I've been following debates around the 'trans' issue on FWR with interest for some time. More recently I've also been appalled by the mass sexual attacks in Cologne and the related issue of the stilted, minimising way those attacks have been discussed - particularly in the left-leaning press.
It's got me wondering about possible conflicts between PC speech codes and feminist analysis. I think this is a feature of both these issues. To be clear, by 'PC speech codes' I mean the cultural taboos that make it socially unacceptable to make generalisations about certain groups of people.
In trans debates, trans people are cast as a minority within a minority, and women are re-framed as the ones with privilege who must cede space to ease their suffering. Much of the feminist discussion around this is, as I understand it, devoted to challenging this narrative.
In the Cologne attacks, there was a visible reluctance by left of centre media to be explicit about the cultural/ethnic dimension to the attacks. The implicit view, from some quarters, seems to be that the right of white Western women to move about at night free from sexual assault weighs equally - or even lower - than the right of refugees to be protected from ugly stereotypes and/or racist reprisals, and that therefore the ethnic/cultural dimension of the attacks should be played down lest it exacerbate the suffering of refugees.
Elsewhere though in FWR I've seen robust defenses of the validity and need for generalisations, when it comes to class analysis of gendered violence. As I understand it, it is reasonable and valid to generalise about men as a class, even if NAMALT, because otherwise it is impossible to name the problem.
So what I'm wondering is this: if generalisations about men as a class are defensible in the interests of naming feminist problems, does the same apply to subsets of men? For example if misogynistic violence is a major problem among men of a particular culture in the UK (even relative to the general depressingly high levels of misogynistic violence in the general population, and even if NAM[culture]ALT), are we comfortable spelling that out?
If there are classes of people among whom misogynistic violence is more prevalent than the already high norm in the UK, I want to be able to name the problem. But I think there is often substantial resistance to this. There may well be valid and internally coherent reasons for this, but I think that from a feminist viewpoint we need to think about what's going on here.
I think this is very difficult ground for feminism. I'm loth to give examples, for fear of derailing what's intended as a general musing, but here's a fairly incendiary one. There are persistent and worrying rumours coming out of Sweden that sexual violence against women has skyrocketed in that country in recent years. This is clearly a feminist issue, and one that should surely be tackled vociferously by feminist campaigners. You'd think. However there are also persistent rumours that the overwhelming majority of this violence is perpetrated by recent immigrants of Arab/North African origin. But there is an almost total blackout in the 'respectable' mainstream Swedish press around this; the only news outlets willing to touch it are right-wing outfits such as Breitbart, and frankly bonkers conspiracy mongers like the Gatestone Institute.
The rumours relate to Sweden, but imagine you're a feminist in Sweden hearing these rumours. Do you write it off as lies and hate-mongering? Perhaps it is nothing but lies and hate-mongering. I don't know and can't verify it either way. I hope it is. But perhaps (like Rotherham) it isn't. So should you take a stand for women and say 'I'm going to risk contributing to a right-wing, racist discourse because if there is any possibility that it's true it should be investigated and stamped down on hard, because I want to stick up for the women being assaulted'? Or should we be saying 'Overall I think Swedish women have a pretty easy time of it, considered globally, and I don't want anyone conducting racist pogroms in my name, so I'm going to keep schtum'?
More generally, I am wondering if we need to think explicitly about what, as feminists, we do when there is a conflict between the aims and needs of feminism and those of other 'rights' groups. (It might just be me who needs to think about this; for all I know you've all already worked it out). But I think there are some conflicts, and the Cologne attacks and trans rights thing points to that. And I think there's a general, vague presumption among many people who consider themselves generally right-on that this is not the case, and that all the various needs of the various rights campaigns are either aligned by definition, or can somehow be balanced out. And yet, it seems self-evident to me that the needs of different rights campaigns often conflict; witness trans and women's rights. And when this 'balancing' takes place, again and again it is my observation that it's the rights of women that have to give ground.
My personal stance is that women's rights come first and if there is a conflict between women's rights and another rights campaign I'm for women. But what do others think? I think it's a live issue for feminism, a difficult one (at least difficult for feminists who think of themselves as generally left-wing, anti-racist, right-on etc) and one that I've not seen much discussion on.