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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Julie Bindel - article on allies

259 replies

Goosefoot · 12/10/2020 12:36

Thought people might be interested in discussing this:

[https://unherd.com/2020/10/feminisms-dangerous-new-allies/]]

We've talked about this a lot here - I'm not sure Bindel has really said anything as worthwhile or interesting as lot of the regular posters here have, it seems a little one dimensional to me.

Maybe because she's really stuck on the left-good right-bad thinking and doesn't really consider whether there has been a change within those categories at all, or why the left has struggled with certain problems. It seems to me she sees it as almost random, and if we just take out the TRA stuff things can go back to normal.

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Moonbasealpha · 16/10/2020 19:38

Call it what you like. The GRA changes legal sex. We all know what it means.

Ereshkigalangcleg · 16/10/2020 02:18

was quite common, I worked in admin for a while in the 90s writing up funding bids and equal opps policies and stuff and gender was routinely used synonymously with sex. It wasn't an ideological thing and there haven't been secretive trans conspiracists sneaking around changing the words in policy documents.

"Gender" as used in policy documents 25 years ago has a subtly different meaning to "sex". But it's not surprising that people mixed them up because they were both referring to sex. However I'd argue that now we need clear blue water between the two because the meanings are frequently contradictory which wasn't the case in the past.

xxyzz · 15/10/2020 20:56

Goosefoot, happy not to continue the discussion, as the bits I did understand of what you said were minimising anti-Semitism.

I fully admit to not understanding what "I've suggested that I don't think accusing someone of believing in a covid conspiracy theory is at all the same as being a Nazi" means or who you think has been saying that.

Maybe you should write more clearly if you don't want to be misunderstood?

xxyzz · 15/10/2020 20:37

jj1968, disappointing to see you make an excuse for Corbyn's wreath.

A bit flabbergasted that you can't see the far left's support for terrorism, not only did Jeremy Corbyn not back military action in Kosovo, he supported outright Serbian war crimes revisionism and voted in parliament to deny the existence of mass graves found in the Balkan country. He was a keen supporter of both the IRA and Islamist terror groups.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying the far right are any better. But at least the far right aren't pretending to offer a kinder, gentler alternative.

Goosefoot · 15/10/2020 03:35

@raddledoldmisanthropist

For me the abolition of capitalism is "far left" and a very extreme position. I'm surprised that anyone would or could think otherwise.

I presume that some of the people who say this as if it's a mainstream view don't really mean the seizure of all private capital and the establishment of a command economy by a totalitarian state.

Communism (the political system, not the vague theoretical utopia that Marx never really defined) has killed more people than any other ideology in history. Saying you are a communist is little different from saying you are a Nazi.

Thinking collective goods like schools hospitals and police do not function well in a market is just good economics. There are lots of ways you can deal with that issue but capitalist socialism has worked well in many countries and is a perfectly reasonable political position.

This is a definition problem. Capitalism does not mean markets, it means capitalists. Markets existed long before capitalism which only emerged in the modern period.

Abolition of capitalism could mean replacing it with any number of other systems that have already existed, or something new, but it's not all that extreme to suggest that a system that's only been in place for a short time in human history could itself be replaced by something else.

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Goosefoot · 15/10/2020 03:25

@xxyzz

Goosefoot, I don't know or care which poster you are referring to - but if you are objecting to a particular poster it would be quite helpful if you could quote them and refer to their particular posts, rather than making dark assertions that an unnamed someone is secretly trying to paint all GC feminists as Nazis.

The reality is - and unlike you, I don't see GC feninists as being in any way implicated, as Poulton aside, I see little evidence of GC feminists espousing conspiracy theories themselves, as opposed to talking to those who do - that conspiracy cults and anti-Semitism are deeply similar and intertwined movements.

It's hardly an accident or coincidence, after all anti-Semitism is the conspiracy theory par excellence (powerful group secretly conspiring to take over the world? Tick. Kill children to increase their strength? Tick. Less than human themselves? Tick.). Anti-Semitism is in many ways the model for this kind of conspiracy theory, its archetypes go back hundreds of years, it appeals to stupid, gullible and vicious people in exactly the same way any other conspiracy theory does. And that is visible on both the far left (eg Piers Corbyn is a Holocaust denier as well as an anti-masker and climate change denier) and the far right ( eg the terrorist who murdered Jews in the synagogue in Pittsburgh claiming Jews were behind 'white genocide').

While this thread goes well beyond Julie's article, I would therefore disagre with her that the danger lies only or at least primarily on the far right. Unlike her, I am aware that Jews, like women, are threatened by both far left and far right positions. One of the reasons I spent relatively little time on this board until recently was because in the last 4 or 5 years, as things have really kicked off in attacks on women's rights, Corbyn's Labour's attacks on Jews meant that I was busy fighting on 2 fronts, and in my case, judged that the threat to my safety from anti-Semites on the left was more immediate to me than the threat to my safety from TRAs. Now Starmer is in place, I feel able to relax a bit and take up the fight for women's rights again, against both the far left and far right.

To me, the distinction between far left and far right seems pretty spurious anyway, as both are pretty similar, in their methods and priorities. I distrust both equally. I don't feel your attempts, Goosefoot, to blur the boundaries between far right (Neo-Nazis) and mainstream right (Posie Parker) is helpful, as in reality, the real commonality is between moderates on both the left and right, which includes 99% of GC feminists, and the nutters and conspiracy theorists on both the extremist right and left.

In short, the right/left divide is not the real issue. The real split is between extremists (who CTs naturally belong to) and moderates.

So I get where Julie is coming from, but unlike her I wouldn't trust the far left as far as I could throw them either.

I'm not sure why you think I believe GC feminists are implicated in conspiracy theories. I don't. I do think there is an attempt to suggest it, it's been said right in the thread. Nor do I see why you think I want to blur the distinction between the mainstream and far right as I haven't really said anything along those lines - in fact I've suggested that I don't think accusing someone of believing in a covid conspiracy theory is at all the same as being a Nazi and we shouldn't be allowing anyone to colaps those ideas together.

I also think Bindel is quite wrong to think that there is a threat only from the right, I am not confident she really understands the political spectrum well at the moment, right and left seem to be very simple designations in her mind.

Given that you seem to think I believe and am saying a whole lot of things I don't think at all, and so wouldn't say, I'm really not sure where this discussion is going. From my perspective it seems like you are just saying what you want to think I mean.

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NRatched · 15/10/2020 00:36

I did not say gender was not used aswell as sex sometimes. But the mass taking over of businesses..randomly switching to gender instead of sex fairly recently, even going as far as to quote the equality act, yet purposely miss out sex in some cases, whilst its quite well known these days that many (on both sides of this) see gender as distinctly different from sex. But still, gender. I fail to see really, where recording anyones 'gender' would be useful, given those who have a gender identity also agree its something in your head. Your inner sense of self, or something. If thats what gender is (and I agree it is, not arguing against that) then there is never a reason to collect data on it, with possibly the rare excpetion of..say a transpersons medical file. Sex: Female. Gender: Transman or something, to prevent misgendering.

Yhe conitnual fudging of gender and sex would amuse me if it did not disadvantage women so much tbh. Admit sex and gender are different..possibly the one thing feminists and TRAs have in common. However, TRAs will then go and use gender where they actually mean sex (because of course, sex is a social construct..). The single sex spaces is a good example of this. They are segregated by sex. Sex is different to gender. Yet TRAs argument is 'because gender', when gender has no bearing on sex as they admit themelves. Its odd, to say the least.

there haven't been secretive trans conspiracists sneaking around changing the words in policy documents.

For that though, activists specifically tried changing laws and such under the table without the public knowing anything about it, these activists admit this Grin If you disagree, might be worth taking it up with transactivists about it. Tell them to stop saying thats what happened, if its not what happened, despite those saying it was what happened being a part of the reason it happened to start with so quite well placed to know what happened. Tongue twister and a half that one..

But this is kind of besides the point now, given there is a court case that will settle the matter soon enough. While the sneaking around did work to start with, think that game is up now. Look how pissed off that Crispin Blunt dude is about how he was backroom promised his own way.

DidoLamenting · 14/10/2020 23:18

@jj1968

Yes, I've heard of the PLO and the ANC too, and whilst those groups were left they were also part of colonial struggles with histories far more complex than just right/left.
I could have predicted you'd make this sort of excuse for the IRA. How about Shining Path? What's your apologia for them?
OldCrone · 14/10/2020 23:14

@NRatched

The talk of TRAs 'capturing' major institutions behind the scenes

Hmm. Regulatory capture is a very real thing.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture

And is indeed what Stonewall have been doing IMO. Infact, a few TRAs (stephen whittle, was one I remember, there are others) actively admit that they wanted everything done behind closed doors, which..seems to have happened with how many places have adopted 'gender' instead of sex.

This is an interesting thread from last year for anyone who hasn't seen it.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3541908-Regulatory-capture

Also this one

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3613391-The-Equalities-and-Human-Rights-Commission-one-of-the-roots-of-regulatory-capture

jj1968 · 14/10/2020 23:05

Yes, I've heard of the PLO and the ANC too, and whilst those groups were left they were also part of colonial struggles with histories far more complex than just right/left.

DidoLamenting · 14/10/2020 22:59

Those examples were carried out by lone fanatics not the government or an organised group.

So far as murders by left wing terrorists- I assume you have heard of the IRA?

jj1968 · 14/10/2020 22:53

@NRatched

Oh JJ. If nthing else you do make me smile sometimes Grin

No-one adopted gender instead of sex because of shadowy lobbyists, the two words have been synonomous for several decades

Odd then, how these companies used sex, until fairly recently. I wonder what prompted them to switch en masse? What a coincidence, I have to say. Meanwhile, Stonewall continue misrepresenting the law to all and sundry. But again, nothing to see here. Its all great!

Here's a report from 2005 which uses gender throughout: www.econ.jku.at/papers/2003/wp0311.pdf

It was quite common, I worked in admin for a while in the 90s writing up funding bids and equal opps policies and stuff and gender was routinely used synonymously with sex. It wasn't an ideological thing and there haven't been secretive trans conspiracists sneaking around changing the words in policy documents.

jj1968 · 14/10/2020 22:50

Sorry meant to include a link in that post: www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/27/us-far-right-violence-terrorist-threat-analysis

jj1968 · 14/10/2020 22:49

For me as a Jewish person, I don't see a vast difference between Corbyn laying a wreath for a terrorist responsible for the murder of Jews, or supporting Holocaust deniers, and say Steve Bannon on Breitbart promoting the same and egging on far right terrorism. Both sides go in for Holocaust denial, Islamic terrorism isn't any more morally ethical than far right terrorism. Blowing up or shooting civilians or supporting others who do this is morally wrong whoever does it.

Indeed and I'd say that includes the State of Israel and Corbyn claimed the wreath was laid to commemorate the victims of the bombing of the PLO headquarters. That's not a defence of him btw, just that I don't think you can really say either way what the truth was about that incident. But yes, there was antisemitism around Corbyn and within that segment of the left, I've fully acknowledged that, and I'm glad it came to light and was exposed because it has been a running sore on the left.

But in terms of terrorism, then the far right has killed a lot more people than the far left, there's been some fairly solid analysis on precisely this quite recently. We've seen a British polician murdered on the streets in this country in recent years, the slaughter of teenagers by a far right terrorist in Norway and the massacre of 51 people in Christchurch just to name some of the worst examples. There is nothing remotely comparable that has come from the far left in recent decades.

NRatched · 14/10/2020 22:39

Oh JJ. If nthing else you do make me smile sometimes Grin

No-one adopted gender instead of sex because of shadowy lobbyists, the two words have been synonomous for several decades

Odd then, how these companies used sex, until fairly recently. I wonder what prompted them to switch en masse? What a coincidence, I have to say. Meanwhile, Stonewall continue misrepresenting the law to all and sundry. But again, nothing to see here. Its all great!

ScreamingBeans · 14/10/2020 22:35

Not buying it. The only reason the word gender was adopted in place of sex IMO was because sex had come to be publicly used as a shorthand for sexual intercourse and people were squeamish about using it. And also fed up with jokers putting "Yes please" on the form instead of male.

jj1968 · 14/10/2020 22:32

@xxyzz

No-one is claiming the far left and far right are identical nor that the feminists you named count as far left in the way you imply - except you.

If they don't count as far left then who on earth does? De Beauvoir and James were/are committed communists whose entire analysis was based on Marxist ideas whilst Firestone took the Marxist class analysis and applied it to sex and was openly anticapitalist and revolutionary, as was Dworkin. Or is it just far left people are as bad as Nazis but only the one I don't like.

jj1968 · 14/10/2020 22:27

Regulatory Capture is a phrase used by neo-liberal economists which claimed that regulatory bodies became captured by the industy they were intended to regulate and as such were a waste of time. Stonewall and the like are not regulatory bodies, they are charities who do some lobbying on the side, as most charities do.

No-one adopted gender instead of sex because of shadowy lobbyists, the two words have been synonomous for several decades. If you look back at documents from the 80/90/00 you will see that gender is frequently used.

What has happened is a global generational shift in social attitudes towards gender and trans people and the impact of that has been to create social change everywhere from Pakistan to Brazil to Vancouver to London. This has led many instiutions to adopt more trans inclusive policies, which may or may not have involved consultation with lobbying or charitable groups just as the introduction of the Disability Discrimination Act led to institutions seeking out disabled people's views for advice and the corporate sector began fawning over Stonewall and Pride once LGB rights became socially accepted. There was no secretive disability lobby or gay mafia secretly pushing an agenda behind the scenes and there has been no international trans conspiracy engineering this massive social change. To claim otherwise is conspiratorial thinking in my view. Society changes, institutions clumsily catch up and lobbyists claim the credit when what's actually happened is the changing of millions of hearts and minds due to new and emerging material and social conditions.

ScreamingBeans · 14/10/2020 22:24

The dangers inherent in failing to call out Nazis and deal with them are greater than the risks potentially faced by innocent people being mislabelled.

Depends on the numbers.

How many are there of each and how great are the risks faced in each scenario?

This statement would absolutely be true in 1929. In 2020, what is the relative harm caused by the juxtaposed actions (or non actions?) I suppose we can't know as we don't know the future.

Does anyone really think a Nazi takeover of the West is on the cards?

Is that what is being posited?

If you really believe that, then obviously the matter of a small number of people losing their jobs or being unemployable and other people keeping silent from fear, is a very unimportant matter. If you don't, then I think there's a discussion to be had about the damage that is done by invoking the most terrible chapter of recent history just because you don't like some of what someone says or the way s/he says it.

I come across so many posts on twitter where someone has used the n word (Nazi) in what I consider a shockingly frivolous way.

NRatched · 14/10/2020 21:49

@testing987654321

It's irrelevant as to whether some people think there's a "conspiracy" to embed transgender people within all areas designed for women.

It's a fact that many organisations have used the word "gender" when they mean "sex" regarding equalities legislation.

It's a fact that women are being mostly ignored by sports bodies who want to make women's sports mixed-sex.

It's a fact that the Labour Party still support self-id.

That women's refuges are expected to include men.

I could go on, but you know all this already.

This thread was actually about Bindel thinking we shouldn't align with people on the right to fight this.

Why are you wittering on?

Or just this..puts it much better than mine. Sorry should really get into habit of reading thread updates before replying (still havent done it when writing this post!)

Sorry for derail, if convo managed to get back on track in meantime. Going through it all now Blush

NRatched · 14/10/2020 21:46

The talk of TRAs 'capturing' major institutions behind the scenes

Hmm. Regulatory capture is a very real thing.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture

And is indeed what Stonewall have been doing IMO. Infact, a few TRAs (stephen whittle, was one I remember, there are others) actively admit that they wanted everything done behind closed doors, which..seems to have happened with how many places have adopted 'gender' instead of sex.

xxyzz · 14/10/2020 21:39

@jj1968

Has anyone said that? I don't think so.

It's the logical endpoint of the claim the far left are as bad as the far right surely. If that is the case then those women of the far left are as bad as the Fascists and Nazis of the far right surely?

This is a frankly silly strawman (or should that be strawwoman)?

No-one is claiming the far left and far right are identical nor that the feminists you named count as far left in the way you imply - except you.

I can't see the point of getting into some sort of 'Who was worse, Hitler or Stalin? pissing contest. I'm sure we can all agree they were both very evil indeed.

For me as a Jewish person, I don't see a vast difference between Corbyn laying a wreath for a terrorist responsible for the murder of Jews, or supporting Holocaust deniers, and say Steve Bannon on Breitbart promoting the same and egging on far right terrorism. Both sides go in for Holocaust denial, Islamic terrorism isn't any more morally ethical than far right terrorism. Blowing up or shooting civilians or supporting others who do this is morally wrong whoever does it.

raddledoldmisanthropist · 14/10/2020 21:28

So we want something better okay, and if that's extremism, then fine, I'm proud to be an extremist.

So are you saying you want Communism? Seizing all private capital, totalitarian control of speech, planned economy, cultural revolution etc?

Or are you saying you want progressive taxation, state ownership of collective goods, intervention in free markets to prevent abuses, socialised welfare, high quality state education and limits on inheritance of wealth?

One of those two is perfectly reasonable, the other is extreme. I hope what we have is merely an issue of semantics but of you really want Stalinism 2.0 ('Democratic' or not) then I don't think you should be proud of it.

jj1968 · 14/10/2020 20:42

@raddledoldmisanthropist

Has anyone said that? I don't think so.

Yeah, I'm confused too. JJ did you misunderstand my point about communism (the political system responsible the deaths of tens of millions of which suppression of minorities is an intrinsic part) as relating to Marxist philosophy (the highly influential ideas which have spawned countless left wing movements)?

I'm sure to the more well heeled denizens of mumsnet then capitalism is simply wonderful and the idea of it's abolishment unthinkable. Unfortunately for the vast majority of people on the planet capitalism has brought emmiseration, poverty, exploitation and death and may even manage to destroy human civilisation completely over the next few decades. So we want something better okay, and if that's extremism, then fine, I'm proud to be an extremist.
Moonbasealpha · 14/10/2020 20:40

I'm not sure Bindel has really said anything as worthwhile or interesting as lot of the regular posters here have, it seems a little one dimensional to me.

AKA Bindel is a decent sort with integrity, ethics, morals and compassion. Shocking.