Helen Joyce & Julie Bindel: Should TERFs unite with the Right?

My feeling (and I think JBs point too) is that the problems we are seeing now are because things weren't really getting better.

I agree - this has very much revealed exactly how shaky the position of women is. As JCJ said "In a way, they've done us a favour - it's the biggest patriarchal unmasking you can imagine."

I think a lot of people have had their eyes opened, and are far more receptive to feminists like Bindel and Jones as a result. Hell, even Douglas Murray is talking about "male privilege" now...

But what's going on here really isn't restricted to women. Women are certainly getting the brunt of it (again), for a whole load of reasons feminists can point to, but it's a much wider societal problem. So feminists can't expect to have monopoly control over the wider fight.

(And if they keep telling other women they're doing it wrong, they're even going to struggle to keep control over even the women's part).

This thread is making me think about that quote/truism about how the right think of or want women to be and then how the left do.
Can anyone remind me what it is please?

I think things got a lot better for women in the west over my lifetime. I also agree with HJ that sexism and misogyny, while being an integral part of gender ideology, are not its main driving focus. Its main focus is to attack and dismantle reality. Its ultimate goal is transhumanism, not the erasure of women. (That's collateral damage.)

I do get that it must be frustrating to work on VAWG for years and years and get very little recognition, then to have the Jenny-come-latelies get a lot of attention. But while I can understand that, I think it's petty and partisan to hold on to that feeling at the expense of other women. JB always comes across as an ideologue (partly because she never explains herself clearly) and her frustration when others don't agree with her is obvious. I think she is stuck in her perspective as a left wing feminist and that makes it hard for her to see that this issue is not the same in degree or kind as the issues she's known for working on.

To be clear, I think JB has a very valuable contribution to make. But I don't think she owns feminism or women's campaigning and I'd love it if she stopped slagging off other women who are working to protect our rights.

Thank you. You’ve saved me a lot of time trying to express my view ( which I probably would not have phrased so clearly).

Yes, I can see that. But the way things feel to me, is that we are in a situation where all those seemingly small and insignificant I’ll-thought through ideas - a signature here, a word tweak there, are all coming together at this point in time and causing a huge collapse.

Although I have huge respect for what JB has achieved and strongly agree with what HJ was saying, words to the effect that it is personal integrity rather than personal affiliations count, and that JB has this consistent viewpoint, I find it pretty irritating that JB takes a strong position on some things and is crap at explaining why. It’s frustrating.

My feeling (and I think JBs point too) is that the problems we are seeing now are because things weren't really getting better. Part of the reason why even some of our nicest male friends and colleagues don't see the problem is that they can't even see that structural discrimination exists. Look at winter?? (the lawyer that helped with the yogataka principles) he did not see what they would do to women because he didn't look.

No one said that, though. Everyone is saying work with who you want.

I do think that we have defined terms though. What is meant by "work with" and what is meant by "right"? It seems to me that leftists conflate the right with the far right and this muddles the issue. Apparently Hearts of Oak has a member of the House of Lords in its group - so not a far right group as keeps being said.

But also, who is "we"? The question assumes there's a coherent group of women who are working together. But in reality, it's a disparate and loose affiliation of individuals and groups from across the political spectrum who share the goal of protecting women and children from gender ideology.

I get the impression that JB resents anyone other than leftist woke feminists being part of this "we".

Your previous post said that the physical harms to girls and women are 'mushrooming' while FGM is declining.

Really? I thought to that one of the horrors of FGM was that no-one has a clear idea about its extent.

I know that there are efforts to educate people about FGM and, unless none of this is having an impact and the positive stories are BS, then it is being slowly tackled and is on the decline.

Finding out a problem is bigger than you predicted, is not the same as something being on the increase. Just your awareness of it is increasing.

Do you think JB's argument about male violence towards women and girls being a chronic one was weak? Care to explain why?

I’m very happy to. It’s that the logic doesn’t follow.

JBs argument is a refutation of the idea that the new and current fad/craze/trend of this barbaric practice is not an acute one.

She argues that it is just a same old part of a chronic problem, but she doesn’t explain why. Instead of that, she says words to the effect of ‘worse things have always happened’.

There’s a lot of evidence to suggest that this situation is very different than the perennial issue of misogyny and MVAWG. The sudden increase of female patients to services (mushrooming) in proportion to male, the rapid adoption of these barbaric practices by surgeons in modern democracies, the support from western corporations, the unchecked spreading of the ideology because of new technologies, the ideological regulatory capture, the channels to fight it being strategically closed down (JB herself has been one of the first to be targeted to close her down from talking about MVAWG). The indoctrination in schools. The ideology has spread like wildfire. The sudden, widespread adoption of these barbaric practices in countries where women have successfully fought for rights and freedoms. Everything about it says it is sudden and severe.

So saying that a problem is chronic, doesn’t actually refute the fact that we are facing an acute flare up of that chronic problem.

Saying “look at this barbaric thing that happens, it’s worse than that barbaric thing” doesn’t refute the fact that it’s an acute flare up either.

That’s why it is weak. The refutations don’t hold.

I felt the same about Helen Joyce. I've read and loved 'Trans' but her concept of market economics that don't rely on some social groups being oppressed was a novel one to me, and not one that she fully explained.

If they had been discussing how societies can function best then I would definitely have expected Joyce to have expanded on this. The detail wasn't relevant here.

Some up thread mentioned the Irish peace process and the need to find common ground. I agree but saying that this means we have to work with the orban right is like saying that sinn fein needed to embrace the real IRA.

I thought she said that the orban/proud boy right thought of people like her as freaks. Part of the reason why she has no common ground with them

She talked about being freaks - bit of a curveball ?

I was listening whilst cooking and had to stop and rewind to work out what I had missed when she said that. But I hadn't missed anything and she didn't explain it.

Your previous post said that the physical harms to girls and women are 'mushrooming' while FGM is declining.

Really? I thought to that one of the horrors of FGM was that no-one has a clear idea about its extent.

Your post contains more detail about the film she mentioned than she gave btw.

It was very obvious that she referenced the film in the context of her argument that the house has been on fire for women and girls forever. Gender ideology is one atrocity visited on them, and it's a manifestation of the ubiquitous MVAWG, FGM being another one.

Do you think JB's argument about male violence towards women and girls being a chronic one was weak? Care to explain why?

It's interesting that you found it more shocking though.

Found it more shocking than what?

Are you trying to put words into my mouth?

I assume she was going to describe a little girl being held down and mutilated while she was conscious. I choose not to watch or listen to upsetting stories like that all the time - for my sanity. I certainly could never watch a video of it. She has some stomach - I know she has watched a snuff movie too and I am still traumatised from reading her description of it. To know it happens is enough. It’s about as shocking as you can get.

Her point about FGM wasn't a shock tactic anymore than the photos and stories that get shared about double mastectomies of healthy breast tissue in teenage girls

I notice how you smoothly started talking about something which wasn’t the matter at hand. Did anyone mention post surgery pictures in the talk? I don’t think so. So why are you bringing it up here? Straw man?

Anyway, moving on from your weird manipulations, a shock tactic is a shock tactic. I don’t think a sliding scale of something being more or less of a shock tactic exists. It is a type of tactic, it is or it isn’t.

Nonetheless, the context and purpose is relevant for any tactic used. So using a shock tactic to forcefully wake people out of denial in order to bring a better outcome can be legitimate.

Using a shock tactic to protect your own ego and deflect from a weak argument is not a legitimate use, in my opinion. It is unnecessarily traumatising.

After decades of fighting against male violence to women and girls and having spoken to hundreds of women and girls who have been raped, prostituted, sexually abused as children, forcibly strip searched by men, forced to share intimate spaces with men, who have survived domestic abuse, medical violence, been denied healthcare like abortion, or education, been exploited into pornography, hounded out of their workplace etc etc, it's conceivable that JB does feel a bit like that.

Her point about FGM wasn't a shock tactic anymore than the photos and stories that get shared about double mastectomies of healthy breast tissue in teenage girls.It's interesting that you found it more shocking though.

Male violence against women and girls is a centuries long, structural and global problem that is on the rise.Sadly, it is very much x chronic problem.

Yes.

I am also not convinced by her argument that ‘the house is always on fire for women and girls’ either. Through feminist efforts, FGM is being fought against, it is on the decline. However, double mastectomies, horrendous phalloplasties, body altering poisons are on the rise for young women, the insane ideology is mushrooming - spreading like wildfire - it is an acute situation, not a chronic one. I had to skip past the bit where she was about to say something horrendous about the six year old girl because i could tell it was going to be too upsetting, but I don’t think shock tactics give her a better point, its just traumatising.

It comes across as a bit territorial imo. Like “urgh.. fighting for women’s rights is well old and you’re acting like it’s just in fashion.”

Than the groups mentioned in this debate.

This mantra of the right want women barefoot and pregnant is one of the more bizarre things you hear. It often seems like they are talking about some of those weird sects like the Duggers (tv show family with huge numbers of kids and belong to a sort of cult group). They don't realize that even most members of the evangelical Christian right think those people are weirdos.

Women among the Christian right do have some political/value differences - they tend to put more value on a traditional family life and motherhood as a vocation. But most of the women still get an education, work, some never marry and have kids and maintain a career instead, they pretty much all vote and have their own political opinions.

Than who?

More reach, bigger platform, more legitimacy, more mainstream.

I don't think anyone on 'our side' of gender ideology has tried to persuade anyone else that they shouldn't agree with us, have they? That would be absurd?

In what political context are feminists the more powerful group beastlyslumber?

Setting aside differences isn't an equitable thing though, if one party has more power than the other. It's using the resources of the less powerful party to shore up the resources of the more powerful, who are the ultimate winners.

What if feminists are the more powerful group? In most of the examples they talked about, I'd say they were.

JB's point about 'freaks' was that if issues like single sex spaces and the medical transitioning of children are fought as single issue campaigns they ignore broader feminist understandings and criticism of the extent of harms caused by male violence towards women including the hate directed towards lesbians.

If success is measured solely in terms of single sex spaces being reclaimed and it not being permissible to involve children in body and life changing medical procedures, that maintains every other structure and mechanism of patriarchial oppression. That was the status quo in the UK, what, 15 year ago and while undoubtedly better than the situation today, women and girls were still prostituted, raped oppressed and exploited in a million different ways.

It's up to all of us who say we are feminists to shout loudly about the broader context of MVAW, lesbian erasure and female oppression and to carry on shouting after we have won these battles.

Meanwhile we can't stop lots of other people agreeing with us on gender issues who are not feminists and who come from across the political spectrum. Because it's obvious dangerous bobbins and people are not stupid.

What's the plan here? Keep telling people they're not allowed to agree with us until we're ready to overthrow the patriarchy?

I think the house is a bit more on fire than that.

Setting aside differences isn't an equitable thing though, if one party has more power than the other. It's using the resources of the less powerful party to shore up the resources of the more powerful, who are the ultimate winners.

Look at all the women on the left who tried to overlook the misogyny and sexism for the shared causes like social justice.

It's not terrible or disgraceful to have done this, but it hasn't done much to progress women's politics in this space which I guess is why women like JB rarely work with leftist men and orgs like WPUK would never have emerged from the Labour party and aren't supported by them.