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 come with exciting news! I heard Caroline Nokes, chair of the Parliamentary Women and Equalities Committee, and parliamentary trans activist, being transphobic on the radio news, while talking about menopause.

Caroline said "every woman will go through menopause". Dear oh dear. Caroline, aren't transwomen women any more?

Regarding the French teacher, I think there's been a miscommunication somewhere. You couldn't have got that kind of essay out of year 11 when I was doing it. They just didn't have that level of language. "I find [x subject] troubling because..." is a formulaic, plausible A-level essay title. I'm going to have to have a look at the post-Gove MFL A-level specifications when I get around to it. I wonder what the exam boards have put in these days to replace the previously fashionable topics. It used to be topics like nuclear energy, recycling, immigration.

I get so confused when people talk about The [mysterious & unknown] Other Place Beetle - I find myself envisioning a cell of TERFy Resistance who’ve fled God Damn Bloody Oxford to escape capture & it’s really rather distracting 😶

I wouldn't worry about it! This thread really is intended as a general signposting/observation of overarching themes/etc place. And I must say I'm really enjoying how posters pull together elements from various threads/sources on here.

The other place is an irrelevance.

I get so confused when people talk about The [mysterious & unknown] Other Place Beetle - I find myself envisioning a cell of TERFy Resistance who’ve fled God Damn Bloody Oxford to escape capture & it’s really rather distracting

There's no point in thinking too much about it. Remember CIF on the Guardian website? It was like a few of those people on a no frills talkboard, increasing in age and declining in number but holding on to the truth that they're the good guys and anything they don't know about/approve of is wrong.

I like this thread. I find myself thinking of it (probably inaccurately) as the home of the Norns. Watching and subtly influencing humanity MN FWR.

They would definitely like you to believe that.

I love this thread too and hope that Kuc doesn't use being halfway around the world on holiday as an excuse not to start iteration 3, we're already on page 38 of this one....

If Kuc's on hols, one of us could always start the new one.

'They' and you have no idea what I believe. But it's a good thread to circle back round to.

Less Oxford, more increasingly-stagnant pond. But otherwise spot on, Beetle.

And speaking of other places, a friend just posted this quote on Facebook. I thought it was a good reminder that often true compassion and kindness =/= compliance or being 'nice'.

"I was at a lunch with the Dalai Lama and five Buddhist teachers at Spirit Rock Meditation Center. We were sitting in a charming room with white carpets and many windows. The food was a delightful, fragrant, vegetarian Indian meal. There were lovely flower arrangements on the table.

"We were discussing sexual misconduct among Western Buddhist teachers. A woman Buddhist from California brought up someone who was using his students for his own sexual needs. One woman said, ‘We are working with him with compassion, trying to get him to understand his motives for exploiting female students and to help him change his actions.’

"The Dalai Lama slammed his fist on the table, saying loudly, ‘Compassion is fine, but it has to stop! And those doing it should be exposed!’ All the serving plates on the table jumped, the water glasses tipped precariously, and I almost choked on the bite of saffron rice in my mouth.

"Suddenly I saw him as a fierce manifestation of compassion and realized that this clarity did not mean that the Dalai Lama had moved away from compassion. Rather, he was bringing compassion and manifesting it as decisive fierceness. His magnetism was glowing like a fire.

"I will always remember that day, because it was such a good teaching on compassion and precision. Compassion is not a wishy-washy ‘anything goes’ approach. Compassion can say a fierce no!"

Tsültrim Allione, from Wisdom Rising

That's very good.

That’s a great quote Binturongs. It’s interesting that they were placing their compassion on the side of the perpetrator while the Dalai Lama came down forcefully on the side of the victims.

I remember a few years ago at a bible reading thing in a week when yet another Catholic priest had been in court for abusing children, the friar leading the session asked us in concerned tones to think of the culprit and ask ourselves what Jesus would have said to him, and we (not all women) all jumped in quoting that thing about millstones and the depths of sea and asking what about the victims. Father B was very taken aback.

Society in general is very unused to seeing compassion as something that women could sometimes receive rather than always have to give.

I was talking to a friend about this yesterday. I think the ‘be kind’ message can create such a behaviour-excusing headfuck. It’s something I have really struggled with in the past and it has got me into some dangerous situations, such as trying to be kind to people who abused me because they were human and flawed and sorry, only for it to happen all over again. I later realised that by trying to remain and compassionate and not wanting to hurt their feelings I had set myself up to have almost no boundaries, and was ultimately being very unkind to myself. Not everyone deserves our kindness. It was a hard lesson to learn.

And this will no doubt enrage some but I really feel we’re not far off being kind to paedophiles, because ‘nobody should be shamed for their sexual interests’ and ‘if an 8 year old identifies as a 19 year old that’s perfectly reasonable and valid’.

That's a great quote, Bint, one worth saving and bringing out when opportunity arises. I can see it being used a lot.

Even leaving paedophilia out, because it is a different issue, taking the position that the sexual gratification of powerful men must never be regarded as more important than the interests of women or the less powerful, is a dodgy basis for declaring oneself right or kind.

I really like that way of looking at it.

I always picture either escape from Alcatraz or the Great escape.And occasionally the resistance in allo allo

I lost the plot on the MAP thread at Christmas. Shouted everyone down and dared them to come back at me.

I killed the thread!😁

Beetle, it was more like a group of people who thought they'd been talking quietly amongst themselves suddenly realising they're encircled by a hostile mob, getting the hell out and collapsing, breathless, in a heap at a safe distance. At least that's how it felt to me.

I’ve just read through that thread. You are an amazing woman.

I saw some of the comments that got deleted. I saw the shit that people were saying and defending. I saw that mumsnet had Two monitors watching the thread live I saw when I actually asked them to explain their appalling opinions and actually define my abuser they all slunk off and never attempted to catergorise him into either MAP paedophile or murderer.