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 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!"

Heck yes. And it's also worth noting that Buddhism doesn't preach compassion alone - its necessary twin pillar is wisdom.

@Boiledbeetle - can you point me to the MAP thread please? I can't find it and I'm not sure where to look. Ta!

Id have a few stiff drinks first

www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4709225-scottish-police-use-minor-attracted-person-instead-of-paedophile-in-report

Thank you!

Over on this thread the OP is writing to the deputy head of her child’s primary school over a ‘No Outsiders poster’ misrepresenting the EA. It has 8 characteristics exactly as in the EA but gender instead of sex for the protected characteristic ‘sex’.

The poster does not say it is the Equality Act but it says:
Everyone is welcome in our school. No one is the same but everyone is equal.

She brought it up with the school before Christmas to be told by the deputy head that the poster isn’t of the EA per se, it is just there to promote inclusivity; and that recent cases in law have shown that sex is gender and she’ll get back to OP with the proof.

Some posters have suggested the deputy head will get defensive if not approached correctly.

OP is currently trying to work out the best letter. I am a bit impatient and tactless and don’t have a child at the school and so am not the best to give advice.

Meanwhile someone on another school thread on this board just had great success with her DH who works there making a complaint about the same No Outsiders poster (having read this here). In that case, the head agreed -said they’d had other complaints too -and the poster was corrected.

Perhaps someone here has excellent diplomacy skills to either give the OP confidence with what she is thinking of writing back, or else might suggest a few tweaks.

n.b. She has a child at the school.

www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4713725-please-help-gender-not-sex-on-a-school-protected-characteristics-poster-just-spoken-to-the-head

@Boiledbeetle , the dead arose and appeared to many. I read the majority of the thread and posted because it made me a bit cross.

Long-time lurker, sorry about that, but look at this:
www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/4727545-aibu-in-thinking-aibu-is-the-correct-place-for-this-thread?page=2
👏👏

I also read it but didn't post. Too sad. Another CSA survivor here but luckily for me for a fairly limited period at age 5-6. I didn't tell anybody anything about it until I was in my twenties, and then pushed it away until I went through it all in therapy in my fifties.

Thank you @ScrollingLeaves

Please, any help with drafting my first written missive would be gratefully received. I've got my suggested start point, don't want to go in too strong, but also want it noted that it isn't right, and that it is partisan (not allowed in schools, we have to be apolitical)

At lest it will be nearer the front when i next need to search for it!

It was infuriating at the time. I took a long while to calm. I felt like I had someone from mumsnet following me around the next day as I was so angry they were having to delete a lot of my posts.

Some people just don't get it.

@Madamedefargelikescrows and having now been and read your comment (took me a while to get my head back there)

💐

It's exactly like that, with a soupçon of Benny Hill.

No idea whether this bloke has any opinion on women's rights, but his ASCETICS acronym works just as well for this subject as for his - it's as though the officer class men behave the same way everywhere.

twitter.com/aljhlester/status/1615335953413058560

This has really pissed me off. Why is it OK to use the execution of women as decoration IN A PRIMARY SCHOOL (or indeed, anywhere)? Yes, yes, it happened, but there is context, and who the fuck thought this was appropriate?

I get the Horrible Histories argument (though I disagree vehemently with it), but then why not a few pics of horrible deaths of prominent men?

chiswickcalendar.co.uk/parents-remove-child-from-southfield-primary-school-over-graphic-images-of-violence-against-women/

That's awful.

And as you say - the history argument in no way explains the exclusion of men. It's not as if there's any shortage of Tudor male beheadings.

Those pictures are horrific, tbf I think I'd feel the same if they were male. They're not just graphic, the expressions on the faces, that plays down the actual horror of what these read, albeit historical, people went through. There's a piece of cake in Marie Antoinette's mouth!

Yes, I am aware of the irony and, likely, hypocrisy of my amended username. I'll change it back

It's just so normalised isn't it? The idea both that women are being over-sensitive to complain about young girls being faced with violent cartoon images on a daily basis, and the way that women are the ones they choose to depict in this way. It just "happens" without anyone meaning it to, apparently,

Yet when awards are given out or stories of bravery from history it also just happens that these nearly always feature men.

And after the decapitate Terfs sign at the weekend they can't claim its just a fun historical fact. It's a current and real danger for women in this country right now. I'd be going in with a paint brush and putting black paint on that at the moment if I had a child there.

Beetle, I was thinking just the same, I'd be in there with a tin of paint and a roller.

Oh dear God those are horrific - bad enough showing execution victims, but playing it for laughs? I used to get upset by the spelling game hangman when I was in primary school, and that was just chalk lines on a blackboard.

It's just shocking. I hate the phrase "they wouldn't say that about..." but it's hard to imagine which group gets so many representations of violence against them as casually and frequently as women.

Thing is though cake we are on an adult forum, that let's be honest most kids aren't roaming our threads. And our name changes are reflecting exactly what is happening for us as adult women. We are not forcing it down the throats of 5 year olds in graphic drawing form.

I don't know if you've ever read the asterix cartoons. As a young child i used to bleep over the names as they are just a jumble of letters. As an adult they are hilarious.

No, thank you @Boiledbeetle but it's sackcloth and ashes for me.

I remember a book I read as a child that had a drawing of a beheaded person. It wasn't very detailed, but the stump of the neck....! It was probably Dierdre of the sorrows.

The mention of Asterix made me go looking at my bookshelves

Ooh they are blurry here's some of the good names