Radfem 2013 and the MRAs

I have read comments from people who are against radfem 2013, who suggest radical feminists should be raped brutally. For being radical feminists. And that they should die.

I do not see how it is ok to pretend that radical feminists are being banned because they are the ones engaging in hate speech.

The law is no more accepting of death threads to rad fems than to anyone else.

Give it time LRD.

I think uranio means that heterosexual sex as patriarchy defines it is can be the same as sexual assault, nicetabard?

Banning someone transphobic would be like banning someone homophobic or racist.

Banning someone because they're a radical feminist and/or would like a woman-only space, is misogynistic.

That is totally different, and the law does not (yet) uphold the rights of misogynists to ban radical feminism.

"BTW the findings of this article are enlightening, such the one that reveals that 80% of girls assume sexual assault as acceptable if the man and the woman were married. Might be the case that the definition of sexual assault collapse with normal intercourse? "

Please can you clarify this question.

OK let's be frank

The meeting in the US (a few years back?) as part of a wider event that invited only MAAB trans people and talked about "breaking through the cotton ceiling".

that is so offensive I can't even think about it.

None of the feminist meetings I have been to have been so, just, grim in their aims. It's all earnest (and it is, not meant in a derogatory way) talk about sexual health and reproductive choice and DV and stuff. Getting into people's knickers? Seriously.

Now obviously that is a random example which I'm sure lots of trans people were not comfortable with but still my point is that happened. And yet rad fems talking about being female = wrong?

I don't understand it.

Hi JuliaScurr,
interesting link, would you mind the definition of rape that classifies 1 in 12 men as rapist? Just curious.
BTW the findings of this article are enlightening, such the one that reveals that 80% of girls assume sexual assault as acceptable if the man and the woman were married. Might be the case that the definition of sexual assault collapse with normal intercourse?

Just wondering...

Kim yes I get that's awful, really awful.
But again it's judging all people on the basis of what one person who self-identifies as a thing says...
Bottom line is, well, I don't know. I know me and I know I'm a decent kind sort of person.
Also there have been people on both "sides" who have done / said things. And so on.

I agree Nice re girlhood - it is important.

Kim if the Irish Centre has policies that stop women gathering to discuss feminism then those policies should be changed. I find the very idea of banning this conference on the grounds of equality absurd.

I think at the moment one of the big issues is MRAs, though - who I suspect couldn't give a toss about transactivism.

YY exactly LRD.

I have no problem with accepting that there are squillions of groups that it would be totally inappropriate for me to attend / try to attend.

I don't get why this is tricky, I guess. I know it is a very small minority of people who have these views but bugger me they're not half effective.

I can believe some people say horrible things. And that is shit.

(Btw, I realized I should say, I do see that me not attending, say, mum-only events isn't an exact parallel ... it is hard to find parallels ... because perhaps it isn't in the same way central to my identity. I don't know.)

I feel like that, nice.

I don't want to be included in a session for lesbians if I'm not welcome. I respect they have experiences I may not share. Same with (say) women of ethnic minorities. Or women who have been raped. Or women who have children. Or whatever it might be.

I will point out that I would very much like to have children and if wishing made it so ... but I don't. Therefore, it would not be fair for me to say I need to be in that session. I'm bisexual and some of my experiences growing up might not be totally dissimilar to those of lesbian women - but it wouldn't be fair for me to claim I was the same.

There are loads of ways in which women can form smaller sub-groups if they want to talk about things that they usually feel they can't discuss.

So long as we all get together some of the time, too, I think that should be ok.

Kim the idea of a group of feminists being cencored on the basis of an equality policy is a bit don't you think?

Agree LRD I think the equality policy thing is a fig leaf.

It's just , if I can talk sort of freely. For me, my feminism came as a natural thing just from, I don't know, like being left wing. It just is. And I kind of want to share that with everyone but also, and I know that this sounds bad, but some things like my experience growing up as a girl, teen in the UK, that made me a feminist, is just something not shared by people who grew up as a boy. thing is, I imagine my growing up was easier than people who are gay or trans or black or poor (I have privilege max which is again me being honest) BUT my growing up as a girl was something that I will share stuff with other people who were born and pronounced female elsewhere. That is the bit I want to get together and talk about and it doesn't mean I hate anyone or even that I think I have had it harder or whatever but still there is a situation globally with people who are pronounced female at birth and I want and kind of need to get together with other people in that situation to talk about it.
It upsets me TBH that people would think that because I have this affinity and shared stuff with people who were pronounced female at birth means I have hate or I don't care about anything else and so on. The radfems I have met do not bear this out either. They're all vegetarian for crying out loud and talking about shit that's going on in DRC and stuff.
I just, it baffles me why these meetings keep getting blocked.

I doubt it.

Last year the fuss was over whether or not it was ok to have a couple of sessions that didn't include everyone who could go to the event.

It is a fig-leaf, to claim it's about the venue's equality policies, I think. I could be wrong, but I think so.

I have been to plenty enough meetings where it was made clear not everyone would be entitled to go to every session, and no-one has ever argued it was discriminatory for a marginalized group to meet without members not of that marginalized group.

It's no worries kim.

Why shouldn't Cathy Brennan be allowed to speak?

She's become very visibly associated with it, hasn't she? Like Julia Long was last year. I wonder if it's not just because she's a visible 'name', TBH.

I do see there is a disco on the sat night though.

My recommendation is to get a kebab first