Author of Hags: The Demonisation of Middle-Aged Women and Unkind: How Kindness Culture Punishes Women Agent: @LittleHardman Email: glosswatch @ gmail.com
Cheltenham
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5th March is paperback publication day for Unkind - on how #BeKind might not, in fact, be making everyone more kind. Order it here! geni.us/UnkindOrder
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"The talkativeness of women has been gauged in comparison not with men but with silence. Women have not been judged on the grounds of whether they talk more than men, but of whether they talk more than silent women."
Dale Spender
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I can't stand the way the men in the Pelicot trial get to tell everyone about their sad childhoods, as if now is the time and place. At what point is a man's complete and utter lack of empathy for a woman enough for us to say "no - all of our compassion is for her"?
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I find it amazing that this has become so completely normalised at the same time as celebrity feminism fusses over The Handmaid's Tale (which they've some how conveniently decided is only really relevant to abortion)
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The magazine that's spent decades telling you you're too fat, too old, too unfashionable, too unsuccessful, too poor and too unfeminine now wants you to know you're too obsessed with "narrow ideals of womanhood"
'Excluding trans women from a female-only gym reinforces narrow ideals of womanhood' cosmopolitan.com/uk/body/a64…
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"Drag queens helped me with my eyeliner" is not a reason to force women to get changed in front of male employees
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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.
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If you are a man who tells female rape survivors who want women-only spaces they're just "obsessed with what's between people's legs", you're not too far along from the abuser who tells his victim that she "loves it really"
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Not all men are a threat to women. Often it's hard to tell which ones are, but sometimes there are signs e.g. defacing feminist statues, waving placards threatening to kill women, having a massive public tantrum about not being allowed into female-only spaces etc.
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Actors "nobly" distancing themselves from JK Rowling should at least have the honesty to say "I don't care if rape victims can't have female-only spaces" and "I'm quite happy for half the human race to henceforth be known as menstruators and uterus havers"
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It's funny how women don't get credited for their contributions to, say, the moon landings or discovering DNA, but it's widely accepted that we invented biological sex five minutes ago, just to be mean
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As well as male patterns of criminality, we could also talk about male patterns of entitlement. When a man steals a place on a woman-only team or shortlist, it's part of the history of men edging women out of public life on the basis that everything should go to them first.
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This really struck me from JK Rowling"s excellent interview. It's clear she understands how those who target children from unloving or cruel backgrounds often do so by convincing them it's care or love thetimes.com/article/57517aa…
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In ancient Greece, people couldn't own property, couldn't vote, and weren't allowed to participate in the government. Aristotle believed people were inferior to people, with pregnant people serving as mere vessels for the life principle delivered by people
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The reasons why women want single-sex spaces should make men ashamed. Instead, women are shamed for wanting single-sex spaces.
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The fact that many people accept female fear of male people when walking home, but ridicule the idea of it in enclosed spaces, shows that the purpose is to limit where female people, but not male people, can go.
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Whenever people declare there needs to be "less heat, more light" in debates on sex and gender I think of JK Rowling's very carefully worded essay and the response she got. How much more "light" are women meant to offer? I suspect the only acceptable "light" is total silence.
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Wording that suggest male people have "rights" whereas female people have "perceived concerns", "preferences", "anxieties" - that is, psychological flaws that need to be worked on so that they may accommodate other people's "rights" more effectively - is so insidious
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I wrote about the radicalisation of Stephen Fry unherd.com/newsroom/its-step…
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It's utterly grotesque that a male person obsessed with "cleansing" female rape survivors of their "bad" thoughts was allowed anywhere near a rape crisis service, let alone allowed to run it
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Amazing how often "let people be who they want to be" translates as "let men do whatever they like"
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There's just no appreciation for how *polite* women have been while being told we're basically walking holes/ideas in men's heads. We should explode with rage but no, we write careful, erudite little thinkpieces explaining why that's incorrect, then get told we're evil anyway.
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Women who set up resources for themselves aren't "closing doors" on anyone because women aren't obliged to be "open access". Honestly, these responses are patriarchy in a nutshell.
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The more I think about the Princess Grace hospital story, the more I think we need to reiterate that being made "uncomfortable" by a rape survivor asking for reasonable accommodations is not a defensible position. People are always made "uncomfortable" by rape survivors.
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Women's sports were created so women didn't embarass men by beating them. Then women all decided to run and swim and serve really slowly while pretending to train really hard. Nobody knows why.
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Reading about the death of Ian Watkins and reminded he was allowed to offend for four more years because police decided "vindictive" ex-girlfriends would just make that kind of thing up, so no need to investigate their claims
theguardian.com/uk-news/2017…
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"Once this difficult generation of older women dies out, it'll be replaced by a new, compliant generation who know their place, haven't gained any confidence and find all lifecycle experiences irrelevant," thinks every misogynist ever
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People who claim defining women as "biologically female humans" degrades the category, or reduces women to baby-making machines, or imposes feminine norms on women, are simply revealing all of the regressive beliefs they hold about biologically female humans
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The absolute refusal to make any concession whatsoever to how the female competitors might feel is really striking. He knows that just saying "but they're the less important humans" isn't acceptable but is running out of code words.
Amazing moment during the @BethRigby i/v with Stonewall’s chair of trustees
when he’s asked to look at a photograph
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Imagine if there was a new species of humans, much stronger than men, that did the things to men that men do to women, but every time men tried to set boundaries these new humans smugly asked "but how can you even tell I'm one of them? How do you plan on checking?" >
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I'm so sick of seeing "women are most likely to be abused in the home" used as a "justification" for women not deserving any protections or boundaries outside the home, as though going home to a man who beats you makes you a hypocrite for wanting to be safe elsewhere.
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I dunno, there's always terrorising women and threatening to kill them while portraying yourself as "the smallest, most vulnerable community" and women themselves as the terrorisers. Same level of fear, but with added gaslighting and isolation for the victim
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The difference between male and female attitudes in this piece is so dismaying
bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cyvp…
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So many on the left seem to think feminism is "rights for women, unless men are really, really sad, then women should just be kind". The thing that really amazes me is the number who think the only problem with this is ensuring we know the sadness is genuine.
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I don't think the question is ever really 'what is a woman'. Everyone knows what a woman is. It's whether women are allowed to have anything at all for themselves.
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One of the things that's so upsetting about the Ash Sarkar thing (will shut up about it soon) is that it really does feel like it was fashion. It was real lives that were wrecked for made-up crimes, but look, that was the thing we were into back then.
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So he's the expert on what does and doesn't cause victims distress but also the expert on when female "anxiety" is misplaced
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Just the lads, living their best lives. Can't let what's happening to the birds spoil something more important.
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Given what is being done to women and girls across the world, pretending nobody really knows what sex anyone is because it's all so blurry and complicated is as offensive as pretending no one is really poor or starving because money is just a construct
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Man: I'm wearing a dress
Women: that's nice, good for you
Man, 30 years later: also, I'm going to switch into girl mode and use all your stuff whenever I feel like it
Women: that's a bit offensive
Man: I can't believe you won't let me wear my dress
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Really think the focus should be "how did we get to a point where hate-filled men gather to wave placards calling for the deaths of women who've said no to them?", not "great turnout, chaps!"
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"sportspeople who work very, very hard to reach the top of their game and are then denied the opportunities to compete"
God forbid such a sacrifice should be expected of men for the sake of mere women bbc.co.uk/sport/cricket/arti…
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I think men such as Columbus should be made to spell out what they "certainly don't agree with". Women having their own refuges? Prisons? Political analyses of their own oppression? Words? Just so we're all clear.
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Feminists are constantly caught between "that never happens" and "you're using that one example of it happening to spread hate", with an occasional dash of "you have so many examples of it happening you're just obsessed"
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Treating Joan of Arc as non-binary isn't exploring gender. It's an extension of the dull, patriarchal line that women don't have a history thecritic.co.uk/transing-joa…
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Before certain men proclaim that feminists should be tweeting on *this* issue rather than *that* issue to show that they're "real" feminists and not bigots, I wish they'd remember that feminism isn't some job assigned to women that men get to project manage.
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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. >
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The glee with which supposedly left-wing men have told principled women who've fought alongside them that unless they now concede sex doesn't matter, they're on the side of right-wing men who've abused them and want to take away their reproductive rights has disgusted me.
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So female sexual assault survivors are "obsessed with genitals", but writing a book in honour of your penis or whipping it out on TV are great political acts
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I just can't get over the fact that *everyone* knows what a woman is when discriminating against her - right to this day (e.g. male-line hereditary peerages) - but it's all so vague the moment she wants any resources with which to counter this discrimination
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My god, those middle-aged men who think ranting at JK Rowling makes them down with the kids. They're like a pissed boss who thinks he's impressing his twenty-something secretary by putting down the missus at the works Christmas do.
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When men lecture older women on "being kind", they tend to have zero idea of just how kind we've been, or for how long. It's invisible, like housework, only noticed when you've "missed a bit" that's *obviously* not their responsibility to take on.
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I am so angry about this. It is so, so obvious, such a clear replication of the kind of dynamics seen in witch hunts and in the excusing of domestic violence, and we have said this, again and again, for so long, and been told "but they wouldn't do it if you didn't provoke"
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Men lecturing women on which bits of feminism we're allowed to do is quite amazing, given that if it wasn't for men, we wouldn't have to do any.
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Women are so fickle. They say they don't want to share a changing room with you, but then don't mind you giving them CPR if they're about to die. Make your minds up, ladies!
Dr Upton to Naomi Cunningham KC: "You don't like me, that much is obvious, but if you dropped down in front of me suffering from a heart attack I presume you wouldn't object to me treating you...There are times when severity of illness trumps how we feel about each other..."
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It is not unreasonable to expect a rape crisis service to be a place where male people are obliged to respect female people's boundaries. I can't believe this is even a discussion (except I can)
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Who could have predicted that a party that embraces sex work is work and no terfs allowed could start to feel like a "sexist boys' club"?
bbc.com/news/articles/cgkn3v…
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You're right, you won't be the first or the last to decide gender non-conforming women aren't really women. It's called sexism.
Our new play I, Joan shows Joan as a legendary leader who uses the pronouns ‘they/them’. We are not the first to present Joan in this way, and we will not be the last. We can't wait to share this production with everyone and discover this cultural icon.
bit.ly/GlobeIdentityInIJoan
ALT A graphic of a person who is covered in dirt and grime, their chest is bound and they wring their hands. A chainmail helmet covers their eyes. They stand in front of a purple background with text above their head reading I, JOAN in large white letters.
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I just can't get over the gaslighting of telling women "there's no clear definition of 'female' or 'male' so you can't organise on the basis of biological sex" but also "it's imperative children don't go through the 'wrong' puberty, which we can easily predict"
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The teeny tiniest bit of empathy might tell you that *you* have no idea what it's like to be socialised into femininity and that it's nothing like the male fantasy of it. You envy something that doesn't exist then call women ungrateful for not appreciating it more
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Tfw your idea of what a girl can be is more limited and regressive than Enid Blyton's but you still think you're challenging norms
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So apparently it's scaremongering to talk about fertility loss, bone density loss, lifelong medicalisation, but not scaremongering to tell vulnerable children they'll be suicidal unless they risk these things. Guess I'll just have to be on the side of the scaremongerers.
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No one is 'confused' about what women are when they are taking things from them. It's only ever when women want things for themselves.
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I don't want unisex toilets in addition to male and female toilets until women have all the extra female toilets they need. Inequality in toilet provision is a longstanding feminist issue and it shouldn't be bumped to the back of the queue now
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I bet there are loads of women reading this - a judge sentencing a man to six years for killing his wife - thinking "if my partner ever kills me, that's the story he'd tell people about me"
I’m just putting this out there…apple.news/AN2e-sAvlSOWGs0gq…
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Imagine being a little boy who lost his mum, forced to play to the cameras while others appropriate your loss. The entire system isn't remotely respectful of grief.
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And I'd rather share an enclosed space with my sons than Rose West, but this isn't an argument against having female-only toilets
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"Culture war" functions in a similar way to "tempestuous relationship". "Less heat, more light" in a similar way to "six of one, half a dozen of the other". It's nonsense. It's men demonising and threatening women because they enjoy it. It's exactly what it looks like.
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How? We're not allowed to name it. We're not allowed to track it accurately. We're not allowed to seek refuge from it. We're not allowed to say when male people make us afraid, and you call us names for wanting all of these things.
My heart is broken listening to Sarah Everard’s mother’s statement on #r4today.
Enough is enough. The government needs to act to make this a turning point in the epidemic of violence against women and girls.
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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.
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Really losing patience with female MPs who think the rape threats they receive represent a toxic, misogynistic culture, whereas the rape threats other women receive represent a toxic, both sides debate
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Oh, sod off. Two rape victims have had to listen to their male rapist being described in a courtroom as a "vulnerable woman" and you haven't cared a bit about what this says to all victims about their perceptions of power and abuse.
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If you've ever suggested a woman should respect her rapist's pronouns and would be a bigot to refuse, don't start now with the idea that *some* criminals are abusing self ID to cause hurt and gain sympathy (or do start, but retract and apologise for the first bit)
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I wrote about Labour, gender and why - after years and years of tying ourselves in knots trying to show just how kind, reasonable, rational, informed etc we are - left-wing women are so angry thecritic.co.uk/why-labour-d…
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So tired of seeing the Supreme Court ruling on the definition of women discussed as if it's some cruel victory for a dominant group, as opposed to the absolute bare minimum
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There is nothing progressive about mothers encouraging their daughters to put male feelings before their own. It's as old as the hills, done for lots of reasons (including the idea this keeps them safer than women who say no), but it's so grim to see it presented as modern
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I find it remarkable that a man who had to apologise for telling victims of childhood sexual abuse to "grow up" and be less "self-pitying" feels qualified to lecture feminists on not hurting other people's feelings. Or maybe it's not surprising at all. theguardian.com/culture/2016…
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Have to say I'm finding ostentatious calls for compassion and empathy for those so terribly injured by female humans merely being allowed to exist in law tactless, sexist and insensitive.
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In a world where male freedom is valued more than female safety - in which there's no collective responsibility for what some men do, just an expectation that all women will settle for smaller lives - it's really something that now women aren't even allowed their own prisons
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I am so sick of women's past traumatic experiences being used to suggest they have 'issues' which mean they're not capable of judging what reasonable boundaries are in the present >
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If these men wanted to smash gender norms, they know where the kitchen is. They just like threatening women.
Welcoming committee in #Brighton for #LetWomenSpeak
They didn’t stop us speaking…..we are women..we are legion….we will not be silenced 💪
#WomensRightsAreHumanRights
#blackpampers
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"Smash the gender binary! But also, can't believe a bunch of women met for lunch and they weren't all wearing frocks."
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Bloody middle-aged women and their interfering ways! Someone should write a book on it (so I did, and you can pre-order it here) geni.us/Hags
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If you're male and one of the 16% of people who think women shouldn't have female-only support services, you're one of the reasons why they should
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I do kind of wish Will Ferrell had revealed himself to be so smug and lacking in empathy for women before I'd handed in the MS for (Un)kind. He's such a perfect example of the double standards 'be kind' imposes, treating male perspectives as the only ones that exist. >
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Nice to know the Guardian thinks boring old biological women are "a Victorian idea"
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After the Supreme Court ruling, I feel more depressed about how appallingly gender-critical women have been and are treated. I felt the same after the Cass Review came out. It's like you have to hold it all in, not think about it, just get through this bit, then the next. >
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Also, just cannot be arsed with "but not all the women have done enough to show how left-wing they are, and if any of them are right-wing, all of them deserve it". None of them deserve it. That can't be the standard for "female people matter".
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Kind of amazing to see women who were up in arms about Blurred Lines giving "choke on my dick, terf" the benefit of the doubt
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So bizarre the number of men who think supporting feminism means lecturing women on the nature of their oppression and why porn is great, as opposed to shutting up and doing more housework, childcare and eldercare
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Everyone who has ever said "but of course you're allowed women-only spaces - for ALL women, including trans women!" knew exactly what they were doing. It's so incredibly cruel, especially as they did it on the assumption no one would be so 'mean' as to say "but they're not women"
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This cartoon - ridiculing what is supposedly necessary for women to have their own toilets - reminds me of people who'd insist you couldn't have laws against date or marital rape because that would necessitate bedside contracts and CCTV in every bedroom theguardian.com/commentisfre…
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There is a reason why before Karens, there were nags, shrews, mothers-in-law, hags, witches etc. You can't stigmatise and shame older women out of asserting themselves, however inconvenient it is to your 'progressive' fantasy of feminine compliance
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I wrote about how hard it can be for women to feel at home in their bodies - and how cruel it is for others to mock this thecritic.co.uk/running-like…
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Cannot believe I read all of Andrea Long Chu's sodding book when the other side gets to respond to one tweet with "I'm not fucking reading all that"
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Funny how feminists can get more condemnation for popping champagne corks than anti-feminists for sending death threats
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