Jane Clare Jones on navigating non-agreement/infighting

KJK summarises the issue with Woman adult human female. Will talk clearly to anyone on the issue.
Intellectuals - 40 paragraphs of navel gazing and the dilemma of how to be kind to minorities and ignoring their misogyny. Also will not have dialogue with non approved outlets, even though those outlets are misogynistic, also showing signs of snobbery patronising and internalised misogyny and racism. They are superior to the little housewives and patronising to other cultures, it’s just as racist to not see or gloss over misogyny. FGM and arranged marriage was ignored for years, because the hand wringers didn’t want to criticise cultural differences which adversely affect women.

I respect the right of other people to understand this as a single issue, to think that this is not political in a larger sense, or to assert that there is no political belief they hold that they will not compromise or abandon in order to win this fight.

I understand that some people think that we must take any help that we can get because of the severity of the situation, that we can deal with the consequences of any political principles we may have compromised later, and that not doing so is 'purity politics.'

I think this is saying 'birds of a feather, flock together'. End of. PP is reaching out to work with others to expose this stuff and raise awareness about how false the foundation and premise is. These paragraphs above seem to say that if PP does this, then she is condoning (and maybe even agreeing with) all the other opinions and political views of those who join the fight against this ideology.

I think that is disingenuous. Does that mean that those who fraternise with males who use women's single sex spaces also agree that it is ok for males to use single sex spaces. Where is the disapproval for those who seem to form alliances with males who teach to secondary school pupils presenting themselves as a woman. Alliances for those who appear to encourage the social transition in schools of 'trans' pupils by using their pronouns and new name. Now that we know this may set those kids on a one-way path. If it is not ok to tar those with that accusation, then it is unfair to tar PP as also adopting views of the people who cooperate on the fightback against this faux rights movement which disadvantages women and girls.

TL;DR.

PP has sought to utilise people who disagree with this ideology. A faux rights movement which damages women and girls. But the author seems to think that alliance on this one issue compromises PP on all others. Yet, I haven't seen this disapproval on others who have what some might view as dodgy alliances.

NATO may be a good example. The members are in an organisation to co-operate in a defence alliance. Even Greece and Turkey are both in NATO. The current prime minister of Turkey could be said to not be the hottest on human rights. Are all the other members ever accused or guilty of agreeing with that PM on everything?

Thanks for clarifying the education point. (Although I’m still not clear whether you think her tweets are racist. Not that it’s any of my business really.)

A topic I’m interested in, and it’s a discussion for another thread really, is: when is it acceptable to observe that something - eg an institution, a belief system, a culture, a group of individuals - is misogynistic and when isn’t it acceptable to make such observations?

Another topic I’m interested in is: what is the hierarchy of things that get you banned / make you persona non-grata in a particular group or situation? It’s interesting to observe these in-group hierarchies.

I wondered if your post might have been prompted by similar thinking, hence my interest in it.

I think anyone who has followed Kellie from the very emergence of the TRA ideas can see that she has only ever been on the side of women. She doesn't self censor. What that means is her agenda is out there for all to see. She stands for women and children, our language, our rights, as they stood in 2015/16. Very very few of us are brave enough to do that. I wish I was, I'm not. But boy do I applaud her for her courage. Also for the consistency of commitment she has given this cause for years.

Moreover I do remember her as a mumsnetter - the kindness she showed other posters. Her need to understand things, to get to foundational thought, around all of the window dressing.

Thanks for posting the twitter interchanges with DocStock above - I was pleased to see that.

Thank you @Signalbox

Actually that needs editing-

"Many people who are not steeped in a certain vocabulary and context would not consider them racist."

To clarify, people who are not steeped in a certain vocabulary and context would not consider them racist.
That context maybe an academic one, I think it's probably a politically left one. I'm not widely enough read in those fields to know.

I'm highly educated. I'm experienced in my field. I'm unfamiliar with queer theory, critical race theory, in fact political and social science theory of all kinds.

This is the sort of tedious ,self righteous,intellectual waffle, that has allowed trans activists and grooming gangs to proliferate in the first place.

No, @LoobiJee . That's not what I'm saying.

For all the divisions, I was pleased to see the exchange between Kathleen Stock and PP:

twitter.com/docstockk/status/1539337442649587712?s=21&t=Z_yNwYw87E-hw7AvxEeG7A

twitter.com/standingforxx/status/1539352108574687236?s=21&t=Z_yNwYw87E-hw7AvxEeG7A

I think that we will push ahead despite the divisions. The movement is way bigger than any one person’s opinion. Also Posie, as well as getting to the heart of the issue, and attracting in women who would otherwise not get involved, she’s actually quite astonishing in that she really does seem to be holding a space open for any woman who wants it.

So what you’re saying is that: you consider the content of KJK’s tweets to be racist, but that individuals who are insufficiently educated won’t recognise them as racist. Is that correct?

(I’m not being arsey by the way, I originally read your post to mean something different and wanted to check.)

.

The tweet it responds to has been deleted. What did that say?

Then someone says 'the sarcasm is obvious'. Which tweet is sarcasm? I find Twitter a difficult place to understand quite a lot of the time tbh. (I freely admit that I don't seem to get the 'nuance' the way other people do.)

Thanks signalbox, that really helps. Looks like an accusation of being a stepford wife, really. Charming.

twitter.com/ruthserwotka/status/1471136318260404228

I understand JCJ/WPUK position here. If they want to reclaim the left and persuade Gender Ideologists on their own side over to being GC then I appreciate they have to demonstrate that their arguments fit in with other left values. The problem I see with that is that firstly if you’re so busy trying to demonstrate your purity to people who thing you’re bigots you’re expending energy fruitlessly and secondly you’re potentially alienating women who would support you but don't because they see you as elitist.

It was the same with Brexit. If you call people who are thinking of voting leave racists then you alienate people who might have voted to remain.

I understand where it comes from but ultimately I think it comes down to whether your aim is to reconcile GC women with the left (or the left with GC women) and rebuild that or whether your aim is to challenge gender ideology and there are many more ordinary women (people?) who care about the latter than the former.

It's public denouncing, isn't it? Not just mudslinging, or disagreement.

Agree with MrsOverton These divisions have always happened on the left, within feminism and we carry on, and it is interesting that this particular one has arisen at the point where thousands of women are doing a range of actions that have started to impact the crazy ideology that impacts women in so many ways. We are winning the argument and things are changing. Many of us who would put ourselves in the broadly left camp, cannot ally ourselves with political parties that seek to ignore us. If the parties on the left cannot see this more fool them. We all have huge amounts of commitment to keeping the rights that we have and all of it should be valued and acknowledged. We can and should, have private conversations about why and how we can best achieve our aims without public mud slinging.

"Although the responses to their post which contained PP's tweets were alarming in their denial that PP's comments were racist."

Can anyone see why many people may not agree that PP's comments were racist?

I think that conversation needs to be had. You can't declare it racist, without accepting the concerns of the person making the statement and demonstrating how to reframe it in a way that isn't racist. That is a conversation for a different thread, but it needs to be had. Just because you've worked it out doesn't mean everyone else can, especially if their context doesn't deal with such things. If you've not been on unconscious bias training, received good quality diversity and inclusion training, or grown up on a Uni campus, it simply isn't evident to you.

This is just another dig at KJK, isn’t it.

Go and enjoy some time off Jane.

'Domesticated zombies' was a tweet from Ruth Serwotka. I remember it very well because Ruth took a dive in my estimation that day from which she has never recovered. The same applies to Sarah Ditum who, as I remember, replied with a 'lol'.

From memory it was a verrrry shitty dig at women with famalies who were not feminist enough in the right way for a clique.
A woman, housewife, mother, carer, not reading the right books, etc etc
A woman just stepping up and saying "wtf? this ideology / policy has a negative impact on my life" is bad because they did not agree with the paramaters imposed.

TBF, it sometimes its the letting off steam stuff, that people are normally clever enough to use a closed message app for. Not PSAing it out on Twitter. But the woman who its attributed to is doing the "named person, whatever her name is" routine.

WPUK was formed by women who had been involved in feminism in the TU and other movements for years. They make no secret of the fact that they're firmly of the left and will not compromise that.

Yes I get that. But I question your claim that they're hardly allying with the leftist reality deniers. Do we think that if let's say, Lisa Nandy, who supports locking up rapists with women, were to become party leader, that WPUK would want to talk to her? Of course they would. Given that Nandy signed a pledge describing WPUK as a hate group it would be compelling to watch, but my point is that WPUK would would want to talk, seek some compromise and, if push came to shove, they would urge women to vote for her. I don't understand how that isn't an alliance, and some would ague, a pretty dangerous one too.

I don't even criticise WPUK for doing that. What I do criticise them for is the hypocrisy.

If I hadn't been part of feminist / lesbian groups for nearly 40 years I'd be despairing at this. But (and this applies to most political groups) splits and divides on ideological / political grounds usually happen. I'm keeping my eye on the fact that we are making a profound impact.

FINA and other sports finally stepping away from the lobby groups stranglehold and acknowledging that facts and science are real
The interim report from the Cass review setting out the abysmal standards of health care for children and the dangers posed to children by the captured NHS
Journalism - finally reporting what's happening and learning to use factual sex based language
The threats of violence against women being openly reported
So many people talking openly, knowing about JKR, Stock, Forstater all the rest.

At this stage it demands great self discipline not to be distracted from this and to keep pushing on - exhausting as it is. As WalrusSubmarine said upthread:

It’s an all hands on deck situation and controlling who gets to be heard has helped get us into this mess .

"Of course they don't take and distribute photos of the demographic of attendees of their events. Of course they don't ask people who attend meetings to complete EO monitoring forms. Of course they don't have a database of members. "

That's an interesting take - considering WPUK members regularly berate women who are anonymous online when they're being criticised. They can't have it both ways - criticism of women who are anonymous online & claiming they're respecting women who don't want their identity revealed.

Women aren't put off by those things - they're signing petitions, donating to crowd funders, writing to & visiting their MPs/MSPs, challenging councils. They're even making regular donations to WPUK giving them information that they have at hand - but don't then think of using that to find out what those supporters think. All of these things mean they're not anonymous. So claiming WPUK can't do anything to understand their own audience or ensure they're even on the same page as the women they're claiming to represent (without any form of mandate, given they don't hold any data on those supporting them & don't seek their views or opinions) is not plausible.

WPUK cannot maintain their arguments of having any mandate to negotiate women's rights if they aren't even listening to women. If women are good enough to solicit money from to fund their aims, then they should be good enough to be asked for their views & opinions to make any claims of representation based on consensus. As things stand, WPUK aren't doing that. And appear to have zero intention of doing that.

But it's not just WPUK - none of the orgs we currently have are doing any work to ensure they're actually reflecting women's needs & views that I'm aware of, to ensure they're not formulating actions or policy that has blind spots. We should all be at a point by now where our collective organising is not just reactionary & knee jerked by the actions of others but but being pro-active in find out what women need & want.

So sorry, I'm not buying the 'of course' arguments here. WPUK are choosing to cut women out of any discussions while claiming to be representative of women. That's not a position they can realistically hold long term.