How do we scourge out racism and classism in feminism?

I give up. I responded talking about classism as well but y'know that doesn't matter.

Consider me deleted in 5 mins.

I just want to thank mama for the history lesson on the working class I've screenshot it so I can read up about it.

hmm, well to me the second option would be a gross over simplification

Right. So you're saying you can only comment with the view that trans is a performance if you have the articulacy and technical vocabulary to say performance rather than man in a dress?

But that this isn't classism?

Lang that has been said in threads.

It hasn't been said in this thread. The other thread - which I repeat, I ignored because it was a fist fight, not a discussion - has been deleted.

This thread was having a robust but polite and productive discussion.

Threads about threads are forbidden here by talk guidelines. So please stop doing it and brigading this thread, where people who were interested in a productive conversation were having one.

I've now put several posts moving us on from those brigading about another thread and breaking talk guidelines. Please respect that and the site rules.

transwomen are male people performing femininity vs transwomen are men in dresses

hmm, well to me the second option would be a gross over simplification. Curt Cobain was on occasion a man in a dress, but was never a transwoman.

Man in a dress as a synonym for transwoman seems to me to buy into the idea that there is something inherently transgressive about men wearing stereotypically female clothes, which I don't agree with.

Lang that has been said in threads. It's not projection, mama was esstentially told to be nicer. And when posters weren't this definition of nice, nice as in quiet to bigotry, they were accused of being TRAs.

It really went to far in a lot of ways. Mama, from what i saw had the patience of a saint. Taco was told she was bullying, it was inferred she was a terrorist. I mean ???? I was reporting comments to mumsnet hq speechless.

I agree with some phrases being polished getting by fine and that can be classism.

Polished phrases can still be bigoted but people will find it harder to point it out because they may not feel able to. I know that's how ive felt at times using MN and I'm real life. But that's quite embarrassing for me isn't it? I'm so uneducated I dont feel able to call something out when it's polished.

Feminism is a social movement which centres women, all women. BAME women are oppressed on the basis of race as well as sex, if we don’t address that then we are not fighting for all women, only the white ones. The needs of BAME women should be centred in feminism to account for the additional obstacles they face. Describing their cultural attire as “disgusting” is not conducive to that. Racism is not a side issue or a diversion or a tool of TRAs to divide us. Mamaoya and Taco have explained things perfectly and it is very telling how consistently they have been dismissed and accused of woman-bashing and yes it is strikingly familiar to accusations by anti-feminists who dismiss our concerns and accuse of man-bashing. Why is it that lots of men are unable to hear us and our concerns? Why is it that lots of white women are unable to do the same for woc? The only conclusion I can draw is that sadly, some groups in society are seen as less than human and empathy only goes so far in such cases. After pages and pages of discussion there are practically no comments on how to root out racism and classism in feminism, the discussion has been derailed by the knee-jerk defensiveness of white women intent on stopping racism from being rooted out as they don’t see a problem and aren’t willing to listen.

really good post quixote9 - I'll forgive you for posting without reading the thread! You have articulated what I was very clumsily trying to say

Feminism is about women. We don't have to also be fighting class struggles, racism, or anything else, except in the sense of not adding to injustice

This is what I was trying to get at on the other thread. It seemed to me that people were suggesting a path of action in the name of feminism that would actually be damaging to girls because of the cultural factors in the mix.

It's important to talk that through.

And I'd be interested in responses to the DH's comment:

There is no qualitative difference in saying that transwomen are male people performing femininity and saying transwomen are men in dresses. The meaning is exactly the same. Yet the former is deemed controversial but acceptable while the latter is deemed offensive outright transphobia. Why, when the meaning is identical? Classism. The ability to access academic and/or philosophical language to make a point. This is as exclusionary as anything else.

This is an interesting talk by an American legal scholar at the LSE focusing on the differences between what is or isn't prized and valued by working class people vs middle class people - she's obviously concerned with American society but there's a lot that applies this side of the Pond too, I think, particularly with regard to how groups can understand where the other groups are coming from.

Book associated with the talk is also interesting, accessible and constructive:

www.amazon.co.uk/White-Working-Class-Overcoming-Cluelessness/dp/1633693783/?tag=mumsnetforum-21

It is entirely unsurprising if the poorest people are most concerned about poverty or that the language they use to describe their conditions reflects that of the government’s policies.

Well, yes. I have found this in anti-austerity work over the last eight years. I've met dozens of women fucked over by a combination of all the cuts who are in shock because previously they had bought into the all our money is being wasted on benefit claimants narrative pushed by government and abetted by poverty porn TV. Then their husband fucked off/they got made redundant/they had another kid and they found none of this is true now that they themselves had become one of the undeserving poor.

Anyway. I'll repeat myself:

Husband just gave me an example of classism in trans discourse.

There is no qualitative difference in saying that transwomen are male people performing femininity and saying transwomen are men in dresses. The meaning is exactly the same. Yet the former is deemed controversial but acceptable while the latter is deemed offensive outright transphobia. Why, when the meaning is identical? Classism. The ability to access academic and/or philosophical language to make a point. This is as exclusionary as anything else.

Just to be clear, people think the way to end racism isn’t, say, white people holding each other accountable and challenging bigotry and refusing to condone racism, but rather WOC being nice to racists, accepting that racists just don’t know and couldn’t possibly learn better, not asserting ourselves, not posting to defend ourselves, not saying anything to challenge racist views, accepting that the only problem with racism is the language we use, - and, in short, that the only problem with racism really is WOC who have the nerve to speak about it or expecting white people to do any work to educate themselves, listen, read, etc.

Absolute projection. Nobody has said that.

What has been said is that the class-privileged woketopian left's obsession with tone policing and correct terminology is classist in and of itself and excludes non-racist working class people who can't code switch at the drop of a hat and might express themselves clumsily.

With all due respect it's been the 'regulars' who have been deaf. No one has asked feminism to change and the fact it's been read like that is the problem. If anything we're being asked to behave like radfem feminists and actually practise anti racism and anti classism.

I see this is fem chat but maybe you all belong in theory because your happy to theorise about anti racism and anti classism but that's it.

I will say it again if you don't want to talk about racism and classism in feminism - hide the thread.

I haven't read all of the thread - only Bewilderness's last comment- who I trust implicitly.

There are many unfamiliar accounts in the past few days - since the PP thing - who seem to have selective and wilful deafness. Who don't want to listen or engage respectively- btw polite isn't the same as respect when verbal abuse tactics are at play.

The one thing the unfamiliar accounts are demanding is for feminists to change plus defer to their demands plus do the work to implement those demands. One could be forgiven for thinking these unfamiliar accounts have another agenda as those tactics are strangely familiar.

I'm being bad and commenting before reading the whole thread, so this may just be seconding others.

I think there are some separate issues here:

1. Treating each other with respect and attention based on what they have to offer, not their bank account, skin color, hijab, etc. From me, and probably from everybody here, that gets a resounding yes.

2. Feminism is about women. We don't have to also be fighting class struggles, racism, or anything else, except in the sense of not adding to injustice. (And other movements ought to bloody well be doing the same for us!) It's not feminism's job to fight other people's battles. Any attempt to require that should be jumped on and squashed immediately.

So, very different reactions depending on what kind of intersectionality is in question.

After three days and three threads of the women here being bashed for what PP said and did on twitter I thought that describing it as collective blame was accurate.
I am not a PP defender but I can see why you would think I am.
As I said, we are talking past one another and I am tired of trying to make myself understood.

Mamaoya I'm off to bed, I hope you sleep well and don't take all this to heart (impossible I know).

Collective blaming = women calling out bigotry.

Blame away = white women are the only victims in this.

You keep doing the exact things you deny are happening anywhere. You keep framing it as innocent white women under attack. Page after page of white women saying the most ignorant stuff, which is ok if the white women just got upset or were in an argument or got emotional, but it’s only women addressing bigotry who destroy boards and communities.

But that’s not telling WOC to shut up, take it, and be nice?

How can you not read the very things you post then gaslight me like I’m making it up?

Bewilderness I'm really saddened in your response and hope with fresh eyes you re-read what Mamaoya wrote and think about it. She's been consistent, clear and obviously extended olive branches along the way. I've read maybe 50% of her posts but I've never seen her blame.

Sorry! One last thing. If you look back through this thread you will find that people were doing what they are being bashed for not doing.

Mamaoya Sun 03-Jun-18 00:26:56 @thebewilderness: your own posts right here for example accusing people trying to talk about racism as just “bashing another woman”? The posts saying WOC need to not just “scream racist” at women just using the wrong language? The posts in the new Truro thread with so many of you deciding that “those people” have an agenda and the only problem in that thread was people addressing bigotry?

I would be deeply ashamed had I said or done any of that.
We have been under attack here by MRAs and transgender advocates for weeks. As a result many of us are cynical and side eye these kinds of collective blaming exercises. They have successfully destroyed many a Feminist blog and forum over the years.
It is quite clear to me that we are talking past one another. I have nothing more to say.
Blame away!

The right time and place to address bigotry is always going to be now when you see it. It cant wait, it can't be put to one side, putting it to one side is how bigotry grows. Violence breeds on silence.

@thebewilderness: your own posts right here for example accusing people trying to talk about racism as just “bashing another woman”? The posts saying WOC need to not just “scream racist” at women just using the wrong language? The posts in the new Truro thread with so many of you deciding that “those people” have an agenda and the only problem in that thread was people addressing bigotry?

Mamaoya It saddens me you think you have to be nice to racists to make them see you as you are (paraphrasing). I don't get it, I just don't get it. Why is it so hard for us all to look at each other and see people, human beings? You and your culture are to be valued and celebrated, it's so sad that so many see you as 'other'.