Women's rights general conversations - Thread 8

[Kucinghitam]

Continuation of Thread 7.

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).

Like the signs plastered all over Cambridge Station.

Cambridge: home of Anglia Ruskin Universtity.

She should have told the ethics committee where to shove it

As Cake says, it doesn't work like that. No ethics committee sign off = no research = fail.

I couldn't have done the research under their language restrictions. I'd have taken the fail

Ditto, after a brief period <snigger> of gaping like a fish and a 'you wot now!?'. However, for me it's theoretical. Unbelievable you could be faced with seeing years of work down the toilet because you can't use the words women or girls in the name of kindness.

Talking of the Aston scrapers, there's an update from Justine on the Corpus 2 thread.
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/site_stuff/5072884-corpus-2?reply=135821583

Not especially impressed so far.

That thread is doing to kick off once people have had their tea settled the kids and sat down to catch up!

Thank you for all your comments yesterday. I did take on board the advice and have looked on here. I am genuinely upset that the wording was offensive. I have spoken to my ethics department and am waiting sign off for hopefully less offensive wording. They are sorry for any offence cause too. We all make mistakes. I believe mistakes are good learning opportunities and that is what I aim to do.

The whole reason I wanted to do the research is to hear from as many girls as possible. No one is looking at the psychological side of menstruation and physical activity and it quite frankly makes me mad.

I haven't decided if I will repost again. I am going to take the weekend and see how I feel. At the moment, I feel like I'm damned if I do and damned if I don't.

Have a great weekend😊

P.S I saw some of you were baffled by my apologies. I think it is worth bearing in mind that some people have been through situations in their lives that cause automatic responses, especially in upsetting situations.

You too. Good the Ethics Department are having a dose of an alternative view point. Methinks they've been in a bubble and perhaps need to have a look at who they've been paying for indoctrination training.

I hope it goes well for you going forward.

Really good to see you here, @EqualityinSports , and I hope you do decide to stick around. Your research does sound fascinating and useful, and gathering this data would be really useful if it can be done without raising too many hackles.

I'm so pleased that you did feed back to the Ethics Panel - it's so important that these things reach that sort of body. And a couple of people on your original thread suggested what seemed to me some helpful wording, so fingers crossed they'll approve it.

I think I am probably one of the people that you are classing as baffled by your response. Obviously I have no idea about your background or experience - all I will say is that it seemed to me that you were considering it a moral failure on your part, which isn't how it seemed to me. Mind you, I am ANCIENT and I find more and more that I just don't GAF what people think of me on that front (and many others!).

Welcome @EqualityinSports I hope you stick around! We in FWR have a reputation for being the most vipery vipers in this nest of vipers, but as Squeaky says, it's mainly because we ourselves have been through the fires and come out charred, leathery and flaming with DGAF energy.

EqualityinSports · Today 11:12

The whole reason I wanted to do the research is to hear from as many girls as possible. No one is looking at the psychological side of menstruation and physical activity and it quite frankly makes me mad.

Unfortunately, your ethics committee forced you to couch it in terms guaranteed to deter those who would be most interested!

I wish the best for your project.

good luck @EqualityinSports , whatever you decide to do is fine by me. Thanks.

Good luck to you @EqualityinSports and I hope you can thread this needle with your Ethics committee. It sounds like important research in a neglected subject (and another example of Invisible Women).

Glad you made it here @EqualityinSports , and wishing you a smoother ride with the rest of your studies.

Unfortunately for you, the wording your ethics committee pushed you towards was exactly the kind of language that raises so many hackles here. You’ll also see that the women here have an ongoing interest in what’s going on in academia, whether that’s because they work or study there, or because we’ve supported other women in in their struggles (like Jo Phoenix) or because we’re being studied ourselves by a PhD student at Aston (without our permission).

We can be a useful resource if you want us, even just to bounce ideas about. Do you follow Jon Pike? He seems like he’s doing good work in this area of women in sport. And of course, there’s always the Gender Critical Research Network that he and Jo Phoenix helped to set up. But I do get that you also may have to consider how far you want to stick your head above the parapet and how much you just want to get your studies done.

thank you for wanting to study this important area.

Thank you @ThreeWordHarpy I haven't come across Jon Pike, but will search for his work, alongside Jo Phoenix.

I do of course need to pass my studies to be able to progress to ultimately help change some of the inequalities that women and girls face, but I definitely do not want to discriminate or cause harm along the way.

I run a women's only running group because a lot of women only feel safe exercising with other women. I see every week the damage that has been done by shaming women.

I know I should have questioned the wording more. It is no excuse, but I think I was so deep into wanting to pass ethics and start collecting data, I didn't stop to listen to my gut. In all honesty, I had to google what cis meant. I don't blame ethics, they are people trying to do their best too.

It has been a tough couple of days, but also a good learning experience.

Oh you poor thing - diving into here without understanding that 'cis' is a red rag to this particular group of vipers! (OK mixed metaphor there because I didn't want to say bull and I thought cows might upset some people, and I have no idea if vipers respond badly to red rags, but you get the drift.)

You made me Google, Brit.

Snakes have no red receptors, so they can only see blues and greens. However vipers (but not all snakes) can see infrared - and therefore heat. So to unmix the metaphors would require a hot rag to a viper. There's one for series V, if you've not finished that yet.

I'm glad you've stuck around, Equality. Jon Pike is @runthinkwrite on TwiX, and very interesting to follow.

Equality in Sports...

Glad you are here. Your uni have let you down, big time and I'm so sorry for that. But you've learnt a good lesson in being clear.

We used to have a thing called the 'Plain English Campaign' which was to use the absolutely clearest language possible. You said 'girls' in your first paragraph so you need to really be clear that if your study is about girls, and only girls, then that's the wording you should use. The whole point is to exclude anyone who isn't.

If people try to infiltrate your study, that is the point that you filter out bad actor responses. The joy of surveys used to be putting questions in which would highlight bad faith actors so that you can remove their full responses so that your data isn't corrupted.

In the old days this is what the uni staff would help you with. Unfortunately they are causing their own demise with this nonsense and as we say 'Foucault Addled Grievance Gerbil' behaviour.

Best of luck.

Sadly we're done with V and working on W! However, you now sent me to google, and I discover that bulls are partially color blind and lack the red retina receptor. Cattle are dichromatic, so can only perceive two color pigments, yellow, green, blue, and violet. So it's the waving (see I knew there would be a W in there somewhere) rather than the colour that matters. That probably works for vipers too.

In that case, don't forget the windmills.

Reddit has been hit by a random outbreak of free speech!

https://www.reddit.com/r/AllThatIsInteresting/s/CjvqLJFQaE

I see the comments are a predictable.mix of 'But the Daily Mail', 'Most vulnerable', and 'Rapes happen all the time in prisons so.it's fine'.

ThreeWordHarpy · 07/06/2024 12:50

...or because we’re being studied ourselves by a PhD student at Aston (without our permission).

I had a War of the Worlds shuddery moment there...

"We had no idea that we were being studied almost as carefully as a scientist studies the small creatures in a drop of water."

I’ve got a Jeff Wayne ear worm now and it’s all your fault @SinnerBoy

I have a Richard Burton earworm, which is absolutely fine. Better than Werner Herzog, who I got stuck with for several days recently (I like his work, but his voice is nowhere near the same quality).

ULLLAAAA!