Laura Bates & Everyday Misogyny

[HappenedXo]

There’s an article by Laura Bates in the Daily Mail today. In it she bewails the fact that when she goes to talk in schools, teenage boys are increasingly misogynistic and disbelieving. She puts this down to online radicalisation in terms of exposure to incels, MRAs, gaming, etc (which I agree with, as far as it goes).

What has left me so annoyed, though, is that she utterly fails to recognise that the TWAW mantra is part of this. Women, actual women, have been marginalised. We’re called uterus havers & people who menstruate. Our fears of male violence are belittled and sneered at. Our wish for the dignity & privacy of single sex spaces has been labelled ‘transphobic’. We’re shouted down when we try to discuss our concerns. This forum even is patrolled by people who want to stop us discussing women’s safety and dignity & privacy & the need for single sex spaces.

And as far as I know Everyday Sexism has been entirely on board with this roll back of rights! It has consistently supported the idea that biological males are women, in some mysterious unbiological way, and need the support of feminism. Which brings with it all the issues outlined above. Loss of privacy dignity & safety. Loss of our role as women. Loss of freedom to argue for our rights. Men in women’s prisons & sports. Inability to measure the sexual pay gap. Inability to measure male rates of sexual assault. Loss of feminism as a woman focused movement.

The TWAW mantra is part of exactly the rising misogyny Laura describes in her article. Not just a part- it’s a huge, integral part. A fundamental undermining of the concept of ‘woman’ on which so many of our rights depend. It’s both a symptom and a cause of misogyny and the MRA movement. And yet she’s utterly blind to it. She can’t see the misogyny, and the threat to women, in a movement she has supported. Why?

[HyperboleKnickers]

I didn't know that LB had been captured by the ideological nonsense and it's very disappointing to hear that.

She should read your opening post, it was bang on.

[SunsetBeetch]

@HyperboleKnickers

I didn't know that LB had been captured by the ideological nonsense and it's very disappointing to hear that.

She should read your opening post, it was bang on.

I was just going to say, is there any way we can contact her?

[ChakaDakotaRegina]

The comments on that article are terrifying.

[SunsetBeetch]

Link: www.google.com/amp/s/www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-8691179/amp/Cult-misogyny-poisoning-minds-LAURA-BATES-discovers-boys-brainwashed-hate-women.html

[Wbeezer]

My sons don't believe TWAW but two of them (the pair that watch a lot of youtube and do online gaming) do spout some cynical stuff about women, they seem particularly concerned about women and girls weaponising sexual assault allegations and diversity hiring, i always challenge them and they di seem to save these views for hypothetical women rather than women they know IRL. i don't like it though.
I don't think the two issues are inextricably linked but they do work in parralel to undermine feminism.

[SpaceOP]

I'm not sure I 100% agree with you. The two are linked, definitely, but I often think the TWAW thing is at least partially the result of this increasing idea that MEN are hard done by and that their rights are being trampled. This then opens the door to this idea that whoopee, instead, let's just say we're women because they have it soooo much better than us. Which of course, is complete bollocks and completely ignores all this shit about women's safety etc.

I had an interesting conversation with DS who is 9 the other day. He often goes into the mens bathrooms etc by himself as he's too old to come with me. But we were at a major train station and I was very uncomfortable with him going to the men's alone. He knows I worry about men doing "bad things" but he asked me, "But mum, why do you trust men so much less than women. That's not fair." Luckily, that's an easy one to nip in the bud because I was able to tell him, 100% honestly, that unfortunately, it is just a fact that men are more likely to do bad things to children than women. If you ask the police, they'll tell you that it's much more often men they have to arrest etc etc.

But what scares me, is that right now, he's asking ME these questions. And I can answer them. But what happens in a few years when he gets caught up on some YouTuber who rants about how men are unfairly accused and are also victims of domestic violence etc etc etc? I have to just keep trying to instil this reality in him NOW while I still can.

[Annasgirl]

@SpaceOP

I'm not sure I 100% agree with you. The two are linked, definitely, but I often think the TWAW thing is at least partially the result of this increasing idea that MEN are hard done by and that their rights are being trampled. This then opens the door to this idea that whoopee, instead, let's just say we're women because they have it soooo much better than us. Which of course, is complete bollocks and completely ignores all this shit about women's safety etc.

I had an interesting conversation with DS who is 9 the other day. He often goes into the mens bathrooms etc by himself as he's too old to come with me. But we were at a major train station and I was very uncomfortable with him going to the men's alone. He knows I worry about men doing "bad things" but he asked me, "But mum, why do you trust men so much less than women. That's not fair." Luckily, that's an easy one to nip in the bud because I was able to tell him, 100% honestly, that unfortunately, it is just a fact that men are more likely to do bad things to children than women. If you ask the police, they'll tell you that it's much more often men they have to arrest etc etc.

But what scares me, is that right now, he's asking ME these questions. And I can answer them. But what happens in a few years when he gets caught up on some YouTuber who rants about how men are unfairly accused and are also victims of domestic violence etc etc etc? I have to just keep trying to instil this reality in him NOW while I still can.

Yes x 100. That is why the policing of women’s speech is so horrifying

[SpaceOP]

@Wbeezer:

they seem particularly concerned about women and girls weaponising sexual assault allegations and diversity hiring,

In this article is a brilliant clip from Trevor Noah on this: www.irishexaminer.com/opinion/commentanalysis/arid-30875448.html

If you think it would work, it's worth getting your DSs to watch this....

[Wbeezer]

Thanks @SpaceOP I'll l check that out.
They do seem to be parotting things they have heard others saying rather than holding deep convictions. They are scathing about incels and do have healthy relationships with girls. In fact now I think about it they have been appalled about sleazy behaviour from men towards their female friends/girlfriends too so at least there's some balance!

[SpaceOP]

The point he makes about very very few men have ever been falsely accused vs most women experiencing sexual harassment, if not sexual abuse, is probably as true for their extended group as it is for his audience. So it is useful. He's very clever alongside his funniness.

[queenofknives]

I think Laura Bates has a book coming out, so...

[AlwaysTawnyOwl]

Its a mystery to me why Laura Bates has this blind spot

. Glinner interviewed a woman recently on Youtube who had been married to an AGP. This violent and abusive man clearly got his views on women from the porn he consumed obsessively. He didn't seem able to recognise women as full human beings at all, their role was to service men and could be used and disposed of at will. It was ghastly.

But it turned him on to think of himself, and dress, as a woman and it made me think about the role of porn in creating men like this. I am certain it is pivotal.

[HyperboleKnickers]

You'd think that being a feminist herself, LB would be aware of this space and may even pop in from time to time. If so..



Hello Laura and welcome. What do you think about the original post on this thread?

[IrenetheQuaint]

Laura Bates has done years of amazing work exposing the nature and prevalence of everyday woman hating, and received vast quantities of abuse and violent threats as a result. I don't think we should expect her to make her life even harder by publicly denouncing the trans gospel too.

(If she has publicly denounced radical feminists then I would have an issue with that, obviously, but I haven't seen evidence of this myself.)

[SpaceOP]

@IrenetheQuaint I agree. As far as I know, she hasn't said anything about TWAW. I don't think her work therefore lacks substances because she's choosing only to focus on specific things.

And it was Laura Bates and the Everyday Sexism project that really started opening my eyes to the relentless daily shit women have to wade through. I'm grateful for that.

[RaelImperialAerosolKid]

It's not just boys who have a distorted view of women though - it's a problem for our girls. Watching Avengers for example and seeing Black Widow fighting gives them a false sense of security over what is achievable.
In lock down we had a family PE session and even the mention of 'girl' pushups gave DD an absolute rage. I was proud that she believed in absolute equality- but it did make me wonder if I've been giving her the right messages.

[QuentinWinters]

Laura Bates is awesome. I don't like this trend of throwing women under the bus from all sides for "wrong think".
She's done amazing work especially for younger women and is not pushing "TWAW" at all. If that's her view shes entitled to it.

[MissLucyEyelesbarrow]

@QuentinWinters

Laura Bates is awesome. I don't like this trend of throwing women under the bus from all sides for "wrong think".
She's done amazing work especially for younger women and is not pushing "TWAW" at all. If that's her view shes entitled to it.

Agree. Plus, she is right to fear that the resulting screams of 'transphobe' would drown out everything else she said. Her voice is important and I don't want to see it silenced.

[BacklashBacklash]

I like Laura Bates and admire her for getting stuff done. I've never heard her saying anything scathing or abusive about "TERFs" or JKR or Karens. It's the people who get abusive and manipulative about this issue that bother me, not the ones who hold a different opinion to me. There are quite a few feminists who've chosen not to get bogged down in this issue, and I completely understand that.

[WeeBisom]

I notice in the Daily Mail that they recommend getting kids to watch “contrapoints” videos to combat the manosphere arguments. This is precisely the problem. Contrapoints is a trans woman who, as a man, produced anti feminist , men’s rights activism videos. Contrapoints is also incredibly sexist - in one video they boast they are “grade A tuna” while gender critical women are “stinky mackerel” (a reference to the idea that passing trans women are “fishy”)

So on the one hand kids are watching shit from sexist MRAS, and to counter this they are being told to watch another kind of male who is also incredibly sexist and reduces women to a set of stereotypes.

[WhereAreWeNow]

Laura Bates is in the TWAW camp but I've never seen her push that agenda publicly and I've never heard her attack GC women publicly so, as someone else said, she's entitled to her views. I think she's done a lot of fantastic work. Everyday sexism was truly groundbreaking. She really opened up a whole discussion that previously wasn't getting much in the way of mainstream media attention. Hats off to her for that.
From reading some of her articles and seeing her speak at a couple of events, I think she's really smart and also seems like a very nice person.

[Ereshkigalangcleg]

She has done good work, and I'm not suggesting she should be attacked for this in any way, I just find this ideological blindspot quite weird.

[Signalbox]

My sons don't believe TWAW but two of them (the pair that watch a lot of youtube and do online gaming) do spout some cynical stuff about women, they seem particularly concerned about women and girls weaponising sexual assault allegations

I've been wondering lately if, in this post truth world, the idea that women are prepared to lie about sexual assault will get much worse.

We are living in a time when a person's "lived experience" is considered to be more important than objective truth. The narrative online is that emotional mean-ness amounts to literal violence. There isn't a day goes by where I don't see people just make stuff up on Twitter to prove a point and there doesn't seem to be any shame attached to talking shite anymore. Rightly or wrongly I can understand the concern that some young men might have, especially if they spend any time at all on the internet.

[Signalbox]

And as far as I know Everyday Sexism has been entirely on board with this roll back of rights! It has consistently supported the idea that biological males are women, in some mysterious unbiological way, and need the support of feminism

OP I'm just wondering if you might be getting the Everyday Sexism Project confused with Everyday Feminism (the online "educational platform")?

everydaysexism.com/about

everydayfeminism.com/about-ef/

[Wbeezer]

@Signalbox, i worry about it too.
Two of my boys have ADHD and the other has ASD, this makes them vulnerable to possibly not handling conplicated emotional and social situations perfectly and people seem so quick to judge and so slow to forgive.