The Big Questions on now - is feminism in crisis?

The thing is, the bbc (and others) are quite lazy, and have certain people on speed dial. They just go back to the same people who will come on and spout off. So expect to see Jane Fae over and over again. Because Jane Fae will be available.

Similarly, Nigel Farage would always turn up. He could go grinning and gurning on forever, filling time in the schedule. The bbc would fob us off with a quick "we asked a government/opposition/non maniac person on. No one was available"

We can hope that people seeing Jane Fae on their TVs will see through it all. But that certainly didn't work with the eu debate & UKIP.

Somebody posted shared this tweet on facebook and I thought of this thread. All three names together in one place! Linda Rile, Jane Fae and Finn Mackay .... twitter.com/Finn_Mackay/status/1092051109022261249

Either women's rights or women's liberation. Feminism as a word has such a flabby definition now that it has lost all meaning, at least the noun has, the verb is still alive and kicking and looking out for women only, thank you very much.

Maybe we should start calling our concerns and thoughts 'womens rights' instead.

This has come up a few times recently. I think it's a good idea, because 'feminist' doesn't seem to mean what it used to mean. As Lang says, now so much of it is "all about the men". But with TRAs insisting TWAW, how do you keep it just for women?

Feminism as an issue has always been a fairly wide church. The only thing that truly unites all women, is being a woman. Radical feminism means this to be biological women only. I agree with this.
The word 'feminist' has always been weaponised against women though to diminish and disempower it.
Funny how often when you talk about feminism how many people, male and female jump in with'what about the men'.
Maybe we should start calling our concerns and thoughts 'womens rights' instead.

I mean, I agree that third wave feminism is in crisis, since it is now all about the men.

How does this work?

I suppose in terms of distancing ourselves from the likes of Fae?

Perhaps, as others have suggested, we should go back to calling it women's liberation and ourselves liberationists?

I identify as is the curse of the early twenty first century.

Agree with this, though.

I'm increasingly convinced that we should be using feminist as a verb or an adjective.

How does this work? I'm pretty sure the BBC caption for Jane Fae was 'feminist author' or something similar - so used as an adjective. How do you use feminist as a verb?

Have I misunderstood something here?

LangCleg

Yes! "I identify" has replaced "I find that offensive" (used as the full stop for any debate) as the teeth-grinding phrase du jour.

A feminist is whoever says they are one.

I identify as is the curse of the early twenty first century.

I'm increasingly convinced that we should be using feminist as a verb or an adjective.

So I’ll keep politely complaining that should have said

Oh yes, I’ll get fobbed off again

But my aim is to make it painful for the bbc to legitimise male feminists who have no actual feminist credentials

So I’ll

The BBC has a responsibility to ensure they’re being factually accurate

I agree with you, but I don't think you'll get much of an answer from them about whether or not Fae is a feminist. A feminist is whoever says they are one. People like Maria Miller and Lynne Featherstone argue that we're not feminists because we disagree with them.

I agree that describing Fae as an 'extreme porn advocate' would have been more accurate than 'feminist writer', but if Fae says that Fae is a feminist, who are we to disagree?

Yes, I have followed up the complaint to reiterate that my objection is not to Fae themselves but to the BBC uncritically presenting Fae as a feminist. The BBC has a responsibility to ensure they’re being factually accurate

Nevertheless we do appreciate your feedback on this issue and as such I have sent your complaint directly to senior management as well as the programme’s production team via our Audience Feedback Report. This report is among the most widely read sources of feedback in the BBC and can help inform decisions about future programming.

It would be good for BBC senior management to scrutinise the BBC's apparent frequent invitation to Jane Fae.

Fae is invited on many BBC programs acroos TV and radio stations with no apparent scrutiny of their position as 'feminist commentator' or woman with trans experience etc

Got a reply from the BBC who predictably don't get it and think I'm just a bit transphobic bigot who doesn't think Jane Fae should be on the telly. My point is that they described Jane as a 'feminist'. I think by any objective measure of what Jane says and does there is no way you could regard Jane as a feminist. By endorsing Jane's self identification as a feminist the BBC give it legitimacy.

If I as a labour party member asked to be described as a Conservative Activist on a programme called 'are the Tories Bastards?', would the BBC be cool with that?

Anyway, here's the response in full:

Thank you for contacting us about BBC One's 'The Big Questions' broadcast 3 February.

We understand you felt Jane Fae was an inappropriate choice of guest.

The programme was asking the question if feminism is in crisis and heard from a range of different contributors. The programme heard from the likes of Dr Finn Mackay, Dr Shelia Jeffreys and Linda Riley all presenting their own view on the current state of feminism.

Jane Fae is one of many contributors to the programme while we appreciate you may disagree with her view, a programme such as 'The Big Questions' aims to include as many differing viewpoints as possible, this promotes lively debate and allows our audience to make up their own mind of any subject discussed.

Overall we are confident that a range of viewpoints from across the political and religious spectrum were heard on the programme.

Nevertheless we do appreciate your feedback on this issue and as such I have sent your complaint directly to senior management as well as the programme’s production team via our Audience Feedback Report. This report is among the most widely read sources of feedback in the BBC and can help inform decisions about future programming.

Let's hope some people with their brains switched on read the feedback about Jane's advocacy for extreme porn and realise that despite the knitting Jane is not really all that wholesome

Linda Riley? Feminist?

Linda Riley's comment on the The Big Questions program was that she thought it was important that working class women's voices should be better represented in feminism.

I was a bit

Linda Riley? Feminist? Profited from murder of women? Read ripperologist45.pdf Court case and judges comments about her mother? FEMINIST?????

Feminism may well be in crisis. Because of capitulating to men. Currently, feminism seems to be an academic discipline that is beholden to men.

I'll go for Women's Rights and Women's Liberation, instead! Male exclusionary, no matter how "woke" they identify!

I liked what Finn McKay said, especially how she brought in the writings of 2nd wave feminists.

I can't make out her position overall and there have been a few things she has said in recent months that have alarmed me but I thought she was very good here.

There's a moment in the earlier discussion about children and social media, someone says 13 y/o's are old enough to navigate social media (something like that) and then there's a shot of extreme porn advocate Jane Fae nodding vigorously

The lesson seems to be obvious: keep men out of women's groups.

The London Feminist Network which was set up by Finn was split by what was felt to be her lack of support for gender critical feminists. And the fall out was not just the LFN has become an empty shell, but that Reclaim the Night in London is considered compromised by its inclusion of trans women. It also meant that what had been the Feminism in London conference was co-opted into a queer political conference (cant remember what it was called) and then stopped. Although later revived as FiLia, also politically confused and turning into a cheaper version of WoW.

And for those who think that gender critical feminism only reallly started with the proposed changes to the GRA, it was this issue going back almost to the start of LFN which was a constant cause of tension which were never resolved. Although you could say it led to groups like LRA and so on.

It would be interesting to know the breakdown of times for male/female guests and female/male-centric comments in that debate.

Jane Fae was also featured last year on the BBC Big Questions episode about gender self-id with Heather Brunskill-Evans.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3267012-The-Big-Questions-BBC-should-you-be-able-to-self-declare-your-gender