Lala land

In case you haven’t read any fantasy fiction recently, I bring you this from PurpleSage about Dennis the Menace. Also known as Riley J Dennis, previously known as Justin Dennis. A 24-year-old trans person achieving social media fame (?) for his whacky pronouncements eg:

“If you’re a woman who only likes women, go ahead, identify as a lesbian,” Dennis says, “but some women have penises. And if the fact that some lesbians might be attracted to those women offends you, it’s because you don’t think trans women are real women.”

Anyway:

Fuck or lose your benefits? You think patriarchy doesn’t exist?

Hello Ms Roughseas, Jobcentre here.

Have you got something for me?

Yes, one of the owners of a local brothel would like you to be a prostitute. Obviously, if you refuse this job offer, your benefits will be cut.

Aren’t I too old?

Are you over 55?

Yes.

Oh, sorry then, you can’t become a prostitute.

Well, isn’t that age discrimination?

Germany. Where women have to take jobs that are offered or risk losing their benefits.

And here’s the real score: Paradise by the dashboard light?

Silly old women

Ageism and sexism in one.

Brilliant.

I got a query recently about how to start blogging as a woman who is more than 50 years old.

Oh my goddess.

Do women of more than 50 know how to use a computer?

Did they know how to sort DOS in year 2000?

Of course not. Ha! (Were the little ones born then?)

That’s why the oldies are unable to work out how to blog.

I have been blogging for ten fucking years.

I have a shedload of readers who are more than 50. Many are women who can work out how to blog.

This is the most insulting query ever. Why women over 50. Why not men?

And why are women 50+ incompetent?

Disrespectful sexist youth.

Patriarchy anyone?

Sexist old men

I had to lie down on the sofa, fan myself, apply a cool damp facecloth to my forehead, hence the rather late repost of this riveting news:

Sexist old man 1

Sexist old man 2

Number one considers women to be less intelligent than men so should be paid less. Number two thinks keeping our knees together prevents rape.

In the first case we have an MEP (remind me again why we voted out of Europe), and the second was a Canadian judge.

And women are less intelligent than men?

Rape? No.

As we all know, when a 53-year-old man has sexual intercourse with a 13-year-old girl, it isn’t rape. (Huh?)

It’s sexual activity with with a child. Of course!

So a mere four and a half years sorts that. Easily.

WTF CPS.

http://www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/news/15147459.Man__53__had_sex_with_girl__13__and_offered_to_leave_his_wife_and_children_to_marry_her/

As the girl had come to Bradford from Poland, there was a significant language barrier and it was hard to see how a “relationship” could have developed between them.

Read. Enjoy.

The invisible woman: Gender identity in the age of neoliberalism

And this:

https://stoptranschauvinism.wordpress.com/2017/03/10/cps-schools-project-the-erasure-of-sex-and-the-silencing-of-girls/

Orwell, you forgot all this lunacy.

Women’s right to vote

Women worked hard to earn the right to vote and I am considering relinquishing it.

Why?

Well, basically it makes no fucking difference as the same old shit goes around whoever is in power.

Many of us truly hoped for something different under Blair. Say. No. More.

In Gib we have two parties. Nothing changes, apart from who’s mates with those in power. Many younger people here don’t and won’t vote.

In Spain, there was a proposed alliance between a minor party and the Popular (ha!) Party, but the deal was that politicians could be tried for anything they did wrong. Heavens! We can’t have politicians subject to the law. Natch, the deal fell through.

Apathy? I don’t know. But it increasingly seems to about one self-serving greedy class of selfish idiots over another. The end result is the same: less income, higher taxes, fewer public services. And lots of ridiculous propaganda.

The only meaningful vote I think I have made in my life was for Brexit. The bastards in Parliament are still trying to reverse it.

And … the second reason is, that being on the electoral register qualifies one for jury service. Now, I am nearly sixty. I can not spend three hours in a goddam courtroom without going to the toilet. The advisory letter basically tells you to starve yourself and not drink before you turn up so you don’t need the toilet. Great. Basically I’m likely to pass out or vomit in court.

I am not interested in determining someone’s guilt or innocence depending on who has got the better lawyer. I certainly don’t want to be targeted later as a member of the jury that convicted someone.

In my past life I have spent enough time in magistrates, county, and crown court. It’s not exactly a new thing for me. But at least reporters could sneak out for a pee.

There is basically no remuneration or exemption in Gib. And we can be called every three years up to the age of 100, or something like that. My partner has a contract (self-employed) three days a week. He would lose that money. For what? Civic duty? That could cost him hundreds depending on the length of a trial.

So on this not very auspicious International Women’s Day, when we can honestly celebrate nothing, and I mean nothing, I am flying in the face of everything my feminist predecessors fought for. But still, equal ops and all that, so is my partner.

I can’t imagine my fate being determined by ‘my peers’. Who are my peers? Snotty toffee-nosed snobs who went to university and voted against Brexit. People aren’t equal and never have been, regardless of the token housewife, black person, brown person, working class person that make up the jury. Perhaps I’m leaning against jury trials. Nothing to do with being called again next year.

Back to IWD (a bit like IUD). Now we have the vote, well some of us do, can we possibly do something about health care, contraception, abortion rights (yes Donald, go fuck yourself), education, prostitution and pornography?

Maslow’s triangle

In case anyone is getting bored with reading about sex, I thought I’d have a brief intermission and write about Maslow’s triangle, or more specifically the bottom layer of the triangle, food, shelter and warmth.

A 30-year-old man froze to death on the streets of Birmingham (UK) where he was sleeping rough.

The UK is allegedly still one of the world’s richest countries (9th) and third richest in Europe, based on GDP and purchasing power parity. On an individual basis, ie GDP per head, it comes 27th.

Regardless of all that, the important question is, why is a 30-year-old man sleeping on the streets, with temperatures dropping to –6 centigrade (celsius)?

According to local council figures reported in the Birmingham Mail, 36 people were sleeping rough in the city, with nearly three thousand listed as homeless (but not sleeping rough), and 23,000 on the waiting list for council housing.

Another report shows 10,000 homeless. So, great on the figures? What to believe?

A UK report says there are 50,000+ homeless nationally, of which ten per cent sleep rough.

Some reports say 1000 people have slept on the streets in London in one night.

Of rough sleepers, 40 odd per cent are from the UK and 30 odd per cent from eastern europe. Mostly Rumania.

Why do people leave their own country to sleep on the streets of London? I ask you. Makes no sense. The streets of London are not paved with gold. Believe me. I walked them and worked them.

Figures and statistics are what they are. So are dead people on the streets. Which I wrote about before. I suggest a read if you haven’t already.

Back to Maslow. His triangle says our basic needs are food, shelter, warmth.

Why, can not a so-called rich nation provide this for all citizens?

Porn and prostitution – part 3 – some cons …

So, we’re all on board with porn and prostitution because it gives women money and they choose that ‘work’ right?

Let’s look at the theory of why we aren’t all on board with it.

Or at least, why I’m not.

And many other feminists.

But, here are some arguments against p&p.

1) It’s not a choice when women can’t find any other job and they are on the breadline, maybe have one or more kids, rent to pay and need to eat. That’s called desperation. Not choice.

2) It’s not a choice when you are kidnapped, sex-trafficked, bought, sold, owned. That’s called slavery.

3) It’s not a choice for drug addicts, pill addicts, alcohol addicts who need money for whatever. And the more they do their job the more they need the fix of their choice. To get through the day, the night, the 20 or more repulsive men to touch them, let alone … How else to block yourself out from something you don’t want.

4) It’s not a choice when men want sex without condoms, vaginal or anal, and you need the money. And they use hard drugs. And insist you use them too. Choice?

5) It’s not a choice when you can’t even get through university without prostituting yourself.

Finally, many radical feminists view prostitution as rape. If you wouldn’t have sex with Joe Bloggs for free, then being paid for it amounts to rape. Because otherwise, it’s non-consensual.

So, just a few practical empowering reasons about why prostitution, and include porn in that, which can involve sex, are not that good for women. Not to mention lap-dancing, pole-dancing, and any other dancing around a phallic symbol.

In reality, porn and prostitution are controlled by men. Because, and this is hardly difficult, it is an industry built by men, for men.

It continues to treat women as sex objects, and while a few women may make big bucks, in their youthful years, many struggle. Owned by pimps, or brothel owners, or renting space in brothels.

What on earth happens to an ageing porn star or prostitute? It’s hardly a lifelong career unless you go into running the same business and exploiting other young women and continuing the cycle.

And, the perpetuation of p&p is spread into society. All women are viewed as sex objects. Hence the high number of reported rapes and assaults, let alone the unreported ones.

This is the damage that p&p does to all women. It establishes objectification as the norm.

Next: Some examples of prostitutes’ stories

Porn and prostitution – part 2 – the pros …

So, the context has been set. Young roughseas ie early to mid twenties, was in favour of porn and prostitution. A woman’s right to choose. Empowerment and all that. As I said on the previous post, a sex pos feminist, no less.

Caution: do not look up sex pos on the internet or you will get a lot of information about suggested sexual positions.

Instead, look up sex-positive feminism.

Now. Let’s do the theory.

Surely feminism is about a woman’s right to choose? Yes? Who can argue with that?

A woman gets to have sex with whom and whenever and wherever she wants?

OK so far.

So, what is wrong about prostitution and porn?

Nothing per se.

Women have the right to express their sexuality and use their bodies as a means of employment, whether being photographed or filmed in sexual acts, or just accepting money for sex, and that can be any or all of masturbation, oral, vaginal, anal. It may include BDSM.

The vocality for sex pos came out of the second wave feminist movement, think Dworkin, Greer, MacKinnon, (70s and early 80s), all strongly anti porn and prostitution, and was supported by the likes of Camille Paglia (who I personally always loathed) and numerous others.

There is a subtext to the sex pos movement and that is rebelling against religious theories of purity, chastity, virgin madonnas and the like.

Finally sex pos feminists see the anti porn/prostitution proponents as being in favour of censorship, regulation, and the establishment, whereas feminism, by its very definition, should oppose all those.

Powerful arguments I think. No wonder I bought into it, and others still do.

Sex pos feminism tends to be associated with third wave feminism, and also the more recent fourth wave which tends to favour sex work ie basically younger people. Remember how young roughseas was also in favour of these principles?

Next: the other point of view, ie why porn and prostitution might not be such a good idea for women.

Porn and prostitution – part 1

Friend Mak asked for more info on feminism, so we agreed on this topic.

Basically, why are prostitution and pornography anti-feminist?

This is a well sensitive subject and splits the feminist community right down the middle.

Let me start with anecdotes before I move onto theory.

Anecdote 1

Back in my late teens/early twenties I volunteered for work at a rape crisis centre. As a woman, I figured it was the shittiest thing that could happen to us, and something that many of us always live in fear of.

Us. I realise that by us, I meant women. Not everyone.

I met my interrogators interviewers at a local railway station. Looked like your average butch lesbians, but not my issue.

The only question I can remember, because it was clearly the killer, was, ‘What do you think to porn?’

Natch, I thought it was OK, if women wanted to do it, and earned money.

I don’t need to tell you I didn’t get the volunteer post.

And the reason I tell you this is twofold.

1) I’ve never been a perfect feminist

2) Had they explained what I had got wrong and why, I might have learned a lot of things a lot sooner.

Anecdote 2

Walking down Macleay Street, Kings Cross Sydney, I was asked, ‘How much?’ by a couple of Americans.

I was flattered. Not only did men want to have sex with me, they would pay me!

Kings Cross in the 1980s was the mega sex area of Sydney (and druggies and backpackers, I was the latter).

Had I not been with someone else I may well have taken them up. Why not get paid for having sex? thought my young mind.

So young roughseas was fine with prostitution and pornography and called herself a feminist? This was back in the 80s. Sounds familiar with sex pos feminism of today?

I do have sympathy with women who haven’t been round the loop. Old heads, young vaginas. Or something like that.

Next: the theory and why maybe porn and prostitution aren’t quite so good …

More about Teh Menz

My friend Mak wrote a post asking ‘what about the menz’.

This followed a Twitter exchange, which, should you be so inclined, you can read about on his blog post linked above.

The detail, for the purpose of this post, is not that relevant. The responses were.

Virtually all commenters talked about women making sexist comments and some compared that with black people making racist comments.

And …

The myth that we live in a white capitalist patriarchal society is apparently now being taught in schools! Oh no! Truth at last? Doubt it.

Now. At the risk of being very basic, let’s do this simply. Because it seems some messages are not being well received. At best.

1) Women are not guilty of sexism against men. It is an impossibility.

2) Similarly, white people are not guilty of racism against black people.

The basis for these two comments is that, contrary to the belief of some, women and black people are varyingly oppressed by men, and white people. The weaker group can not display power eg sexism/racism towards the stronger one. It’s a non sequitur.

Just to remind you, the hierarchy of power is simple:

• White men
• Black men
• White women
• Black women

We can add class, poverty/wealth/education blah blah to that, but this is a post, primarily, about sexism.

Now, a few other basics:

3) People who say they support equal rights for men and women are not feminists. Full stop. End of story. Which feminism manual did you read?

4) Men who say they are feminist have also not read the right manual. Feminists are women. Male allies are welcome.

5) Anyone who thinks pornography and prostitution is empowering for women hasn’t seen the dead prostitute wheeled out of the building next door after a heroin overdose.

6) People who say the gender pay gap has closed are liars ill-informed.

7) Men and women are born with certain biological traits. Someone thinking they feel like being a woman does not make them a woman. Women do not need men pretending to be women to tell them about feminism. Or how to be a woman.

Now, in similar news, Dead Wild Roses reposted an interesting conversation about radical feminists and biological essentialism.

Again, the comments were interesting. From men. Of course.

Were women with a tipped bladder aliens?

No, says another well-informed male about women’s bladders. It isn’t true, but they can prolapse.

We loves it! We loves the Mansplaining!

Even more, we get detail about weakened muscles holding up the bladder causing the prolapse.

Wow! Thank you so much.

None of us little women are capable of working out that tipped bladder is a lay term, similar to how bowel cancer is often used instead of the more clinical colorectal cancer.

Thank you to Teh Menz for your humour and your inaccurate grossly patronising explanations about women’s organs. And you wonder why we get pissed off? Seriously?

NB to Arb, I note you pointed out the usage of tipped as colloquial usage.

But as a finale, on the subject of tipped pelvic organs, for anyone who wants to read about a tipped (tilted) uterus. Here you go. It can render a woman a sexual cripple.

Fortunately, correction is fairly simple, and effective.

Phew. Wouldn’t want to disappoint Teh Menz with our sexual availability would we?

Sexual cripple? Really?

Why?

Is the UK expected to home refugees from the Calais refugee camps?

Serious question. In terms of population density the UK is somewhat bigger than France’s (286:118 per head of population per square km. Let’s say more than double? Two times 118 = 236. And the UK is on 286.)

So? Refugees in France are the responsibility of the UK? Really?

No wonder we voted for Brexit.

France, you caring country, just remind me again why you can’t rehome these refugees?

Hell, yes, just go to the UK and bludge off us.

We can’t feed our own people, our health service is struggling, and we can’t fund our pensioners.

Mx, Ms, Mr, (Mrs/Miss)

I do hope you are all aware that when addressing trans people you should be using the appropriate title. A bit like the pronouns.

Here is Mix Margaret on the subject.

Some excerpts and comments:

In recent years they have taken it up in greater numbers resulting in many banks, governments, credit card companies and other businesses integrating Mx into their customer forms and databases. In May 2015 the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) added Mx to their online version citing the increasing acceptance, by local government and business, of transgender individuals wishing to use the title instead of Miss, Mrs, Mr or Ms.

Having a transgender title is a wonderful development for non-binary people, including androgynes such as myself. We really need a title like Mx when we fill out forms so we don’t have to lie and say we’re male or we’re female. And it’s so much better to use Mx in person because having to say you are a Mr or a Ms when you plainly are not is soul-destroying. Using Mx has made a world of difference to the happiness and well-being of many non-binary transgender individuals.

That’s great. So trans people get to not define their gender but the rest of us continue to do so. Because Mx Margaret goes on to say non trans people should not appropriate their title.

Some of us might like a non-gendered title. It took long enough for women to stop being defined by their marital status and for Ms to be accepted. But the trans, they are special. So we all quickly add Mx to our online forms …

Take for example woman, an adult human female. If a person looks, talks, and self-identifies as a woman, is that enough to call her a woman, or does she also have to be fertile? There are many infertile women. Does she have to have female reproductive organs? Perhaps she’s had a hysterectomy. Or does she need female genes in her chromosomes? There have always been women in the world who were born looking female, who grew up as and thought of themselves as women, and who went to their graves never having been pregnant and never having had a period. They may have been genetically male, had a vagina but no penis, no ovaries and no uterus. All their lives from the cradle to the grave they and their families may have been none the wiser, always thinking of them as women. Such people are often very feminine in self identity and appearance. If you define woman as an adult who is genetically female they are not women, but I’d still say they are women.

Confusing. By default. Only women can have a hysterectomy. And periods. And get pregnant.

The few numbers of intersex people are different. But for the most part, trans is not about intersex. So lets not conflate the two. Mx Jones identifies as androgyne.

People using Mx are not likely to be transsexual. Presumably, most transsexual men or women find the traditional titles such as Mr, Mrs, Miss and Ms are the appropriate ones for them. At the risk of generalising, they seem to embody the traditional genders of male or female, and I for one think that’s great. I like some gender differences. Vive la différence! I don’t advocate the end of gender as we know it for people who have a binary gender identification, which must be most of about seven billion people.

Groan. Just groan.

But just as you can’t change a dog into a cat, you can’t change a man into a woman or vice versa.

Yes! Exactly.

People who seem to make this transition have not changed their real selves at all—they’ve only changed some features of their bodies and the way they appear, and perhaps the way they talk et cetera. If you are a woman born in a male body you’re still always going to be a woman. I don’t know why some people find this so hard to understand.

Ah. Maybe not exactly after all.

A woman is born with certain physical characteristics. That can not yet be reproduced by expensive surgeons looking to make a fast buck. These characteristics include the probability of having periods, and therefore ability to get pregnant, and go through the menopause.

I don’t know why some people find this so hard to understand.

A man is born with odd-looking dangly bits, doesn’t have periods, can’t get pregnant or go through a menopause.

I don’t know why some people find this so hard to understand.

A man is neither a woman or a lesbian.

I don’t know why some people find this so hard to understand.

Gender is a social construct.

Now, what part of this do we not understand?

But apparently, men who can’t reproduce are disabled. Yes! So says the WHO. Courtesy of feminist current:

The World Health Organization (WHO) has decided that the inability to get pregnant constitutes a disability, meaning that single men, for example, have the “right to reproduce.

Jeez. Silly me thinking getting pregnant was a woman’s issue. What about teh poor menz who can’t get pregnant. Poor, poor menz.

Telegraph

Express

Some years ago, we had a huge discussion at our health authority. In the days of Thatcher, we were encouraged to ration non-essential care. And so we put a paper to our board to ration/reduce/refuse IVF. Except the chair was infertile and so, it was watered down to be meaningless.

Disability is struggling to walk. To not see. To not be able to look after yourself. Inability to get pregnant is NOT a fucking disability.

And here is what women fear:

Raped, drugged, and dead.

Who the fuck looked after her rights? Nobody. Just nobody.

Priorities are not exactly right people. And if you are complicit with this shit, Lucia Perez is your fault too.

We loves The Menz

I write a perfectly reasonable criticism about Owen Smith, a former candidate for the leadership of the UK labour party and get told off for being sexist.

Um. I was pointing out that Smith was sexist (for a number of arsey comments) AND homophobic for his snipey digs at his lesbian opponent Angela Eagle.

Which makes me sexist? How?

But here we have it, thank you Mr Person – Jamie G – without a blog of any meaning:

Ironically I find your post and comment replies no less sexist. Sexism can be directed both against men and women. That you despise men is very much evident in the first line of your post. A sexist woman protesting against sexism is like a porn movie actress trying to become a feminist. Bye.

This is the same level of ignorance displayed by BrainlessCranium. I mean Godlesscranium. Whatever.

The comments by both are full of non sequiturs and display an appalling level of ignorance about women’s rights and feminism.

Brainless, at some point, said western feminists didn’t write about FGM. Really Brainless? Try this. From four years ago.

Personally I would suggest both you and Jamie G pull your collective fingers out and learn a little. Although I doubt that will happen in a million years.

Meanwhile thanks to Ark, Arb, Pink and Tildeb for their staunch defence of feminism. Because the menz are so important. Ruth spent a hell of a long time trying to explain and? Where does that get the women? Her points and links were ignored/dismissed.

It is a sad fact of life that women need men to endorse the credibility of feminism. Or anything really.

Not that anyone can reason with idiots.

I cried

I really did.

I looked at this photo and wept.

She didn’t make it. Wonder why not?

What. Is. Wrong. With. People.

We have homed skinny ribby dogs but this?

Our abuse of animals never fails to amaze me.

Let alone our hypocrisy.

Eat dogs, cats, horses.

That’s bad.

But eat cows, sheep, pigs?

That’s good.

Still, how on earth can people treat dogs like this?

Trans beta readers

Can’t move on the internet for trans. Fall over them everywhere.

There I was browsing a book forum when I noticed a request for a trans woman or trans girl beta reader. (Beta reader: someone who reads a manuscript pre-publication to suggest changes, point out errors.)

The story is about ‘F/F aka lesbian romance’.

Because the author is not trans, they wants trans input so they don’t write anything ignorant or offensive.

That’s fair enough. But you knows, I have me an awful sneaking feeling that lesbians who are women, rather than men who want to be women and have sex with women, might have a view too. They might be slightly offended or worse. Because a lot of lesbians don’t want to have sex with men purporting to be women. At all. Two sides of the coin you know.

But whatever. The trans movement rolls on and pushes us all out of the way.

Now, if only someone wanted a radfem beta reader. Or possibly an evil terf.

Not a novel I’d want to be writing anyway.

Perhaps it’s the next Crying Game. Instead of having men being duped by transgender people, now we have women being duped.

Crazy world.

Trans rape?

I know. I’m old. Out of touch.

That’s probably why I’m reeling at the story of a transwoman raping a transman. Uh?

Cherno Biko, if you haven’t heard of the story.

Cherno Biko is a Brooklyn based award winning media activist and human rights advocate. She serves as the Co Chair of the Young Women’s Advisory Council for the City of New York and has been named to the Trans 100 and NBC BLK 28 Under 28.

From HuffPo.

Right. So we have a self-confessed rapist as a human rights advocate?

Apparently Biko is sorry for raping someone but it’s not their fault because they were sexually abused as a child.

View at Medium.com

Do you know, Biko, how many women, no, not transwomen, have been sexually abused? And that’s just the reported figures. And how many of those women go on to rape someone else? Unlike you?

Let’s get one thing clear. Anyone who sticks their penis in a vagina, and rips off a condom, hoping to impregnate their victim, is not by any stretch of the imagination a woman. Nor is their victim, a man.

Although Biko has confessed to rape, I am unable to validate the ripping-off-the-condom story in order to impregnate.

But actually, er how many women with cocks rape men with vaginas?

Alice in Wonderland has nothing on this surreality.

When are people going to wake up?

Biological sex is immutable.

Gender is a social construct.

I don’t wake up on Tuesday and decide it’s my Gender Identity Man Day.

Men don’t wake up Wednesday and put on a frock and make-up (got to be feminine) and wander into womens’ toilets or changing rooms and perv on them because it is Gender Identity Woman Day. And take photos. Or whatever other pervy men who think they are women get up to.

So sue me for being a TERF.

And spending a lifetime of being frightened of being assaulted and raped and getting pregnant. Because that is the reality of being born a woman. Unlike men who wear frocks and put on make-up because they really *are* women.

Meanwhile, I got called a weirdo for checking the sources of this story. Oh well, shit happens. Nothing new in feminism. Sadly, I’m too old to give a fuck.

Children, prime ministers, and PR

How many men say they are better qualified to be a price, oops, prime, minister because they have children?

Dear me.

On a side note, Eagle, Leadsom, May, are little Thatchers. The Thatcher revivalist movement.

And what is with the religion?

Candidates espousing their godworthiness? Crabb, May, Leadsom.

Keep your religion to yourselves.

Next we’ll be having the NRA fixing British elections. Bankers are more than enough.

For those of you outside the UK, Andrea Leadsom has dropped out of the tory party leadership race.

She needs a new PR advisor.

Superior man brain thinking

‘Two minute noodles.

‘We have two packs.

‘Therefore we need four minutes? Yes?’

Go bro.

Hell’s teeth. Gotta love that male intelligence.

Seen on an Aussie outback vid.

Clue: Two minute noodles take … two minutes? Doesn’t matter how many packs.

Not when the men are in charge. They know better.