Women plus
I see this from Maya:
So I investigate. The British Library is having an exhibition April 24-August 23 2020 on women’s rights. Unfinished Business, it’s called.
Image: Designed by Shakila Taranum Maan for Southall Black Sisters
It starts out well enough.
From bodily autonomy and the right to education, to self-expression and protest, this new exhibition explores how feminist activism in the UK today has its roots in the complex history of women’s rights.
Be inspired by those who paved the way – from Cornelia Sorabji, the first woman to study law at Oxford University, to Hope Powell, the first British woman to gain the highest European football coaching licence. Meet lesser-known Suffragettes such as Sophia Duleep Singh and challengers of recent years such as the No More Page 3 campaign.
But then…
Take to the keyboard and the streets by exploring the work of contemporary activist groups working online and offline today. Get to grips with the causes they fight for, from ending period poverty and securing abortion rights to telling the stories of women and non-binary people of colour.
STOP
What do “non-binary people” have to do with anything? Why can’t women’s rights be about women’s rights any more? Why do we always have to add an extra, as if women are so fucking trivial that we can’t just have our own damn movement for half the god damn population?
If there are women who don’t want to be called women but prefer to go by “non-binary” then good luck to them, but they don’t get to take a chain saw to women’s movements. They can join the movement as women or they can piss off, but they don’t get to change the women’s movement to the women and non-binary people’s movement. Enough with this pandering bullshit.
If they don’t consider themselves women, why would they even want to be a part of this?
“Women’s movement? That’s me out, then. Hey, wait for me!”
Yes yes yes!
(Hey, I’m no longer in permamod! Yay!)
They don’t want to be women, but they want to make sure women don’t have anything they don’t have.
Hatred for women.
Agreed on the totally superfluous “non-binary” BS.
I’m a bit more ambivalent about her comment dismissing “period poverty”. Sure, she can point to cheap online pads. Which is great, if you have an internet connection, and live in a neighborhood where packages can be safely delivered and still expect them to be on the doorstep when you get home.
OTOH, Ms. Forstater doesn’t have to be right about everything in order to be right about the absurd, ridiculous and often harmful torturing of the English language on display in that announcement.
Yes, I don’t agree with the period poverty bit either, but as you say – we don’t need to agree on every single thing.
(That part appeared only because threaded tweets appear in twos.)
@Freemage Yeah, I wasn’t in love with the period poverty dismissal either. It’s a real thing.
Maybe Tesco does sell pads for 66p for 14. Great, if you can walk to a Tesco store. Oh, wait, they’re mostly out of town megastores that you’d at least have to get a bus to. Or maybe 2 buses. Where I used to live, buses were a pound flat fare.
And 14 pads sounds like a lot, but back before I got my implant, 14 pads were 2-3 days worth, depending on my flow. I’d have needed at least 3 packs to get through a typical period. So, the cost of one period? 2 quid, assuming as I mentioned, that I didn’t have to also pay bus fare. And let’s hope I’ve planned ahead enough that I won’t run out. Toilet paper in my knickers is not a good alternative.
Two pounds may not sound like a lot. But to many people, it unfortunately is. I’ve been there, where every single penny is carefully accounted for, free newspapers and junk mail carefully checked for coupons, not a single scrap of fat in the budget. And you’re still robbing Peter to pay Paul. Should I pay the gas bill or the electric? Can I get my landlord to wait a day or two for the rent? Maybe the nice woman next door could lend me a little milk until tomorrow. Although I probably owe her about a gallon now.
People who think 66p is so little money that anyone would be able to rustle it up know nothing about poverty.
Claire – and that’s for people who live in a place where there is bus service. In the US, a lot of people live in areas that are not served by mass transit (I am among those people). There is no such thing as Tesco, and I’m not sure if you can get cheap pads anywhere else because I haven’t needed them in a long time, but the last time I needed them, I was desperately poor. Food stamps will not cover feminine hygiene; I was often reduced to borrowing from my sisters, but that led to the undesirable situation of them essentially buying for me, which they couldn’t afford to do, either, except to loan me a couple now and then.
Toilet paper in my underwear was sort of a staple for me at that time; I guess it was fortunate I was anorexic, which made my periods much lighter (but not light enough for toilet paper to be adequate). And I couldn’t actually afford toilet paper, either.
@iknklast oh yes. I was only referring to the UK but you’re right, it’s even worse here. As a British immigrant, I have to say I am glad I have never been poor here. It was hard enough in Britain, where we have much more of a safety net. I would imagine Walmart sell cheap pads, but again they are not the kind of store you can walk to. And you’re right, very little public transport here.
It is bizarre and fascinating in a horrifying sort of way that the US both hates poor people and attempts to make as many of them as possible. The only reason I can think of to do that is it is easier to suppress the voices of the poor; a thriving democracy needs a thriving middle class. Push the polling stations out of town, use voter ID to literally price people out of voting, whip up racism to pit poor whites against poor blacks so they can’t band together. Crush the unions, and divide, divide, divide. Divide until nobody can see how they’ve been systematically and systemically robbed.
re period poverty in the UK:
It doesn’t matter how cheap ‘sanitary’ products are, lots of women will still put other people’s needs above theirs and do without. They’re expected to do without. What they need is not seen as important. So of course period poverty will happen, regardless of how cheap period-related products are.
I work with some homeless charities. They do great work but they constantly need reminding that lots of women are homeless too. The fact that tampons and pads can be cheap shouldn’t be an excuse to force homeless women in particular and women in general to prioritise food and other people above another basic need.
I also work with a young carers charity. The vast majority of young carers are teenage girls. They are often under extreme pressure to put the adults in their charge ahead of themselves and in many cases those adults are incapable or unwilling to acknowledge the fact that their children have periods.
There absolutely is period poverty in the UK. Of course there fucking is.