So much gloom, doom, and disaster that it’s important to find counterbalances. Here are a few recent bright spots.
Glasgow and Bristol and the USA
By all accounts, the Standing For Women event in Glasgow went extremely well. The videos show that the turnout was strong and many women were able to tell their stories. The opposition to women speaking was there of course, but not the expected crowd of furverts from the furries convention.
This is how Standing For Women describes these events:
We foster a community in which all women feel empowered to speak. We achieve this through our free speech events, they are free to attend.
All Speakers’ Corner and Let Women Speak events are held in outdoor public places. Places are chosen so that they are as accessible as possible and not far from public transport.
There are no tickets, anyone can turn up and anyone can speak (but we ask that men wait until the end). You can speak about whatever you like, these are free speech events, as long as what you want to say is legal
The Glasgow women’s rights event was reported in many UK media outlets and, of course,
READ THIS: Jo Bartosch’s excellent and entertaining account here
Twitter had full coverage:
listen to KJK’s intro speech – she is the best politician this country has – and best of all she isnt from any party
she is in the great tradition of extra parliamentary movers & shakers from the Levellers to Chartists to Suffragettes
a national treasure
— 🏴EnemyOfTheState (@squirrel2312) February 5, 2023
Kellie-Jay Keen is off to Australia and New Zealand in March and then Dublin in April and possibly Canada in May.
And best of all, she is going to stand for parliament in Keir Starmer’s London district of Holborn and St Pancras. This will force the issue into the spotlight and at the very least spur debate about Self-ID, women’s rights, and the dangers to children.
Starmer – in case you are unfamiliar with British politics – is the leader of the Labour Party and if Labour wins the next general election will become prime minister. Like most of the rest of his party and the Democrats here in the US, Starmer has been thoroughly captured by the ideology that puts Self-ID over women’s hard-fought legal rights to single-sex spaces and places.
And – if you are not familiar with what has been happening in Scotland – this gives a small taste of the recent furor over Self-Id and placing male sex offenders/rapists in women’s prisons.
Liberals and the left need to wake up from this fever dream and recognize that Self-ID (that allows any man to declare himself a woman) is not the new civil rights struggle. It is actually an attack on women’s rights and activism fueled by misogyny and homophobia. We need some leadership on this issue and stop ceding the high ground to the odious likes of Tucker Carlson, the GOP, and the Tories most of whom care for no one’s rights and interests save their own
Meanwhile in Bristol:
Bristol Students’ Union (SU) disciplined its feminist group Women Talk Back (WTB), for holding events for talks on rape and sexual assault for women only.A student complained. Bristol SU investigated and demanded that the WTB president Raquel Rosario Sanchez, stand down. She was banned from leadership posts for two years and the society was required to undergo an “equality, diversity and inclusion” course.Now, Bristol SU has admitted that “affiliated clubs and societies may lawfully offer single-sex services and be constituted as single-sex associations” under the Equality Act.Ms Rosario Sanchez, who is a PhD student at the University of Bristol’s Centre for Gender and Violence Research, said: “Through our experience, we’ve inspired the first recognition of single-sex societies as lawful in academia. Our story is about young women using their voice to make positive change that benefits all students, regardless of sex.”
The USA
Meanwhile here in the US it seems like the so-called equality act is dead in the water. You can read more about why that matters at this link.
Among other things, this would be a disaster for women’s competitive sports and Title IX.
Again – wake up Dems – we need you to think this one through and take some leadership.
New York City and the World
The food trucks along the Broadway side of Columbia University are proliferating. Here’s a sample:
And of course: Cats!
Sue’s “This Week in cats Newsletter” had Maria Laura Bratoz’s “Cat Lady.” It begs to be paired with Scott Mendenhall’s cartoon.
“Reasons to be cheerful” of course harks back to Ian Dury and the Blockheads and 1979.
I read Ian Dury’s biography a while back and found it very interesting – Ian Dury: The Definitive Biography 2010 by Will Birch. Here are a few of the song’s cheering items:
a melange of interesting contributions
“A weird cat who lives alone with eleven little old ladies” may be weird, but not alone. I’ve lived with ONE old (but once young) lady for over 50 years and, except when I’ve been in her doghouse, I’ve never been alone (but then, of course, a doghouse isn’t a cat house). 😉
Very punny mistermuse. A doghouse if most definitely not like a cat house just as dogs are not cats and neither of the dwellings where one might want to permanently reside. And you are correct – living with eleven people can hardly be said to be alone. Although as Kipling had it” ‘I am the Cat who walks by himself, and all places are alike to me.” Just so.
Like! (I clicked “Like” but it didn’t take.)
I love the cat with eleven little old ladies -lol! And I also love the food trucks – they’re getting quite popular now, eh? Although we don’t have an abundance of them here in New Zealand, of course. Speaking of “here in New Zealand”, I’m so looking forward to Kellie-Jay Keen’s visit here in the second half of March. I will absolutely be at one of the rallies, and will write about it on my Substack afterwards.
KJK is quite the grass-roots phenom, right? She sticks to a few simple basic truths and of course, comes in a non-stereotypically ‘feminist’ presentation package.
All power to her in peaking and activating women and thinking people everywhere to the danger of this pernicious ideology.
Looking forward to the stories about her antipodean travels and to your write-up providing yet more reasons to be cheerful.
Cheers!
You’ve nailed the heart of the matter, “an attack on women’s rights and activism fueled by misogyny and homophobia”. So easy to see if people would only look past the smoke and mirrors. I’m glad that more people finally are.
And fortunately there really is plenty to take heart in, and there are walks to take, things to create, and books to read. Thank you for providing a chuckle with the Mendenhall!
Thanks Julé.
Keep on keeping on, eh?
That said, I think it is important to be as supportive as we dare to those on the front lines of this – especially those with – or working with – children.
And listen to that phrase “as we dare”. I know of people working in schools who have said that to speak what they think would be a – and I quote – ‘”a career-ender”.
How is that any way acceptable?
(Don’t want to go over dramatic, but this resonates – I’ve just read Erika Mann’s “School for Barbarians” – 1939 – about the Nazification of German education.)
Yes, and keep on keeping on means ‘in real life’ work on issues that are important to me, and that includes fighting against the erosion of ground women have gained and trying to advance further.
I don’t think you are being over-dramatic at all, what people who are working in education now have to deal with is horrendous and dangerous for our future. They need all the support we can give them.
But I’ll still take walks, create things, and read (and appreciate cartoons), for my own sanity!
We are dealing with a contagious mass delusion when it comes to this ideology.
Once you accept that a man can become a women then there is nothing else he won’t take-over as his own.
Orwell named it.
2+2=5
“If the Führer wants it, two and two makes five!”- Hermann Göring’.
“Nazi theory, indeed, specifically denies that such a thing as “the truth” exists. There is, for instance, no such thing as “Science”. There is only “German Science”, “Jewish Science”, etc. The implied objective of this line of thought is a nightmare world in which the Leader, or some ruling clique, controls not only the future, but the past. If the Leader says of such and such an event, “It never happened”—well, it never happened. If he says that “two and two are five”—well, two and two are five. This prospect frightens me much more than bombs—and, after our experiences of the last few years that is not a frivolous statement.” – George Orwell , “Looking Back on the Spanish War” (1943)
I can safely say that I identify with the Mendenhall cartoon. Otherwise I am beginning to feel confused about just about everything. Often I have to go back through sentences several times to untie the strings and work out who is speaking in favour of whom. I do think though that to allow a man to say he is a woman just because he can….is warped.
Good point.
We cat staff are all owned by a cat.
Or cats!
It’s why I find it helpful to stick to the basics:
There are two sexes.
No one has ever changed sex.
Sex is determined at gestation, developed in utero, and observed at birth.
No one is born in the wrong body.
Puberty is difficult for everyone but is an essential developmental stage.
Society makes life hard for those who do not conform to sexist stereotypes.
There is a huge range of what it means to be a man and a woman.
We are all heterosexual, homosexual or bisexual.
Non-binary and all the rest of queer theory and gender ideology are a nonsense.
There are good reasons for the protections of same rights when it comes to women’s safety, privacy and sports.
Self-ID is a charter for misogyny, abuse, and erasure of women.
Autogynephilia (AGP) is a social problem when allowed to influence social policy.
There is a minority with a dangerous self-serving agenda and we need to protect children
The progress and lessons of 120+ years of the women’s right movement and 50+years of the gay rights movements must not be trashed.
We cannot go back to regressive notions of masculine and feminine sexist stereotypes.
It’s tiresome and important in equal measure.
Cats are good!
Amongst every day there are reasons to be cheerful…sometimes it is garden to find them..they usually get drowned out by the negative feelings that are the voice of the bad. But write each day and I find the twinkling highs, and those of comfort, too often lost in the thorns and clanging cymbal…one great joy always is finding your new blog.
What a lovely thing to say! Thank you.
As always, a great read
Thanks Michael.
Thanks for reading and thanks for the comment.