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).

I changed on 6. But perhaps it’s because I was a secondary school teacher for many years and am conditioned to more youthful male faces, which are probably more androgynous than those of adult men.

This is a glorious pisstaking thread: https://x.com/JustMisogyny/status/1916104181808517387

Nitter version. https://nitter.poast.org/JustMisogyny/status/1916104181808517387

That would be me as well @borntobequiet

I also got confused by the numbering running from right to left rather than left to right.

There's a clip on x of Julia Hartley Brewer interviewing Peter Tatchell that's quite fun. Everytime he says something ridiculous she just interrupts to tell him that's not true

https://x.com/okaybiology/status/1916866557549908036/mediaviewer

That link doesn't work but this seems okay:

https://x.com/okaybiology/status/1916866557549908036

Ha, she's not having it, is she!

This is encouraging, given how captured publishing has been: https://bsky.app/profile/thebookseller.com/post/3lnuebimb4b2a

Gosh, Bluesky is so much kinder than twiX All the kind comments underneath.

Julia Hartley-Brewer is brilliant - I love the way she consistently calls him on all those false statements.

Yes, I thought ‘trick question, they’ve all got a bit of an Adams apple.’

I was just reading this old (April 22) tweet thread from Sarah Ditum about the Supreme Court ruling, and LOVED this comment from Barbara Rich, about Starmer "He’s one of a large number now rolling in the nettles they failed to grasp". Perfect comparison.

x.com/sarahditum/status/1914639037115048257

What an excellent metaphor.

Feminist organisations in other species: https://www.mpg.de/24481870/0407-ornr-female-bonobos-keep-males-in-check-not-with-strength-but-with-solidarity-987453-x?

I wonder how bonobos could work out which of them were male or female on the super-complicated sex spectrum without the aid of lipstick or army fatigues?

🧐

That’s really interesting.

Sadly on this side of the pond, because the left wing is determined to see GC points of view as Trump-loving, we get this kind of stuff as posted today in Huffington Post:
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/hhs-trump-trans-youth-health-care-review_n_6813fa5de4b0fe32871bb0c1?utm_source=cordial&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=hp-us-reg-morning-email_2025-05-02&utm_term=us-morning-email&email_hash=16adaad39379a9de96854f97f2a4b8a3431fb36f

This is worrying

https://www.livescience.com/technology/artificial-intelligence/ai-researchers-ran-a-secret-experiment-on-reddit-users-to-see-if-they-could-change-their-minds-and-the-results-are-creepy

TBH looking at the kind of stuff the visiting TRAs post on here, I'd much rather believe they were chatbots than real-life "biological women" who are out there BeKindly hounding unconsenting mothers out of breastfeeding groups, fawning over male people in women's rape support groups, inviting men into female changing rooms, etc.

Look who's had to stand down as a Green Party candidate.
https://www.scottishdailyexpress.co.uk/news/politics/scottish-greens-suspend-trans-council-35151961?

No prize for guessing why.

They sure can pick 'em!

Almost like it’s a feature rather than a bug. good to see the Scottish daily express isn’t pronoun-pandering.

I've just been listening to The Rest is History, a double episode on two amazing female writers in the 10th-century Japanese court, Murasaki and Sei Shonagon. I'm inspired to dig out my copies of the Tale of Genji and the Pillow Book which I bought as an undergraduate (not sure I ever finished either, even back then my attention span wasn't the longest). I knew that hiragana was originally women's script, but hadn't quite twigged that knowledge of Chinese script and language were considered male pursuits. And these two brilliant women were both skilled in Chinese, which was therefore frowned upon in some quarters. The idea that even knowledge of a particular foreign language was gendered!

I knew that hiragana was originally women's script, but hadn't quite twigged that knowledge of Chinese script and language were considered male pursuits.

I read Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Liss See in February. It details the secret language Nüshu and the relationship between Chinese women of high birth. This Wikipedia article says more : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N%C3%BCshu?wprov=sfti1#

I can't find a suitable thread to share this on, so I'm putting it here in the hope that it will get shared somewhere better. This is an article about a Dutch father who developed an interesting approach to the diagnosis process when his son claimed he was transgender - might be a good tactic for some other parents:

https://substack.com/inbox/post/162538260?utm_source=multiple-personal-recommendations-email&utm_medium=email&triedRedirect=true