Squeamish about far right hangers on

Melia100
Oh, say away, I just think it's an angle that appeals more to Americans than to Brits.

There are conservatives I'll align with on the new chessboard, and then there's the FRC....just saying.

Good timing OP - I was thinking today about how you used to read articles saying that, sometimes, on some issues, you have to look who's lined up alongside you and reconsider your posiiton (David Aaronovitch has made this argument before, but he's not the only one).

I've read so many people on this board who are shocked to find themselves not only lined up alongside Spectator readers but also opposed (and vehemently opposed) to Wokebros with whom they've been shoulder to shoulder on just about every other issue bar the trans one. (And I'm not making fun - it's clear there's very real pain to have gone through all that only to find yourself under attack the second you fall out of the approved line for a single issue).

All of which is a very long-winded way to say it's not just that the rules have changed - the whole chessboard has been knocked up in the air and there's been a huge realignment of the pieces. To dismiss all that as 'lining up with the Far Right is to spectacularly miss the point (imho).

I would draw the line at signing a petition run by organisations and people who are actively anti-abortion ie engaged in restricting access, shutting down clinics, active lobbying for a ban.

I would happily work with conservative women who hold different beliefs to me - I see conservatism and progressivism as able to check each other's worst impulses.

So yeah, I guess - does this person/organisation have different beliefs to me on some issues, while aligning on this? will not stop me working with them on a single issue.

But is the person /organisation actively seeking through their activism to restrict reproductive health and abortion rights? That will stop me from working with them.

In general, I don't dismiss lower case c conservatives, most of whom I don't consider to be far-right. Although I may disagree with them on many issues, I find their thoughts and responses a helpful counterweight to my own.

Re this specific petition, which I haven't signed...I don't align with FRC at all. I'd put them in the category of actively anti-women's rights and actively homophobic. I haven't heard of/researched the others. On the basis of the FRC being involved, no, I won't be signing.

Other women are absolutely free to make their own choices on this, however. Not up to me to dictate to them. This is a purely personal decision.

You are talking about signing a petition not a contract. Petitions don't do much most of the time. If you are that bothered find a different petition to sign.

In the 1920s, fundamentalists and other right-wing types were often the forces behind anti-eugenics campaigns, because they saw eugenics as "playing God" while progressives believed it would usher in a new age of prosperity and end the problems of generational poverty.

The right wing isn't always "backwards" or wrong, even if I disagree with them most of the time (which I do). Imagine having accepted eugenics a hundred years ago because all the do-gooder left-wing people thought it was brilliant and many of the people speaking out had a conservative bias.

I probably wouldn't sign a petition initiated solely/mainly by a group I knew to be working against my interests. Otherwise, my concern would be whether I agreed with the wording of the petition. If I didn't, I'd find one more in line with my beliefs, or start one.

More generally - speaking up for women always runs the risk of (in some cases disingenuously-framed) guilt by association with "right wingers". That problem isn't going to go away until the general public prioritise nuanced and critical arguments and cooperation and compromise over name-calling, point-scoring, mudslinging, and threats. I also think this "you agree with the religious right!" business, in a UK context, is (mainly) an imported problem argued by US-centric voices - but that's (thankfully) a separate rant.

I think it's important to be very clear (in your own head) about your end goal. If we refused to take any stand or work toward any outcome because it COULD be misunderstood or hijacked or used against us, we'd be paralysed. For me, preserving women's sex-segregated spaces and services is a band-aid; we should be eradicating the need for them by ending the systemic disadvantage of women as a group, globally. (Lots of people don't think that's possible, lots don't think it's desirable - I have a different ideology, but share a short-term goal.)

Until someone convinces me that women as a group are NOT systematically disadvantaged, marginalised, endangered, and exploited on the basis of sex, the constructed protections and separations that women of previous generations worked for and demanded - even if the concept of protections "can" be viewed as paternalistic or ideologically suspect - have to stay. Removing these rights prematurely also means we'll never be able to know if those systemic disadvantages are being effectively reduced and what is or isn't working to reduce them.

Women with different ideas than yours are allowed to build organisations around their viewpoints and goals. They aren't less women and their viewpoints about what that means deserve as much airing as feminist viewpoints do. They don't have to give up the word "woman" on your say-so.

That sounded dismississive - sorry! I get what you mean.

You probably also agree with them that water is necessary to keep the body hydrated. And that the earth is round.

I always carefully read what and how something is written. However, I don't think that agreement on the facts by people I don't disagree with other things about is reason not to stand up for this issue.

I think people can agree on one thing and not others, but you're right in that listing one's own name among those opposing your rights in other areas leaves a bad taste.
If it was an anti racism petition I still would sign, albeit after carefully checking everything the petition said!

The truth is the truth, whoever says it.

I share your concerns though. It's easy to twist