Women come last in Labour's deranged victim hierarchy - Rod Liddle in The Spectator

Hey when HIGNFY recorded?

"Outside our bubble, when we start talking about "gender critical" and "social constructs", most people will switch off."

I obviously can't speak for everyone, but outside the bubble I tend to refer to ladybrains and stereotypes, rather than trying to lecture on feminist theory. Know your audience

this appeared in Private Eye a couple of weeks back

I’m late to the party for commenting on this and still trying to catch up.
I’m seriously impressed with those of you getting this out there in any form. I’m just about dipping my toe in sharing stuff on Facebook because I fear the professional repercussions so the fact that other women are using their professional status to bring it into the open is rather inspiring!
In terms of getting the press covering this where does Private Eye stand on these issues? Could anyone with media connections get them to cover this? I would think their readers would also be anti-authoritarian and likely to make noises about it.

Feminists should drop the word 'gender' and just talk about sex and sex roles, or sex stereotypes. That language is clear and can't be co-opted for TRA doublethink, and nobody needs a background or interest in feminist theory to understand it.

YY. Although sex is like a forbidden word now, in the media, even when they are talking only about biological sex i.e. medical issues it's gender this, gender that. It makes my teeth itch.

Donkey I agree with what you say about using sex/sex roles, also about the sexed body shaping experience. Not got time to read the link, but will do.

Someone upthread or on another thread made a comment about removing the pomo goggles, which I think is exactly the point in terms of emphasising material reality. It’s always been my issue with postmodernism even before all this.

The other point is that equality and difference are not mutually exclusive - women do have distinct needs because they are female, it does not mean they are lesser. I think the hierarchical value given to sex roles is externally imposed, but I am open to the view that the roles themselves are not entirely.

Another interesting backdrop to all of this are the tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of deaths being caused by ideological, class-hatred-based cuts to needed health and social programs.

But yes, some guy from the Spectator thinks opposition to this is a cult.

I wouldn't call Momentum a cult, make, but it is certainly behaving like many authoritarian left movements of the past, from hagiographic veneration of the anointed leader to 'loyalty pledges' and Stalinist-style purges of people accused of Wrongthink. I think it is the lack of respect for dissent, along with a willingness to use anti-democratic means to suppress it, that scares people about Momentum.

You make a good point about how cuts to vital services are also part of an attempt to impose an extreme ideology on society, but one doesn't need to be a Momentum supporter to oppose this. Supporting welfare programs and universal access to medical care isn't the province of the far left - these are pretty standard centre-left ideals.

Yes, I don't see me as allying with anyone politically. I just want to see this being properly discussed, dissected, debates in the mainstream. I don't care if the source is red, blue or pro self ID, pro women or whatever. This idea that TIMs are actually women is so batshit that like Dracula, it will just disappear if given enough sunlight.

It's allying with someone who is part of the problem, and therefore utterly self-defeating.

Its not self-defeating. The aim is to get words out of whats happening. Not to agree with every person who dares raise it.

This self-ID rubbish is possibly the biggest threat to womens rights there has ever been, and most don't even know its happening. Therefor, any publicity is good.

Its getting TRAs so utterly rattled too, which says that we are doing something right tbh. There is a reason their tagline is 'nodebate'..because they know once people talk about it, the entire ideology comes crashing down.

Being happy that some journalists are reporting on the topic..does not mean I have to agree with everything that journalist has ever written. Thats silly.

Feminists should drop the word 'gender' and just talk about sex and sex roles, or sex stereotypes. That language is clear and can't be co-opted for TRA doublethink, and nobody needs a background or interest in feminist theory to understand it

Agree, off to read your link.

I think feminists need to stop saying gender is a social construct. It just confuses people because gender is used interchangeably with sex these days, even often in medical contexts. And this elision between sex and gender is what allows postmodernist trans/queer theory to push the idea that sex is a social construct. So when feminists start going on about how 'gender is a social construct', that's what many people think we are saying: that being a man or a woman is not a matter of material reality.

'Gender roles' is even more confusing because gender originally meant 'sex roles', so saying gender roles is redundant, and, moreover, allows TRAs to make the oxymoronic claim that 'gender roles' are socially constructed, but gender is innate. More confusion and elision.

Feminists should drop the word 'gender' and just talk about sex and sex roles, or sex stereotypes. That language is clear and can't be co-opted for TRA doublethink, and nobody needs a background or interest in feminist theory to understand it.

FWIW, and this is probably a subject for a separate thread, I don't think sex roles ('gender') are entirely externally imposed, and they certainly aren't arbitrary. That's an oversimplification that actually leads to people discounting the importance of the sexed body in shaping how men and women experience the world, which is part of what has led us to the 'gender identity' madness, where people assume 'equality' means treating men and women as interchangeable social actors in every situation.

This is an excellent piece that explores the naturalness (or otherwise) of 'gender' using evolutionary and anthropological theory as well as feminist analysis:

Gender is socially constructed (upon material reality)

Same here EmyRoo, I really expected to see myself more in the centre. What did for me I expect is agreeing that paying tax is the proper thing to do.

I came out as left libertarian on the political compass, which sort of surprises me as I thought I would be more central libertarian.

The Spectator is calling Momentum a cult. Well.

Another interesting backdrop to all of this are the tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of deaths being caused by ideological, class-hatred-based cuts to needed health and social programs.

But yes, some guy from the Spectator thinks opposition to this is a cult.

Not everyone's cup of tea but illuminating to learn about oneself and about others too.

www.politicalcompass.org/chart?ec=-4.38&soc=-3.69

The results are not surprising to me, though thought I was a bit more..centre than left

Very interesting.

www.spectator.co.uk/2018/01/momentum-isnt-hard-left-its-a-theatrical-cult/
Momentum isn't hard left. It's a theatrical cult
The 21st century is full of showmen like Corbyn, passing off old tricks as original thinking

Interesting. The Cult of Momentum.

This is going to grow and grow as background to TRAs.

RedToothBrush

And, linked to safeguarding, is the Children Act. Parents have statutory responsibilities towards their children. We have forced adoption in this country if parents don't meet them. Not only have, for example, mothers fleeing DV seen their ability to meet these statutory responsibilities undermined by austerity, but they're now being told that schools have no obligation to tell them if their children identify as trans. How on earth can parents meet their statutory responsibilities if the state is colluding to hide information about their children from them?

This trans shit affects so many institutions and protections it's unreal. And not ONE politician seems able to even concede that self-ID has unintended consequences, let alone research what those consequences might be.

We need more of this stuff to be tested in the family courts. Because the one case so far did not reflect well on the trans movement (the case in which the judge ordered the probably Munchausen's mother to have no contact with Mermaids).

We are led by the least among us, we really are.

Note - not a picture of him dressed like a normal person, if such a thing could be found. A picture of him in one of his Little Bro Peep outfits clutching a doll/teddy bear.

Pictures are another great way to cut to the chase. You could write a thousand words about autogynephilia, but none of them are going to get the point across as well as a picture of Stefoknee, or that video where he's talking about having to pull his skirt down because he got an erection.

Somehow, I'm sure an argument could be formulated that would actually penetrate people's understanding.

Safeguarding, safeguarding, safeguarding. It's about safeguarding.

Entirely agree.

Following other comments, my comment EmyRoo was about the limits of gender critical ideas, presented as such, in changing minds.

It's great to have a solid theoretical framework. It's great to have consensus. But that's only in our bubble. Outside our bubble, when we start talking about "gender critical" and "social constructs", most people will switch off. Some who are attracted to thinking in those terms will be engaged but most will not.

I love the ideas but I think the point is persuasion. When it comes to persuasion to me it largely comes down to people asking "what in real terms will this mean to me and my dear ones?"

Lots of people who aren't feminists don't immediately understand what you say when you call gender a social construct.

But it doesn't take more than one post to explain it, quite easily.

Because most women are a victim of gender. They know it, they just don't know what it's called.

All the threads in AIBU about my husband won't do this or he demands sex, or I got passed over for promotion, or I was sexually harassed.

They're living it, they understand they are living it, they just haven't yet made the dots connect.

Eg your husband demands sex, because women's gender role is to provide it and men's gender role is to feel entitled to it.

And many, many people both men and women, think that is just the way it is. Except it's largely women who kick against it, without having the tools, history, or the language to effectively oppose it.

I absolutely see the argument that saying gender is a social construct sometimes falls on stony ground.

But I don't see any reason to not continue to say it, and explain why it is.

Because most women in the space of one explanatory paragraph, will recognise it instantly. There is no complicated theory to understand.

They already understand it, they just don't know what it's called.

It also has the added benefit of women often experiencing a blinding flash of light and becoming an instant feminist.

Does plastic surgery make you lose ten years of your life and be born a decade later?
It might help you look ten years younger.
But your body remains the same age.
Its not the thing that's going to stop you having a heart attack.

And it can go very very badly wrong too.