I understand completely. I think the difference is that I immediately start discussing women in prison with male people, and male people in women and girl’s sports . I remember when I was over and having in person conversations last year and people talked about Kath Deves. I immediately asked if they knew what she was talking about, rather than discussing her politics or they words she used.
I guess it has been from my years dealing with the ad hominem attack style on here, not that my friends or family were attacking anyone, they were just repeating the media reporting .
It was during Kath Deves campaign that I realised just how badly biased and opinion driven the media had got in Australia. I have a few friends who were journos and each of them lost their roles (often at editor level) in the early 2010s due to cost cutting. I suspect that has allowed media to publish much more ‘opinion editorial’ rather than straight, focus on facts reporting. As you say, talking about how biased mainstream media has become sounds ‘kooky’ indeed.
So, I don’t even mention it really either.
I had an interesting conversation to that effect with some friends from the USA recently. They had told me that they never trusted anything but the Guardian and a handful of other outlets (all who have a bias in reporting on male people in female sport competitions.). I was spending a few days with them so the hour I spent discussing women’s sports research and the affirming only medical treatments etc was possible. I showed them the studies and they were shocked at the reporting they had believed. It really is a shock when you see the discrepancies and the dishonest wording.
I don’t know how that is going to change. There was a poster who did spend some time on this board last month who posted the usual tropish statements, but this time they stuck around when people pointed out just how logically flawed the statements were. They kindly posted a link to a hour long video they had watched which convinced them that feminists were all about biological essentialism, and were actively seeking to pull laws about same sex marriage and abortion and contraception. The video was from an extreme trans ally who dishonestly used ‘gender critical’ to lump together any group that believed in the universal truth that sex cannot change. They then placed all the blame on the feminists. When you have Pesutto repeating views formed from similar rhetoric, it is very disheartening.
I notice that that neo-Nazi group has been active again this weekend. Surely questions have to be asked what the fuck happened that day when police seemingly let those men in beside the women? The whole thing seemed like madness? They had to have been known by police. The connection with one of them having their father in the force was known. That was a bizarre security breach that potentially could have resulted in physical harm to many women, except the women are not violent reactionaries. I now suspect that the neo-nazi group was using Let Women Speak as a ‘test’ to see how they can access protests to maximise air time.
I always knew there were such groups in Australia festering away. I never thought they would get so wide spread. And never thought people would think they were ‘normalised’ as such. That they would believe ludicrous associations such as feminist women would have associations with neo Nazis!
So, thank you for your answer.