Women's rights general conversations - Thread 9

[Kucinghitam]

Continuation of Thread 8.

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).

And it's always chalk, isn't it? Interesting observation.

This should surprise me, but it doesn't.

https://archive.ph/TILD4

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/03/27/male-channel-migrants-crowd-boat-leaving-women-in-sea/

Dozens of men, some wearing orange hi-vis jackets, had crammed themselves two abreast onto the boat as they prepared to embark on the journey.
Several women were left standing waist-high in the 48F (9C) water.

Ha, I do Chronophoto too. I guessed at 2014 for that photo. It's 2009. I'm guessing it's the USA from the dollar signs on another placard which kind of fits with the spread of the ideology.

I got the date right! Also the painter and the skateboarders, but we'd seen those fairly recently. You know there's a bunch of us who post our results over in Chat? And re: @NoBinturongsHereMate comment on observation - it's amazing what you start to notice when you're trying to work out a date based an sparse visual clues. The chalk and cardboard has stayed pretty consistent to 15+ years which suggests a measure of control from somewhere.

www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/5255669-chronophoto-guess-the-year-part-4?page=14&reply=143162216

The use of buff cardboard for signs may be correlated with the inexorable rise of the Amazon box, I suppose.

I think there has always (well - back to the early 70s, and without any reference to gender or sexual politics) been an encouragement to have obviously 'home made' posters to symbolise the personal passion of the individual protesters, but it used to be intended that they would be legible, and look striking. Substances like paint and ink were used. The chalk and card thing is new, obviously deliberate, and transatlantic. I would like to know who masterminded it.

But not a message that got through to women. I liked this one from LWS in Nottingham yesterday.

It might simply be that the colours of 'red' and blue chalks are pretty good matches for the trans flags and, for folx that rarely go out, easy to steal from school or still in the childhood bedroom that they never moved out of. Equally brown card is also easily available.

I'm embarrassed for them with the quality of some of the signs they carry. It's not just cardboard, it's tatty bits. No humour. Poorly laid out. Illegible. Badly punctuated. No originality.

I hadn't seen this before but enjoy this sort of thing so had a go. First score is 3139, which isn't too bad as I got the date of the telephonists completely wrong.

Good article here: https://open.substack.com/pub/terfvibes/p/boys-dont-need-anti-misogyny-lessons?r=l6otf&utm_medium=ios

I got 3115 on the Chronophoto thing - I got the telephonists very close but the drag person completely wrong.

It is, Brit, although I made an early decision that Adolescence was something I wasn't going to watch, and decided I could do without filling my head up with. To be fair, I suppose the whole point of media like Unherd is precisely that they are not the Guardian; they don't promote a uniform world-view, but 'alternative' (for want of a better term, although it sounds a bit Ben Elton) opinions. Which we don't have to agree with. I might add that I read the 'rape culture starts in primary school' thread, and the very good Times piece linked therein yesterday. I felt like sending it to my DS (soon to be a father). But I didn't. People won't always react in the way you'd like/hope.

That’s true @duc748, and many would prefer not to be made to think.

And it made very grim reading, for any parents or prospective parents.

A memorial tartan has been created for the Scottish women accused under the Witchcraft Act (1563):

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/see-the-new-tartan-pattern-created-to-honor-women-accused-of-witchcraft-in-scotland-between-1563-and-1736-180986172/?

I know women have had difficulties getting into the Scottish Parliament gallery when wearing suffragette colours. I wonder whether this tartan would slip under the radar.

I do enjoy a good Brendan O'Neill rant and this one's a cracker

https://www.spiked-online.com/2025/04/01/sorry-cynthia-were-not-bowing-to-nonbinary-lunacy-anymore/

Although I feel a bit sorry for Cynthia at being the butt of it, she's not the only celebrity beclowning herself with this nonsense. She seems to have been particularly tone deaf though.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5303921-he-invaded-my-spacewas-creepy-i-feel-angry-even-days-afterwards?

This is the kind of shit that so many women and girls have to put up with. Mostly sensible responses but a persistent sprinkling of handmaidens and minimisers. Followed by an alarming update which justified the OP’s instincts and which I’m quite sure will be studiously ignored by the minimisers.

That is horrific! I hate it when women say to brush it off or we're being drama queens. Goodness knows what would have happened if she'd got in the car - would he have got in with her?!

Margaret Atwood is right. Men are frightened women will laugh at them. Women are frightened men will kill them.

No Afghan woman's asylum claim should be refused, but particularly not ones like this: www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/apr/05/afghan-rights-defender-told-she-faces-no-risk-from-taliban-as-home-office-denies-asylum

There are question marks over the Home Office decision makers given who they do allow.

That’s appalling.

But at least all those animals got out…

Good grief, what is the decision maker taking? The whole world knows that Afghanistan is an abusive prison for women, let alone one who's worked for foreign governments. It's a disgraceful ruling and I hope she's able to appeal it.

That’s outrageous.