Anti-Social on R4 now on the girl guide and single sex spaces

[Missproportionate]

FYI
Anti-Social on R4 now on the girl guide and single sex spaces

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/live/bbc_radio_fourfm

And I can't see who the speakers are unfortunately. But the guy is not getting any of it.

Poor boys. It's not their fault. Don't be mean to them. They can't help their behaviour but girls who want to keep away from them are just being mean.

Fair play to Anti-Social, they do tackle the gender subject quite a bit. I find the framing rather too fluffy for my liking, a bit too 'can't we just be kind', but I felt Milli was given good time here to put her points across and she did it very well.

I just caught the last 20 minutes of this and ended up shouting at the radio. I don't know who Oliver was but his perpetual 'calm down dear and think about the poor boys' attitude was utterly enraging.

I think anti social is a good programme and have the female side a fair hearing but the man was enraging.

Amusingly it went completely against the old stereotypes (which we do know are unfounded) by having a woman put the rational legal case and the man say "I don't bother my pretty head with the law I am just going to play on your emotions."

Oliver's contribution was very telling, and illustrative of the gulf between the male and female experience of the world.

Milli Hill was the woman.

I started a similar post in the Radio/Podcast section (didn't think about where I was posting !!)

Entitled male. DJ Oliver

Better than the last time Adam tackled this subject . But Adam does wear his allegiance on his sleeve.

Yes, he also said female only spaces can be toxic, there are some women that are more manly than him 🙄, and we just need to let boys be boys (to the detrimental of girls basically).

I am biased, but Millie was amazing and extremely persuasive, whereas he just came across as as whiney and ill-informed. He also kept making straw man arguments, e.g. about Mens Shed, when Millie said she has absolutely no problem with men having single sex orgs like this.

Likewise. He remained clueless as to why women and girls might want their own spaces. The last bit where Milli raised the practice of girls being paired up with disruptive boys seemed to end with Oliver still thinking it’s fine and good for girls to be forced to be support humans for boys.

she was brilliant

Oliver (Oli) Keen is a journalist, a DJ, and a pansexual.

Thanks for the poster who identified the woman guest, I assumed it was Milli Hill because of her first name, but missed the first part of this, and the R4 website for the show never gives details
...

I thought she was bloody brilliant (of course she was) and articulate. Oliver Somebody, in comparison, just feebly hand-wringing about being Kind. And I know he said ' there's a limit to how far we can uphold the law when it comes to the mental well-being of children' because I rewound that several times, and then made DH listen to it too. Unbelievable. Tell us where your priorities lie, mate!

Just posted this on the other thread. Only heard a few minutes. Didn't take to Oliver at all. Not one of the great thinkers of our time, on what I heard.

He was the embodiment of the confidence of the mediocre white man.

LIsten again link:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m002tqlc

I have three nearly-adult sons and at no point have I thought ANY of the things Oliver said...

When oliver was suggesting the Guides themselves should be given autonomy to decide whether to accept boys was he really suggesting that the 6 year rainbows should be asked to decide.

I also note that he thinks a school priotising the girls one day a week to play football was wonderful progress - not equal time just one day is fine for girls

I wonder (but not quite enough to find and read his article) what he considers to be adequate justification for single sex orgs. Because Milli provided plenty but he was still whaaa what about the sad boys.

He also probably didn’t realise or doesn’t care that the fact that GG exists as a single sex charity means its status has already been justified.

That is actually what happened many years ago! Back in the 90s, when the scouts went mixed sex, every single member of girlguiding was asked if they wanted to stay single sex or go mixed sex as well. That would have included rainbows at the time, brownies, guides etc. The vote was overwhelming to stay single sex btw.

Did they ask the leaders or the girls ?

Both

Sorry, to clarify the nomenclature. Any female leader and girl in a unit is classed as a member. Anyone else (eg. Male helpers but not formal leaders) are classed as a different title (i think its something like associated volunteer? Off the top of my head).

Nowadays, we have a different process so I dont know if such a vote would ever take place because of the Girlguiding Council structure https://www.girlguiding.org.uk/about-us/our-organisation/how-girlguiding-is-run/the-council/

But I will try and see if i can find a good link to the earlier vote and that isnt just my knowledge my info passed down in guiding lore.

It kinda doesn't matter anyway. The fact that girls and families have the choice of broadly similar organisations one of which is Single Sex means that there is an ongoing vote. If people didn't want a female only group they won't join Guides and it will fold.

But Oliver's point was a bit different. He felt each unit should make the decision as a one off for each individual. (Because not all boys are the same.) No real thought appeared to have been given to how that would work in practice or what the emotional impact might be

I shouted at the radio at this point "Only one day - that's hardly equal!"
Even DP who plays 'neutral' in trans discussions raised an eyebrow at the Tuesday comment

And of course not considering factors such as female #bekind socialisation, peer pressure and also the fact that once a group had become mixed sex it would then be exclusionary to all girls who might have wished to join in future for whom mixed sex for whatever reason doesn’t work.