Would this women's social group put you off joining?

[purplestrip]

In my local town there is a group called the town's name girls collective. Its supposedly a social group for women to come along and take part in various activities like running, yoga or crafts as to make new friends. Sounds good right but on their socials they make it very clear that anyone who doesn't think transwomen are women are not welcome and presumably men themselves who imagine they are women are welcome. They also have a whole list of prerequisites of any potential joiner's political views such as being pro-Palestinian, opposed to ICE, pro asylum seeker, pro-refugee to be welcome yourself and that if you ignore the suffering of people in Ukraine, Palestine, Sudan, Iran and Myanmar then the community is not for you. If you think women's spaces should exclude males transwomen then this is not the community for you and so on.

Now for what it's worth I agree with most of their politics but I am gender critical but I also think that not every interaction has to be founded on complete political alignment and that they are actually being quite exclusionary.

Personally I'd be put off attending myself and I wonder how many other women they are driving away with such a confrontational set of requirements. I don't know if they have any males who go to their group but I do think its somewhat ironic that a group set up for women prioritises male inclusion over those of women they don't happen to agree with on everything!

A social group that is that prescriptive would not be top of my list of things to do, no.

It’s not a women’s group, it’s a cult

They also have a whole list of prerequisites of any potential joiner's political views such as being pro-Palestinian, opposed to ICE, pro asylum seeker, pro-refugee to be welcome yourself and that if you ignore the suffering of people in Ukraine, Palestine, Sudan, Iran and Myanmar then the community is not for you.

Run for the hiiiiiills!!!!

So a mixed sex political group, likely to end up in court for discrimination on several fronts.

a girls collective ?
mysigency ?

Same as you, I agree with most things, but even if I wasn’t gender critical, I’d be eye rolling as steering well clear. Sounds like it would be quite oppressive rather than a fun gathering.

I wouldn't touch it with a bargepole for its TWAW stance alone.

FWIW I like my social groups to contain people with a mix of viewpoints and backgrounds.

Yes that would put me off majorly - and I would bet money on it being run according to the wills of a select few with lots of dramas, in-fighting, and intensity, and very little input from anyone else in the wider group.

@dnadiscoveryquery Yeah and I have to wonder what the issue is? I mean do they spend most of their time discussing these issues and protesting? Looking at the site it looks more like they are doing yoga, runs and craft nights so why be so hostile to a potential joiners views when it isn't even likely to come up?

Same. I see groups like this everywhere in my hobby, and they run on high-intensity drama centered around one person or small core group of people. It regularly comes out that everyone is miserable, including those in the core group.

I would put money on a lot of the "crafting" being about making things that are objectively quite ugly but which signal ownership of the Approved Opinions. Maybe someone said they didn't want to learn how to crochet sixty different flags, they'd rather make a nice scarf in, say, purple, green and white...

ETA: like others, I probably agree with more of their views than not, apart from the obvious, but it sounds very joyless. For that level of control I need to be paid to attend, cos that shit is WORK.

They sound utterly intolerant.

Sounds like unless you swallow whole and uncritically the entire progressive grab-bag of trendy lefty causes du jour, you won't be welcome.

They are clearly a bunch of holier than thou, self-righteous arseholes. Probably run by somebody with a high opinion of themself and their own 'virtue'.

Not a group I'd want to join. A pity, as otherwise this could be such a great group for women.

I tend to find that, with people who are this keen to signal how virtuous they are, it always comes up.

'Town's name girls collective'
I would assume that it is a group for female children from the name.

What will it be - Yoga for Palestine? Decolonialising Crochet? Non-binary Needlepoint? Queer Quilting?

Sounds like a cult cell for the omnicause.

I woukd not grace the group with my presence

I'd be tempted to go along just to see how awful it is what the people are like who join up.
In 'stealth' mode as it were 😂

'Yoga for Palestine' 😂

It's the new fashionable knit your own museli.

I don't sign up to things I don't understand. I wouldn't join a social group that insisted that I subscribe to their own views on a shedload of different topics most of which I don't know enough about to have an informed opinion.

I still own a pink tea towel with a slogan by Aung San Su Kyii on it. It's very faded but I use it and keep it to remind me not to get my political views off a tea towel.Or off a yoga jogging and crafting group either.

Sounds more like an Omnicause training camp. No thanks.

Like you I also agree with a lot of their opinions. But I also believe in tolerance of differing beliefs, and free speech (as well as science and reality!)

I sometimes feel like groups like this kind of use refugees as a shield to make themselves look virtuous. It not like refugees are in any position to be able to object. All the refugees I've met through work have 100% known, and cared about, who is male and who is female. I find the pairing of pro refugee/ pro Palestine and pro gender ideology really jarring for that reason.

Nope, nope nope, not even if I was in a new town where I knew nobody. I’d try and join a church group before I joined them and I am not in the least religious.

They sound insufferable

Definitely not for me!