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).

Oh, well done to your daughter and friend! But yes, infuriating that this is the thing she's had to learn from work experience.

And more infuriating is that the lesson she'll also be learning along the way is how many people, many of them women, will be eager to be apologists for the worst male behaviour even in a work context, e.g.:

www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/4712397-was-i-right-to-report-this-man

That's strange. I can't either. The app on the phone won't post or pull up, 'Threads I'm Watching', but the iPad, laptops and desktop work fine.

I'll make a post on 'Site Stuff', if I can find it!

This is from the app on my iPhone, seems fine.

I think it was a glitch with an earlier version of the App. I reinstalled it numerous times over several weeks and it didn't work. Now just reinstalled the latest version and it's fine. Have a go at that @MissLawls - as it's just fixed my issue!

Pretending to be Native American is not on, quite rightly:

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11596179/Co-founder-queer-Indigenous-artists-collective-Wisconsin-unmasked-white-woman.html

One day they'll realise the dissonance. In the meantime it's good to have yet another example of pearl clutching on the RSOH.

The Mail's made a right hash of non-binary grammar.

They has since released a statement saying that they are is not using the Ojibwe name given to them and are removing themselves from all positions and projects

(The rest of the article uses a mix of she and they.)

Arf. That cannot be accidental.

@MarieIVanArkleStinks thanks. Can post now. It's not as easy on the eyes as on my big computer.

This is astounding, in a bad way:

www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4712765-fresh-horrors-for-scotland?

I wondered how many BeKind LufflyFeelz TRSOHers (of the sort we've all had the misfortune of being scolded by) would be genuinely happy about this, but of course they tend to be the ones who very deliberately Do Not Apply Thought to this. Because Bundle of Good Beliefs.

Oh, good grief.

But thanks for linking, Kuc.

Women’s healthcare rant incoming:

I had an appointment with a nurse yesterday to have my Mirena coil removed. She strongly advised me not to do it because I have endometriosis and PCOS. She said it’s the gold standard treatment for PCOS, except it’s not. I was previously offered the combined pill but I can’t take it because I have migraines and I was refused alternatives such as HRT and spironolactone. Anyway, she said she’d email her more experienced colleague as well as a gynaecologist and get back to me by the end of the day.

She phoned me an hour later to say she’d heard back from her colleague and read out his/her email: ‘Assume she can’t take the combined pill due to obesity. It would be best for her to keep the coil in place’. I’m not remotely obese. I’m 9 stone. Not all women with PCOS are obese - around 20-30% are have ‘lean PCOS’. It’s bad enough they won’t treat me according to NICE guidelines, but the sheer fucking ignorance, arrogance and cheek of it had me raging. They just don’t care, women with PCOS are all the same to them.

To top it off, the nurse then said, ‘You’re at an age where you need contraception, so I would recommend not removing it.’

Maybe I want to get pregnant. Maybe I’m a lesbian. Maybe I’m not having sex. Fuck off.

This is the stuff dystopias are made of. It's horribly reminiscent of Gilead.

It doesn't start with an evil despot taking over a country and subjecting every citizen to a curfew (although the Covid lockdowns resembled something very like it). They start with increments, small freedoms relinquished, the water gradually wearing away at the rock.

Once those freedoms are gone, they're gone, and they're not coming back. That Nicola Sturgeon can use women as collateral damage - as mere pawns for manoeuvring toward her independent Scottish utopia - is as breathtaking an act of political cynicism as I've ever witnessed. It's right up there with the poll tax and Brexit. I hope it eventually bites her on the arse, and banishes her to political obscurity on a permanent basis.

I'm as anti-Tory as they come, but I am in terror of Labour winning the next General Election.

If they do, women in the UK are roundly and completely fucked.

That's awful, Cyan. Please complain if you feel able to - about both the one you saw and the colleague.

@CyanCrystalViolet .

Surely the nurse should have emailed straight back and said, the patient isn't obese, she's 9 stone? Sounds so unprofessional, making assumptions like that. And obv rude and insensitive.

That struck me as weird too unless Cyan is like 4'10" tall.

I’m 5’5”, so BMI 21 apparently. I don’t dare complain as I think they already see me as a PITA.

Well that's an obvious "not obese" then so why the devil didn't she text back to say so? Not helpful.

Oh and she didn’t email back, I’ve just been left with no treatment again (except for the ‘gold standard’ coil of course, which is doing such a good job of treating it that my ovaries are many times the size they should be and my LH and testosterone are out of control).

Bloody hell @CyanCrystalViolet, I'd be raging! What on earth are they thinking?

@CyanCrystalViolet maybe you should tell them that you now identify as a man and having the coil is causing you mental discomfort because it focuses on your ovaries which you need to forget in order to fully feel like a man. Obviously, satire but I don't blame you for raging. Surely it is or should be illegal to force you to continue to have something implanted that you want removed for very good reasons. Even if your reason was just, "I don't want it." that is your bloody right!

I can still have it removed if I really want to, she did say ‘it’s your body’ at least, but she said without any hormones to replace it with I’d be putting myself at increased risk of endometrial hyperplasia/cancer and worsening endometriosis. Ideally I would like it removed and to take a combination of migraine-friendly HRT and spironolactone instead, but they won’t prescribe them to me despite both being in the NICE guidelines for PCOS. They’ve just told me I’ll have to see what my gynaecologist says, but I don’t have an appointment with her until May. In the meantime I’m in constant discomfort with my ovaries and losing my hair from the elevated testosterone. Arghhh.

Anyway, sorry, didn’t mean to take over the thread with my gynae woes but I’m so fed up of women’s health not being taken seriously and intend to make it the focus of my dissertation.

I did feel like saying, ‘So you won’t prescribe me NICE-recommended HRT to manage my gynaecological conditions but you’ll merrily prescribe it to any man who says he’s a woman. OK.’

I wonder how many transwomen will be queuing to have a coil inserted up their penis.

Bloody hell Cyan that sounds awful. Sympathies.

I simply can't imagine how angry that would make me, cyan.