Open University invites your say on women

[Based]

An Open University professor is inviting people to a lecture on women and the law. "Join me to have your say," she says.

The event is on May 9 at 13:00, both online and in Milton Keynes.

I sense the potential for an awful lot of mischief-making - if the wrong kind of people attended, and asked the wrong kind of questions.

Questions about women and the law in the cases of Jo Phoenix, Pilgrim Tucker and Almut Gadow, for instance.

Some bigot might even ask what the professor thinks a woman is 😱

https://research.open.ac.uk/events/violence-women-and-law-unfinished-story

I get where you are coming from. However, I have misgivings about disrupting another woman’s inaugural lecture to score points. Also, putting another woman on the spot in such a captured institution feels wrong. I wouldn’t want to force another GC woman to break cover after reading coverage of Jo Phoenix’s tribunal. 😕

Is this another GC woman?

Her (very well funded) work seems to be all about 'online violence against women'. Aka affirming that the hate speech of saying trans women are men is the ultimate act of violence against women.

Eh? I don’t see anything at all about trans in the description of the talk you linked to. She seems to be talking about online violence against women, not against trans people as far as I can see. Leave the poor woman alone - looks like she’s doing good work.

In fact, the more I look into Professor Jurasz, the more I think she’s doing excellent work. Looking at the prevalence of misogynistic threats online against women and girls and how often these also translate into violence offline too, for instance. I haven’t, on an admittedly brief google, been able to find anything she’s written that so much as mentions trans people. I think you’ve massively misrepresented her work and should ask for this thread to be taken down.

https://www5.open.ac.uk/ovaw-observatory/news/ou-research-reveals-shocking-level-online-violence-experienced-women-and-girls-across-uk

In which case, maybe GC women should attend to support her.

Whatever her views are it will be interesting and opportunity to ask questions for clarification of relevant will be great. Why wouldn't women on mumsnet be interested in this important topic.

Not sure why early posters are trying to discourage attendance

Because we don’t like seeing senior professional women misrepresented and slandered, maybe? Look back through my posting history - i’m as GC as they come. And I, like I imagine most on these boards, care too about misogyny and violent threats against women on the internet, and I’m very glad that senior female law professors are researching this and trying to do something about it.

Another thing I care about is truth, which is why I’m GC. And the OP has simply misrepresented Prof Jurasz’s research. It’s not about trans people at all, it’s about violence against women and girls, something I thought posters on this board cared about. I never thought I’d see the day that a leading researcher on this important topic got slandered and it was proposed on here that her lecture be disrupted; words fail me!

How have I misrepresented her work? I don't know if you've ever been to one of her talks. I have.

But of course mumsnetters who attend can make up their own minds after listening to her lecture, and congratulate her upon her excellent work if I am misrepresenting her.

My issue with her work is this:

1. Violence against women, in the ordinary sense of the word = the use of force to harm women's bodies or property, in the analogue world.
2. "Online violence" as researched by this professor = hate speech.
3. Woman = whatever people want it to be.

In my view, this discourse justifies redirecting resources away from protecting women's physical safety and towards protecting (trans) women's feelings online.

Sorry, nobody suggested "that her lecture be disrupted" as far as I can see. I most certainly did not.

I suggested asking pertinent questions - which she had expressly invited!

An intelligent professional woman who's just received over 7 million pounds to research violence against women should be able to define the word "woman". Asking her to do so isn't disrupting her lecture on the topic.

An expert on women and the law, talking about women and the law, should be able to comment on a string of court cases around women and the law which have arisen at her place of work. Asking her to do so isn't disrupting her lecture on the topic.

To be fair, mischief-making has an echo of intention to disrupt, so you are being disingenuous here.

It will be interesting to hear what the Professor has to say; as the phrase goes - let women speak.

disingenuous?! If someone's being disingenuous here, I really don't think it's me.

@EggcornAcorn's ingenuous attempts to read things into the word 'mischief-making' are somewhat hampered by the fact that I spelled out what I meant.

Disrupting lectures means trying to stop the speaker from speaking on their subject. That is the exact opposite of what I suggested - as anyone who has read my post will know.

I see. Thank you for explaining.

Where did I say anything about discouraging attendance? The first post mentions “mischief-making” and asking what a woman is. Edit: Attending to support the speaker sounds good.

Professor Jurasz coauthored an “Expert Response to One Scotland Consultation on Amending Scottish Hate Crime Legislation”.

On p.7, in response to a question about whether people think there should also be a statutory aggravation for gender hostility, they respond, yes, but they must first define gender and add it as a protected characteristic, similar to race and sexual orientation, otherwise no one knows what it means.

Not a single word to recognise that we already have a word that would work perfectly well, one which everyone understands the meaning off, which is even defined in the EA 2010.

https://oro.open.ac.uk/66207/7/66207.pdf

I have no vested interest in this Professor but in this context Scotland had already decided not to included sex, even though it is one of the protected characteristics, and instead have a separated Misogyny Bill. As lobbied for by women's groups, not only in Scotland but in the UK which is why the UK Hate crime bill does not include sex. And no these are not trans women's groups, but various Women's Aid and Rape Crisis groups, and feminist commentators such a Joan Smith lobbied for it.

So if the Professor was talking about gender it is because the Hate Crime Bill covers gender recognition. And as we all know from the census etc., very few people understand "gender" so her suggestion seems quite sensible.

Also a quick read of the outline of the talk is not about online violence only, so not clear why this is being alleged. The three issues she has chosen to look at are:

First, she will look at conflict-related sexual violence to illustrate how the law (here: international law) responds to gender-based violence which ‘shocks the conscience’, often appears ‘extraordinary’ and which has gained legal visibility in the past two decades (despite being perpetrated for millennia).

Second, Professor Jurasz will discuss online violence against women as an illustration of a modern challenge for legal regulation. She will critique how its hypervisibility in everyday life has thus far failed to translate into recognition of this type of violence (and harms arising from it) within the law.

Lastly, Professor Jurasz will discuss the impact that withdrawal of certain rights and laws has on women’s lives and violence they are subjected to. In doing so, she will draw on the US Supreme Court decision in Dobbs from June 2022 which overturned Roe v Wade, and the decision of the Polish Constitutional Tribunal from 22 October 2020 establishing that abortion due to foetal impairment is unconstitutional.

ie 2 out of 3 are NOT about online.

I imagine many women who have worked or campaigned on these issue might have something to say which could enlarge the issues.

But quite prepared to accept that talking about women's issues in an academic environment will not be the same as discussing women's issues on FWR!

A lot of responses to that consultation - which was over 5 years ago - said sex should be included. Professor Jurasz, who self-describes as an expert on women did not. Specialising in women qualifies her to write an "Expert Response" on a proposal that is about gender-based hate crimes without mentioning sex.

Her suggestion is that gender should be made a separate protected characteristic under the Equality Act - which is effectively a trans activist demand.

Nobody alleged the talk is about online violence. What I said is that she has been given over £7.7m to research online violence.

Online violence, I repeat, is an oxymoron which forms the basis of claiming that 'literal violence' such as misgendering is violence against women.

Her lecture will cover online violence as one of three issues, placing literal genocide online alongside the use of rape as a weapon of war in actual genocide.

Hi, Based

Is the TRA demand for Gender to be a PC as well as GR, instead of GR, or instead of Sex?
Or a combination of any of those?

Why on earth would you want to try and make a talk by a woman about women into a debate on the trans issue?

What / who gains by forcing her to declare her personal views (or the views she feels compelled to express in public) to 'out' her or 'trap' her?

It probably depends who you ask.

GR will remain as a PC, come what may. Or at least I've never heard anyone ask for it to be replaced with gender.

There are those who want sex to be re-defined as, or replaced with, gender. And those who pretend sex already means gender in the Equality Act.

Then there are those, like Olga Jurasz, who advocate for gender to be made another protected characteristic, because apparently sex and GR are insufficient.

That additional PC of gender for which she has called may offer males a way round the single-sex services exemption that still protects female-only spaces in some limited circumstances.

I haven't suggested making a talk by a woman about women into a debate on the trans issue. I suggested asking her to be clear whether she is talking about trans rights when lecturing on what she euphemistically calls online violence against women.

Why? Because I am fed up to the back teeth with trans activism masquerading as women's rights activism, and fed up with women who hound out GC colleagues being celebrated as the kind voices of women's rights.

It may be that most people are simply not aware, but an Inaugural Lecture - which this is - is not just any seminar. It is a lecture in celebration of the speaker becoming a professor, which (whatever you think of their views) has taken a lot of work and sacrifice. The new professor's family and friends attend. It would be inappropriate to ask difficult questions at it - like engaging someone in political discussion at their wedding reception. Anyone doing so would give OU staff attending the impression that GC women are unreasonable, rude and insensitive. Don't do it, I beg you. (Namechanged because perhaps it's outing to know this!)

So they want everything, basically.