FREEDOM!!!! [4]

absurd it is to have a bloke in charge of "period dignity".- Figg

{{ Your doing exactly what the right wing press have done, youve latched onto the stupid job title, not what the job actually entails, which is nothing exceptional or of worth being troubled by at all. Its just another council administrator role.}}

The job actually entails ......
"His role will also see him discussing pads, tampons and the rest with pupils and students in schools and colleges in the region. Or...

An unqualified cigarette salesman goes into schools and talks about something he has zero experience of to prepubescent girls, some of whom will be of religious minorities.....but regardless of what the grinning idiot actually does..

"I bet girls can't wait to ask for his advice on dealing with cramps, the correct insertion of tampons and how to handle leakage in public."

Not to mention female adults who have noticed a slight flaw in the £35,000pa job....

"Scottish writer Susan Dalgety spoke all women when she tweeted: 'Wonder if he's ever experienced the horror of a blood-stained dress in public, or the gut-wrenching fear of a missed period? No, didn't think so.'

No, me neither. You might feel its ok to throw the GBNews thing back in my face and that is the last time that I am going to share my political views if they going to be used as ammo just because I dared to criticise the SNP.

{{ its nothing to do with criticising the SNP- this mans appointment has nothing to do with the SNP. He was appointed by Tayside Council for their region. The only people trying to tie the SNP to this story are the right wing press. As you yourself have pointed out the closest to any official opinion on this from the SNP was Blackford and he hedged his bets on the side of caution and criticised it. But this appointment had nothing to do with him or anyone else in the SNP.

And where did you get the bit about him discussing pads ect?- because that is not what Tayside Council say they hired him for. And I have seen no offical release of his job description which includes that.
And what does 'discuss' entail? Tell them they are avaialble, teling them the law exists and they can avail themselves of it?
Why would he be teaching them about insertion, or cramps when that is all covered in school education? And when the law he has been hired to implement is solely to do with providing free products, and has nothing to do with their usage. }}

{{ Decided to do some journalist digging on this seeing as our actual journalist dont seem interested!

This it turns out is super simple- the local council in Tayside have had a unit in place for years who go into the community and try to raise awereness and discussion around varies social issues, including but not confined to periods and related period issues, equal rights and promoting equality and fighting discrimination. The unit is made up of a variety of people, most paid some voluntary and consists of a variety of folks of all genders. And in all the time its been up and running not a single comment or complaint has been made about it in Tayside where it operates. Nor has any press every shown the slightest interest.

Then the Scottish Govt (unanimously, including Tory votes) pass the law on free sanitary products and hand it over to local councils to decide how they want to best implement it.
Tayside council already having a unit doing similar work in similar areas decided rather than make yet another unit they would simply hire an administrator for the existing group to take on the added workload of organising putting the new law into action.

Thats it. Unfortunately they gave him a job title that the right took umbrage with and then the right wing press, quite delibretly conflated the work the unit has already done for years - going into the community, talking to young girls and women and other- and his role as administrator. Purely in order to create a scandal out of nothing.

Why do that? Well the alternative was to have to report that the SNP had passed a popular bill thats good for folk. Instead none of the Scottish newspapers actually gave any prominance to the passing of a world first law in this field, burying that in a column several pages in, and instead this made up story was their headlines, allowing them to turn a good news story into what they hoped was a bad news story. And they largely succeeded thanks to certain celebs and prominent twitter types believing what the right wing press were saying and unknowingly doing the work for them by attacking it, making the false story even bigger and further burying the real good news story exactly as the right wing had hoped.

Don't be hard on yourself for falling for it Figg- you clearly weren't alone, but having been reading the Scottish press and how they manipulate these things for decades now I am perhaps better placed to spot their machinations.
Bu the person who has come out worse from it all is the poor innocent guy they hired as adminstrator who has had to essentially go into hiding and has received all sorts of unpleasant messages and threats as a result of it. Of course the right wing press dont care about that sort of thing- they got what they wanted out of it.}}

So an own goal then. All they needed to do was lose the ridiculous job title and/or hire a female. Then there wouldn't have been any beef.

{{ Stupid job title, the sex of the person here is irrelvant as they are just admining the unit that is already there that does the actual stuff. Not sure about an own goal- the press still delibretly conflated two different things to create a scandalous sounding story, granted the stupid job title gave them an in, but its no excuse for the journalism. }}

5 0r 10 years ago they could have just got away with a bloke doing the admin for period products, but now women's spaces are under attack from the gender woo woo ideologues, its all out war, every inch disputed. And its not just he right wing press spinning stuff, its women's groups who are mainly on the left who are getting involved because they see it as an example of the steady erosion of rights and infiltration. Whether he only does admin or not, its still not a good look.

its all out war, every inch disputed.- Figg

{{Two wrongs dont make a right. Its bullying plain and simple. There is not a single sensible or credible reason why this admin job cannot be done by a man or a woman or anyone else for that matter. Its wrong when its women bullied, wrong when its a man bullied. Wrong when anyone is bullied. This guy has been bullied into hiding and faced threats, over nothing at all, he isnt a criminal, he hasnt done anything wrong, he applied for a good job with a decent wage, doing things which help people in his community and his reward is to be unfairly bullied and abused. }}

He should have thought about that before he went for the job. But the money was probably the big draw. Ethics is not really his strong point as he sold cigarettes for a living. Also I think you are spinning it to make it seem as if he is in a safe house under police protection. He got a bit of bad press and his employers did nothing to help sort things out. They seem to have been silent on the matter, so maybe you should blame them.

{{ I assume therefore youd be just as hostile, given men cant have babies and dont have a womb, to male midwives, which Scotland has had for centuries? Should we ban all male midwives, what about male Doctors, or pregnancy after care? Or is it just periods for some reason that are ringfenced from all men?

And the council has backed hm and made statements- I quoted one above, the right wing press either dont report it or bury it as it contradicts their narrative.

And noone complains the other way round- the vast amount of carers and nurses in the UK are stll female, so as a man when I discovered a worrying lump on a testicle a few years back the only appointment I could get quickly was with a female Doctor, so I had to go whip it out in her office and have her poke and prod, dignified? No, but I didnt for one second question her professionalism because it was a woman and I might have fet a bit awkward- that was my problem not hers, she was doing her job, and she did it well. And when I went for treatment it was a female nurse prepared the relevant area for treatment. I could not have given a shit it was a woman as long it wa sprofessional and I was getting the treatment I needed.

If your a man who needs to go into care and requires personal care- ie need someone to bathe and wash you, put on and replace cathatars etc 99% of the time a woman will be doing it. And as one of a very few male care workers (especially when I started out over 30 years ago in care work) I am more than aware of the sensibilities arund the issue as I have to provide personal care to many women over the years. Should I have been banned for doing so because I am a man?
Its just a bit ridiculous to me this whole thing.}}

This has zero to do with medicine or caring. Obviously both men and women are equally capable of being doctors or carers. So don't understand what you are on about. Repeat, we are not talking about medical roles.
This guy is not medically trained is he. He has no medical experience, and no personal experience, he has no physical experience. he is just an ex-fag seller who got lucky. Big difference.

{{ I have no medical experience, I am not a nurse, I have never sat medical exams, the qualifications for being a carer back when I started was 'do you want the job?' "yes" "good youre hired."
I ws 18 years old and so green the first room I got sent to to get someone dressed I walked in and she was standing completely naked in the middle of the room, I went bright red turned my back and apoligised lol- I was that green at the job.

I have had to apply creams, medicines and the like to every body  part conceivable male and female, bath and shower and clean up folk, dress and undress them and I have had to discuss personal medical issues like UTI's with women (urinary tract infection- really common in elderly ladies in care homes) and a host of other very personal things inluding menapause related issues. I have sat with the dying till their time comes more often than I care to remember. And there is no other moment in life more personal.
But by your attitude I should have been held up to national pilloring, shunned, shamed on social media and left open to abuse for doing so. I do not and never will accept this. Its sexism. Nothing more. }}

wow, that escalated. Why are you equating his job and yours, its totally inappropriate to make one sound like the other. He is never going to be physically touching women in his job so why the comparison. It is perfectly acceptable for male carers, but not acceptable for some random bloke giving advice about something he has no personal experience about, nor will ever have. If he is in the background counting packets and giving free samples, and I suppose he is good at selling and grinning, thats fair enough, but I doubt he even gives a toss about 'period dignity', the money is good, its better than selling fags, nuff said.

'Why are you equating his job and yours, its totally inappropriate to make one sound like the other.'

'having a young man talking to middle aged women about menopause is quite frankly taking the piss.' - Figg

{{I have done this, more than once. So I presumably was taking the piss.

'he used to sell fags so what the fuck does he know.'

I used to sell my mates small bits of dope, technically and legally worse, what relevance does it have on my ability to show empathy, compassion, and to offer help and advice to women under my care? What difference does him selling cigarrettes make?

''hiring a dude is ridiculous.'

I heard this (and worse) more than once in one form or another when I started in care work and was often the only male in the place.

'you have never had a period so cant comprehend how dumb and absurd it is to have a bloke in charge'

I will never have a menopause but Ive discussed it, I will never have a mastectomy, but Ive helped women cope and heal mentally after one. And Ive been Senior on shifts plenty times, in charge.

'women's spaces are under attack'

So if what this man is doing is an attak on women spaces then you are also accusing me of having spent my working life attacking womens spaces and I do the same thing as part of my job.

'it as an example of the steady erosion of rights and infiltration.'

I never eroded anyones rights, nor will this man doing his job erode anyones rights, and I dont even know what inflitration means in this context. I helped people. Women included.

'Whether he only does admin or not, its still not a good look.'

So in fact it doesnt matter if he is really infringing womens rights or eroding or inflitrating them, if it looks bad its justified to attack the person?

Everything you accuse this man of doing in his job, I have been doing in mine for over 30 years, with no more formal medical training than he has. So yes it may as well be saying I have spent my life patronising, insulting, mansplaining, and harming womens spaces.
I however remember it as making good friends, and losing good friends, hearing incredible life stories, gaining new perspectives, and having good laughs and moments of sadness and lot of frustrations at the job and at life. I remember trying to make peoples lives, which were not good, for whatever reason, a tiny bit better. I remember not being paid nearly enough!

But your whole argument is that a man should not do the things I do.}}

So if it is all so logical why did Ian Blackford say it would have been better for a woman to take the job?

Nowhere have I disputed that men cant do medical or caring jobs, but medical and caring jobs are neutral, and not sex specific. The word 'carer' is sex neutral, it is not gendered, therefore either sex can do a good job. You can be helping men and women as part of the job. But you seem determined to make this argument about you, which adds confusion to the debate, because we are not arguing about care work, or even men in carers jobs. We are discussing a non-medical admin position with the title of 'period dignity'. This is a gendered role, and it doesn't concern men. It is solely gendered towards young females, and I also presume carers don't work with adolescent females and schools. Some jobs are just better left to women as other women feel more comfortable with them. Anything concerning periods, menopause and birth are in that category. I don't know why you are taking it so personally, do you know the guy?

I wouldn't have any objection to a woman being put in charge of distributing condoms and advertising the same. If she needs advice from men she can get it easily enough. But I'd rather directly buy a pack off a man.

Not sure why you two are actually arguing.

I wouldn't have any objection to a woman being put in charge of distributing condoms and advertising the same.- Halfy

{{ That is what we are arguing over. Figgs thinks if a man who is not medically qualified does what this guy has been hired for, or has to talk about periods or menopause to women as part of his work, it is insulting to women, and infringement on womens spaces and fundementally wrong. And only a woman should be allowed to do such a job.

As someone who has done all these things their whole working life as part of their job I fundementally disagree. Particularly with the sentiment - "This is a gendered role, and it doesn't concern men."- Figg

I do not believe it is a gendered role, and I think with human empathy, compassion and understanding regardless of anyones gender it can and should concern everyone, including men.
We keep dividing ourselves into factions, political, racial and now gender. When none of that is the point or at all useful.
In this case what matters is this guy does his job well and if he does he will be helping people. Thats all that actually matters.

Not sure why you two are actually arguing.- Halfy

Well, its been a while, its tradition! }}

Pettytyrant101 wrote:

{{ That is what we are arguing over. Figgs thinks if a man who is not medically qualified does what this guy has been hired for, or has to talk about periods or menopause to women as part of his work, it is insulting to women, and infringement on womens spaces and fundementally wrong. And only a woman should be allowed to do such a job.

Not sure why you two are actually arguing.- Halfy

Well, its been a while, its tradition!   }}

No, what I am arguing is that hiring some random dude with a job title called "period dignity" is fundamentally taking the piss. No young woman I have ever met wants to talk about periods with a man. It is a highly embarrassing subject and anyone with a shred of empathy would have hired a female.

Dont worry Halfy, just girding the loins for some serious grass length flame wars.

{{ It occorded to me earlier- you now how companions when the Doctor is being, well not human, tend to say things like "you've been travelling alone for too long".
Well this debate is what happens when Figg and I AGREE on Who for too long. Luckily RTD is coming back to make things nice and argumentative again   }}

Mrs Figg wrote:[
No, what I am arguing is that hiring some random dude with a job title called "period dignity" is fundamentally taking the piss. No young woman I have ever met wants to talk about periods with a man. It is a highly embarrassing subject and anyone with a shred of empathy would have hired a female.

Dont worry Halfy, just girding the loins for some serious grass length flame wars.  

That's why I'm saying I'm not sure what you are arguing about. His job isn't talking to women. Then you told Petty that in all the circumstances he outlined it's perfectly fine for a man to be talking to a woman. So any way you cut it, there's nothing to see here.

{{ Staying on the topic of bias press reporting, but a different subject- there has been a nasty issue with sewage being dumped into the sea, leading to a spate of stories on the BBC covering it- Ill give you the bare bones of how theyve reported in each case-

'Water companies are facing mounting criticism from environmental campaigners and politicians over sewage being pumped on to British beaches.'

'data revealed many monitoring devices used by firms across the UK did not work at least 90% of the time or had not been installed at all.'

'a Water UK spokesperson said water firms "agree there is an urgent need" for action and were investing more than £3bn to improve overflows as part of a wider national environmental programme between 2020 and 2025.'

'Water companies have been accused of failing to monitor sewage discharges at popular British seaside resorts.'

'Most of the UK has a combined sewerage system, meaning that both rainwater and wastewater (from toilets, bathrooms and kitchens) are carried in the same pipes to a sewage treatment works.'

'Raw sewage was pumped into rivers and seas about 375,000 times in 2021, according to the Environment Agency.'

Now you might wonder what the problem with the reporting is? Well the issue is the continued reference to UK and British. All these stories are based solely on the released figures for England and Wales. It is not UK or British at all.

Further to that they all fail to mention Scotland at all, or the fact that unlike England which has a confusing myriad of private water companies, Scotland has one public body, Scottish Water.
And whilst sewage discharge is indeed a problem here, in that ideally it should nto occur at all, it is a fraction of the problem it is in England and Wales. Yet nowhere in any of the articles is this mentioned, instead although they do within the articles mention the figures are for England and Wales only, the lead ins and headlines, the bits most folk actually read, are deeply misleading in implying this is all the same UK wide.

The interesting question is why? Is it just so as not to let the english know that this problem is nothing like as major here and is down to the governance in England and Wales, or that it is because we have a public owned company running it? I am not sure why they are trying to avoid giving this information, and why they seem determined to give the impression this problem is the same across Britain. But for some reason they have been.}}

I wonder what is going to happen when the shit literally hits the beach and starts to affect tourism. The EU has nice clean beaches and England has beaches with floating jobbies. When will people wake up and realise the Tories have unleashed unregulated standards of the like we haven't seen in decades. This makes me laugh a bit. Lake Windermere has water as toxic as cobra venom.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/aug/24/it-stinks-lake-windermere-plagued-by-blue-green-algae-as-toxic-as-cobra-venom

when the shit literally hits the beach - Figg

{{it apparently already is in England

This map sums up how badly Englands water has been managed under private companies-



And that was 7 years ago- its got worse down south since then.

But my favourite thing so far was this-



}}

Two things to say:

1. Papers will print whatever headline is most likely to get eyes on it. I wouldn't say just yet it's an attempt to deflect from cleaner water in Scotland
2. Scotland has a lower population density, so before you declare better management you have to adjust for that.

After years of reviewing scientific papers my antennae are up with respect to slipshod comparisons. Even if the claim is correct is must be correctly supported.

{{ On point 1 I agree, however there is no reason in this case to use UK or Britain, all the content of the articles relates solely to figures for England and Wales that were recently released and talks solely about beaches and rivers located within England and Wales. Trust me when something bad happens in Scotland its reported as Scottish not British. This only happens this way round. Its like the old joke- 'when Andy Murray wins Wimbeldon he's British, when he gets knocked out in the first round he's Scottish.' And they think we dont notice!

On point 2 most comparisons take population differences into account. Its not that it doesnt happen in Scotland, it does, and the main reason driving it is climate change, which in the Uk mainfests largely as even more rain.
Our sewage system, especially in big cities like London or Glasgow are Victorian, amazing impressive feats of engeneering but not how you'd build them now. Everything, household, street drains, toilets, it all goes into the same sewers, and when there is excessive rain as there has been the sewers will overflow. As a result water companies are allowed in emergencies to discharge water into rivers or the sea to prevent it backing up into peoples homes.

This has happened in Scotland 12,725 times in 2020. Which is a lot, far too much still. But in England it happend a staggering 400,000 times 2020. The population of England is 55 million, Scotland 5.5 million.

As another disadvantage to the sewers being victorian the infranstructure is often in need of repair, water pipes breaking and causing massive leaks and even flooding is not unknown. And the logistics of replacing them and having to dig up entire cities poses an issue for an easy solution and vast cost.

Another reason its worse in England is geography, its lower lying and has a lot of natural flood plains and areas that without human management would still be vast fens. So flooding is a much bigger issue there.

On the otherhand the English has a lot of private companies who charge considerably more than the publically owned Scottish Water does, and as a public company Scottish Water by law has to put 60% of its profits straight back into the company, resulting in Sotland investing on average 35% more in infrastructure improvements than England per capita. We also pay about 30% less in tax for it than English companies are charged for water in England (and in large parts of England tap water is undrinkable, chalky, and nasty).

During the same period of investmentin Scotland the English water companies, all private, paid out £57 million to shareholders and directors pay increased by 8% to £12.9 million as of 2019 whilst investment in infrastructure fell.
Not only that the investments they did make, according to a study by the University of Greenwich into water supply in the different parts of the UK, were largely forced on them-

'Their research concluded that at least half the investment made by the water companies since privatisation was due to EU directives and regulations. That is, the companies made the investment because they had to. They didn’t do so happily either. In fact, the UK government tried to exempt the private water companies from having to make the improvements but the European Commission denied the bid.'

And of course now we are no longer in the EU there is no longer the pressure from there to fulfill those old obligations.

To make matters worse the Tories voted down amendments to the environment bill in England and Wales-

'removing a requirement for sewage companies to “take all reasonable steps to ensure untreated sewage is not discharged from storm overflows” and to “demonstrate improvements in the sewerage systems”.

So England has more geographical issues with flooding, poorer infrastructure, lots of prvate companies more interested in profit for shareholders than investment, and a Tory government who aid and abet in not holding them to account or enforcing standards and whose Brexit takes off any European pressure to maintain standards.

Those are the core reasons its worse in England. }}