Women policing women

Answering the op.

There are a core of uber purist feminists who will not be compromised and are relentlessly attacked and ridiculed. IME they are 2nd wave political lesbians who are generally wary - on high alert for the next woman to be traitor like Erin Prizzy or Stephen Whittle who then sets about trying to destroy the very feminism that was their nursery.

Then there's the next level to be wary of - the well-meaning fat footed types who blunder around, big gob flapping, unaware of the damage they do to the fragile feminist gains by their ignorant and insensitive words and actions (I fit into this category - tbh so does Germaine Greer).

These purist feminists are not 'call out culture' types in the sense of young pomo nitwits saying "yah check your privilege, yah, yah, intersectionality, excessive incomprehesible pretentious long-word usage, yah, woke " , but they can spot a loose cannon or a traitor and will make a public statement and/or freeze them out trying to avert too much damage to women's rights and gains.

I think disagreeing is good. I disagree with people I love, value and admire all the time, and the process of disagreeing makes people grow. Growing and learning should never be over in our lives.

The thing that pisses me off is the idea that people need to carefully toe the line all the time, avoid offending, kid gloves, suppressing what they believe otherwise they will be publicly roasted, singled out and isolated. That is just bullshit. We need to be able to thrash out honest conversations and have faith that people will learn and grow (but perhaps it is best to put away your best china when a bull is in your midst). There's no need to turn someone into a pariah - it is cruel and inhumane.

The other thing going on is unconscious sexism and bias that even those of us who are feminists hold unconsciously. I was phoned yesterday by a woman who, seven years ago, sought me out to do a job for her because she wanted a woman to do it. I did it and for seven years the design/ installation work I completed for her has worked to her satisfaction. But last week she phoned to say that a male engineer had looked at the work and declared that it had not been done properly — and she was immediately on the phone to say how disappointed she was not just in the work but in me. She's a feminist, a woman who thinks about things, and yet her first response was personal upset because I had designed something to work one way and a man disagreed that that was the best way to achieve the effect. When she started saying 'I knew I shouldn't trust a woman' I told her to go away for 48 hours and cool down. We consciously or unconsciously look for the problems with women while consciously or unconsciously expecting men to know better.

I think it's a thing on the left generally, not just feminism. I've been to events where people attending seem to spend more time arguing among themselves about different political views, language etc rather than focusing what they're supposed to be there for.

"The petty point scoring that goes on to try to prove that one form of female lifestyle is more feminist (and therefore has the moral high ground over everything) than another is appalling"

Where have you seen this happening?

Feminism is a very competitive business. The petty point scoring that goes on to try to prove that one form of female lifestyle is more feminist (and therefore has the moral high ground over everything) than another is appalling.

I noticed it mostly around Brexit. Right on feminist women announcing that people who aren’t educated to degree level, should not have been given a vote.

It was a shit storm. The term ‘champagne socialist’ made perfect sense to me when I saw how utterly worthless the London elite considered the rest of the country.

Agree also with the GG comments. Do I agree with everything she’s ever said? No. Why would I even expect to? She’s a woman with her own opinions on everything and her own lived life. I don’t agree with anyone 100% of the time - why would I?

I don’t expect to agree or disagree with everything an individual says. I find the putting of people into ‘goodies’ and ‘baddies’ boxes to be a symptom of ID politics and I want no truck with it. It kills nuance.

What I DO think about GG is that she’s inspirational, intelligent, and I think we are broadly aligned on many points which I personally think are important to me.

If she says something I disagree with I’m not going to join a pile on. This happened the other week to you, posie and it's remarkable to see it happen. Can we not accept that very few people in the world are going to agree 100% with each other on every single thing? It’s ok to disagree and say ‘actually no on that point I think that...’ but not to suddenly label someone in the ‘baddie’ category and burn them at the stake.

What unites us is that we are all women. It’s fine to disagree and debate, it’s necessary even, but we need to be united more than divided.

thatdamnwoman - I’ve found the same. Everyone is entitled to their personal opinion about someone but to refuse to engage if that person is present is just disruptive to the movement as a whole.

I suppose in some ways it’s to be expected; human groups will generally always divide due to personal disagreements. I just wish we could get past all of that.

We seem very quick to identify our differences and slow to identify what holds us together.

Oh god, I couldn't agree with this more!!

I skim read a post on here the other day about Soroptomists and it made me really sad. It started out with people so keen to join up with a feminist group so clearly doing good work for women and girls, and ended up with posters throwing their hands in the air and declaring that there was no feminist home for them anywhere; now who does that help? We don't have to agree on everything. We can argue all day about the things we disagree on, but it's important to still be able to come together on the things we all agree merit our cooperation.

I've been trying to get a group of women I know together so that we can start a feminist group because I think a lot of the old get-togethers and networks fell apart once everyone got on FB and went to email instead of newsletters plopping through the letterbox every few months.

Anyway, I've tried arranging a get-together for maybe a dozen women who I know have been involved in women's projects and I know to be feminists and I've had so much 'Are you planning to ask J along, because if so it's a no' and 'I'd need to know what you think of this and that before I could say yes' that I've stopped even thinking about it. We seem very quick to identify our differences and slow to identify what holds us together.

I'm going to have a birthday do in a few weeks' time and I'll try to get something off the ground then but if it fails I'll check out the local Soroptomists.

I’m concerned re the ‘call out culture’ being extended by feminists to the private lives and individual choices of other women yes.

Offers-you seem to be very concerned about the name issue. With respect, there is a whole thread active about that- it seems a shame to make this one about it too?

Fuck sake Picasso, you single out a user on a thread she isn't even posting on in order to cut her down for the "gullible ignorance" of her views.

Unless a woman’s individual choice about her private life, which is made in negotiation with patriarchy, is being utilised for the benefit of all women then it is simply a personal choice which is made in negotiation with patriarchy.

As a result, in part, of earlier pioneers who used their choices re their names and their personal status in the public mind to make a political point women are not considered chattels or husbands.

This was a political choice which utilised personal status of individual women, who were able to use their status within a heirarchy of women, to contribute to the advancement of all women’s status in law.

Women are no longer considered property in law. There are still social and economic costs re naming for women and it needs to be recognised that this is not a one type of choice vs another type of choice issue but a women vs patriarchy issue.

Why? In one word: fear.

You have two choices - you either police other women and get brownie points and a pass from the male power structure for doing so, or you refuse to engage with the male power structure and support the women.

Guess which option gets the wrath of the men.

Taking an extreme example - the ISIS morality patrols. Those women are doing the men’s dirty work because by doing they themselves are passed over for punishment. It gives them a degree of immunity.
The job probably also attracts people with a sadistic streak, people with a score to settle etc, but at the heart of it, it’s born of fear. Fear that the men will do to you what you’re doing to other women. Or much much worse.

We in the West have at least the semblance of security of social convention and the law to keep us safe if we speak out. For now anyway.

An objectively feminist choice is one that puts women, and what is good for women front and centre.

Women do not have to make feminist choices all the time-as a poster on anothe thread put it, you can't always put money in the collecting tin every time it comes round.

*Is not ‘objectively feminist’

What does telling another woman that the choice she has made in her negotiation with patriarchy is ‘objectively feminist’ actually achieve?

Do you think early pioneers re names kept their birth surnames because it was ‘objectively feminist’ or was it a personal sacrifice (because there are costs) for the benefit of all women who at the time did not have legal status of their own?

On what basis are individual women’s choices about their private and personal lives, which are all made in negotiation with patriarchy, deemed ‘objectively feminist’?

I think it’s important to recognise though that many women are not going to have the energy or desire, after a lifetime of having their private lives scrutinised by men and the patriarchal state, to hand over their lives to be scrutinised by feminism prior to admission into ‘the club’.

Yes. Big difference between I don't like what you just said. Let's have it out, and What you just said is unacceptable. You are hereby ejected from feminism.

And it is ridiculous to say that there are no objectively feminist or anti feminist choices. Just as it is ridiculous to say that if a woman makes an anti feminist choice she is automatically not a feminist.

Germaine Greer has take positions on some issues that have angered people. Trying to obliterate her 60 years worth of struggle for the feminist cause because we disagree with her on those points is not just shooting ourselves in the foot, it's digging a grave, lying down in it and shooting ourselves in the head.

Is it a symptom of a wider problem with the authoritarian Left that cannot agree to disagree but insists (or attempts to insist) on strict adherence to dogma at all times?

As a man (boring to repeat all the time but don't want to post under false pretences) I found the thread on whether or not to take your partner's last name interesting, as people shared their own experiences and opinions, and was sad when an element of 'homework marking' started to creep in.