Women's rights general conversations - Thread 4

[Kucinghitam]

Continuation of Thread 3.

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 "Has anybody noticed this recurring theme that keeps coming up??" or even "Random bloke asked me to smile while I was choosing onions, grr"- that sort of thing).

@BinturongsSmellOfPopcorn 'Identify or present' is entirely untethered to reality. A women's network open to those who identify or present as women includes those who aren't and excludes some who are. That's just a network of random people.

Maybe you should suggest abandoning the name "women's network" and renaming it "random people's network"? At least that way it would actually include all women. Try not to sound sarcastic, though.

Heh. Good luck with that last part

That is not one of my strengths.

Interesting article. I broadly agree with the premise that it's about reality vs anti-reality.

Edinburgh University outdoes itself once more:

https://twitter.com/lnmackenzie1/status/1651257193637765125?s=61&t=vrfh73NvYySozkuIkLckQw

I wonder how many protestors have even bothered to watch the film they’re trying to prevent others from seeing?

It’s all very DOWN WITH THAT SORT OF THING!

That sort of totalitarian mindset would go down very well amongst some of the Other Place TRSOHers.

I have the same thought as when I saw the footage of the blue-haired stormtroopers occupying Evergreen college and pretty much imprisoning the staff - clear the fuckers with batons.

[Apologies for slightly cliquey post]

Those of us who recently came over from Another Place may remember one of the other-view posters who initially engaged on the topic urged Contrapoint as a good source of information. I wonder whether that poster still watches the channel, and if so whether this prompted any reconsideration of the need to protect children and young people who are playing with identity while too young to understand permanent consequences.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4793827-some-contrapoint-quotes

[Non cliquey comment] Poor kid. It's an awful situation to be in even privately, but must be doubly hard when transition has been such a public part of someone's identity. I really hope it makes some of the channel's viewers think twice before doing anything irreversible.

The poster I think you mean recently recommended Contrapoints' video response to the Witch Trials of JKR podcast. I really do try to look at materials from both sides but this has, I think, defeated me - 2hrs of arch, self-referential sophistry. Well, unless the second hour is very unlike the first.

I was also intrigued to see someone on there defending TW in women's sports, especially with the somewhat incomprehensible argument that because women had not been permitted to compete in marathons until relatively recently, they weren't a good example of why competition against TW may be unfair. I genuinely have no idea how they came to that conclusion, nor whether I have misrepresented their point.

Full video (nearly 2 hours, how can anyone sit through 2 hours of one voice?) -

There's a new season of Paddy's podcasts. In the first episode Paddy O'Gorman talked to women in a hostel in Dublin,

https://twitter.com/paddyjogorman/status/1650456453860278272

http://paddyspodcast.ie/episodes-3/

what is this world we are living in where a man listening to powerless women speak, and letting them be heard, is a towering hero?

After the comments last week, I did the thing I loathe myself for, and went to have a look (damn you, insomnia). A lot to catch up on, but yes I did see that post and concluded my Bad Soul that must be the reason why the "argument" looked like pious fraud manufactured outrage to me. Also saw a post of exquisitely hypocritical totalitarian mind-control re: lesser-service-humans not even being allowed to feel offended by being labelled by their genderist overlords.

Which just reinforced my relief at getting the fuck out. I can only salute those of you who ventured back.

Bottom line: stay here, it's nicer.

I often think back to the Guardian (always in the forefront of these things!), and their Style Guide, declaring that 'actress' was old-fashioned, and sexist, and "we don't say 'doctress' any more, do we?". And this kind of usage has become generally more commonplace. But then, next thing is, let's not bother having a Best Actress at the Oscars, let's just have one category. And it's not just about the Oscars. It's about the language of equality and inclusion actually being used to screw women over. A familiar refrain.

@DeanVolecapeAKAelderberry ... what is this world we are living in where a man listening to powerless women speak, and letting them be heard, is a towering hero?

Thanks for the link. I've just listened to that episode, having previously listened to the earlier two series on your recommendation. He is extraordinary in his empathy and his ability to just let people talk.

Only just started reading this thread, but I think it could turn out to be interesting. I find myself feeling quite sorry for her childhood, but also thinking that her family might have been quite unusual. I mean, I grew up in a then-3rd-world SE Asian country, and AFAIK that level of gender-policing would have been considered extreme there (at least for younger children).

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/4794597-aibu-to-think-there-is-definitely-way-less-gender-stereotyping-now-for-children-than-in-the-70s

Definitely doesn't match my experience of the 70s. Clothes and toys were both mainly hand-me-downs and went though a mix of boys and girls - we all wore the same jumpers and trousers, and mainly had the same haircuts. Playing was with everyone of similar age on the street, and we all shared toys. Girls had Meccano, Playmobile garages, Skalextric, skateboards. The only real difference was dolls - boys were just as likely to have them as girls, but theirs were Action Man while the girls had Barbie or Sindy. And my school didn't segregate subjects - everyone did both woodwork and cooking - although I know of some that did.

In my 1960s secondary education, girls did cookery and needlework and boys did woodwork and metalwork from what is now Y7 to Y9. Home Economics was an O level option for girls and boys could do Technical Drawing - can't remember if woodwork and metalwork continued to be available to boys. Either could do Art instead- I did.

Very similar in my 1980s secondary education in SE Asia. Most secondary schools in larger settlements would have been single-sex. At lower secondary (Y7-9) boys got (IIRC) Commerce, Arts, Woodwork/Metalwork or Agriculture streams; girls got Commerce, Arts or Home Science streams. At the end of Y9 would be the national Lower Certificate of Education examinations, after which (in the olden days) one could leave school. By my time, it was vanishingly rare for anyone to leave education at that point and perhaps it was illegal to do so - but the lower sec Home Science syllabus had been designed so a girl could go off age 15, get married and run a household very effectively (including how to blue, starch and iron white shirts!!). I still use my handwritten Home Science recipe book to this day - DDs have started trying recipes from it, translated into English obviously.

But before secondary school and beyond, clothes/toys/child equipment/household items were ungendered because they had to be handed down and re-used repeatedly.

I agree! And kids loved to combine Action Man and Sindy into one game whenever they had the opportunity so even that’s not quite as divisive as it seems on the surface.

I have one older sister and we are the classic just-under-two-and-half-year age gap that was the norm in 70s/80s working class Britain.
My mum’s best friend had two sons of the same age gap, just a little older than us, so we got loads of their hand me down clothes and toys.

In the late 70s photos we all look the same, bowl hair cuts, corduroy trousers, earthy green and brown tones with a bit of bright orange. No one really remarked on anything gendered, except as some sort of distant future warning ‘oooh, you won’t be able to do that/wear that when you get a job/get married’ etc.

The major difference that I see now is that girls are discouraged from liking girl-coded things (make up, dresssing up, cuddly toys, glitter, dancing) where boys are are praised for the exact same interests.
I don’t see much of it going the other way ie girls being praised for like boy-coded things (Thomas the Tank Engine, team sports, Meccano/Lego) and boys from being discouraged from those interests.

My children range from 23-11 though, so I’m a little bit removed from the world of preschoolers/infant school (although some of my mum friends via my 11 year old do have younger children)

I was given dolls as a child in the 50s (this was before the Barbie/Sindy era) but I never played with them. My mum made most of my clothes, which were mainly dresses until I was maybe ten or so when I remember wearing jeans. My mum made a whole wardrobe of clothes for a doll I was bought one Christmas, out of remnants of my dresses, and gave them to me in a little suitcase covered in pink and white striped sticky-back plastic. All I ever did was undress the doll and leave it lying around naked until she dressed it again. I could weep when I think how ungrateful for her efforts I must have seemed, but the only toy I remember enjoying and playing with a lot was my Bayko building set. I don't think we had Lego available in the fifties, though I bought non-gendered Lego for my kids in the 80s and liked to play with it with them. And books of course - that's what I liked best. I do remember doing arty stuff with my mum though - potato prints! And I played cards with both my parents.

My secondary school (late 80s, first group of teens to do GCSEs instead of O Levels or CSEs) was a brand new comp created from a merger of two failing schools and desperately trying to be ‘different’.
The headteacher (and administrator rather than a teacher) came up with all sorts of weird peripheral stuff based on education in other countries (much earlier morning start than other local schools, no assemblies, ring binders instead of exercise books, just change for change sake really).

None of the lessons were officially gendered but there was still an obvious sex split in some subjects (just 3 girls in my top set double science GCSE class of 25 pupils). Textiles nearly all girls, DT (or whatever it was called then) nearly all boys.
Home Ec had become Food Tech or somesuch and was seen as a doss option for boys who didn’t want to do double science, which was probably unfair on the kids, male or female, who were genuinely interested.

I did Art which was probably 50/50, on average the girls were significantly better at it but the 1 or 2 boys who were good were treated like princes by the male teacher.