Women are being cast as intolerant bullies in this Starmer-drawn landscape of female-imposed weariness

[IwantToRetire]

Starmer (feels) weary of the incessant demands of feminist women that he commit to the annoying task of listening to them. He declared instead that “the people of the UK” are “exhausted” by the political battles over issues such as trans rights.

Keir (wants) to focus on “bringing people together rather than creating further division”. Who is Keir aiming to bring together? Women don’t want “bringing together” with men; that is rather the point and has been for more than a decade.

Sir Keir declared that he would “bring an end to those controversies [over trans rights] on day one.”

Is Keir assuming that all the women who have spent years campaigning, speaking, writing and lobbying in expectation that they would retain rights necessary for a safe and fair existence, simply forget what they were doing and wander off home in a daze?

It seems unlikely that immediately a woman from one of the large organisations advocating for women’s rights, like Sex Matters, said to another, “Come on Maya, you’ve had your fun, probably time to get a proper job now or sign on. People are fed up.”

Are we to assume the “vast majority” of these overly tired people are not women who want rights according to their sex? Women wanting single-sex prison accommodation, for example, are in Keir’s depiction of society, the unreasonable minority and it’s very tiring for the reasonable people to consider them. Although I imagine if you are the woman having to keep your eye on the male rapist in your cell, that could be a bit draining too.

Women are being cast as intolerant bullies in this Starmer-drawn landscape of female-imposed weariness. All the reasonable people want is peace. The “culture wars” have been long. Women have been putting culture guns to the tolerant people’s heads for too long and he will put an end to their irksome ways. The thing is, women are not a culture — the battle we fight is not for territory. Women are a sex, the female sex, and we fight for rights that we need when our bodies are the unfair focus of the opposite sex.

Moving ahead to day one of “The End of Pesky Women” I wonder what Keir imagines will happen. Perhaps at 4.30 pm exactly the miracle of women becoming silent women will occur; it seems a good time for women to wobble out of our various misguided, unreasonable groups, blinking in the sunlight, confused as to how we got it all so very wrong and made all the “other people” so exhausted. Perhaps there will be a party and women will clutch a plate of quiche and crisps, declaring to burn their rebellious t-shirts, ribbons, scarves and tea towels. Perhaps someone will be on the phone shouting over the music, “Scrap the ashtrays order, Kellie-Jay, it’s over love.”

https://thecritic.co.uk/culture-war-what-is-it-good-for/

(This is a much longer article raising many issues about Starmer’s Labour and women – I just pulled out the ones that struck home for me.)

I'm not going to tag - but anyone happy with men in their spaces can use the men's facilities and leave the women's to people who do care.

Actually I'm fed up with talking about this too. I'd really like the world to return to being sane. for children NOT to be told there is something wrong with them if they dont conform to stereotypes that belong in the ark, for fetishes to be kept in private, for violent men to be in (male) prisons, for women who have been assaulted to have somewhere safe from men.

I actually hadn't considered it as merely a shift in how class warfare manifests, but it does fit perfectly.

It is largely about an educated class versus an uneducated class.

Hence all the stuff about the liberal elite and managerial class being a point of contention.

It would also explain why so many northern women are particularly vocal on the subject - not because they are educated to a lesser degree, but because they know about the issues surrounding class warfare more due to the whole north south thing generally.

Excellent. You use mixed sex spaces, or the men’s where there is no mixed sex provision, and leave the single sex female only spaces to those who want or need them. Sorted

Yep, it just clicked when I read your previous comment.

I've never quite understood what they are on about when they talk about 'culture war', but if you replace it with 'class war', then it makes more sense.

Why not. Most men aren’t predatory. The women will be fine with them.

@BiggerBoat1 seems to conveniently forget that the vulnerable women in refuges also use public toilets and changing rooms. Indeed sometimes public toilets serve as a refuge

It does amaze me that people don't understand how predation works.

If you create a situation that enables it, guess who's going avail themselves of that?

Priests aren't naturally predatory, but if you have a situation that allows grown men to be alone with young boys with no oversight, guess who is going to suddenly find the priesthood attractive?

Same for scouts.

Same for boarding schools.

If you're going to create a situation that allows certain men access to women and children who are undressing, who might be attracted to that?

As a northerner whose middle class I've always had to flit between working class communities and more middle class ones in various ways. I belong to both social groups in different ways. I have always had to listen and take concerns on from a social point of view. And there is a massive difference between northern middle class mind sets and southern middle class mind sets too because of lived experience and exposed to difference along different lines.

Ok, my last engagement with this post.
For the record, the only reason I felt I needed to comment was because I’m tired of Labour being accused of not caring about women just because they don’t support the views of one group of women. I was attempting (maybe clumsily) to show that not all women think alike.

I did not come on here with an “I’m alright Jack” attitude. I only said I was ok with mixed changing areas after someone specifically asked me how I felt about this.
I do feel strongly that trans people have the right to be considered and that their feelings matter. I do not feel this is more important than the women who genuinely feel that they cannot share space with men.
I think debate can be enriched by sharing different views and experiences but if you don’t want to hear it, then just scroll by. My views don’t mean yours aren’t also valid and vise versa.
Thank you to the people who have been courteous to me.

Keir Starmer has not said anything of the sort.

Everyone wants to be kind to everybody. It's not an unusual viewpoint.

But when one group of men wants to access women in order to be validated, and those women don't want it, you run out of road.

It's a binary choice. Kindness is irrelevant.

Sir Keir declared that he would “bring an end to those controversies [over trans rights] on day one

Yes, he likes to make these statements of intent without giving any indication whatsoever of what he'd actually do to achieve the goal. Much like the announcement that he's going to hire 6,500 more teachers. How?!

No one here said they don't think that trans people shouldn't be considered.

They've just said that sex matters to certain situations and a failure to acknowledge that this causes problems is a problem in its own right.

You are virtue signalling and in saying it doesn't matter to you, you flatten women who do have legitimate concerns and make it harder for them to be hard and taken seriously.

Honestly, get your head out this mentality where it's about having to show how nice you are. That by default suggests that people who have problems aren't being nice.

It's not about being nice. It's about how can we make things work on a practical level for everyone with the less amount of harms.

This constant 'but I don't see a problem' is just offensive tbh.

No one wants to be mean to anyone here. But noone should be here to validate the identity of anyone else. Someone's personal life should be just that. Not brought to a situation where it means they can no longer access services which should be for all the public. Because that's discrimination.

The issue here is often about the insistence that neutral facilities in addition to single sex ones aren't a good enough reasonable adjustment. And I'm sorry but that's not ok.

It has impact. The sexist and homophobic elements of this need challenging too rather than a blind acceptance under the umbrella of it somehow being more inclusive and more progressive. Really it's not.

I'm sick of being told that virtue signalling is important. No it's not. That's performance.

If everyone gets it into their heads that the priority is balancing issues not performing virtue then the emphasis political is very different and trans people can't claim this perverse non existent victimhood all the time. Yes there is discrimination, but not to the level that's made out. And no this also doesn't mean that women should be budging in addition to their existing issues.

Start focusing on problems not performing virtue.

Absolutely excellent post @RedToothBrush

...
I'm not going to tag but all this 'I can have my view, it doesnt mean yours is invalid' is absolute nonsense. No, mine isn't invalid because my view is based on logic, evidence and reason. The opposite is not 'just as valid' just because we are two equally worthwhile humans with a right to an opinion. Opinions aren't fact. Logic isn't a democracy. Sometimes a position is just incorrect and holding it up as a reasonable 'alternative' to properly thought out, evidence based logical positions drives me nuts.

Sometimes two positions are just incompatible.

No , climate change denial isn't 'just as valid' as a the generally accepted scientific consensus. No, insisting that some trans people's wants should override all women's rights isn't 'just as valid'.

It's illogical nonsense and I can't stand to see it being held up as just another reasonable view.

If it was reasonable, we'd have had answers by now to all the myriad logic faults inherent in the ideology. But we're still waiting.

I deeply resent being chided to 'be more nice' to people who can't argue their way out of a bloody paper bag and have no answers to the flaws in their proposed arguments!

WtF???!!!!!

Talk about groundhog day.

Yet another thread derailed that could, thanks to an amusing but astute article, led to a discussion about what to do from Day 1 of a Labour Government by women concerned about women's sex based rights.

And somehow we are dragged back into having to justify why we consider this an important issue.

But the point is we DON'T have to justify it.

This is what we think and experience, and are entitled to discuss it.

What logic is there in coming on a thread to tell posters they are wrong.

I know the thread about name changing got deleted (does anyone know why?) but just for ONCE could those who dont agree with the premise of this forum, start your own thread and stop bogging everyone done.

Honestly, this is so frustrating. I dont know which is worse that it is orchestrated, or random individuals, that cant be bothered to start their own thread to talk about what they think it important but have to stymie every thread about building on activism around women's sex based rights.

What with that and the fatuous comments about "article" makes you want to give up.

An article is an opinion piece.

A report is a factual account of what has been said or done.

But as always, it is a diversion from talking about the substance.

Isn't it strange that all these posters who think Labour is being maligned on FWR never start their own thread where they could congregate and spread the good word from Labour central office.

Who knows, if they did it in a positive and less lecturing way, they might even persuade others on FWR that they have points worth listening to.

I know. I'm getting so fucked off with the scolding.

Should probably ignore, I guess.

I agree @IwantToRetire.

The thing is, the whole point of politics is that different parties do different things for different people. You vote for the party offering the most of what you want and the least of what you don't want.

Is any group other than gender critical women so frequently told they need to vote for what they don't want because it's what others do want?

Bog off, indeed.

I suggest all the faithful Labour voters who want the Tories out at all costs stop badgering women to put our principles, beliefs and needs to one side, and start badgering Labour to stop being misogynistic wankers.

I'd also add that no one has ever made me more tempted to vote Tory than that Adam person. I've never voted Tory before. Never been tempted before. But I am starting to understand what made some people vote Brexit just to stick it to the annoying smug twats telling them how to vote.

The threads that just go round and round in circles are beginning to make FWR a negative draining space, rather than somewhere to share and engage.

I would be quite happy if a thread was started that only got 1 or 2 pages of comments, if they dealt with the issue raised in the OP.

Just for once it might help move an arguement forward.

I might even start a thread called why women should vote Labour and see if any of the usual suspects actually bothered to post on it.

I might start answering the ‘I’m fine with males in women’s toilets’ posts with “that’s nice dear”. And leave it at that.

start badgering Labour to stop being misogynistic wankers.

Absolutely

In fact one of the reasons for posting, without going into the long and at time bitter history, this is the second time that Jean Hatchet had given KJK a positive comment.

How times change.

Shows that even die hard lefties can see that Starmer is just pathetic.

I understand from another article that the idea is to stop Starmer from having to humiliate himself by back tracking on his shifty comments, that Blair will be back in Government showing him how to be a "statesman".

https://inews.co.uk/opinion/tony-blairs-gender-comments-political-lesson-keir-starmer-3116590

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/06/17/tony-blair-labour-trans-views-gender-general-election/

Both of these are archived.

(I just despise Starmer, but feel I virtually hate Blair. I wonder if Starmer could make Blair's hypocrasy and self serving positions look mild compared to what Starmern's underhand practice of deception and manipulation will do to the UK.)

This is not a culture war
https://sex-matters.org/posts/stand-up-for-single-sex-services/this-is-not-a-culture-war/

I could do a whole thread on the difference between opinions and the difference between facts.

It matters.

Politics is the navigation between ideals and when these ideal hit the wall of reality of real life.

What you want and what you can have are different things in practice.

Opinions don't change the problems of material reality.

I would love for people to actually be really be able to wave a magic wand and change sex. (Trouble is we might have a situation where we end up with too many of one sex then which then might create its own issues). Really I would.

But this is the real world and people can be shitheads and we have to account for people being shitheads.

In fact one of the reasons for posting, without going into the long and at time bitter history, this is the second time that Jean Hatchet had given KJK a positive comment.

How times change.

I was very surprised by those two occasions as well. Does it signal that Labourite women are as dissatisfied with Starmer's offerings on this issue as other dissatisfied Lefty and non-Lefty women? Does it recognise that LWS and Sex Matters et al have had more success at moving the Labour position on this issue than the women working within the party?

Yes I thought this could be the case as well.