Women's rights general conversations - Thread 6

[Kucinghitam]

Continuation of Thread 5.

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 in the supermarket, grr"- that sort of thing).

It was GBOL I remembered too.

We invented social media, you know.

We did, didn't we :-)

GBOL adpted at GUT (in its heyday) from father ted. "Them chinese, now ted, they're a grand bunch of lads". Contrasted with "a warning from history".

It was great. Fuk nose where I got lovely from. And yes, it was from the wonderful Father Ted. These days a couple of friends and I paraphrase "I hear you're a racist now, father." to "I hear you're a TERF now, father."

We've just been chatting about the BBC's rerun of I, CLAVDIVS which MrG is watching. He hasn't seen it before and in passing I said "Just wait until you get to Caligula!" Not a terribly nice man, we agreed, but in these times we should probably trans him and claim he identified as a woman and therefore was a woman. Because it's odd, this tendency to posthumously trans historical heroines like Joan of Arc and Dr James Barry, making them "actual men", while failing to do so the same to male villains, asserting that they were obviously women. They're missing an opportunity for misogyny there.

Just read this sobering article from Eliza Mondegreen in Unherd

https://unherd.com/thepost/the-dark-truth-about-gender-surgeries/

Twitter has been very illuminating today. Sunlight shining.

Sometimes it seems arresting people because of social.media posts may be an overrraction: https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/i-treated-like-serial-killer-27585690?

And in 'no wonder some girls want out' news

and yes, some boys were targetted too.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/aug/29/teacher-student-harassment-uk-ireland

Sobering truth in that Unherd piece, yes, but

Nonbinary patients — who might have avoided surgical interventions in favour of blue hair dye, personal “flair”, and interpersonal tediousness

did raise a wry smile. It may not be 'all' about the money, but as usual, it's a big factor.

I have already posted this on another thread, but thought I’d post it here as it seemed appropriate, apologies if it’s already been mentioned. The advert on Mumsnet for Always sanitary products annoys me intensely. It’s pink and blue and talks about your child not your daughter or related female. I know Mumsnet need revenue but this is just irritating.

@DeanElderberry And in 'no wonder some girls want out' news...

That's been happening forever, though. When I was 16, our A-Level history teacher was 21 and straight out of university. He was good-looking (and knew it) and there was something very creepy about him.

I gave up history and ran into him again 3 or 4 years later performing at one of those Earls Court folk clubs. He had become quite well-known on the folk circuit. He greeted me with "I remember you ... and your friend Jenny. You were jailbait!" Revolting man.

Did you have a drink in your hand to throw over him? 😁

Reading a Byline Times link about the Green Party on the Shahrar Ali thread, my eye was caught by this piece on the sidebar:

https://bylinetimes.com/2023/06/22/normalising-hate-new-report-highlights-the-spread-of-anti-drag-sentiment-in-the-uk/

I don't mind reading things I don't agree with, but where's the logic? The starting point seems to be that of course, DQST is a great idea. I'd like some evidence of that. Funny we don't get drag kings, isn't it? Would it be appropriate for a woman, presenting as a sexualised and parodic version of a man, perhaps with fake chest hair and a Linford Christie style 'lunch-box', to tell stories to young children? Plus, of course, the usual dishonest linkage to right-wing nutters in the US and elsewhere.

What I don't get about it is why? Who thought that it would be a good idea to have men dressed as highly sexualised idea of what a woman is, reading stories to children? Where did the idea come from? Putting all the issues I may have with it to one side, it makes no sense. There is no need for it. The drag queens could just read stories to children out of costume. What is to be "gained" by anyone to have children being read to by men in sexualised drag?

It's funny - not really funny at all - but for years drag passed me by. I had no real opinion about it because it was just a thing that was. I used to go to a gay drag night when I was in my twenties that was pretty much okay, it wasn't overtly sexual, it was, looking back, pretty woman-face, but it was funny and I enjoyed it. I hadn't been to anything like that for years and had no desire to go again and then along came Drag Race and drag queens were everywhere - obviously not everywhere, but very much a part of the zeitgeist - and they were very different from the drag I'd seen in the past. I was no longer neutral about the whole thing. I find it more and more offensive. I'm sure that the majority of the men doing this aren't trying to be offensive and probably don't get how offensive their woman-face is but just no. I missed episodes of Celebrity Masterchef (I know, the horror) because Cheryl Hole was on it and I was not going there. The name is just fucking awful.

That's when my irony-meter broke, when I read that headline about normalising hate, when normalising is exactly what the whole DQST thing is about.

I’m sure I must be missing the noble point of drag, but I always think “Really? Is that how you think we behave, speak, act, dress?” Exactly how I think of Dylan Mulvaney, I can’t see any difference.

I suppose TRSOHers would say that we don't get it because of our inherently hateful shrivelled souls (but using more complimacated words).

I have received my copy, about a third of the way through. Has anyone else got it? Any opinions of any of the chapters?

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Sex-Gender-Contemporary-Alice-Sullivan/dp/1032261196/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

<Checks for soul>

Ah. They may have a point - I think I use that space for book storage.

Not me, unfortunately. It's one of several on my Amazon wishlist of Christmas/birthday books <hopeful glance at DH>.

It's still a bit mad expensive for my pockets.

Random terfy breakout over on the menopause subreddit 😆

https://reddit.com/r/Menopause/s/VpB1DKJlVH