the bus and tube to hang out with friends outside school.

By 14 my social life also included going to the pub with my brother and to a local nightclub with friends. No age checking then (beyond nightclub bouncers asking big as long as you had an age and year of birth that worked they accepted the answer and we managed to sneak out undetected when the place was raided) so quite a lot of underage smoking and drinking.

Thanks, will have a look at it later.

Here's one that sounds almost unbelievable. My husband was born in August 1942. When he was 5 (though almost 6) in July 1948 his mother put him on a train in Portland, Maine, with a suitcase and a brown bag lunch, and asked the conductor to make sure he got off at St Lambert, Canada (one stop before Montreal, so about 280-300 miles) where his uncle would meet him. There was a change of conductors at the border, so the first conductor had to make sure the second conductor knew about this. He used to do that every summer until he was in his teens, to stay with his grandparents for a month. His parents would come and pick him up to take him home at the end of it. In those days you didn't need a passport to go from the US to Canada so no ID cards were needed.