If the majority of women voted in favour of self ID?

[MaIeficent]

What would you do?

Completely hypothetical question. I'm not so interested in hearing about the stats/reality or that 'it would never happen'. Just hypothetically what people's stance would be if it did.

I'm conflicted as I don't think I could ever be in favour but I simultaneously support the right of women to make their own choices even if I disagree with them.

Would you defer to them in recognition that this is the decision that makes women as a whole happiest or would you soldier on and try and impose the wishes of a minority group onto a majority of dissenting women?

Currently reading through the Partner Abuse State of Knowledge project documents which you referenced in this post. It's definitely interesting though I'm not sure how accurate a gotcha of 'women do more DV than men!!' is given the findings and author acknowleged issues with sample sizes, higher rate of death and serious injuries to females and population samples.

Anyone who is interested, the Project is here domesticviolenceresearch.org/

In particular, 'Topic 2: Context: Unilateral and Bidirectional Abuse' as listed in the Complete Findings link.

No you're not. That's just how you choose to frame it for some reason. Who's saying we should ignore self ID? I've said at least 3-4 times that I strongly oppose it. Have you actually read the discussion you're commenting on?

@MaIeficent I wonder if part of the problem with the twists and turns on this thread is that you seem to be quite unsure of what you yourself believe. For example, upthread you said:

The usual response seems to be "oh, but who is doing the killing" but I don't really see it as the gotcha many seem to believe it is. It only works when you make sweeping generalisations and lump all men together.

and then a post or two later you said:

I'm just glad that I'm a women sometimes when I see how men treat each other.

So you don't like sweeping generalisations, and then you make one yourself. It's fine to use a thread to work through how you feel about an issue, but it will mean that the thread will veer around somewhat.

Ah so non-binaries, demi cats and whatnot don’t exist now? How very bigoted of you!

Aw and I was hoping to come back on a promise for a reply but see that I've come back to a riff on "men have it so much worse than white, middle class feminists" as if that's the only demographic of women who are feminists. Oh what fun for all of us!

Oh well, I've got stuff to do, maybe I'll get a reply to my earlier posts some time in the future, or not.

You've got a bit of a cheek saying that other people haven't read stuff when you've introduced research and links which you yourself admit you haven't read!

This is what I mentioned above. It's like some feminists refuse to see any nuance. It's like there are only three options.

A. Agrees with me
B. Must be an MRA/man
C. Must be suffering from internalised misogyny

Sometimes you're looking at what you wrote and you're like "how TF could they possibly have reached that conclusion?" 🤔 Strongly opposing self ID does not equal 'telling women to ignore the effects of self ID'. It's kinda wild that you'd think that.

And the central premise of your OP is, if a majority of women supported self id then should the rest of us defer to the majority position!

I'm not sure it's a sweeping generalisation. Anecdotal maybe. I've spent almost a decade working with almost exclusively men who are 99% working class and without higher education. Most are absolutely fine if a little rough around the edges but I meet a lot more knuckle draggers than most anybody in a corporate job.

A fair few guys in my sector have criminal records. My last driver's mate was a 22yo with a conviction for gbh for hitting somebody with a bottle. He was actually a good lad with a great work ethic. He'd grown up in a pretty dysfunctional background and couldn't drink as it made him volatile.

Imagine a sports league.
Teams A, C, D, E and F are told "play to win". It's seen as entirely natural and reasonable.
Team B is told that if they don't ensure that the other side gets at least as many goals as they do, they are mean, selfish and hateful. And if they do win, their supporters absolutely mustn't cheer.

I'm pretty clear on what I believe but I'm always open to considering other people's viewpoints. Sometimes I'm wrong and I'm not afraid to admit it when somebody makes a point I'd not considered.

Could you explain this analogy?

Gosh. Working class knuckle draggers. Whatever next.

@Helleofabore
Q6. Do you think that biological males who identify as women should be allowed to use women’s changing rooms?
Question 6: the responses were:
Yes: 31% (male 26%) (female 33%) (16-19 - 29%) (20-21 - 32%)
No: 55% (male 63%) (female 50%) (16-19 - 58%) (20-21 - 53%)
Don't know: 14% (male 11%) (female 17%) (16-19 - 13%) (20-21 - 15%)

Quite astounding that more women than men think this is ok! Why? Because women are more empathetic? Because men know, even more than women do, what men are like and are capable of? I find it really bizarre.

I don't really agree with the common feminist view that men get this enormous privilege of maximising their career while women trail in their wake. At least half of the women I worked with in my corporate career are now working part time while their kids are at school and living pretty cushy lives.

My sister is married to a wealthy man and works two days a week from home while he always seems pretty stressed out and busy. I'm not sure the majority of the above colleagues would be desperate to go back into another four decades of full time work, yet alone working 12 hours a day in a physical job.

I think a lot of men see it as their duty to provide rather than relishing in the privilege. No doubt women have taken the backseat throughout history but I'm not sure I'd have wanted to trade places and work down a mine or fight a war either.

You encounter many male execs with gbh convictions?

At least half of the women I worked with in my corporate career are now working part time

And how does that affect their career? Is it maximising it?

I'm guessing it's going to be that ubiquitous photo of men welding at a oil rig which seems to be so popular among the 'men do all the dangerous jobs - women live life on easy mode!!' manospherers.

The statistics show that the majority of pensioners in poverty are women, and that British women retire with private pension wealth that is roughly half that of men.

Since this is caused by career breaks and part-time work, and no longer direct discrimination, I suppose one could now say that it’s just tough cheese for anyone who ends up not having contributed enough to the tax pot over their career - but IME that ignores the fact that bringing up children is not a neutral activity and would need to be taken into account better if the balance is to be truly equal.

My last driver's mate was a 22yo with a conviction for gbh for hitting somebody with a bottle. He was actually a good lad with a great work ethic. He'd grown up in a pretty dysfunctional background and couldn't drink as it made him volatile.

Is this guy a 'knuckle-dragger'?

If I had known it was going to turn into this poor menz the women are all lazy white middle class SAHMs, who happily lay back enjoying a life of leisure while the poor menz have to fight wars and work in mines.

Feels like time and effort on my part expecting a good faith discussion on the topic at hand, not well spent.

It is usually accepted that groups advocating for the rights of their group, or giving support to a particular different group, should do just that, not squander their limited resource and energy on advocating for everyone else.

Not feminists though. If they don't include men in their definition of women they are "transphobic bigots". And some very intersectional forms of feminism seem to think that feminism should be about liberating everybody, not standing up for women.

The "don't cheer if you win" bit was inspired by some real headlines when the Supreme Court judgement came out. I forget who it was, but at least one public figure told women not to be too obviously pleased. Maybe someone here can remember who it was?

I agree. I think I will do the Homer Simpson thing and back out quietly (unless we get more unsubstantiated claims about opinion polls).

My completely unfounded guess is that it's empathy. I remember being surprised how many women were more concerned about the racist backlash on immigrant men than the fact that 1200 women had been sexually assaulted in one night following the NYE sexual assaults in Germany.

Not that you can't care about both simultaneously but I've seen so many women calling people racists on here and trying to shut down any discussion around the implications of mass unvetted immigration of men from countries with extremely misogynistic cultures.