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).

'Response Officers in Edinburgh investigated reports of a male taking photos of females within cubicles at Dalry Swimming Pool over the past month. As a result of their inquiries the male was reported to the Procurator Fiscal this weekend. #ResponsePolicing.'

x.com/PSOSEdinburgh/status/1805946431598936234

So depressing how one of the comments is just like ‘see this happens even if you get single sec spaces’ as if that means it’s not worth having then at all. 🙄

I didn’t think this really warranted its own thread, but I’m just popping in to say I was at a networking thing today and someone mentioned JKR to me and I said how great I think she is and from there we got talking about self-ID and gender identity etc and anyway, he’s gone away intending to read Material Girls so it seems like it went pretty well! I know many of you have been doing this for ages but I just wanted to share because it wasn’t as scary as I thought it was and also, I’m proud of myself! 😂

Brilliant! Well done you!

A couple of years back I was doing some consulting work in a Government department and I lost count of the number of whispered conversations I had, particularly with middle-aged women, about what absolute bollocks it all was, but they (i.e. civil servants) were much too scared of the prevailing culture to actually voice it within the organisation.

JKR's response to someone accusing her of 'being radicalised past the point of salvation' -

'I am, yes. My husband called a priest last year and found out the exorcism would cost around £500. I'm not saying Neil's tight, but he chose to buy a bottle of holy water and do it himself, which is why I'm still possessed of a demon that refuses to believe women have dicks'

x.com/jk_rowling/status/1806035383500632476

I'll admit, I properly guffawed!

She's great. And smart and funny and truthful. But it makes me think again, and I know this has been mentioned before; she's hardly the only wealthy and well-thought of celeb around, there's plenty of others around 'too big to be cancelled'. Where are their (mostly male) voices, stepping up to the plate?

I didn't mean that in a 'it only matters if a bloke says it' way, IYKWIM! 😃

She says herself that it's deeply personal to her, as a victim of MVAWG, a beneficiary of single-sex provision, in the same way as she is a staunch defender of benefits, single parents, etc. She is just all-round excellent.

Yep. Heroic.

Ate the single sex, or is it one-off those changing village type places?

Either way, the problem is still a man getting/being let into a place where women are changing.

I rather liked the exchange with John Boyne.

Another one from when the Onion was funny

YouTube is bombarding me with pride crap. It's algorithm has completely got the wrong end of the stick!

If Dalry is like most of Edinburgh Leisure pools, it will have been a unisex changing village.

The audio clip of Nick Ferrari interviewing Bridget Phillipson is quite hilarious (there's a thread). Or, it would be if these people weren't going to be in power in 7.5 days' time.

Oh my god I saw that earlier, it’s ridiculous. 🙄🙄 totally agree, funny but I also absolutely despair.

My Tube station is currently festooned with Happy Pride Month posters, all in sky blue and baby pink, obviously. I want to ask what happened to the rest of the rainbow.

I’m in utter despair here too. It’s between the incumbent Tory and Labour here. Looking very tight. The Tory is a right winger who may retain support among those who would otherwise vote Reform. Labour chap seems OK but is not answering questions on this topic. Utterly impossible for me to vote Green or Lib Dem. Don’t trust the Labour Party an inch on this subject. But I think I will end up voting for them, because …poverty, living standards, public services etc. But then Phillipson’s woeful inability to answer the question really brings home what Labour will be like in government and I’m thrown into doubt again.

The lack of seriousness in the way candidates are discussing women’s rights is incredibly distressing. Constant lame appeals to trans rights and detoxifying the debate and refusal to engage on questions of women’s rights and safeguarding is probably the biggest eye opener of my political life. Women really do not matter as a class of people. We need to be managed, not listened to. I remember being upset about Brexit, and I still am, but accept that there are different points of view and my side lost. This is completely viscerally different, because it is about reality vs fantasy. Even if 90% of the population believe some males should be able to use women’s spaces/services/opportunities/competitions I will never concede this point. Anyone who insists that TWAW simply does not care about the truth. It’s impossible to overstate how shocking it is that this lie has gained such traction.

Around here, it's Labour or Tory. I'm contemplating doing something I find repellent to help reduce the Labour majority by one.

I've gone right off Janina Ramirez, too. https://x.com/DrJaninaRamirez/status/1806282426999554420

It’s such a staggeringly stupid non-sequitur. I know she’s not stupid. Why is she making stupid arguments? Is the cognitive dissonance caused by two competing sets of rights claims so great, and the thought of having to back a horse so terrifying, that the only way her brain can process it is to pretend that there is no clash? That’s a through-the-looking-glass argument “women fought to escape from restrictions on rights and liberties imposed upon them by men, therefore they should reach out and welcome men into spaces which they created to protect themselves from harms caused by men”? Does she think marginalised men are magically less harmful to women than powerful men?

I actually don't even understand what she is attempting to say. And all the quote tweeters saying "👇" are just as asinine.

I actually don't even understand what she is attempting to say.

I think hers is a completely idealistic position, which has no connection to reality and every connection to socially acceptable platitudes within her bubble. In this idealist conception women and trans women are natural allies against the patriarchy, and any potential conflict between the interests of women and the interests of trans women has to be strenuously denied. No solutions to problems will be offered, other than women being kind, because no problems will be acknowledged. It reflects her comparatively privileged position - she is likely to be personally insulated from the effects of the erosion of single sex provisions - and her lack of empathy for those women who will be more directly affected.

It's witless, unthinking rubbish, though, isn't it? When people parrot, trans rights are human rights, I generally say, exactly what rights do you think trans people should have, in addition to the ones they already enjoy? And the response is usually, rights they already have, thanks to the Equality Act, or, more rarely, self-id. Which they can be invited to justify.

It's witless, unthinking rubbish, though, isn't it?

You’re far too polite 😉.

Some people use the language of rights but there are no specifics, just mantras, thought-terminating clichés, and vibes. But rights claims have real world effects and it is utterly lazy not to make the effort to think things through to work out the trade offs and impacts on people’s lives.

thought-terminating clichés

Exactly!