Handmaidens

Betty, the very idea has me rubbing my thighs like Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer She'd have her for breakfast, and all with that fabulously dry delivery.

These things really do need dissecting and pulling apart. So many young people are lapping it up, and Magdalen's clear sighted appraisals of the lies and the cutesy slick packaging are tremendously important.

FloralBunting do you think we could get Magdalen Berns to make a response video to Marinashutup?

Actually, when I ran through the green haired one's video again, I got really pissed off. What kind of fucking feminist talks about other women's sexual boundaries like that? It's transphobic for lesbians to turn down men who identify as women? Rank homophobia and rapey with it.

The woman's not just a handmaiden. She's a total shit too.

Wow, Betty, marinashutup is an absolute piece of work. Starting off with the whole T**fs are horrible people for insisting that biology matters, and then having the brass neck to say that you can call yourself by any term you like and it is entirely wrong for people to give you a label you don't like. But like, only if you're trans/NB/unicorn etc.

And what the hell was she trying to say when she was insisting that everyone knows man means male and woman means female? Well, yes, we know. That's what we're trying to tell you...

I have seen a lot of YouTube via my kids, however these offerings are new to me. But the siren call never changes. It's always bollocks stats, groundless claims, appropriating intersex and an inability to make rational points. Astounding.

And yes, there is no sense of the wide-eyed ingenue here, these are articulate women who have quite deliberately saddled themselves to a counter-factual ideology and they get a very deep psychological reward for subjugating themselves and throwing other women under the bus. I recognise it very clearly from my days in cultish Christianity.

DJLippy Sorry?

I love it when we disagree about the connotations of the words we use.
I assume ignorance in my definition which is criticized as denying agency, while you ascribe malicious self interest which I guess is just fine with those who advocate for agency.

When it all comes crashing down and they have been party to what the TA want, it's going to hit them all hard

Brexit's ongoing omni-shambles has done wonders for Brexiteer humility eh?

For me a handmaiden is a woman who has actively chosen to collude with men/misogyny/the patriarchy for her own advantage.

Agree. Many are multi colour haired young women who want to be with the woke dudebro group. What saddens me the most, many of these women will be used then tossed aside when of no further use. At the moment as they are natal women they are suiting the TA perfectly. When it all comes crashing down and they have been party to what the TA want, it's going to hit them all hard.

How much more obvious could 'cool-girl' eating up the cookies be?

Handmaiden is what Feminists have often called women who subscribe to the 5th rule of misogyny: Women and Feminism must be useful to men or they are worthless.

They are simply women who have not yet unpacked a lifetime of misogynist conditioning and so they serve men first and foremost.

I suppose you can ask Mumsnet to ban the word so that we have to give detailed descriptions of the behavior that is encapsulated in the term. I think you would like that less than you do the word itself.

I think 'Marinashutup' must've learned biology from Wakame.

DJLippy - yeah, I think that's fair enough. There's definitely a "they are old and past it" vibe. Reminds me of me in the 1980s arguing with my old hippy mum. Which backs up your Oedipus complex theory!

(apologies, she's actually advertising hormonal contraception that you can buy through an uberstyle app, Crikey, seems a bit unsafe - what happened to getting your blood pressure checked with your pill script? Is that not a thing anymore?)

"There's a kind of "silly deluded little girl" undercurrent"

Really? For me a handmaiden is a woman who has actively chosen to collude with men/misogyny/the patriarchy for her own advantage. No implication of brainwashing at all. Proper eye to the main chance.

And if we are their spiritual mums we really need to start giving them remedial sex ed lessons.

I am not entirely comfortable with the term handmaiden but it is apposite for the sort of young woman whose ostentatious "feminism" revolves around men - porn and sex work as positive feminist choices, etc. They don't want to scare men off but I'd guess maybe they think if they're special cool woke girls they can identify out of the effects of sexism.

They pop up on YouTube and elsewhere, talking about feminism that's "intersectional" enough to theoretically contain my gekko. He's Squishy. Though I don't know his gender identity to be fair. May be misgendering his dear little self.

Anyway, the ones I've seen on YouTube have this weird submissive presentation with extra high voices. It's a fashion. But it does come over very handmaiden-y.

This video is way, way worse.

Hilariously, she starts off with what is presumably a paid for sponsorship spiel for a menstrual cycle tracking app and then goes on to explain how 'biological sex' is just a made up thing designed to invalidate another person's gender.

The irony is startling.

@Alaaya

You must concede that the way that 3rd wave feminists frame their radfem counterparts also plays into mother archetypes.

I am not making a judgement here I just think that a psycho analyst could make a lot out of this. Is there a female Odepus complex?

The complete glossing over of any aggressive language directed at "terms" was a bit of an eye opener too...

DJLippy - you're absolutely right - "handmaiden" as a phrase is tied to "cool girl" as a phrase too and that also drives me mad for its complete negation of female agency. There's a kind of "silly deluded little girl" undercurrent in both phrases which I feel ties into some shitty patriarchal stereotypes about both young women being sexually pliant and brainless and older women being jealous harpies and women being their own worse enemies all around.

Watched it. I particularly enjoyed the dismissal of the body centred feminism as belonging entirely to second wave feminism, as though biology no longer has any impact on inequality.
And the delightful carping about the fact that those women who have been at the forefront of feminist thought are now looked up to and admired and shock listened to, as though they have authority.
So yes, essentially, this is indeed a marvellous example of a woman who is entirely divorced from any notion of the need for feminism in the real world, so invested in navel-gazing academia that she finds the very word 'lesbian' icky and exclusionary.

And oh, the 'resources' in the description thrilled my eager-to-swallow-self-serving-bullshit heart; variously Riley, Stef and Paris. Give me strength.

I think honestly your “interpretation” is ridiculous. It seems you’re having more fun bashing the girl and dismissing any of her arguments as just coming from men rather than discussing it seriously. From the video she appears to be a very smart woman and her argument is perfectly valid and supported even if you don’t agree with it.

She was also clearly of the "lesbian is another word for transphobe" tendency, wasn't she?

Many younger woman are keeping quiet.