So much for 'good guy' allies

I love you lot.

An oasis of measured independent thinking.

I agree with all of you. I've learned a lot about how people will stampede to save themselves.

In groups I'm in there's enormous pressure to condemn one side or the other, and as things escalate it gets harder to resist, as there really does start to be something to condemn.

Perspective.

Two tiny women were a bit rude and asked questions to a powerful, wealthy, political lobbyist who's a 'member of the Biden family' and who is actively trying to abolish sex based rights.
McBride smirked whilst they asked about young girls having mastectomies and their devastated families.

I'm seeing those who have publicly and loudly distanced themselves from a pretty innocuous action in an entirely new light.

And as for characterising and condemning those 1.5 minutes as 'violence'?
All credibility of that speaker destroyed henceforth. I won't be able to read any of her words going forward without wondering whether it's actually factual, or insane hyperbole.

If anyone thinks Julia and Posie aren't doing it right, then get out there and do it better yourself.

We seem to have very few doers in society and ever increasing numbes of judgers who sit smugly in judgement of the doers.

Every day is a new denunciation. It is cowardly.

I would Jonathan and others to think hard about what really constitutes harassment when it comes to politics and those involved in it. No wonder politicians and lobbyists get away with so much if we think that confronting them with some hardline questions is too rude.

A lot of the handwringing is not about the tactics but who it was that used them, who was on the receiving end etc...it's not something that is applied consistently across all issues.

There seems to be a sense that women should not be rude, pushy and persistent. The left wing doesn't view Jim Acosta this way as an example.

However if there are situations women are allowed to be that way then it has to be on an approved issue - see the Senate elevator women yelling at Jeff Flake.

Many of us will be old enough to remember ACT UP and their AIDS activism. They disrupted congress, arranged to cover a Senators house in a mocked up condom, scaled the building of a Big Pharma company, chained themselves inside causing a shutdown until the CEO listened to their concerns.

All of the above is 'quite rude' but utterly necessary and we rightly look back at those activists as being brave and admire their unwillingness to backdown and play by the rules.

Ditto to whoever brought up the Suffragettes.

Sometimes it's all the 'little people' have. I suppose Posie and Julia could have gone through the proper channels and requested a sit-down with McBride. Do we think that would have happened? Or do we think they would be ignored? I lean heavily to the latter.

I don't really care how things play out on Twitter to be honest. I don't use it and I believe it's actually in decline overall as more and more people realise it's toxic and a terrible way to do politics. We won't win this war via social media, it's the real life pushback coupled with quality journalism that will make the difference in the end.

Jees, all this needing to call people out all the time without context or nuance gets on my wick. Adults are allowed to express opinions, agree with whoever they like, about whatever they like and do it in whatever way they so wish as long as they aren’t being, or encouraging violence. We don’t have a hymn sheet that we all must sing to. God some of us have real problems that amount to more than other people having a slightly different take on something, or expressing themselves in a different way. Let’s all push in the same direction shall we, rather than arguing about who is pushing correctly. You don’t see TRAs calling out even the most vicious and threatening behaviour, so why are people getting bent out of shape about a few angry words or a retweet? Honestly...

I have finally managed to catch up and see the video of PP and JL thanks to the link in this thread, and honestly I don't know whether to laugh or cry at the hoohaa.

PP and JL interrupted a lobbyist in a public place and asked them some (important and valid) questions. They were ignored and wanted to get a response. No more than is done by a group of news reporters trying to get a quote, and this was done genuinely because they want to talk about the issues. Mildly rude if about something trivial but not for serious political stuff. It was a couple of minutes of mildly provoking and on-topic questions about a valid political issue. Nothing more.

I've been in more confrontational situations about car parking.

I've also spoken up in so many tough situations and didn't think I was particularly unusual, but by this reaction maybe I am. If I wasn't in an insecure situation with an ill dependent I would be speaking up too, and I will and do if I come across this directly. Soooo many would hate me it seems!!! I'm a true uppity woman!!! But for gods sake, get a grip people. When did everything become so sanitised and controlled? The condemnation of PP is straight out of the Handmaids' Tale. No wonder the world is so ripe for an ideological take-over.

Women (and humans) speaking up has to look like this. This is grass roots activism. Not sitting back and waiting your turn (that will never come), making an appointment, or being uber-polite or meek. It was a moment to seize about something truly and hugely important. A more respectful opponent would recognise that this stuff matters and respond differently. But the trans juggernaut does not respond with respect or debate does it. It has the privilege of going largely unchallenged and bloody well mowing women down. Hence the need to engage directly.

Its just normal when stuff matters. In politics surely this is bread and butter.

I have no idea why anyone would need to condemn it. I have not read any tweets from JB or anyone so cant speak to that. But oh boo hoo, some women were mildly confrontational in a political environment. Aaaaaaand?

This is doing my head in. The argument seems to be that JB should not retweet a tweet by Harrop that JB agrees with because Harrop has said other things that are unpleasant.

But PP should be able to share a platform with X on an issue that PP agrees with because X has said other things that are unpleasant.

(For the record I think it would be madness for GC and feminist women to have constrained freedom of association because of ideological purity.)

I can follow JB's argument. I would do differently but I was persuaded on other threads that having a diversity of opinion was a strength.

twitter.com/JonnnyBest/status/1091009218587607040

Posies action was effective and necessary in my opinion, but let’s be frank. Sarah does not feel threatened.

Sarah is outraged that women are resisting their erasure. Sarah wants a new dawn, where men get to be women and remove women’s sex based rights.

You really think TRAs are sad when we tell them teenage girls are cutting off their breasts as a result of their polemics? I am sure it gives them a frisson of pleasure, to know that natal women have been convinced by them to destroy something they will never have: female bodies.

ContentiousOne

his choice to retweet Harrop, in the stampede to condemn the direct action of JL and PP.

And another thing. I could be wrong, but I can't see on Jonathon's timeline anything that would suggest his retweeting Harrop was in any way connected with "the stampede to condemn the direct action of JL and PP".

Maybe explain?????

And anyway Sarah McBride can always go and cry on the shoulders of the Biden family and CongresmanJoe Kennedy if she feels so threatened.

www.motherjones.com/politics/2018/03/meet-young-smart-openly-trans-leader-making-future-brighter-sarah-mcbride-memoir/

My issue with his retweet of that particular tweet - though our if context I agreed it was ok - was that when I read the rest of Harrops thread, it wasn't great.

Rather odd to block you though.

What Posie and Julia did was nowhere near as intimidating as the actions of TRAs, for example at the Jam Jar pub or Hyde Park. They had a point to make, they made it, but they didn't attack, obstruct or threaten McBride, who was able to pretend to ignore them.

Neither tweet was abusive; the emotion expressed was disappointment.

I have to disagree that your tweets conveyed only "disappointment". You in fact accused him of retweeting Harrop in an effort at "reputation management". While that's not abusive exactly, I think most people would feel extremely insulted at the implication of manipulative dishonesty. Why not just ask him why he did it, instead of assuming the worst?

He'd given his reason earlier, anyway: I RT this because Harrop wants to suggest that GC ppl are anti trans. And it ain't true.

Seems entirely reasonable to me. The reality is that transactivists leap on any chance to smear all gender critical people as bigots, and this needs to be countered. You may disapprove of Jonathan's tactics, but turning on allies because they've phrased something a bit clumsily seems like counter-productive over-reaction to me.

Well-behaved women seldom make history,

I bet if they had been lobbyists for Monsanto or whatever and some passing person had had a rant about GM crops everyone would have been applauding their stunning bravery

This.

Talking about women’s issues though = spiteful, nasty and aggressive. I am sick to the back teeth of the exacting standards women are held to when it comes to discussing issues that primarily if not solely affect them and their children.

*recovered just fine - meant to say

I am bewildered by the hatred being thrown at Posie et al, I just don't get it. We should be allowed to share our concerns about trans ideology even if those concerns don't all align, all the time. Especially disgusting coming from women who have been happy to sit on the sidelines, 'playing along' to all of a sudden express deep empathy for a community that would happily see women's rights completely eroded.

There was absolutely nothing violent about what PP and JL did in that office. What options have women been given on this issue when we are consistently no platformed, blocked, muted etc? And if I recall, the suffragettes employed way worse tactics to get their message heard.. arson, suicide, hunger strikes.

Besides, I'm sure the poor sod has recovered just from the 'battering' of words...

I don’t think TRAs are really the main problem for women. They are the shock troops for a bigger agenda, which is privileged men seeing an opportunity to roll back the progress women have made.

I suppose any system which is long-lived, systemic and powerful has a kind of sentience (and someone posted a really brilliant piece on FWR last year around that idea - but I’ve lost the link).

So the patriarchy is using transactivism as the thin edge of the wedge to pry away those political structures which benefit women.

I know that sounds apocalyptic, but in a world where 123 million women are missing, where FGM exists, where trafficking of women and children is increasing, where women are killed every day by intimate partners and family, it’s hard not to see the patriarchy fighting back.

I’m a bit unsettled by some feminists distancing themselves from what was really, at worst, rude behaviour, but female socialisation is hard to resist and they have careers and reputations to protect.

The fact that intruding on a meeting has been reported with a level of horror which might be commensurate with an act of dangerous aggression, reveals much of the deep-seated dislike that many, many men, have for women.

The outrage created by women prepared to be uncivil in pursuit of justice, would be funny if it wasn’t about complete disdain.

I’m quite sure that similar behaviour happens every day with male lobbyists jockeying for advantage. In fact I’m sure that lobbyists do much worse than enter meetings uninvited - but the millions of dollars handed to politicians by big tobacco or big oil or health funds, garners less outrage than two, angry women.

And retweeting Harrop is beyond the pale.

Well I'm assuming so because she didn't shout or swear or abuse McBride. But she did refer to them as a man.

I just had a look at this and am absolutely disgusted by it. Harrop is no friend to women OR trans people, he's an antagonist and an abusive pr!@k. This Jonathan person is no friend to women.

All the hyperbolic shit hurled at Posie this week, illustrates with painful clarity the hypocritical, and quote frankly insane, standards women are held to.

You’d think she was the one posing for pictures holding bat, or like Contentious said, had actually hit someone, the way we are expected to ‘distance’ ourselves from her (and Julia et al.)

The hypocrisy is especially galling when the so-called left get their knickers in a twist. They are the main guilty parties behind trying to stopwomen from meeting and speaking.

And when defending their glorious leader, they demonstrate that they understand the concept of speaking with people you don’t usually agree with perfectly well. If speaking with known terrorists is wise and strategically legit, why would it be tantamount to doing deals with the devil himself, to have civil conversations about shared issues with rightwing women?

Misogyny. That is the only answer to that.

Yep, what QuietContraryMary said. No one felt or was "unsafe" just because two adult human females spoke in a direct manner to an experienced political lobbyist. Julia and Posie did nothing wrong.
Oh but women, we must BE NICE! to those making a career out of removing our protections and rights.