Women policing women

‘That choice is not a feminist one’ is part of the same way of thinking as ‘Every choice a woman makes is a feminist one’ IMO.

It simply applies the rhetoric of individual choice in a different way.

Is this not also part of the bigger trend towards polarisation generally?

I'm a left wing atheist if I have to pigeonhole myself but that does not mean that I can't agree with Trump on the odd occasion or that I can't join up with Christians who oppose transing kids or that I agree with Corbyn that TW are W (actually - poor example - Corbyn does not really believe that TW are W but you get my drift).

The situation whereby people automatically disagree with something someone says because of who said it is what needs challenging. It is toxic.

It's one of the insidious triumphs of liberal feminism that somehow every choice is feminist if it is made by a woman, and that feminists must support everything other women do or say because they are women. It's all part of an age old narrative that women should be nice, and accommodating and smooth things over.....
For the record, I am becoming increasingly passed off with the twisting of "That choice is not a feminist one" to mean "If you make that choice you cannot be a feminist" It is incredibly dangerous, and plays straight into the hands of anti feminists.

And TBH I am probably going to walk away at some point from anything portraying itself as feminist whilst spouting stuff about ‘objectively feminist/anti feminist choices’ re women’s private lives.

Yy, I’m happy with ding dongs and with criticism, debate etc.

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’.

Many women simply walk away in reaction.

I don't like anything that imagines feminism as some kind of hierarchy with a central authority that can adjudicate on whether or not a particular woman is "allowed" to be in it. I also don't much like any feminist organising that relies on respectability politics and requires participants to reach a certain level of polite/acceptable discourse before their voices are deemed worthy. I react very badly to being policed into being "nicer" about the opinions I hold.

That said, am perfectly happy with dirty great ding dongs between feminists. How else do we get anywhere?

Yy posie ‘what it says about you’ is, I think, a MASSIVE problem. It is not something applied to men in their personal and private lives to anything like the same degree.

Women are expected to be collectively responsible in their individual decisions whilst men are only ever expected to be individually responsible and in many ways not even that.

It’s part of the whole problem.

I am of the view that any woman who thinks that when she makes a choice it is her choice alone and it is not subject to negotiation with patriarchy is kidding herself. Even when it is a choice she wants for herself.

If she then chooses to position this choice as an example of her greater status in feminism rather than an example of good fortune within an oppressive system then it becomes a problem because it demonstrates a certain blindness to the power dynamics feminism is trying to dismantle.

People want to claim that somehow their choices are more feminist than other choices when in reality all that is going on is that their material conditions are better than other women’s or their ideology is different.

Feminism is not about choice and it certainly isn’t about a heirarchy of supposedly feminist choices being applied to women’s private lives by other women who call themselves feminists.

The early feminist pioneers re name keeping where not keeping names for their own personal status in the world so much as keeping their birth names in order to dismantle the legal position that women were property of husbands in law on marriage. Women are no longer chattels in law.

Names are now purely social signalling, which is not to say choice of name is not important or that there are no good reasons for keeping a birth name. It does mean that it is not a stick to beat other women with, it never was TBH.

If your version of feminism is marginalising women for not making the same choices as you, not thinking the same things as you or saying things you don’t agree with I think you are doing it wrong TBH.

I love this thread! I’d also live to find a way that we can transcend all of this hullshit and work together without the drama getting in the way.

The fact remains that every single woman’s choices are a negotiation with patriarchy.

YY

And Queasy, I agree with your whole post.

I think there is a balance that needs to be made.

It needs to be possible to point out that some decisions/actions have been made by ourselves and others that are strongly influenced in a negative way by the society we live in. This needs to be done as how else can anyone be made aware that they might be letting their internalised misogyny/privilege/whatever dictate to them.

It is important to be able to disagree with others. It’s also bloody important to not let that disagreement become so deep and vitriolic or patronising that you lose the important message. Which is difficult when most people don’t deal well with what they see as criticism. (Myself included!)

There has been an outbreak on here that began with the thread about the child’s surname and has led to threads about surnames on marriage and SM accounts, all shaming women for letting feminism down...

I agree, and it is very unappealing. The entire inter-sectional thing turns me off.

I don’t want to buy any ideology wholesale. I want to think about ideas with nuance and detail.

And Germaine Greer is a feminist to whom we all owe a Massive Debt.

Once you start nitpicking about ‘objectively feminist choices’ over individual private lives you are creating exclusivity that naturally preferences women who have a greater number of choices.

The fact remains that every single woman’s choices are a negotiation with patriarchy. That’s the whole point of feminism IMO.

I don't think it's just a women thing. It happens in many political groups, at least on the Left. Take how trade union strikes work, anyone who doesn't take part is a scab and a traitor, some have even been killed over the years.

Then you have the current young generation and their 'no platform' like those who tried to stop Germaine Greer coming to Cardiff Uni - this was before her most recent rape comments, though I know she's said similar things before.

I do not want women to apologise for it! I would like those women to see beyond the ends of their own noses TBH and to understand that their own choices about their own lives are just that and not some standard to hold other women into if they want a feminist membership card.

I doubt posie is trying to say women should be nicer or GG is beyond criticism...

She’s talking about ‘calling out’ which is a modern thing that involves condemnation rather than critique.

I don't see why women shouldn't call out GG, just because she has done pioneering work in the past does not exempt her from criticism for her views. Why do women have to be 'nice' to each other. GG has a public platform and makes controversial statements - I don't see why she shouldn't get a robust response. Same with Julie Burchill, Julie Bindel, Mary Beard or any other commentator. I don't have to agree with everything they say because they are a woman.

OP, don't you see the irony of you attempting to police women's behaviour to be nicer to each other?

I mostly get bothered by women who fail to recognise that certain choices are only available to them because they have a certain degree of privilege and then proceed to use their ability to have made said choice as a stick to beat less privileged women with.

It makes me want to scream.

Honestly? I think it’s mostly jealousy. It’s the desire to have the power that other successful woman has, and the inability to recognise it as such.

I think there’s also an element of policing when someone “steps out of rank.”