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).

I realised once I'd posted that I'd almost married myself to the frog faced bigot. I've hopefully got it right now.

@Madamedefargelikescrows @Madamedefaragelikescrows 😁

Erm anyway what sort of sweet nothings does a crow whisper... I love you...you've dropped a stich (or whatever the knitting term is)

Late to the game, but here goes. Looks okay, I think.

I can't knit, but I can namechage!

I never did manage to read all of A Tale of Two Cities but from my dim recollection I'm finding Mme Defarge a bit too much of a mixed metaphor to translate beyond this thread. It's the other guys who like guillotines; they could get Jane Fae to teach them aggressive knitting (anyone remember that? Seems so long ago).

Ribbons otoh, terrifying haberdashery ...

I keep checking my thinking on this stuff - I try to do this anyway, but on this issue I find myself just testing everything, mentally, every day.

This isn't due to any sense of being wrong - I've not found anything wobbly. It's because I am so staggered that otherwise (I think) good and intelligent people seem to be accepting this crap ideology, and the lies that seem to be part and parcel of the package.

I mean, do they actually believe this stuff? Or are they a bunch of cowards who would much rather it were ignored?

Sonia Sodha in the NotGuardian.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jan/21/stoking-a-culture-war-no-nicola-sturgeon-this-is-about-balancing-conflicting-rights

Very good, as was Hadley Freeman in the Times.

I wish I knew. You'd have to ask a TRSOHer, but we know what would happen.

I feel the same as angelico. "Is It Just Me? ", but the whole farrago is so patently dishonest, quite apart from anything else. With big fat dose of misogyny thrown in, of course. But the number of women in public life who appear to be taken in by this is worrying. Do they really believe it? I dunno.

I mean, do they actually believe this stuff? Or are they a bunch of cowards who would much rather it were ignored?

I'm not entirely sure it's either. I had a conversation with one of my local councillors who insisted she had only ever seen a particular person as a woman. This person does not remotely "pass". Yet she said it as though she believed it. I don't get it.

bignosebignose · Today 10:30

Sonia Sodha in the NotGuardian.

I looked at the Guardian, to see if they had any articles about the MPs at the rally, with the vile, threatening placards, but couldn't find any. Still, at least they are now publishing articles, which are not simply hagiographies of trans people.

This isn't due to any sense of being wrong - I've not found anything wobbly. It's because I am so staggered that otherwise (I think) good and intelligent people seem to be accepting this crap ideology, and the lies that seem to be part and parcel of the package.

I mean, do they actually believe this stuff? Or are they a bunch of cowards who would much rather it were ignored?

I just don't think they interrogate their position at all, even when people are calling for women to be beheaded. Trans activists are good, and those women are bad. I find it terrifying, you can imagine how it was in 17th century witch hunts, etc.

I don't think they think about it enough to be telling lies or truth. We chuck around the term Orwellian, but this guff is the essence of newspeak.

That 2007 thread Bint flagged up was fascinating, and led on to another one about the Beaumont society - lots of stuff slotting into place.

I was amused by a link somewhere, maybe the 2007 thread, not sure, to some character stating very firmly that unless you have a gender identity you can't be a woman (or, presumably, a man) because that's identity, not biology. Given that gender identity as something a human being could have was only invented by Butler and that New Zealand bloke ca 1965 I wonder did they imagine that women and men didn't exist before then?

do they actually believe this stuff? Or are they a bunch of cowards who would much rather it were ignored?

From reading the responses on threads that leak out into the wild, I think there are various distinct groups:

• People who relish an acceptable excuse to shout at women/be violent/behave terribly in public.
• People who just haven't thought about it (who often have a 'hold on a minute...' response as the thread goes on and reverse rapidly).
• Kuc's 'bundle of good beliefs' lot, who have their eyes tightly shut while they recite the mantras because they have some level of awareness that if they actually look, then it's all going to fall apart.
• Cowards - some of these fall into the group above, some are politically self interested, some are just scared of being attacked if they say the wrong thing.
• Not very bright (some overlap with the good belief bundlers). They can't follow the complexity, so stick to the side that gives them simple answers so they can file it away as 'solved' and stop worrying.
• Intellectually incurious - similar to the above, but they could think more critically about it if they chose to; but it's easier to not bother. They are told it's like Section 28, they knew where they stood on that, so job done.
• True Belivers - because however ridiculous a idea is, some people will believe it. And particularly in the school/university-age groups there is a lot of activity that looks very like some fringe religious groups (or the organisation type that were not allowed to mention) - love bombing, separation from family and existing social groups, provision of a new and better 'family', threat of ostracism for heresy or out-group association ...

There, I think that's everyone suitably insulted. (Waves at lurkers.)

The discussion on this thread seems very apposite to what @angelico53 @duc748 @ExiledElsie and @Ereshkigalangcleg

www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4725480-sex-is-a-result-of-colonialism?

Oh, and @BinturongDefarge too! Cross-post.

Will have a look Kuc

Nice stuff Bint (and all).

The not very bright and intellectually incurious are dangerous.

do they actually believe this stuff? Or are they a bunch of cowards who would much rather it were ignored?

From reading the responses on threads that leak out into the wild, I think there are various distinct groups:

• People who relish an acceptable excuse to shout at women/be violent/behave terribly in public.
• People who just haven't thought about it (who often have a 'hold on a minute...' response as the thread goes on and reverse rapidly).
• Kuc's 'bundle of good beliefs' lot, who have their eyes tightly shut while they recite the mantras because they have some level of awareness that if they actually look, then it's all going to fall apart.
• Cowards - some of these fall into the group above, some are politically self interested, some are just scared of being attacked if they say the wrong thing.
• Not very bright (some overlap with the good belief bundlers). They can't follow the complexity, so stick to the side that gives them simple answers so they can file it away as 'solved' and stop worrying.
• Intellectually incurious - similar to the above, but they could think more critically about it if they chose to; but it's easier to not bother. They are told it's like Section 28, they knew where they stood on that, so job done.
• True Belivers - because however ridiculous a idea is, some people will believe it. And particularly in the school/university-age groups there is a lot of activity that looks very like some fringe religious groups (or the organisation type that were not allowed to mention) - love bombing, separation from family and existing social groups, provision of a new and better 'family', threat of ostracism for heresy or out-group association ...

There, I think that's everyone suitably insulted. (Waves at lurkers.)

I think there is another group. Progressive men who none the less do not want to engage to closely with their views and feelings on gender non conforming and gender dysphoric men (other tham Be Kind) ----so are happy for it to be a "women's isssue".

And I suppose related to that, men who don't see it as impacting on them so being a supporter of Self ID is a cost free boost to their progressive credentials.

A further sub-category could be self-identified progressive naice blokes who get off on the intellectualific perfomativist post-constructionistical-post-modernifist complimacated slippery lubricious wordificle goal-post-shuffliricating knob ego-stroking self-satisfying theoretical exercise of it?

And those men who want to be heroes, to fight the civil rights struggle of their generation and keen to find an enemy, and keen to recite the pieties of the day (“As a straight, middle class, cis-gendered white man I can’t even begin to imagine how hard it is to be trans….”), and desperate to get the kudos of being on the right side of history the question “And what did you do in the Gender Wars, Daddy?” ringing in their ears. Performance and the narrative is more important than interrogating the reality.

Right, I run the risk of sounding like a complete lunatic (and possibly a bit racist), but here goes.

I've always thought of my thoughts and reactions to thinks of having, at least, two distinct....flavours. I think of it like emotional and intellectual, or head and heart (actually more like 'stomach' because it's the gut reactions). So, my first blush reactions will be gut/emotional. I think these are instinctive (lizard brain) or inculcated very early.

So, 'socially acceptable' racism, which, thankfully, is no longer acceptable. Oddly, I think 'be kind' comes from the same place. I'm wary of this, I don't trust my gut. It's irrational and can be bigoted. But it's sometimes emotionally overwhelming.

My rational side lives with and alongside it. There's been occasions when I've been ugly crying but, between sobs, been able to speak coherently and even comment on and apologise for myself, like an onlooker.

I'm probably weird. But I doubt I'm unique. I wonder if other people don't have or recognise this division. Or who do trust their guts more than I do. If that might account for behaviour or beliefs which seem really strange to me?