Feeling quite a bit better today, not enthusiastic enough to exercise though. So I'm pottering around doing small things. Dough for bread rolls is proving in the oven, pastry for some tarts is resting in the fridge, I've listed eight more items for sale online, and showered and dressed.
I had a quick look at The Guardian just now and while I was looking at an article [1] about the new head of the EHRC I noticed a link to another article [2]:
Caz Coronel was standing in the queue for the ladies’ at the Royal Festival Hall on London’s South Bank when she registered a male voice shouting across the vestibule: “The men’s toilets are on this side!”
At first the composer and producer paid little attention, until the man – whom Coronel describes as tall and in his late 60s – approached and touched her shoulder.
He continued to challenge her about being in the wrong queue until she asked him bluntly: “Do you want to see my tits?”
“It sounds funny, but at the time I was shocked,” she said. At that moment, another woman, who Coronel presumes was the man’s wife, ushered him away.
“I have short hair and don’t mind if people think I look male. I’ve often been called ‘Sir’ but when they see my face they either apologise or ask me politely what I like to be called. But I’ve never had anyone approach me before in such a publicly aggressive way.”
“What then flashed through my mind was: Is this what this ruling has done?”
The mirror image of my experience [3] in the gents in Coventry in the same month where someone called security because they thought a woman had entered the gents loo. Except that I didn't get to see my accuser.
The article goes on to say:
Claire Prihartini was diagnosed with breast cancer a year and a half ago. “I had a really lucky experience: I found out early, opted for a bilateral mastectomy and didn’t need further treatment.” Her chest is now flat, with two small scars and no nipples.
In May, Prihartini was in the women’s changing room area of her local pool. “I was standing with my top off in front of the mirror putting on my swimming cap. Another woman walked in, gasped audibly and said: ‘There’s a man in here!’ I said: ‘Oh I’m not a man …’ in a friendly way, then she said aggressively: ‘You look like a man, there aren’t meant to be men in here’ and continued to look at my body. I didn’t want to engage with her any further so I just walked off into the pool.”
@ninalanyon This is why people should really just mind their own business. It’s very easy to jump to conclusions, and while a situation might seem a bit unsettling, that doesn’t mean we should go straight off the deep end without asking a few questions first. And if there genuinely is a concern, it makes more sense to check on someone’s mental state rather than immediately assuming they’re up to no good.
