Thread by @FiLiA_charity

🧵We are getting ready to listen to @glosswitch talking to @soniasodha at @Womans_Place_UK online launch of #Hags #WPUKHags - very exciting!

#WomensHistoryMonth #readwomen #BookTwitter #IWD2023 #InternationalWomensDay #WorldBookDay #booktwt

Victoria @glosswitch is talking first about how she got the idea for #Hags and how 2020 was named the 'Year of the Karen' and it struck her that middle-aged women were being demonised #WPUKHags

She is also talking about #feminism in the 90s as a member of #GenerationX and how she had thought that her generation would be different to her mother's generation. But then realising that our feminist experiences are the same throughout #HERstory #WPUKHags

Sonia @soniasodha is now asking @glosswitch about sections of her book - the imposing of gender norms on children but also a refusal to critique the pushing children into 'gender' boxes. The pink/blue forced on children #WPUKHags

Now talking about women and girls rejecting sex stereotypes, which comes from a good place, but that it has become enmeshed with sex denialism. #WPUKHags

Sonia is now asking why @glosswitch is labelled as a 'biological essentialist' - @glosswitch - the fact that I am born female should not dictate my role, but it clearly dictates many things in my life. There is clearly a sex-class, that gestates and births children #WPUKHags

Female reproduction is seen as imposed on us or seen as a liability but denying it cuts our connection with other women and takes away our ability to organise with other women #WPUKHags

Sonia asks why is denial of our sex happening so much more? @glosswitch references Dworkin & the protection racket of the patriarchy. Abortion has been weaponised 'your body your choice'. If we recognise the female body & where it matters - we are punished #WPUKHags

Victoria now answers about the idea around aging. She says that women are viewed as valuable only when young. She references an early menopause campaign which almost cast women as eunuchs #WPUKHags

Older women are useful to society but the sex pay gap gets larger as we get older. There are also issues around mothers. Complex relationships that younger people with their mother and seeing them as a person. #WPUKHags

Younger women hoping feminism will liberate us from being like our mothers. We must see the incremental effects of sexism on older women. Daughters often blame their mothers for the sexism they suffer but do not see the history of sexism. Reference to Adrienne Rich #WPUKHags

Next they discuss the menopause and how it has now become a 'virtue signal' or also a way to erase our sex-based language. We are almost punished for admitting we are inferior, or that is how the right frame it! #WPUKHags

It would be a huge upheaval for society and business to recognise the contribution women make. It is almost patronising that they are saying they 'don't mind' we go through the menopause! 'Harness the power of your period' workshops! #WPUKHags

Sonia @soniasodha now talking about how women are taught we have to 'be kind', the hypocrisy of the 'be kind' brigae and the vitriol thrown at @MumsnetTowers, 'Terfs', etc. #WPUKHags

Victoria: much of the kindness work is behind the scenes, the caring for children, ageing parents, domestic labour - that older women are doing. Not just sitting on Twitter and yelling at women, despite their anti-bullying in their bios #WPUKHags

Kindness and love is often used to excuse the 'gender paygap' - women have spent years caring so they should no expect payment fo love and kindness (Katrine Marçal) #WPUKHags

Victoria makes a good point about the different uses of 'Karen' as an insult. It started as a valid critique of white women and racism, but now it is used towards any woman complaining about anything #WPUKHags

Sonia: 'women cannot win, no matter what race, class or age you are' - the intersection of sex, class and race: you are called out, no matter what your view! #WPUKHags

So important to recognise our commonality as women, to be able to see 'what difference the difference makes' as Crenshaw puts it #WPUKHags

Again, we can see it's related to relationships with mothers - mothers are seen to paint their children with their failures - mother blame. Middle class young white women will want disindentify from middle aged white women #WPUKHags

Once a woman becomes disabled, early onset haggery happens (from the audience). The intersection of disability and age makes the othering more complex and disabled women are ignored #WPUKHags

Sonia: Can we bridge the generation gap between #hags and younger women

Victoria: I can hear myself as I would have heard myself as a young woman, I would have said I was 'concern trolling' #WPUKHags

It is really hard to bridge the gap - @glosswitch remembers how she would listen to older women so she feels like the message should come from younger women #WPUKHags

Sonia: the levsl of social ostracising is so much bigger and harder in the younger age groups, than it is maybe for us older women #WPUKHags

Q: Did you manage to look at other cultures, at how #Hags are percieved, any that get attitudes to older women right?

A: The book looks at now and the history of witch hunts. It's quite an angry book! #WPUKHags

Comment: Go get an account on Tumblr and meet younger women building community. Follow rad fem hashtags and build on community #WPUKHags

Q: Who is responsible for ageism and sexism in the 2020s?

Victoria: Does not like to just say 'The Patriarchy' - it is more embedded and entwined.

#WPUKHags

A lot of the ideas we grow up with, what it means to be an older woman, they are formed in closed environments, so much pressure on us to disindetify with other women, to be 'our true selves'. We are not to blame but it is understandable! #WPUKHags

Victoria: I have three sons, it is hard to raise them to be men who don't havethese sexist expectations on women. It is easy to try and 'fix it quickly', focus on language, pronouns. It won't work, sexism is so embedded, it will take a long time to disentangle #WPUKHags

Victoria: I don't like to blame women, don't like to call them 'handmaidens' - we don't know what they are going through #WPUKHags

Sonia: would you have written the book differently if you were a single childfree woman?

Victoria: Yes, I would. I brought much of my own experience to it.

#WPUKHags

Victoria: I was aware of how what I have written has been coloured by my experiences.

Q: Would you rather hang out with Cher or Madonna?

#WPUKHags

A: Madonna! My first single was a Madonna single, I had cerise fishnet fingerless gloves and I thought I looked like her in Desparately Seeking Susan!

I like them both though, just always liked Madonna when growing up #WPUKHags

Discussion in the chat about sexuality and how lesbians are viewed as 'disgusting', and how this has become much worse. Sonia @soniasodha as @glosswitch about what she feels about how lesbians, especially GC ones are treated #WPUKHags

Lesbians get the rage earlier because they have said 'NO' to men all the way through their life. Victoria mentions how horrifying the outright bigotry she sees towards lesbians online, which she knows as a straight woman she does not receive! #WPUKHags

Q: on mothering sons, especially in the modern porn-soaked world.

Victoria: you want to talk to them but you want to give them space. She worries at the kind of things they are looking at #WPUKHags

She talks to them on consent but she notes that sex has been given this seprate category, where everywhere else violence is wrong, but suddenly, violence and sex is ok, because of porn #WPUKHags

Trying to teach your sons is hard, you talk and talk, but then they go out into society. Mothers and fathers have a role but so does society! #WPUKHags

We have run out of time and @soniasodha says thank you to @glosswitch and @Womans_Place_UK for making this happen #WPUKHags

Wishing @glosswitch good luck going forward with her book promotion and tells everyone to go buy it! #WPUKHags

On that note, you can buy #Hags: the demonisation of middle aged women at #OurFeministLibrary here:

#WPUKHags #WomensHistoryMonth #readwomen #BookTwitter #IWD2023 #InternationalWomensDay #WorldBookDay #booktwt

uk.bookshop.org/a/7614/9780349…

Thanks for watching along with us and our #livetweeting of #WPUKHags

Remember to support #FiLiA by visiting #OurFeministLibrary so you can #readwomen here:

#WomensHistoryMonth #BookTwitter #IWD2023 #InternationalWomensDay #WorldBookDay #booktwt

uk.bookshop.org/shop/filia