Women-only spaces with men
“Women need women-only spaces, therefore we’re including men.”
I should warn you, the clip is horrible to listen to, even apart from the content. I think the content is the reason for the horribleness of the listen: the woman reading the statement finds it necessary to use the most sanctimonious soporific voice in her repertoire, the kind of voice that always makes me want to scratch my armpits and make fart noises. She speaks very s l o w l y and clearly, in a very Soft and Warm and Soothing and Condescending voice, as if we’d all just been pulled from the rubble of a collapsed apartment block.
Women-only spaces are uplifting and empowering. They offer a place for women to come together to create a shared journey of recovery and healing to lean on each other in times of difficulty and celebrate together in times of joy. The purpose and value of women-only spaces is to empower and strengthen women. To suggest that the value of women-only spaces lies solely or primarily in the exclusion of men significantly undervalues the inception, the purpose, and the continuation of women-only spaces.
At that point she’s almost whispering, and then there’s a long pause before the last two sentences, spoken not in a whisper but with stern emphasis.
Trans women are welcome in these spaces. They add amazing value to these spaces and we need them in these spaces.
A pious little lecture on how awesome women-only spaces are that finishes triumphantly by saying men are women if they say they are and you may not disagree, let alone insist on actual women-only spaces.
It’s not the “value” of women-only spaces that’s it issue, IT’S THE BLOODY DEFINITION OF WOMEN-ONLY SPACES. “To suggest that the value of a shark cage lies soley or primarily in the exclusion of sharks undervalues the inception, the purpose, and the continuation of shark cages.”
RU OK? Have you been taken hostage? Blink once for yes, twice for no.
They add value? They certainly vitiate the concept of “women-only” if you want to call that an “addition” or a “value.” Schrodinger’s Rapist? Yes, that’s one of our added values! Surprise!!Need? FFS. That’s just ridiculous. Are they a requirement like indoor plumbing, fire exits, and smoke alarms? Do shelters wait around until transwomen are installed before they’re allowed to open? Are the staff saying”Thank god our transwoman arrived! We’ve neede one for ages. Now we can let the women in!
Sharks are welcome in these spaces. They add amazing value to these spaces and we need them in these spaces.
Now you’re just rubbing it in our faces, aren’t you.
That whole idea that trans women are needed in women-only spaces reminds me of some research I was doing a couple of years ago for something I was writing. I was shocked to hear interviews with female medical students majoring in gynecology where the young women moaned that this field was now dominated by women. We need men, they cried. We need their perspective, they whined.
Bullshit. Women do not need men’s perspective on women’s health issues any more than men need women’s perspective on prostate problems. If the field has become dominated by women? So what. Rejoice. But no, the moment men disappear from any space, we must figure out what’s wrong. I hear too, too many people going on and on about how men are not being as well served by the colleges as women, because we’re teaching in ways that men can’t comprehend. We must change!!! Never mind that college was once seen as not suited for women because it was taught in ways women couldn’t comprehend.
Women do not need men in women only spaces. They add nothing unique or unusual to the perspective of women about domestic abuse of women by men, or about gynecology. If they do bring something unique or unusual, good chance that it’s wrong. THEY ARE NOT WOMEN, AND DO NOT KNOW WHAT IT MEANS TO BE ABUSED AS A WOMAN.
I will never cease to marvel at the cyclopean vacuity of the woke worldview and how it is circular in both self-justification as well as self-negation. With one hand, they make immutable categories’ place in an oppression hierarchy immutable and the absolute, inescapable rule of moral value. With the other, they permit self-determined, unquestionable labels to override any of the other hand’s categories.
I couldn’t face listening to the recording, but I read the letter. It is all posturing. The guidance recently published by the Equality and Human Rights Commission clarifies the point that it is legal for rape crisis services and similar organisations to exclude males, including trans women. It doesn’t say that they have to do this; it says that they legally can. Cue for several pages of outrage from Survivors’ Network, Brighton. Apparently this is one of those things that should not be said.
I see without surprise that Nancy Kelley, Stonewall’s chief executive, has endorsed this document on Twitter.
I couldn’t listen to much, but I heard enough to come to the opposite conclusion: she was the person pulled from the rubble, and was haltingly recounting her tale of woe. The rats nibbling at her toes, the freezing temperatures… all she was missing was a sad harmonica.