Deny women and you’ll hear us roar
I APPLAUD the Mail for standing up for women and free speech with a front page celebrating the England women’s victory at the Euros, stating: ‘In an age where women’s very existence is being denied, this glorious show of bold femininity can change the world.’
I am an ordinary woman, a single parent of two, who grew up in the 1980s when Cagney and Lacey were my role models. Businesswoman wore big shoulder pads and Margaret Thatcher was prime minister. I learned about the suffragettes who suffered so much to win women the right to vote. The feminists who came in the 1970s battled for a woman’s right to a voice, equal pay and the same education as men. The girls of today, including my teenage daughter, have everything because of those from the past who broke out from the kitchen and refused to carry on being second-class citizens. And yet all these freedoms are under attack and could be lost. Suddenly I am no longer a women, I am a cis woman. If I object to unisex toilets I am accused of being transphobic. I watch in despair as trans women compete in women’s sport. Former Olympic swimmer Sharron Davies has lost sponsorship for standing her ground in defence of women athletes. J. K. Rowling is being treated as a pariah by those whose acting careers she helped to launch. My friend went to the pub wearing a T-shirt with the slogan ‘Woman: noun, adult human female’ and was asked to leave for causing offence.
My aunt has to attend training sessions at work on the use of pronouns. As ‘he’ and ‘she’ are not inclusive, you have to say: ‘Can you pass them/they a pencil.’ Please understand, I would never tell anyone what to be and support those who are unhappy and need to change. I totally respect them. But please do not tell me what I am and criticise me for saying I am a woman.
Let us have safe female spaces, say what we are, use language correctly and stop telling us we are transphobic. Women like me may be quiet, but we are simmering. We feel confused and hurt. If things don’t start to change, society will hear us roar, as we roared before. Enough will be enough because we will not allow our rights to be erased. My thanks to all those in the public eye who stand their ground and to the Daily Mail for having the guts to support women. It gives me hope. I don’t want protesters who don’t agree with my views turning up on my doorstep shouting and waving placards, so I regret I must be: