"Give Us The Freedom To Risk Rape"

[Howseitgoin]

Famed feminist Camille Paglia's interesting views on women's freedoms:

"Yes this is probably the most controversial area that I have written about.
From the start, when I became known in the early 1990s, this has been, my views on this subject have been highly inflammatory.

And I am coming to the subject from the point of view of a 1960s women, who, as a student, when I arrived as a freshman, my first year in 1964, the college, rebelled against the strict surveillance by the college administration of the lives of the women students.

This was the period that was called 'in loco parentis', that is, 'in place of the parents'. The college administrations felt that they had the obligation to supervise, to monitor, and protect the women students as they did not the male students.

Hence we had all girl dormitories and all male dormitories. The men could come and go at any hour of the day or night. We women had to sign in at 11 o'clock at night, so that the authorities of the college knew where. And we said, my generation rebelled, and called for an end to this practice. And they said, the world is dangerous, we have an obligation to protect you against rape. And what we said was 'give us the freedom to risk rape. That is true freedom'. That is what the sexual revolution gave to women.

Now, what will women do with the freedom? Feminism should have taken my view and said that 'now, you are an equal of a man and you must protect yourself as a man would. You must see the world as dangerous as a man would.' You must be as defensive and hyper-aware of your surroundings as a man would. Because men too are attacked for all kinds of things. Men too are the victims of crime and so on.

Instead, we've had this process of women calling for protections, a new paternalism, from the government and now from the college administrations again. They want to draw the parent figures back into their sex lives. This to me, is a major major fault of contemporary feminism. There are great responsibilities that come with freedom. And one of them is that you must take responsibility for your own defense."

Seems particularly relevant in terms of today's demand for 'women's private spaces'

Thoughts?

As if we needed more proof about the misogyny of what this poster links up to, they have also just compared female children’s experiences to mature aged male transitioners and used those children to support the rates of mature male transition in another thread.

With no concern at all about the rapid increase in female children and young adults seeking to transition.

Female people are entirely expendable to support male people with transgender identities. And this poster is fully supporting that.

I can’t be bothered reading what looks like rather a tedious thread, so many women have probably already said the same thing, but:

“Seems particularly relevant in terms of today's demand for 'women's private spaces'”
“Thoughts?”

My immediate is that the quotation is entirely irrelevant to the matter of single sex toilets and spaces. She is arguing that women shouldn’t be subject to stricter rules than men, not that they shouldn’t be offered safer spaces of the single sex variety, where those are appropriate. Those offer a kind of equality, if created and used correctly. They give men the right to freedom from women when undressing, just as they give women freedom from men, within those selected parameters.

It’s probably a manly misunderstanding, but the quotation was arguing that women should be allowed the equality to take the same risks as men, rather than what a perverted male reader might assume, which is that women actually want to be raped. Some men are grim. I wish they’d leave women alone.

Give us the freedom to risk being raped, but the legal protections to minimise the risk.
Give us the freedom to work alongside men, to socialise with them and to engage with them as we see fit, but the right to privacy from them when we want or need it.
Give us equity with men, so we are afforded the same levels of opportunity, power and autonomy, but do not conflate this with an 'equality' that fails to recognise and respect biological differences.
How does that sound OP?

Laws protecting women's single-sex spaces are not "authoritarian". They serve to liberate women by allowing us to go out in public without being on the "bladder leash" and allowing us to go swimming and clothes shopping without suffering voyeurism in the changing room.

By definition, a law that increases the freedom of 51% of the population without infringing on anyone's civil rights is a liberal law, not an authoritarian one. PS: men's civil rights aren't infringed on by being told to keep out of women's single-sex spaces because men have single-sex spaces of their own.

The problem is a culture that scrutinises being feminine or masculine 'enough' is is infringing on everyone's civil rights. Moral panics have a habit of demented & harmful scrutiny. See 'witch hunt'.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witch_hunt

Or men could choose to stay put of womens spaces.

Simple neat solution.

They used to, mostly. Until they were 'encouraged'.

Are you seriously claiming that using our eyes to determine someone's sex, which many research papers have confirmed is automatic, learned in early childhood, is a civil rights infringement?

Have you been attacked by a dementor?

Dammit, broke it when editing in a second journal paper link.

Are you seriously claiming that using our eyes to determine someone's sex, which many research papers have confirmed is automatic, learned in early childhood, takes a fraction of a second in most cases, and is highly accurate even when we are distracted with other tasks, is a civil rights infringement?

Are you seriously claiming biological variation that implicates sexual morphology ambiguities isn't 'real'?

From the anti stereotype peoples:

'All women look decidedly feminine'….lol.

Only you appear to have a problem with recognising the biology of humans.

The class used to sex humans is by reproductive class. That is 2 sex class female or male each with its own variation.

Other humans can look at a simple or complex matrix combination of physical markers and use them to correctly class a human as either female or male.

This is not depending your subjective view of what you would class as feminine (or not).

Where this 'logic' falls down is of course most people can guess the reproductive sex of people because most people's morphology is aligned with their reproductive sex. So just because you 'guess right' is only a function of being exposed to more unambiguous people.

People are not categorising others into ‘feminine’ and ‘masculine’ when they observe body cues.

They are observing body cues to identify male people. And female people are good at correctly identifying someone’s sex through interaction. For instance, seeing someone move. Observing hip placement and upper body sway, skeletal proportions (including limb proportions noted from movement), it all has nothing to do with how ‘feminine’ someone is.

If you, personally, cannot do this please do not assume your personal experience is the universal experience.

Readers note:

The correct identification of the sex of a male person is not a ‘witch hunt’. It is not based on ‘feminine’ or ‘masculine’ evaluation, in that it is not based on stereotyping (over simplification) at all. Men can appear ‘feminine’ and will still be accurately identified as being a male person.

There is no infringement on civil rights in excluding male people from female single sex spaces or from correctly identifying the sex class of a male people. In Article 8, there are a list of instances where the right to privacy can be set aside.

Anyone posting about Article 8 should be posting about the restrictions to that right as well.

It is very often ignored.

https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/human-rights/human-rights-act/article-8-respect-your-private-and-family-life

Article 8 protects your right to respect for your private and family life.

The EHRC link covers what this means. Including these restrictions:

Restrictions to the right to respect for your private and family life

There are situations when public authorities can interfere with your right to respect for private and family life, home and correspondence. This is only allowed where the authority can show that its action is lawful, necessary and proportionate in order to:

protect national security
protect public safety
protect the economy
protect health or morals
prevent disorder or crime, or
protect the rights and freedoms of other people.

Action is ‘proportionate’ when it is appropriate and no more than necessary to address the problem concerned.

If anyone is falling into a ‘moral panic’ I suggest it is the poster using that term. It is a term being used to emotionally manipulate people into agreeing with that person’s view. There is no moral panic. There is, however, a reinstatement of single sex spaces being single sex. No moral panic, just the realisation that basing sex on a person’s philisophical belief is harmful to half of the world’s population collectively and too often individually as well.

ummm no. All women look decidedly female. Cos they are. Why are you so invested in allowing men into female spaces? As you’re not a woman, why are you determined to give away women’s single sex spaces? Do you not believe women are entitled to safety, comfort, dignity and respect? .

As I have already mentioned safetyism isn't a zero sum game. For the few crumbs you get you lose so much more as in a culture of extreme scrutiny that on balance hurts women more than helps.

Now that's not to say the GC movement is without merit far from it. I agree with limitations on trans women in sport. I agree with private spaces in refuges/hospitals & appropriate housing in prisons. I agree with DR Cass' approach of trial only for puberty blockers for highly scrutinised candidates most likely of maintaining trans identity long term & holistic care. But bathrooms are only not worth the cost of scrutiny they will impose, the rules aren't policeable.

But most of all, this movement like so many others like MRA's & anti immigration provide cover & facilitate widespread hate & its real world harms.

There's this thing called 'nuance'.

You apparently can only guess at as to a persons sex

Other humans can look at a simple or complex matrix combination of physical markers and use them to correctly class a human as either female or male.

This is not depending your subjective view of what you would class as feminine (or not).

You using yourself (a sample of one) and projecting you personal inability to sex humans across all other persons is a flaw in your theory.

We should not need to police "bathrooms". I don't go into women's toilets because I am a man and I think it is reasonable for all men to do the same. This is a matter of what is societally acceptable. Is there a moral panic, or a culture of extreme scrutiny, about the use of mobile phones by car drivers? Or about smoking in pubs? Or shoplifting? But these things are to differing degrees frowned on, and the result is a reduction of antisocial or dangerous behaviour.

I don't know when I last saw someone even vaping, let alone smoking, in a pub or restaurant. And I don't see why we should not return to the clear expectation of women's spaces, including the Ladies' toilets, being only for women, not for men claiming to be women.

nuance?

Or

men could choose to stay put of womens spaces.

Simple neat nuanced solution.

“For the few crumbs you get you lose so much more as in a culture of extreme scrutiny that on balance hurts women more than helps”

There has always been scrutiny of female people entering into the female single sex spaces. That you don’t understand this is quite remarkable, but then again I suspect there is a reason you don’t understand this that pops straight to mind.

Here is that list of toilet usage this is just my own experience:

I have had to use the toilet while having a pram / pushchair jammed into the door with groceries.

I have had to have my mum use the public toilet because the disable toilet was not available and had her wheelchair jammed in the door because I couldn't leave her sit to move it and shut the door.

I have had breastmilk leaks / children's vomit / food spilled on my clothes and needed to have an unbuttoned top to dry the top under the hand drier.

I have come across other women quite regularly washing out their tops or their skirts etc and drying them enough to put back on .

I have friends who have miscarried in toilets and needed assistance and for that to be female people to make it more comfortable.

I went to the pub last night and there was a woman dealing with a spilled wine on her top.

Toilets are not just used behind a closed cubicle door. There are quite a few aspects of female toilet usage that happen in the public space, or even now still occur with a toilet door jammed open.

So no. Excluding male people from female toilets will not develop a “culture of extreme scrutiny that on balance hurts women more than helps”. Either we already have had that culture for decades and decades and allowing male people
in just also increases a list of other harms to female people. Or ”culture of extreme scrutiny that on balance hurts women more than helps” is a catastrophising cognitive distortion that is meant to scare women into submission to allow male people access to female single sex spaces.

By the way, here is a list of harms to female people when male people are allowed to access spaces that they should be excluded from:

Harms include:

Rape and sexual assault.
Violence.
Sexual abuse that is not rape or sexual assault.
Sexual abuse that also includes solo sexual acts or using the experience in future sexual acts.
Any other abuse that may include verbal abuse, intimidation in any way etc.
A male person's presence where female people need privacy and dignity.
A male person's presence where female people need to feel safe from any male person's presence (over the age of about 8 years old).
Female people self-excluding knowing that there may be a male person accessing that provision.

“For the few crumbs you get you lose so much more as in a culture of extreme scrutiny that on balance hurts women more than helps.”

You have produced no evidence to support this claim. At all.

Nuance = having an enforceable law that clearly states no male people above around 8 years old have access to female single sex provisions and allowing female people to seek help and to warn others there is a male person in those provisions.

The reinstatement of sex above gender identity for access to female single sex provisions is nuanced enough.

The description of having female single sex toilets as creating a “culture of extreme scrutiny that on balance hurts women more than helps” is* *absurd in its over exaggeration and its falsity. This quote is however would fit very nicely in the definition of ‘moral panic’ though. A phrase that has been used liberally in these threads over the past week.

And yet that biological variation is not so great that we cannot accurately sex people on sight over 99% of the time.

Your argument is a variation on the "sex is a spectrum" lie.

Does anyone reading this thread wonder what kind of person spends so much effort to convince people that female people should not have the expectation of single sex spaces that exclude all male people over the age of about 8 years old?

A couple of types of person springs to mind. Neither of those are interested in prioritising the needs of female people over male people when sex does matter.

No. If TW are not women, as you’ve just admitted, then why should they be allowed in any female spaces? You can’t pick and choose. Either you believe they are women and should be allowed in any female spaces or you believe they are men but for some weird reason you believe they should be allowed in some female spaces. Which is it? Why are you saying men should be allowed in female spaces when you believe they are not women?