Erin Pizzey's work with Refuges

Sigmund, you are Erin Pizzey. I said so.

According to Sigmund it does. You don't need anything else.

I've been a giraffe for quite some time now, it's great.

I am a Martian. Does that work ?

Yes I did. She says she is a feminist, therefore she is a feminist, just to clarify.

Well an awful lot of feminists disagree with each other about some aspects of feminism. Not all feminists are separatists, for instance, but that doesn't mean non-separatist feminists are not feminists. Some feminists are Marxists, some are not. Some feminists focus on (for instance) abortion rights as the most important issue, others are more concerned with discrimination in the workplace, others want to concentrate the bulk of their energy and attention on empowering women in the developing world...
I'm of the opinion that being a feminist means believing that women are full human beings entitled to all the same rights as men, that they do not as yet have all these rights and that feminism is about fighting to get them.

You still haven't answered what it is about Wendy McElroy that leads you to believe she's a feminist SF.

I don't care whether you believe me or not.

'I'm just amused by the idea that Sigmund thinks Wendy McElroy is a feminist.'

Well she says she is, so she is. You say you're a feminist, are you saying I shouldn't believe you then?

Erin wanted to promote her new book at one point in this section.

Cheeky, eh? Given how little respect she has for feminists.

Nope, SF, politically in feminism, women are a class. If you don't see us as a group with shared political experiences, and shared experiences of oppression and inequality then there's no point in feminism.

Why do you think McElroy is a feminist, apart from "she says she is, so she must be one"?

I am amused at Sigmund full stop

I named myself SigmundFraude in honour of you actually

"fembots"

Excuse me?

Nope, they can't. But they don't like to admit that's what they are. In fact they get really really angry when feminists point it out and start claiming we're mean for stating the bloody obvious.

Why people can't just be honest about their political positions is beyond me.

Well it's rather good to have a feminism of individualism. As that's what we are, aren't we.

I'm just amused by the idea that Sigmund thinks Wendy McElroy is a feminist.

I'm the first to admit that feminism can be as doctrinaire, sectarian and intolerant as any other political movement. I was an 80s activist and I have the scars on my back to prove it. At times it was horrendous, though no more horrendous than what was going on in, say, the Labour Party in Liverpool. I really hope that the current wave of young feminists will do things differently, because frankly back then we tore ourselves apart.

But. Erin Pizzey is not an antidote to the errors of those times. She is a product of them. She is a controversialist, a look-at-me-standing-against-the-tide grandstander. it was almost inevitable that she would pit herself against the prevailing orthodoxies within feminism. So often, the women who have the kind of pig-headed vision and thick skin to start something extraordinary against the odds are really difficult characters. You have to admire them, but preferably from afar. I could reel off the names of a dozen feminist heroines right now who have been an absolute nightmare for the people who have to work with and for them.

Erin Pizzey didn't just present a more nuanced, complex view of domestic violence. (Most of us are quite capable of acknowledging that women can be abusive, thanks Fox News.) She absolutely fed off the controversy and ratcheted up her response to it, coming out with wave after wave of incendiary and offensive stuff designed to wind up the fembots. More shame her and, in my view, more shame to those who allowed themselves to be wound up. None of it was edifying but Pizzey fed the dynamic as much as those idiots who threatened her.

anti feminists just cant resist this place, can they?

I think Sigmund is working to live up to their name, Basil.

I think I just explained myself.

Do you want to explain your position SF.

lol at needing to balance all this horrid feminism with a good bit of misogyny

I'm not Erin Pizzy and you're no Marjorie Proops.

the word 'shrill' in the penultimate paragraph helps too.

I think Wendy McElroy is a feminist because I believe it, therefore it is true. You should have some understanding of that statement, no?