Universities UK? SHAMEFUL

So I gather together my FEMALE children who are GIRLS; my DAUGHTERS who are named - for the purposes of their underground FEMINIST activities from this point - Shark, Squirrel and Tiger.

I gather my children round my kitchen table and, with great restraint, do not show them how to create a home-made incendiary device.

No! I am grown up. I advocate other non-direct forms through which to demonstrate, protest, register my civil disobedience, and generally name-and-shame Universities UK, such as here, in my tiny allotment in blogland.

Because here is this week's situation, girl children of mine, my Women Warriors.

A Speaker (Mister X) says he will happily take up his right to freedom of speech in a university setting. But. Only if you, girl children, behave in ways of which he approves.

Such ways are simple. Sit where he wants you to sit, behave how he requires, and next year, in possibility, dress how he wants.

And why? Because he has a genuinely held religious belief. This, according to Universities UK, trumps your rights to freedom of choice and freedom of association. Your rights are of lesser worth than his. Because your rights are based on a history of movement towards equality for men and women, and his rights are based on a sky god.

SARCASM ALERT *** SARCASM ALERT

Yet gender segregation may be very wise!! Because, as every man knows, a woman's vagina is dangerous and irresponsible. Vaginas run amok at any moment, tempting men's dingly danglies. Men, who are weak, and unable to control making a blithering idiot of themselves at every opportunity, need to be protected. So, we could lock up all owners of vaginas in black shrouds where the vulnerable male is spared from such wanton temptation.

SARCASM OVER *** SARCASM OVER

I find a list is useful when my stomach is in full boil and the fingers are all jabby.

Daughters, have a list.

1. The moment anyone tells you they have a genuinely held religious belief, do not allow them to use this to claim authority, power, or moral ascendancy over you. Their belief does not give them more rights than you.

2. If any situation, constructed by people who have a genuinely held religious belief, denies you an equal freedom of choice or a freedom of association, then speak out on that injustice.

3. If anyone demands special treatment as a result of their genuinely held religious belief, question their demands closely. Equal male and female treatment in public places, social settings, and on a university campus - which should value intellectual rigour - is your right. Social niceties can oil the way or obscure the view. But they do not replace your right, and expectation, to equal treatment.

4. If anyone tells you that because of this genuinely held religious belief then we must respect and make normal the separation of people at a lecture/speaking event in a UK University, based on their gender/skin colour/hair colour/class background/ability to draw an orange, then I, Mother Spirit, expect you, Women Daughters, to protest. LOUDLY. Make your protest known at all levels in this society, from the top to the bottom, and back again.

5. If a speaker tells you they will only take up their right of freedom of speech if you, Woman, behave in a way that he demands, then you can be sure he is about to say exactly what you can't trust.