Athena Forum - new hub for women's sex based rights in Europe!

[ArabellaSaurus]

https://athena-forum.eu/

'Athena Forum is a European think tank and strategic hub working to safeguard and advance sex-based rights across law, policy, and civil society — and confront their misrepresentation in public discourse.'

Faika El-Nagashi (ex Austrian MP) has founded this organisation. Looks excellent.

Good luck to them.

Certainly wish them much success, it's an imitative that's badly needed.

Parts of Europe (especially Germany I believe) are very gender-ideologically captured. Thanks for this - I subscribed.

Shame about the name. There is quite a well established Athena Network across Europe which is (I think) about promoting women in business. ie climbing up the greasy poll.

This sort of think https://www.bwcaberdeen.co.uk/athena-awards-2025

How about Lilith?!

Arabella, thanks so much for this. I've been wanting to ask for ages, how do you keep up with all this stuff? You're so quick with the links & news & updates, I don't know how you find out about and keep track of it all...

Traned pigeons.

And a curiously hypnotic dog.

(now assuming from esoteric reply that you're somehow mysteriously in-the-know, and even more curious - but given I'm always the last to find stuff out, at work, locally, etc., probably it's that I'm really just not that with-it...)

It's not very esoteric. It's X, and being subscribed to newsletters, that's all! Can confirm I'm very much not with it.

X. Dammit. Didn't want that to be the answer! I guess my esoteric came from a forlorn hope for some magical new font of overarching feminist wisdom. But then, thankfully, there's you! Seriously - thanks. Fan-girly (ugh) but I learn a lot. Athena's of huge interest, for various reasons - am planning to reach out to them. Thanks for taking the Twix bullet for those of us too cowed to venture there!

Subscriptions I can do better on. I just hate an overflowing inbox. Maybe I can set up those do-dahs that automatically send messages to sub-folders...

Twitter is actually an excellent source of information. I read it a lot. I don't tweet, just read and follow the links. I rarely read the algorithm driven content delivered to me as it is quite often stuff that Twitter mistakenly thinks I want to read because I read so widely. I don't follow anyone who posts on this topic either, I just look up those I want to see the contributions of and that way I am not on anyone's block list. It can be used simply as a content aggregation tool in that way.

Thanks Arabella. I hope that this group grows. A strong European-wide voice is needed. There seem to be many great voices there that get lost and I hope that Athena can pull many of them together.

Is it linked to the Athena Swan charter marks that universities sign up to? My understanding was they were well and truly captured and undermining women’s rights

No. It is an independent group of contributors across Europe who have come together to work on issues where they are impacted on by Gender Identity within Europe.

That's persuasive - maybe I should do that. I do have an account to let me follow some of the links posted here (actually, several, bc I lost the password and username for the first!), but honestly find understanding how it works beyond that fairly bewildering. Maybe I should persevere / ask for a lesson from a Twitter-using friend... Ta.

It is refreshing to just scroll past stuff that you are not interested in. I read such a wide range of content now the algorithm doesn’t quite know what to curate for my timeline.

Quite. I was on our Athena Swan committee from the start and also the institutional level one. (HE science department). It was a good thing, forcing people to actually think, analyse data, put things in place like no late meetings to enable school pick up etc, actively supporting female staff for promotion when they hadn't thought to apply, making sure part time loads were actually part time.

Until it wasn't.....

I have read about Faika before but this speech gives me hope.

x.com/el_nagashi/status/1902804166122090964?s=46

That's why I said it is such a shame they have used this name.

I was curious why, and there is more than one other I mentioned, would choose Anthena. I thought she was something to do with learning or knowledge.

But apparently "warfare".

Must be because she is not born of a woman but a man!

Athena has no mother and is born from Zeus' forehead

If you are on twitter you are only in touch with a very limited number of organisations, as it is one of the least used SM outlets. But does of course have all the duelling individualists if that is off interest.

The best source of information is still old fashioned newsletters, but like different SM outlets, there is no one newsletter that has everything.

And cumbersome as it is, if you are interested in more than opinions Facebook has a far wider range of women's groups, mainly because it has trillions more users than twitter, so not surprising.

But if you can set up a newsfeed this can throw up information that you dont get on SM, because belief it or not, most women's groups activism takes place in local areas and so they have info in local papers etc.. which news feeds pick up on.

Just as the other day, randomly from an Irish papers I saw that there was to be a consultation about the Women's Pond in Hampstead.

Although later it did appear as news from most other papers.

That was a very good speech.

Very hopeful. 🙏

I'm the same as @Helleofabore . I don't tweet and don't follow anyone, but do regularly check a range of accounts that interest me and it keeps me more informed of news as it comes up.

Yes there's some shite on there but tbh I also like to know what people are saying that I don't agree with.

I've changed my mind about a number of things, actually, and solidified my thinking on others.

Anyway, I recommend dipping your toe in.

Thanks, everyone. I'm going to save this thread for tips.

Yes. There is some shite on it but if you just scroll past that, you will generally find links to articles, studies, videos along with discussion about those as well. There is also opposing views represented in those discussions that can be thought provoking.

There is also the element of the live reporting aspect too. Where I have often found out about something from twitter long before it appears in media, but sometimes as it is happening. I already have different mailboxes overflowing with newsletters and press releases professionally and personally that I simply don’t have time to filter through and read. I guess I use twitter as a news filtration tool.

Yep, same. X is especially good for breaking news. Which of course doesn't mean one loses sight of the need to fact check and triangulate and verify. Its like a giant gossip mill, with all the risks and benefits that would imply.

In fact without it I think my view of the news and media would be seriously diminished. I prefer to check a very wide range of sources, including plenty from different angles and people with very different views. X is a good way to.do that, you just have to be aware of and work with the flaws.

I used to absolutely hate it for the rawness and aggression and unfilteredness, but I've learned how to work around/past that. For one thing I don't go on just after any violent news to avoid graphic images. For two I just dont get involved in discourse.