But even tweeting that one in ten people get endometriosis didn’t save Sefton Council from the wrath of Doctor Harrop.

https://twitter.com/AdrianHarrop/status/1234499456483151873

Apparently they were too busy replying to angry women who were pointing out that only women get endometriosis to do what Doctor Harrop told them to do, so he summoned reenforcements.

https://twitter.com/AdrianHarrop/status/1234520548023132161

That did it – 15 minutes later he was crowing about his knockout punch.

https://twitter.com/AdrianHarrop/status/1234529920040284160

But women? Bah, they can get in the sea.… Read the rest

Robin Buckallew is honoring Women’s History Month by writing something every day of the month that is in her words “about women, for women, by a woman.”

She introduces today’s item:

Well, here it is. March 1. Day One of Women’s History Month, and the first day of my third annual Women’s Writes marathon. For the next month, I will post something for you every day, unless in that time period I am rendered unable by external forces beyond my control. I will start this year with something yanked from my own life, the story – modified, of course – of something that happened to me because I am a woman.

I know it may be difficult to believe;

… Read the rest

Oh godddddd the stupid.

https://twitter.com/seftoncouncil/status/1234414844624936962

Awareness month! So inaccurate misleading language is vital! It’s VITAL I tell you!

When queried on this gross mistake, Sefton Council replied with a smirk.

https://twitter.com/seftoncouncil/status/1234460051265458181

Editing to add: they’re rubbing our noses in it.

March is also #OvarianCancerAwarenessMonth
Getting a diagnosis at the earliest stage can double a person's chance at survival which is why we think it's important to highlight some of the symptoms to help more people get diagnosed sooner!https://t.co/kQUU3gT7ym pic.twitter.com/pVuMFUVud7

— Sefton Council (@seftoncouncil) March 2, 2020

… Read the rest

I saw a tweet saying that Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre had made its toilets [restrooms in American English] gender neutral, so I decided to take a look at how it describes itself.

Our specialist trauma-informed support services are open to women, all members of the trans community, non-binary people and young people aged 12 – 18 who have experienced any form of sexual violence at any time in their lives, by abusers of any gender. This includes rape, sexual assault, sexual abuse, child sexual abuse and commercial sexual exploitation.

So their services are not open to men over 18 who don’t describe themselves as trans or non-binary, but they are open to men over 18 who do describe themselves … Read the rest

Hmm.

Really struck by Joe Biden’s words on the promise of equality in the Declaration of Independence: “We’ve never fully lived up to it, but we’ve never before, until this president, walked away from it.”

— Carlos Lozada (@CarlosNYT) March 1, 2020

Yes, that is striking, striking in being so very wrong. (That may be what Carlos Lozada meant; my disdain is for Biden, not him.)

Never before walked away from it? Is he kidding? Does he remember what “we” did to the people who were here first? The genocide, the mass expulsions, the theft, all that? Does he remember slavery?

Of course we’ve walked away from it before. We’ve failed to go anywhere near it at any time, before. … Read the rest

The UN reports:

Michelle Bachelet, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, has warned against complacency on women’s rights at an event marking the 25th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration, a landmark agenda for the empowerment of women.

…

“Women’s rights are threatened and attacked” on many fronts, she warned, adding that there over this period there has been “a backlash and the resurgence of gender inequality narratives based on age-old discrimination”.

And the surgence of male appropriation of everything belonging to women including the word “women.”

However, for the UN human rights chief, women’s rights are not negotiable: “they cannot be an optional policy, subject to the changing winds of politics,” she warned. According to Ms. Bachelet, the

… Read the rest

First you have to know that Jo Grady is the General Secretary of the University and College Union aka UCU.

https://twitter.com/shonfaye/status/1234050436514172928 https://twitter.com/DrJoGrady/status/1234060107903881217

So this is the General Secretary of the UCU cheering on Lola Olufemi’s success at getting Oxford feminist historian Selina Todd barred from giving her scheduled talk at a feminist history event.

It’s enough to make you lose your lunch.… Read the rest

As seen in #Liverpool…. pic.twitter.com/ECbgS0aEzy

— @LiverpoolReSisters (@LiverpoolReSis1) March 1, 2020

GENITAL

PREFERENCES

ARE

TRANSPHOBIC

As is everything else. Food preferences, weather preferences, dog preferences, book preferences, politics preferences – any kind of preference is transphobic, because.

You have been told.

Now see that you obey.… Read the rest

As usual, truth is the first victim. Jonathan Freedland at the Guardian:

The coronavirus crisis is a war against a disease, but it’s also the most serious battle yet in the war on truth. That much was clear from the start, as China moved to hush up the first outbreak and gag the doctor who had spotted it. It was a classic case of what we might call Chernobyl syndrome: the tendency of authoritarian systems to react to disaster by rushing to downplay or cover up the problem, focusing more on shifting blame than tackling the threat head on.

But this time it’s not just the openly, explicitly authoritarian states that are lying and hiding.

… this time, the

… Read the rest

I’ll skip that one, thanks.

https://twitter.com/BrizTransformed/status/1231688578868154368… Read the rest

https://twitter.com/VictoriaPeckham/status/1233802240932139009 https://twitter.com/VictoriaPeckham/status/1233802276046802945… Read the rest

In local news…

One person in King County has died due to a novel coronavirus infection, Public Health – Seattle & King County officials announced Saturday morning. It is the first death attributed to the virus in the United States.

Two people connected to a Kirkland long-term care facility have tested positive, officials said Saturday afternoon. A resident in her 70s is in serious condition, and a health employee in her 40s is stable. The long-term facility in Kirkland has 108 residents and 180 employees, according to the CDC.

At the Kirkland facility, 27 residents and 25 employees have symptoms.

So that’s not good.

Kirkland is 11 miles from where I’m sitting.

All local cases announced Saturday were acquired

… Read the rest

About those “people who were pulling out” – this is one:

So, it's become clear that at least one the factors in the no-platforming of @selina_todd by @womenslib_50 was because @lolaolufemi_ decided to pull out.

Here is Lola's statement just read out at the conference.@Womans_Place_UK #IStandWithSelina pic.twitter.com/8eCG3eed4l

— Dr. Jane Clare Jones (@janeclarejones) February 29, 2020

Lola Olufemi believes that feminism is “a political methodology that we can use to make demands for our freedom and the freedom of others” – why others? Why can’t women advocate for our own freedom? And feminism isn’t a “political methodology,” whatever that would mean, and it isn’t about “making demands” and it’s far broader than demands for “freedom.” In short her feminism … Read the rest

Well, that’s one I haven’t seen before.… Read the rest

Filia has the short talk that Selina Todd would have given this morning if she hadn’t been abruptly pushed out at the last minute.

I am delighted to be here today. I owe my life to Ruskin College and my career to feminism. My parents met at Ruskin in 1967. My mum was one of 6 children who grew up in a working-class family in Leeds. She was the only girl. Here’s something she wrote recently about her childhood: ‘As a five- or six-year-old I had refused to touch my parents’ birthday present of a doll with a pram, sensing the restriction such a role-defined toy would place on me. My brothers would never have been offered such a present.

… Read the rest

I’m now 14 minutes into the video.

The two women doing the explaining are getting increasingly frustrated that the audience won’t just say ok and settle down and keep their issues about Selina Todd’s exclusion for lunch and breaks, so that the event can proceed.

But the audience in turn is frustrated that the two women doing the explaining don’t seem to grasp the outrageousness of the last minute disinvitation of Selina Todd.

The “explanation” in part is that Todd wasn’t on a panel or giving a talk, she was simply doing a two-minute thank you for the history department. That’s all! Two minutes! A thank you! It doesn’t count! One of them actually says it’s not a no-platforming … Read the rest

So.

I will be at the conference tomorrow and I will be publicly denouncing their decision to bully Selina out of the event

— Julie Bindel (@bindelj) February 28, 2020

And she was and she did.

https://t.co/AT0PxUK3E5

— WorldGoneMad (@GenderfreeCamp) February 29, 2020

I’ve watched 7 minutes so far. It’s maddening to watch – maddening to see the women academics explaining to other women academics that they simply had to push Selina Todd aside because “people were pulling out.” Julie and others keep asking “But why were they pulling out, what explanation did they give?”

Julie is…magnificent, as always.… Read the rest