Daily acts of feminism, 2023

[teawamutu]

I'm starting another one of these, because last year's brought up some brilliant ideas I wouldn't otherwise have come across. I'm trying to do something positive for women's rights, every day.

Today, I have:
-Done a bit of gardening for Glinner, whose parsley needs a bit of attention
-Filled in the IPSOS consultation on the reporting of sex and gender identity, which closes today
-Mailed my MP, to ask that she support the parliamentary debate on the Equality Act and the clarification of biological sex.

Any ideas for future days gratefully received 😀

Also donated to the Glinner crowdfund.
Recommended Invisible Women (by Caroline Criado Perez) to a friend - a must-read for any self-respecting feminist.

Thanks, OP.

Today, I shared sex matters letter to MPs with several friends. I had a discussion with young teen around consent and boundaries.

Good one! IW is great for a bit of stealth terfing.

I've been doing the same with Hags, by Victoria Smith, this week. Sending pix of the most rage-inducing points to my middle aged friends 😁

I contact several organisations with praises and complaints every week, because I learned that "the squeaking wheel gets the oil," or at least hundreds of wheels squeaking at the same time. The other side has been doing this for at least two decades, so I hope it might have a small effect.

I stay very polite but try to be clear and short. Today I sent some money, too.

So lovely that you've helped with Glinner's gardening!
Thanks for the book recommendations too.

...Sidling into the room after about 5mths of lurking....

What a great idea..will be an inspirational thread to watch

Started the 'gender' conversation at supper yesterday with 2 relatively new friends...and was so relieved to find out they were as like minded as I'd hoped (and laughed at how tentatively I'd broached the subject!).... Ok wasn't that I recruited new members to the fold BUT showed me how important it is to talk to people about what's going on

Wrote to my MP re EA petition (still have a UK address)

Inch by inch we can move forward

Ordering Hags to read

I did this last year at lunch with friends before local elections and they were ALL terfy

same at work - young women agreeing with me about need for single sex spaces

sometimes it’s what others need
i won’t be quiet anymore

I'd like to hear more about the praises - for clear language and that sort of thing?

Do you get many responses?

I have it waiting for me to finish Barnes' book (80% done on that). Look forward to discussing it here.

Great book! The visable women podcast is a great follow up.

Have family visiting soon and ordered Hags, time to think and material girls for them to bring out for me...!

A propos of Hags, was researching Irish cottages recently and came across something called the Hag's Bed. It is built in next to the fireplace. So the Hag is always warmest and the Keeper of the Hearth and Flame.
Someone with. as Gaelige will come on with the proper word for it.....

Bought ‘Hags’ by Victoria Smith from a local bookshop (not Waterstones who don’t like stocking the books I want to read) and another book that caught my eye while I was there.

@rubyslippers yep... This is the second time I've been 'brave enough' to raise it as a topic and found that there are more of us around than I realised... You're right...no more keeping quiet

Oh yes on the convos - I mentioned the JKR podcast to a friend who said immediately that she found the whole issue 'polarising' (subtle signal, back off. No problem).

But then on IWD had some great conversations with women colleagues very clearly talking about FEMALE and BIOLOGY and PREGNANCY etc and no beee kiiiind anywhere. We're getting braver.

I raise the topic tentatively as I don't want to lose friends but so far so good.....

A friend in the week talking about only surgically transitioned TW in women's prisons, didn't I think?

No, I said. A woman is not a man with his cock removed. Safety important yes, third spaces by all means, but let's not lock vulnerable women in with males when so many have already been abused by them.

She agreed.

When someone sticks her head above the parapet, or his head, as the case might be, I send a short note thanking the person for what they did and giving a reason why what they did is the right thing to do and how many of us have their backs.

For complaints I also try to keep it short and only state my main objection with the stance that they perhaps didn't quite intend to do or say what happened because.... If I feel like ranting I rant first and then erase it all and turn polite.

As to responses, mostly people don't respond, of course. I suspect many of the messages never get past the young person who reads the incoming rants etc.

But I have had good conversations with some organisations and several newspaper editors, and even when I didn't get a response I noticed that the site changed the text on something to go with what I wrote, though the odds are that it was not because of me but perhaps because many people wrote similar things.

💪

Cailleach, apparently.

www.museumsofmayo.com/eviction-cottage/the-hag.html

Baked some biscuits for a feminist IWD event tomorrow. And now I will go and request my library gets copies of some recent book releases, including Hags. Then I'll read the book by a GC author that I got out from the library after I requested they purchase it.

I complained to the BBC about a biased online article about drag Queen story time.

When someone sticks her head above the parapet, or his head, as the case might be, I send a short note thanking the person for what they did and giving a reason why what they did is the right thing to do and how many of us have their backs.

Yes, I did this recently with an MP who is getting bolder.

In that spirit - today's task is to write to my local Labour candidate to welcome Keir Starmer saying that gender reform isn't a priority - but explain that I'm going to need to see a proper and positive commitment to actual women's rights and single sex spaces (to whit, SINGLE SEX, not 'biological women and some men with a piece of paper') before they get my vote back.

Added my name to a Change petition: UNICEF Must Conduct an Independent Investigation on Poisoning School Girls in Iran