Women's rights general conversations - Thread 5

[Kucinghitam]

Continuation of Thread 4.

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).

"To right wing men, we are private property. To left wing men, we are public property. In either case, we are not considered to be humans: we are things."
Andrea Dworkin
Right Wing Women

I don't think I would even care what the outcome of someone's deliberation was if it disagreed with me except that in this case, there is no sign of people engaging their brains and having come by these views honestly - bright people leaving any critical faculty at home to cheerlead what is errant nonsense and potentially dangerous errant nonsense. It's confusing and worrying.

Most people just think queer theory means gay rights. For those who've looked a little deeper they think it's like women's studies and black history - and therefore helping amplify the persepective of the 'most vulnerable and oppressed'. They don't actually read it. Those who do try to read it hit the wall of Butler and assume anything that impenetrable must be Very Clever and Important.

Looking at a lot of TRSOHs, I can't decide is it lack of intellectual curiosity or just limited intelligence. Whichever, they are very happy to latch on to the current fashionable opinions and catch phrases and repeat them ad nauseam.

As has been remarked before, it is very like the way members of a dominant religion behave when it is in a majority position in a society. At best, chaining up the swings in the playground on Sundays, at worst forcing unmarried pregnant women out of sight and abusing children.

YouTube threw this in my path, really interesting not least in how the word 'women' is completely swerved.

You can stop watching when she starts shilling for Brilliant at the end.

I recently listened to Kathleen Stock on a podcast called Conversations with Coleman. She said she's always been on the left and couldn't see herself ever voting Conservative. Her recent Oxford Union thing is also on a podcast and worth a listen.

That is interesting for many reasons.

@MouseMinge that sums up my POV perfectly, and much better than could have done. I regard myself as of the Left, always have, and that won't change. I'm so disappointed in the attitude of most well-known figures in the Labour Party and the Greens. But I don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater. I know which side brought us public health, paid holidays and old pensions, and which brought us Brexit and Boris Fucking Johnson. I won't vote Labour in GEs unless or until they call time on this bollix, but I still support most of their policies and would never vote Tory.
As for Queer Theory, I remembered saying, at the old place I think, that Keir Starmer should be asked whether he agrees that QT has an important role to play in guiding policy in our primary schools, or not? You can just picture the waffle.

"Do lefties even know where the trans stuff comes from?"

No, they are incurious and lazy as Steph says. And I don't think anyone who 'tars' people as @Kucinghitam says (and I agree there's plenty who do) can be a Good Person. Full stop.

@duc748 me too, though I don't have a vote in the UK any more and all is madness over here.

The current parliamentary Labour party is to the left what Boris Johnson is to the truth. There are a handful of genuine democratic socialist mps and the rest, especially Starmer would be equally, if not more, at home in the conservative party. The biggest difference between them at the moment is that a Tory mp is more likely to know what a woman is than the majority of the Labour cohort.

Sadly true.

But even leaving party politics out of it, there is a massive problem with the left as a belief system held by a large number of people. The fact that such shamelessly incoherent nonsense can be adopted with such vigour and venom, completely unquestioned makes me look askance at the people I thought I had beliefs in common with.

If I were dating again and I met a man who indicated he held left wing beliefs, I think I would have felt relaxed in the past but now my guard would be up instantly.

Both the right and the left are hostile to women's rights. But at least the right will call me a woman while they destroy the rights our foremothers fought for - the left will do the same but insult me by calling me "cis" or a "non man" while they do it.

I think my take on it is that those on the left who've been taken in by gender ideology do not represent my idea of the left. The left should be about the collective and gender ideology is all about the individual. Suck that up, rubbish progressive arseholes!

Yup, exactly that. The many not the few (which doesn't imply not supporting vulnerable people), rather than Me, Me, Me.

But what's almost worse for me is that in most cases, I don't believe they've been 'taken in' at all. I don't think they believe a word of it, but they parrot it anyway, because they think it gives them political advantage.

Oh, definitely! Starmer, for example, is fully aware that women don't have penises but research shows that's the way to win votes. Until it isn't hence a little reversal of his earlier statements. By the time we get to the next general election he'll have gone full terf and refuse to acknowledge his previous stance. If it's not already clear, I despise Starmer.

Yet another horrific story of male entitlement and violence.
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/4828870-man-sexually-assaults-woman-then-throws-her-and-a-friend-off-bridge-into-ravine-at-german-tourist-spot?
The Not-My-Nigel and Whataboutthepoormenz contingent (I'll just make an observation that some of the names are ones I recognise as being TRSOHers) are very prompt to educate the Bad Women; somebody later on absolutely nails the Rules of Misogyny that are exhibited.

God, I saw that on Thursday. I just haven't got the words.

Horrific. I won't be offering my thoughts on that thread, for sure. Also, the police watchdog guy linked to on that thread, WTAF?

Well, this is depressing.

https://news.un.org/en/story/2023/06/1137532

If not entirely unsurprising.

That is depressing.

Colour me astonished.

That UN report is not the only one giving similar dismal news, sadly. Views about sex equality have not improved in most countries (lots of countries in that UN report show that almost 100% of men and women hold some bias against women though slightly more among men), and seem to be getting slightly worse among the youngest adult generations in the Western countries, and in particular among young men.

I can't help seeing this as collateral with the shift away from women's rights among the powerful organisations (UN itself) and many governments. Other governments, of course, never even began on that.

The old place:

https://www.evakurilova.com/p/it-doesnt-affect-me

The old place was the driver saying he'd crash the train because she was on it, her jumping out the window to save the other passengers, and them all cheering the driver and saying 'kill the witch'.