Issues of poverty are being neglected by social justice movements because of the overwhelming focus on sexuality...

"The concentration on trans and gender issues does seam to be fixation which excludes time for us to look at other issues that really are higher in most women list of priorities."

It appears my previous comment has been deleted. However, onwards.

haXXor makes the point that unless you can define who is a women then you cannot tackle the issues we suffer.

I hold that the concentration on the inclusion of 0.6% of the population is holding us back from looking at issues:-

Such as the withdrawal of all funds for the women shelter in East Sussex by the council - you will notice that whether the shelter is trans inclusive or not the actual issue here is that the shelter will close unless we highlight it.

I hold that equal pay affects those who are or are perceived to be women, as per the equality act, and that fighting for equal pay for all women means actually we are fighting for equal pay - not spending time trying to exclude 0.6% of people who are women.

I hold that fighting FGM and forced marriage has no transgender cross over but is not being covered here in a "feminist chat".

I hold that benefit cuts have disproportionally affected women - but agains not seeing that here.

I hold that brexit will disproportionately affect women - but again nothing here on that.

So while some may see the need to spend all their time here creating a definition of women there is another thread of mainstream feminism that is getting on fighting for all these things.

And who know this post may also be deleted - we can only try our best.

The concentration on trans and gender issues does seam to be fixation which excludes time for us to look at other issues that really are higher in most women list of priorities.

If we cannot define women and girls as the set of people whose reproductive organs and capabilities are exploitable (by the state, businesses, men, and even occupying armies intent on genocide), are used as grounds for adverse treatment, and can be weaponised against them through rape, then we've lost our ability to state why "high priority" issues are important to women.

When an educated well-paid white woman is denied a promotion or project that she's easily capable of because "she's at that age where she'll be thinking about children", she has been discriminated against because of her reproductive capacity. When a girl in an Ethiopian village is kept out of school by her parents because they don't see a point in educating someone who will be married by age 13, she is being discriminated against because of her reproductive capacity. When the same girl ends with obstetric fistula because she was pregnant far too young, it's because her husband was trying to exploit her reproductive capacity, with the collusion of her parents who arranged the marriage.

I've deliberately used a "first world problem" and a "third world problem" as examples to show the common root cause: adverse treatment based on reproductive capacity. If we can't name that common root cause, we can't fix any of the "high priority" problems.

If we look at the actual dangers as opposed to the theoretical I think may be we could rebalance.

On this board now, from memory:

• J "wax my balls" Yaniv has harmed the livelihoods of self-employed women in Canada, causing an "actual danger" to their businesses as well as stress and expense.
• Two women, one in the UK with children and another in the US, who cannot use DV shelters because of their fear of men, causing "actual danger" to these women's safety and mental health.
• A certain TW cyclist who is winning Masters races, causing "actual danger" to the sporting careers of women.

Isn't part of the problem though that internationalism doesn't work well if your domestic focus isn't in order? And that in fact internationalist focus can easily become almost a deliberate distraction or excuse for not doing more in your immediate environment where it would possibly have the greatest consequences? An international focus is great if you don't want to deal with those.

In light of that I can see why someone might say leftists need to refocus closer to home. There is a sense where that is where a real reckoning occurs, and that is where you learn what it means to work at a grassroots level, how political action really works. That's where it is difficult to hide agendas and consequences, because you can see them.

This kind of problem happens in socialist institutions a lot. I've recently been involved in some food bank governance at a national level in my country, because I'm in involved with a small, neighbourhood/grass roots/church based soup kitchen. It's run in an inner city area for many years. It's really shocking in some ways how out of touch the top levels of the national organisation are. Not only are they increasingly being led in terms of policy by the needs of corporate donors, they are increasingly into value added services - things like a yoga class for those who attend a food bank or soup kitchen.

Connectivity to roots is primary and internationalist action has to always come out of that kind of experience. If the former is lost the latter will be ineffective or worse.

I do feel the left has totally lost the plot.

Vicky's post describes how what is happening in international aid is mirrored on this board, and across the left and anyone who is ostensibly fighting the 'good fight'.

It's all about fashionable causes- not those most in need.

The more the good guys ignore the people in need, the more attractive the bad guys will become to the people in need.

If women as a sex class no longer exist, women's issues won't exist either.

And that has to do with the takeover by wokeism in the international aid sector how, Vicky?

I do observe this feminist forum with dismay sometimes. The concentration on trans and gender issues does seam to be fixation which excludes time for us to look at other issues that really are higher in most women list of priorities. I think it's hard to shift the mindset once in this flow. If we look at the actual dangers as opposed to the theoretical I think may be we could rebalance.

Yes, it has overrun them and I think maybe that's the point.

FWIW, I think it is worthwhile to keep publications in mind, without being dismissive, though now I also am more inclined to look at who has written something. But in some cases, Lifesitenews comes to mind as an example, I find that there are often so many errors or outright misrepresentation of facts, that I don't trust what they are telling me. And it makes it hard to read when you can't even depend on that level of honesty.

This thread rather neatly demonstrates that Mumsnet FWR are largely familiar with the current problems that the wokerati have caused/are causing. What we need is a strategy for dealing with it. Any ideas, Tumbletwat?

I’m beyond saddened to hear about the funding restrictions - at what point will those responsible for these decisions realise the damage they are causing? Yet again the road to hell is paved with good intent.

Lisa Muggeridge was right, charities and public institutions are fucked. Working class people (especially children) are a massive blind spot.

Feminism and a sort of socialism, is turning into something that is done for educated, middle class women, for educated, middle class women.

I think you've mistaken the male privilege movement known as "liberal feminism" for actual feminism.

". So even if your interest is limited to the plight of poor Britons, you should be taking note"

Which was my point in the first place!

Feminism and a sort of socialism, is turning into something that is done for educated, middle class women, for educated, middle class women.

It's a useless, self-perpetuating echo chamber.

It's part of the problem that feeds voters to UKIP.

Frankly, anyone who has any understanding of class analysis recognises that women's reproductive labour is a resource that is exploited and controlled by the state, the economic forces of capitalism that also drive poverty, or both. Surrogacy is an example of this. Abortion restrictions are an example of this. Forced abortion, female foeticide, and one-child policies are examples of this.

Fab post, HaXXor, thank you.

Nativists should take note. If this is all being imposed by woke capture in third sector international aid, it's also being imposed by woke capture domestically. So even if your interest is limited to the plight of poor Britons, you should be taking note.

I support LGB solidarity action in homophobic states, but I also firmly agree that imposing it as an objective by external Western aid organisations is shockingly imperialist.

Yes. Precisely.

Aid organisations should only support local organisations and what they see as important. Ie. find a grassroots women's welfare organisation and fund them. Find a trade union collective and fund them.

Wherever possible and if such grassroots infrastructures are forming. I believe the woke term for this is "agency"! And of course, this is where left wing internationalism would be coming in, if all our institutions and third sector orgs - including, dispiritingly, many of our trade unions - weren't subject to woke capture.

Superb post, haXXor. Embarrassed that my short comment posted right after it, before I'd seen yours.

we are now excluded from funding we could apply for before

This is shocking. Worthy of a deep-dive piece or series by some enterprising journalist.

Tumble, Bicker is correct in her analysis.

Is has sod all to do with what is causing infant mortality to rise.

Tumble's derail and Bicker's retort are linked to the OP by the erasure of women as a distinct sex class worthy of consideration within a class analysis.

1. Removing the Venus symbol from sanpro is done explicitly to appease a set of people (trans privilege activists) who deny that menstruation is a women's experience and pretend that female and male biological difference is unimportant.
2. The increase in (mainly white, well-off, privileged) transmen in the news for giving birth is also to deny that pregnancy and maternity are a women's experience and pretend that female and male biological difference is unimportant.
3. Women are the underclass in terms of healthcare, with drugs researched on and designed for men, symptoms defined on men. This will get worse if people start actively asserting that female and male biological difference is unimportant.
4. Women's symptoms and pain are routinely taken less seriously by HCPs, leading to undertreatment, which exacerbates (3).
5. Women and girls around the world are the least and the last when resources are scarce, such as in famine or poverty. When combined with (3) and (4), we see women get worse care during pregnancy and childbirth and an increase in infant mortality as that is linked to maternal health.
6. (1) and (2) allow well-off, white, privileged men to claim to be women and hence oppressed as though they are women and divert resources intended to solve (5) to themselves. For example, "diversity grants" to improve women's participation in tech can be applied for by "anyone who identifies as female", in other words, anyone. If anyone can claim to be a woman, when I buy Cafe Femenino coffee, can I really be sure that the coffee growers receiving my money are female these days? When resources intended to aid women are diverted to men, this harms women.
7. The appropriation of resources intended for women outlined in (6) is being pushed globally and appropriating indigenous people's traditional third- and fourth-gender roles in the process, in a breathtaking display of colonialism by the very people who claim to be against "white feminism" and colonialism.

So yes, taking the Venus symbol off sanpro is a symptom of the global erasure of women as a sex class, an erasure that hampers women's ability to tackle the poverty that women bear the brunt of because they are female.

Frankly, anyone who has any understanding of class analysis recognises that women's reproductive labour is a resource that is exploited and controlled by the state, the economic forces of capitalism that also drive poverty, or both. Surrogacy is an example of this. Abortion restrictions are an example of this. Forced abortion, female foeticide, and one-child policies are examples of this.

we are now excluded from funding we could apply for before because they explicitly want us to explain how we engage LBTQ communities. We try but the reality is the focus of our work is on engaging communities to reduce child marriage, keep girls in schools, support domestic violence survivors and widows etc.

I would so, so much rather see you being able to focus on supporting women & girls' sex-based rights than the whole LGBTQetc thing (and I do mean sex-based, not gender-based - I think 'gender equality' is an oxymoron). And I'm saying that as a lesbian.

I support LGB solidarity action in homophobic states, but I also firmly agree that imposing it as an objective by external Western aid organisations is shockingly imperialist.

Aid organisations should only support local organisations and what they see as important. Ie. find a grassroots women's welfare organisation and fund them. Find a trade union collective and fund them.

Some time ago, I was talking to a friend who had just returned from a visit to Uganda, where her family was from. Uganda was in the news at the time because the govt was bringing in harsher penalties against homosexuality (originally including the death penalty, although that was eventually dropped).

My friend's family and friends in Uganda were generally against the new laws; even her more homophobic relatives thought they were unnecessarily harsh. But they did wonder why this issue among all others drew the attention of the western media. Why not child trafficking, murder of journalists, access to HIV medication, maternal mortality rates, and other problems that affect Ugandans? It seemed an odd sense of priority, from their viewpoint.

@LangCleg

"As Bunbury would say, let's get back to a useful contribution relevant to the OP and ignore politically illiterate interventions."

Is that aimed at me?

Your prejudices are showing again.

I work in international aid and a lot of the funding which used to be available for projects targeting gender inequality and discrimination has been updated to explicitly reference support/inclusion for LGBT communities. This is positive in that it encourages organisations to consider this issue (as they should) and how to include those populations. It is however tough in areas where there aren’t active/out LGBTQ communities (we work in isolated rural areas and have never had a beneficiary identify as this, despite staff sensitivity training and openness) because we are now excluded from funding we could apply for before because they explicitly want us to explain how we engage LBTQ communities. We try but the reality is the focus of our work is on engaging communities to reduce child marriage, keep girls in schools, support domestic violence survivors and widows etc. We have strategies in place but it is not the priority need in areas where we work, and we can promote inclusion but we can’t create a population to work with in areas where that group are not coming forward. I think an issue is that in communities struggling with starvation, poor outcomes for children, high gender based violence etc is that identity politics is not as high on their hierarchy of needs as basic security etc and so it is challenging to do real work in that area

As Bunbury would say, let's get back to a useful contribution relevant to the OP and ignore politically illiterate interventions.

This is a helpful illustration of the actual "white colonialism" that is going on at the coal face of international aid work. Wokeism has performed a third sector capture, as we often say on here, and identity issues that preoccupy the western bourgeois wokeing class are being imposed on aid work in the field - even when it is blindingly obvious it provides the least bang for buck available and the needs of women and girls are ignored.

This is in complete opposition to the traditional principles of leftist internationalism and everything to do with the old school colonialism of British Victorians. These people are actually reviving the 19th century notion of the mission to civilise.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilizing_mission

Yet the left fiddles with its fanny pads while Rome burns

You demonstrate your lack of understanding about what’s going on tumble

Do you think that the Labour Party are objecting to Always removing the female symbol from sanitary towel wrappers?

Spoiler alert: they aren’t

So what are you actually talking about?

Again, you seem angry with the women here. We’re not ‘the left’. So what’s your point?

Makes sense to me BickerinBrattle

I don’t understand a lot of this analysis so I’m grateful to many of you who take the time to explain it so clearly.

I

@BickerinBrattle

That's tin hat territory. It reads like the agenda 21 stuff. Sorry.

I'm really touching some nerves here. I've been called a 'moron', a 'kipper', accused of being angry as if it's a crazy, irrational reaction (stopped short of asking if I have PMT but not far off), 'incurious' and generally stupid.

Why? For suggesting that the left needs to concentrate more on its roots. The ugly truth is that if it doesn't, when we have an election in the next few months or so; Boris is going to get his majority.

The left will be shafted.

Public services will be cut even further.

People will get poorer.

Yet the left fiddles with its fanny pads while Rome burns.