Women's rights general conversations - Thread 10

[Kucinghitam]

Continuation of Thread 9.

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).

Suddenly thought of something.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5457758-tas-target-magistrate

OK!🤔💭

Great. Thanks. Not enough coffee yet

Just reading that "Thinking of outing myself as GC" thread, it strikes me, not for the first time, of the sheer numbers of women (and add the obligatory, some men) in the working world these days who are having to police their speech and actions for fear of falling foul of the new Red Guards. And of course, I owe much of that to MN.

I agree @moto748e, and I greatly admire anybody who can stand up and speak the truth. I know many would condemn those of us who keep quiet, but we've all seen what happens to people who don't pretend to love Big Brother. In my case, it's not just me but, by association DH, as we work for the same organisation, we could both end up in serious hot water if I put a toe wrong.

I didn't have you in mind as one so affected, Kuc! Suppose I thought that with you doing Science, an' all... but the tentacles spread everywhere, don't they?

Oh, I'm not affected at all in the sense of my day-to-day work: the Eppendorf tubes and Gilson pipettes don't GAF about pronouns or stripey flags. Some of the people I work with are stripey-lanyard-n-zillion-badges TRSOHers, some are actual People-of-Gender, the vast majority have zero time for all this and just want to concentrate on the science. Doesn't bother me whatever way, I have no desire to make windows into mens people's souls.

It's more that I wouldn't dare to even squeak a GC opinion to anybody at work, my Twitter account is protected despite me only daring to 'like' rather than Tweet, and I wouldn't venture so much as a mild comment on FB. As we've seen with Sandie Peggie's case, the witch-hunters will go for anything and everything you've said and will go after your family too. And it's one thing if my own working situation is affected, but these sorts of people would certainly also be looking at DH (seeing as he'll have committed the mortal sin of either being GC as well, or of not controlling the Wrongthink of his service biped). And in academia where so much is based on collaborative interactions, if you get ostracised even out of fear of contamination rather than actual activist targeting, it becomes impossible to work effectively.

If your DH were to dare to utter anything GC, you can be sure the RSOH types would come after you, and hard. This is something I've experienced in my family and happened a few times when Mr Veg had a debate with my dad, can't remember what about but he was born argumentative, and rather than speak to Mr Veg everyone piled onto me instead in a 'Why can't you control your man' sort of way. Mr Veg sent a stern 'If you've got an issue with me, speak to me about it'. After that it never happened again.

Thing is, that wouldn't work out in a workplace.

In practice, in everyday life, you rarely need to out yourself with your opinions. Yesterday I went to the Apple Store for a small thing I needed help with. The small bearded person with a high voice who helped me very competently was clearly a transman but that was irrelevant to the situation and nobody needs to use pronouns in a one-to-one situation. If it had been a hulking transwoman taking selfies in the women’s toilets it might have been different.

“Service biped” love it 🥰

A massive, inaccurate, legally incompetent whinge from our favourite fox-murderer and kimono-purloiner: https://skywriter.blue/pages/did:plc:xurjtu2wa2akyi64gab34ahg/post/3m7wzlprq3c2w

The fox-botherer may want to discuss his medication with his GP.

Does he not realise that "the question of who should be able to access single sex spaces" and "how or where single sex spaces should be created" are actually two different questions, albeit related ones?

Meanwhile, over on the current Sandie Peggie thread (59) there's been a really interesting discussion about the number of instances of ET panel members being removed/forced to recuse themselves from panels where GC views are involved. It's more than you'd expect. Well, more than I expected.

Allison Bailey's judgment against Stonewall will be available tomorrow.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5429365-allison-bailey-v-stonewall

https://www.court-tribunal-hearings.service.gov.uk/court-of-appeal-civil-daily-cause-list?artefactId=a692f7f5-e37a-4883-8fe6-9c35711cc306

Happened across this, thought how it contrasted with how Australian politicians have accommodated men in frocks

https://youtube.com/shorts/dJqePQBuRhQ?si=qVzfn2XMuh-BlcwF

Yeah, when you think of the enormous sums of money in DEI budgets, in both public and private sectors. Anything left for a few wheelchair ramps? It reminds of those visual puzzles; which glass does the champagne end up in? The direction of flow is obvious.

Just need a grrrr.

After being together 40 years me and Mr Veg decided it would make sense, for admin reasons, to get married so we had a very simple civil partnership ceremony, went for a pizza with our two witnesses and then carried on as normal. I'd told people I was keeping my family name. It's a fine name, I like it and I don't want or need a new one. The annoying thing is that his family are almost all addressing cards to Mr and Mrs His Name. It's like I've become an appendage without even a name of my own and it's pissing me off. I want my fucking name back, you fuckers.

There, that's it.

GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR 😡

Congratulations @Vegemiteandhoneyontoast and MrVeg 🥂what wonderful news!

And YANBU in the slightest! (GRRRR on your behalf)

I've had the same thing for years, especially notable around this time of year when cards arrive addressed to Mr & Mrs Hisname, but most infuriatingly Dr & Mrs Hisname. Not just my name erased, but my title too (not like I care about my title in a non-work setting, but it's the erasure of it compared to the man's identical one that fucks me off).

Gah! That's infuriating, @Kucinghitam ! Do you ever put people right?

I'm tempted to send a group email reminding his family that I'm most emphatically not Mrs His Name.

The other annoying thing was that before we had the civil partnership thing, his brother's wife always addressed cards to me as 'Miss' Veg. It only stopped when Mr Veg asked her (at the dinner table at a large family gathering where most had had a couple of glasses of wine) if she did that because she thought I was still a virgin. Everyone roared with laughter, she turned scarlet and didn't do it again.

You could have had a pizza wedding "cake." Large base, medium on that and a small for the top tier.

That's all very frustrating.

While I adopted his surname when I got married, I very much objected to Mr and Mrs Hisfirstname Hissurname. Thankfully it seems to have died out.

I remember my Mum getting letters addressed to Mrs Hisfirstname Hissurname, and sometimes even Mrs Hisfirstnames'initials Hissurname. but that was way back when dinosaurs roamed the Earth.

Mind you, I hate the modern practice of double-barrelling, something my grand-daughter looks to be saddled with. Grrr... I quite like the idea of Mum's name for a girl, Dad's name for a boy.

I received a card earlier addressed to Mr and Mrs Hisfirstname Oursharedsurname. Makes my eye twitch every year.