This (in today's Guardian) is such a classic example of the 'damaged' woman trap. The more abuse a woman has had to take, the less capble she is deemed to be of 'being fair' and deciding what reasonable boundaries are The worst abuse is highlighted *only* to suggest this might have turned the victim into someone who can't be trusted (she "wouldn't be human" if not - so either way, don't listen to her).

So tired of the parade of men essentially asking "but how could *they* - butch lesbians, black women, sporty women, tall women, post-menopausal women, women who've had mastectomies - ever be perceived as women if males who like dressing up as passive porn objects aren't?" Also their fake concern for the "insufficiently female-looking" (by their racist, lesbophobic, ageist misogynistic standards) woman in a female-only space.

One of the things I can't forgive or forget about 'the trans debate' is the way in which, in order to be considered kind / balanced / thoughtful, women had to pretend to be stupid and not to know what they know. > You had to act as though there was nuance where there was none. To pretend people were victims when they were aggressors. To act as though you has some common ground on 'gender non-conformity' when dealing with bog-standard aggressive males. >

Years ago, when women first started voicing concerns about institutions conflating sex and gender, I don't think many had any particular desire to go up to a tiny minority of male people who genuinely believed themselves to be female and say "no, you're not" > They hoped that, if the potential problems were articulated clearly, boundaries would be maintained in the most compassionate way. Only often they'd be told their concerns were so silly - "no one is saying that! No one would do that!" - that they were bigots for even worrying. >

The worst thing about Butler, I think, isn't the pretentiousness, the bad writing, the bad ideas. I think she's cruel. >

https://twitter.com/janeclarejones/status/1903541850587509167

She knows the implications of the things she says and writes and doesn't just do it because she can't get out of it now (which I used to think) - it's done with an extra jab of spite, possibly the kind that comes when you have to offload shame >

Women who've stood up to gender ideology have had years of "look, I don't think *you're* evil, you're just a silly woman under the sway of evil people making you believe evil things". > This article was a classic of the genre. Poor women on Mumsnet, so addled by motherhood their stupid baby brains fell prey to the wicked machinations of the far right. It's not as though they were intelligent, feminist women, thinking for themselves > lux-magazine.com/article/the-ro…

There's so much that's wrong with the German government's response to Reem Alsalem's concerns about gender self-ID, but this analysis of misogyny and male violence against women is especially woeful ohchr.org/en/press-relea… Yes, men use violence to police other men's adherence to arbitrary gender rules. That doesn't make the latter victims of misogyny or less of a risk to women / less likely to be misogynistic themselves.

What could disregard for the health of people who menstruate have in common with disregard for the health of those experiencing menopause or those giving birth? Nothing at all, apparently.

https://twitter.com/JournalismSEEN/status/1811529071349686605

When I had anorexia, I didn't menstruate. If the only categories we talk about are "people who menstruate" and "people who don't", this isn't an issue. Loads of perfectly healthy people don't. >

Just Tesco, telling employees that anyone can use the ladies' toilets, even switching from day to day, and if they don't agree, they're the problem Their employee guidance on sex and gender also includes an *enormous* section on how you should watch your language but you'll get it wrong anyways because the rules are always changing so just apologise but not too much ...

I think many of the 'progressive' men who are so into attacking 'terfs' right now have decided some male people aren't a threat on the basis of either a) we'd have bullied that person in school (guilt) or b) I got bullied at school and they're a bit like me (projection) > It's all about how men relate to other men, with no attempt to see it from the perspective of women, in relation to whom all males - even ones you consider low status or victims - have a physical advantage and are an unknown quantity. >

I think for some men on the left, the worst thing to be is low-status in relation to other males. They fear it, and think women couldn't possibly understand it because they are so low down as to be off the charts. > That's why they like the idea that some male people are women - this "proves" there's something manly about them that goes beyond mere anatomy - and why they think women who don't buy this are incredibly mean and privileged. >

This morning I found myself getting much more annoyed about the Cass report and the treatment of feminists over trans issues than I've allowed myself to feel before (I don't think I'm alone in this). The trigger was something incredibly trivial. > I saw a news report which mentioned an author visiting a conference near me. It wasn't an author who'd been particularly horrible to me or anyone else. It was just someone who'd once tweeted, as one does, in that arse-covering way, that they were really sad about mean terfs >

In years to come, people who have knowingly supported misogyny and homophobia out of sheer cowardice will quietly adopt the views of left-wing feminists, but claim they couldn't support them earlier because the left-wing feminists were aligning themselves with fascists

https://twitter.com/SunnyMarmalaid/status/1661922773026082817

Feminists function as cannon fodder, holding the line you won't hold yourself because you want to be popular. Meanwhile you blame them for the open goal you've created and insist - again, through cowardice - on keeping it wide open.

Principles such as "female bodies matter", "male inner lives aren't more special and important than female ones" and "female perceptions of male power and threat aren't arbitrary and contingent on individual male approval" are not exclusive to any one "debate". > They are basic feminism. There are women who are giving these principles away wholesale without noticing they're doing it because they tell themselves it's just "the trans debate", but it's not. You give this stuff away, you give it to *all* male people. >

Women: <get hounded out of jobs, face death threats, deal with constant smears, require protection just to speak>
Man: "well, you got to speak, didn't you? Jeez, don't know what you're complaining about"
theguardian.com/education/2023… It's like an abusive partner telling you you're not being bullied or controlled because he can still "hear you whining".

Thanks, but I think people are capable of reading the words I've actually written without my supposedly hidden intentions being "revealed". I am so sick of "what she really means is ..."

https://twitter.com/mollyknefel/status/1667224878791946247

This is why women get told we just need to write or speak more reasonably or politely or compassionately. Because we do it already, only it gets presented as having a hidden, unreasonable meaning.

The gender-neutral language masks the fact that the first "people" refers to males, whose needs are pitched as universal (ability to feel like they belong). The second "people" refers to females, whose needs are pitched as trivial and mean (winning and losing).

https://twitter.com/WRNWales/status/1666789751519576064

Maybe female athletes want to feel like they belong rather than be edged out because the category isn't theirs any more. But that's just mean of them. Belonging is a human - male default - need. What would the non-males know about it?

Men shouting at women to shut up - blocking passageways, banging on windows, throwing eggs, waving banners threatening decapitation - is exactly what it looks like. It has been happening in plain sight for years, at universities, at feminist gattherings, at party conferences. The women who've talked about it have been vilified themselves on the basis that those on the right side of history wouldn't do this unless their targets were really evil and actually, it's quite prissy to care about a bit of shouting in the face of pure evil.

So many people see "nice" men abusing women and think not "perhaps these men aren't so nice", but "how terrible must these women be? And if these women are so terrible, maybe I should join in the abuse" Or "that proves these women are as bad as I thought and I am safe, because I'm not bad".

Wait, I have some thoughts about this! blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/produ…

https://twitter.com/DrVicFielding/status/1638686063672819712

One of the things I look at in Hags is how positions characterised as cohort-specific ("gen X women are bigots but their views will die out with them") can really be lifecycle-specific ("older women have specific reasons for thinking femaleness matters, so we call them bigots")

Because it's my publication day (and I'm obviously massively excited about this!) I thought I would list a few of the books that I found really valuable when writing Hags (also to stop me just going on about Hags all the time) > The first is Adrienne Rich's Of Woman Born, which I'm always talking about, but it's just so insightful not just on intergenerational relationships, but disidentification (or not) from the female body > amazon.co.uk/Woman-Born-Mot…