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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

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

565 replies

ILikeDungs · 09/12/2022 11:22

By Unherd, a debate-style response to the purity spiral after Brighton. I do admire Helen Joyce and her ability to calmly and logically discuss the issues. Unherd have made it age restricted (because of all the fucks, I suppose!):

OP posts:
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beastlyslumber · 20/12/2022 17:10

I totally agree with you, Mangy. It's very alienating for a lot of women to be scolded by feminists for spending time and money on their appearance. Most straight women want to look attractive to men and that is a biological drive, not a social construct. I don't think that beauty standards are "patriarchal" either. I think that the extreme beauty practices we're seeing more of now are driven by commercialism. The same thing is also happening to men to some extent. There's no part of your face or body that you can't now spend money on or buy a product for. It's a bit mad.

I hope you're not in too much pain with your back.

MangyInseam · 20/12/2022 17:01

Just a couple of thoughts, not sure how relevant but I am stuck in bed with a bad back, so I will put them down anyway:

In The Tyranny of Structurelessness, is explored this phenomenon of a sort of delusion of structurelessness, because informal structures will naturally form along friendship lines. It’s unintended but inevitable.

I think that's true, but also that we should be clear that it is not just "lines of friendship" which seems unintentional and only accidentally harmful. This kind of formlessness also allows for informal hierarchies to emerge along the lines of power, and sometimes even bare, aggressive power. With groups of women that's not typically violence, but the idea among some feminists that women don't have a will to power is completely naive. They assert it in different ways, but it can be deeply destructive and sociopathic, at its worst. Where there are no controlled hierarchies any individual who is able to assert power through means not embedded in the supposed even playing field has almost complete freedom to use those means. That could be things like social capital (which may look quite different than we expect in an group that believes itself to be egalitarian), money, education, but very often it can be intelligence, personality, and other intangibles.

Non-hierarchical can be very close to anarchic, which just comes down to the strongest holding power.

The other thing I'd comment on is the idea of patriarchal, imposed beauty standards. I think there are a lot of issues with how female beauty operates in our culture - it's highly sexualized and energy-intensive. In ways that aren't good for women, but neither are they really good for society as a whole.

But the idea that it is some kind of social imposition that women want to look attractive to men, is, I think, complete bollocks. Women want to look attractive to men because of the biological imperative, the same reason men want to be attractive to women. We are primed to want to screw, and that involved sexual attraction which runs along slightly different lines for men and women. There is no scenario where that will go away for men and women as a whole, and there is no scenario where that urge won't be culturally mediated, because we are cultural animals. And because we are sexed, and sex is about difference, we will not see a scenario where the cultural markers for attractiveness for women and men will be identical.

If feminism thought it could just remove that kind of desire from women, or exclude any women who is moved by that, it would always be very limited, and would always be felt by many women as somewhat oppressive, which would make them either a little mad, or to feel guilty.

I do get the sense that this is something JB just doesn't get, because she really believes at some level that women should just not be interested in men. I don't know that I believe she is really a political lesbian, in the sense that she ever would have been interested in being attractive to men at a biological, I want to screw, kind of level, or even, I want to be in love, kind of way. But it's not wrong, or anti-woman, that women are often, usually, wanting male sexual partners. It's not some kind of social construct.

Floisme · 20/12/2022 15:43

Thank you EndlessTea Smile

Why doesn’t she cut mothers some slack instead?
She may do a lot of the time. The downside of the internet is that, whenever I lost patience, it was only witnessed by a few people whereas JB's snarks are there forever.

EndlessTea · 20/12/2022 15:08

EndlessTea · 20/12/2022 10:50

I’ve only just noticed this thread that was put up last night, which seems relevant:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4701744-kellie-jay-keen-and-heather-brunskell-evans-savage-minds-podcast

Listening now, this is a very meaty and satisfying discussion 👌

EndlessTea · 20/12/2022 14:56

Congratulations on having children in your 40s Floisme - i know a number of women who have needed to throw in the towel after trying so hard. I have felt inhibited about sharing my motherly joys with them.

I have experienced an awful lot of clueless judgemental comments from non-parents “wouldn’t it be easy to just”, “why don’t you just”, “I can’t believe that mother does”, etc, snide remarks about babies on planes, etc, loads of nasty child hating. I kept it zipped, instead of shouting “if you had kids of your own, you would know you were talking out of your arse”, because I know that it is a sensitive and painful issue for a lot of people, to not be parents.

Why doesn’t she cut mothers some slack instead?

Floisme · 20/12/2022 14:34

'Julie Bindall sneers at women who have children...'
I'm going to defend Julie on this particular point because I didn't become a mum until I was in my 40s, and before then I remember being at the sharp end of some thoughtless, patronising and occasionally hurtful behaviour from some mothers. I'm sure it was all unintentional but it stung and there were times when, if I'd had a platform like Julie's, I might well have bitten back. I've no idea what JB's inner feelings are but I try and cut her some slack.

EndlessTea · 20/12/2022 14:29

Since everyone has/had a mother who made sacrifices for them to live@coldcoffee12 I think of anyone who sneers at us as an ungrateful brat.

EndlessTea · 20/12/2022 12:15

<<ducked out of Xmas prep - still ticking over>>

I agree with this:

She didn't get her platform by being pretty and having nice hair. She is influential because of what she says and how she says it, and the fact that she's a marketing and tactical genius. If people put any of her success down to her looks, that is misogynist. I hate to think of the mentality that says women like her are supposed to be airheads and 'soccer moms' and know their place.

Yet, I’ve no doubt that her looks have played a part in opening new channels for feminist arguments to be heard. It’s sort of unchartered territory. People who normally automatically filter them out “not interested in this ugly, whiney, man-hating feminazi”, will stop and listen to her.

What if feminism suddenly has a massive influx of people, who are coming at it from a completely different angle than more established feminists? What will happen to the established non-hierarchical hierarchy?

coldcoffee12 · 20/12/2022 12:08

Julie Bindall sneers at women who have children. She is not some one I relate to - as I have three kids. She is from a very small group of women who were gate keeping discussing womens rights. Have a good look at what Julie b really thinks about women who have children. My kids mean the world to me and apparently that make me a 'mombie'

I also own my own business so Ive typically leaned to the right in the past as Labour (left) absolutely do not represent me even though I grew up on an a council estate in Manchester and got kicked out of school at 15 for being pregnant.

So to Julie B et al I am the devil incarnate, dog dirt, the right - despite being a single mother who was kicked out of school and from a council estate.

I am sick of the right being used as an insult and to shame people in to voting for 'the left' which tbh is largely what got us in this mess to begin with.

So do I want to associated with Julie B and the 'left' no I bloody dont, no forced teaming for me I'm afraid. I'll just march to the beat of my own drum thanks and I suggest they do the same

EndlessTea · 20/12/2022 11:35

beastlyslumber · 20/12/2022 10:55

Thanks tea! I'll listen to that today as I fight my way through the xmas madness. Elbows out!

Ah. Yes. I need to crack on with that too! Spookily enough, I listened to the first couple of minutes and PP is talking about ‘which doors open’.

EndlessTea · 20/12/2022 11:28

I'm not sure about this solidarity idea. I still think it's more about hierarchy and meeting the standards within that hierarchical group in order to have status.

I think we are looking at the same thing from different perspectives.

In The Tyranny of Structurelessness, is explored this phenomenon of a sort of delusion of structurelessness, because informal structures will naturally form along friendship lines. It’s unintended but inevitable.

If you are part of the in crowd, you are part of the decision-making process, the executive power, if you are not part of the in crowd, because you don’t have the time, status, personality, etc, you are left a bit bewildered about how decisions are made, however, you are expected to accept the decisions you have no power to influence. It’s a hierarchy.

The only way you can seriously expect people to adhere to decision-making without their ability to influence it, is to float this idea of solidarity, we are all equals, in this together. What other notion could bring about blind obedience, without actually bringing a deity into the equation? Solidarity can be experienced as a profound feeling of virtue, enabling people to willingly suffer sacrifice, even if it is mistaken. This feeling, I wonder, may explain why people on the left feel virtuous, enforcing obedience to the unacknowledged power in the hierarchy, while tearing others down.

beastlyslumber · 20/12/2022 10:55

EndlessTea · 20/12/2022 10:50

I’ve only just noticed this thread that was put up last night, which seems relevant:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4701744-kellie-jay-keen-and-heather-brunskell-evans-savage-minds-podcast

Thanks tea! I'll listen to that today as I fight my way through the xmas madness. Elbows out!

beastlyslumber · 20/12/2022 10:53

I agree that's what the debate was really about, and I wish they had just come out with it. JB at one point started basically describing KJK and repeating some of the disinformation about her. It was weird how it was all unsaid but everyone knew what was being said.

I do think maybe there's some judgement of Posie because she's attractive and practices femininity. Some women do completely reject femininity and they can get a harder time for it. I've noticed people are nicer to me when I wear a bit of make up compared to when I don't bother. Also how much better I'm treated when I'm slimmer. But I think partly it's because I just look better - studies show that people prefer beautiful people in almost all areas of life. Not saying I'm beautiful, either. Just that I don't think it's entirely about holding women to impossible standards of femininity.

But when I was younger, I did feel guilty for wanting to look attractive because the feminists around me were saying that it's pandering to the male gaze and objectifying and trivialising etc. There was a real villification of women who cared about style and beauty or made efforts with their appearance. They were considered 'bimbos' and 'airheads' and superficial and shallow etc. I think that attitude persisted for a long time. Even Taylor Swift sang about how "she wears short skirts, I wear t-shirts" -- criticising the attractive cheerleader who didn't really understand the boy they both liked. I think it's very confusing for girls and women who are told they should make a huge effort with their appearance but also that making a huge effort is shallow and stupid.

Which is where it ties in with this:

I can imagine that short-haired, bared-faced trade unionist women who managed to gain political influence based on their intelligence, grit and political nous in a ‘man’s world’ alone, might be a bit peeved.

I agree this may be part of the reason why JB and others hate Posie but I think it's very unfair to Posie and women in general. She didn't get her platform by being pretty and having nice hair. She is influential because of what she says and how she says it, and the fact that she's a marketing and tactical genius. If people put any of her success down to her looks, that is misogynist. I hate to think of the mentality that says women like her are supposed to be airheads and 'soccer moms' and know their place.

I think people who are wedded to this idea of solidarity, holding yourself back in solidarity with your sisters, denying yourself in solidarity, basically this ‘together we are strong’ suffering together, might feel that using patriarchal, gendered beauty practices to open up avenues unavailable to your sisters is some kind of individualistic act of betrayal.

I'm not sure about this solidarity idea. I still think it's more about hierarchy and meeting the standards within that hierarchical group in order to have status. If the elite within Real Feminism wore high heels and make up, everyone else would too. Instead, part of the way to gain status is to reject beauty and fashion and to condemn women who practice it as either shallow, or brainwashed, or coerced, or all three. Any in-group has to have an out-group.

EndlessTea · 20/12/2022 10:50

I’ve only just noticed this thread that was put up last night, which seems relevant:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4701744-kellie-jay-keen-and-heather-brunskell-evans-savage-minds-podcast

EndlessTea · 20/12/2022 10:06

Thanks for the videos. I don’t have the time to watch them right now, but I have been subconsciously ticking over the thread in my mind.

I think it was early in this thread, but it might be a different one, I was talking about how I can’t be bothered to do all the patriarchal, gendered beauty practices, although it is likely more ‘doors would open’ for me if I did.

Something I like about feminism is the fact that most other feminists don’t engage in patriarchal, gendered beauty practices either, so the pressures is off. No one recoils in horror even if they do quietly judge. I can be pegged as ‘probably a feminist’ and left alone.

However, I know, for sure, that a section of society who would completely switch off before I even spoke, would listen to Posie, because she does observe patriarchal, gendered beauty practices (obviously she is naturally pretty and vivacious, I mean something different from just being attractive), so she gives the impression of playing the game, not opting out, like me.

Personally, I love my assumptions being confounded, it brings me such joy and amusement to see the confusion on faces of people, confronted this glamour-puss with a mouth like an uncompromising radical feminist. Where can you peg her?

However, I think people who are wedded to this idea of solidarity, holding yourself back in solidarity with your sisters, denying yourself in solidarity, basically this ‘together we are strong’ suffering together, might feel that using patriarchal, gendered beauty practices to open up avenues unavailable to your sisters is some kind of individualistic act of betrayal.

I can imagine that short-haired, bared-faced trade unionist women who managed to gain political influence based on their intelligence, grit and political nous in a ‘man’s world’ alone, might be a bit peeved.

Anyway, this is all conjecture. I am crazily creating a straw man to try to shoot me down, because I do want to be able to put myself in the shoes of people who hate Posie and try to sabotage her activism, saying it is because her ‘working with’ or ‘cosying up to’ the right/far right is such a danger to feminism/women’s rights as a whole. I don’t know if many of you saw a thread, which was pulled, with some completely insane reasons for hating Posie - this ludicrous lie that she had gone to a posh boarding school in Hong Kong, funded by her grandparents, or complaints that she lives in a big house - I think there may even have been complaints that she can afford to get her nails done, iirc. The inference I drew from that is that she should hold herself back and suffer in solidarity with women worse off than her.

I feel that the talk and this thread, is really about that.

beastlyslumber · 20/12/2022 08:47

Space and Bosky, thank you for those resources. I'm going to have a look at those videos!

beastlyslumber · 20/12/2022 08:43

Fair enough bike. But we're still no further forward in understanding your actual point of view. Dunno if you're willing to try again? If you are, I'm keen to understand why you think the fight against gender ideology has to come from leftist feminism in order to be successful.

Also I do think JB is engaged in identity politics and I'm interested in why you think she isn't.

Shinyredbicycle · 20/12/2022 03:32

beastlyslumber apology accepted and your posts are a reminder to me that what MN generally thinks of as 'left' is a world away from what myself and all the people I know who have been involved in left wing politics for decades do.

Idpol, gender ideology, Antifa, the hard left if you mean communism are worlds away.

Bosky · 20/12/2022 02:21

beastlyslumber · 19/12/2022 12:26

tying feminism to politics seems to divide feminists.

This is why I don't call myself a feminist anymore. Because it comes with a set of demands about what I believe and how I see the world. I've lost count of the times I've been told I'm not a real feminist and I find it simpler to just say, you're right. I'm not a feminist, therefore you can't harrass me with your demands for political allegiance and purity.

I see that there are feminists like HJ and others who don't align with this take on feminism, but look how much flak they get. Because feminists like JB are convinced that feminism belongs to the left, is of the left, and if something is not of the left, it can't be feminism.

When I have spoken to women who parted company with second wave feminism, they tend to complain about women ‘telling them what to do’, really hating feeling controlled and berated all the time.

The communes may have disbanded, but women are still being berated by feminists for everything from their political beliefs to who they associate with to what they wear and whether or not they dye their hair.

I think there is something evolutionary here about how women create hierarchies and compete with one another. We destroy each other with gossip, reputational damage, cliques, manipulations and expectations, all the while maintaining a butter-wouldn't-melt smile...

beastlyslumber - "This is why I don't call myself a feminist anymore."

Which, of course, brought KJK to my mind.

"The communes may have disbanded, but women are still being berated by feminists for everything from their political beliefs to who they associate with to what they wear and whether or not they dye their hair.

I think there is something evolutionary here about how women create hierarchies and compete with one another. We destroy each other with gossip, reputational damage, cliques, manipulations and expectations, all the while maintaining a butter-wouldn't-melt smile..."

The first thing that this reminded me of was seeing some left-wing feminists sniping about KJK on social media, remarking along the lines that you would never see Rad Fem Sheila Jeffreys lowering herself to appear on KJK's YouTube Channel (this was when KJK was doing a lot of interviews) but wouldn't it be wonderful if she did because Sheila would tear into KJK for performing "beauty practices"!

Obviously, they had never seen this because they would not lower themselves to watch KJK's YouTube Channel:

"Sheila Jeffreys "Trigger Warning - My Lesbian Feminist Life"

1 Oct 2020 "I talk to Sheila Jeffreys, we have a hugely entertaining and inspiring chat! We talk about harmful beauty practices, the modern women's movement, transgenderism and what it's like to be a girl these days!"

It also made me think of Sunday's "Radical Feminist Perspectives" WDI Webinar - right on point because the "Tyranny of Structurelessness" has since been shared!

"Trashing (part 1) - The Dark Side of Sisterhood and the Tyranny of Structurelessness by Jo Freeman"
18 Dec 2022

"Trashing (part 1) - The Dark Side of Sisterhood and the Tyranny of Structurelessness by Jo Freeman discussed by Marian Rutigliano, Sheila Jeffreys, Lierre Keith and Jo Brew"

"Trashing (Part 2) The Dark Side of Sisterhood and the Tyranny of structurelessness, by Jo Freeman"
18 Dec 2022

"Trashing - the Dark Side of Sisterhood and the Tyranny of Structurelessness, by Jo Freeman - discussed by Marian Rutigliano, Sheila Jeffreys, Lierre Keith and Jo Brew."

TRASHING: The Dark Side of Sisterhood
Jo Freeman 1976
www.jofreeman.com/joreen/trashing.htm

THE TYRANNY of STRUCTURELESSNESS
Jo Freeman 1970 - 72
www.jofreeman.com/joreen/tyranny.htm

I have just discovered the third article that Jo Freeman lists in the "Feminist Articles" section of her website.

The BITCH Manifesto
1968
www.jofreeman.com/joreen/bitch.htm

This opens with a quote that makes my head spin given the appropriation of "woman" and now "female":

"...man is defined as a human being and woman is defined as a female. Whenever she tries to behave as a human being she is accused of trying to emulate the male..."
Simone de Beauvoir

The discussion in this thread has been at least as fascinating as the JB + HJ "debate". I have found so many posts really helpful in clarifying my thoughts.

MangyInseam · 20/12/2022 01:08

It seems to me though that this problem of leadership is endemic to id pol, and in this feminism is acting as id pol. Or in this context we could say lobby based politics, where the assumption is that there is a real political program around these identities.

Because how do you have a movement of all women, or all any group, where a few leaders, chosen or unchosen, can speak for all women?

I think similarly of gay rights, how can that as a movement speak for a very wide variety of people who are attracted to people of the same sex? Do any of us really think that mainstream gay rights orgs represent the political views of someone like Douglas Murphy?

Women have a hugely diverse set of beliefs, just like people in general. Most want rights for women, in particular political rights, but they vary much beyond that and around how to best support women.

EndlessTea · 20/12/2022 00:00

I thought these bits were very pertinent:

“As long as the structure of the group is informal, the rules of how decisions are made are known only to a few and awareness of power is limited to those who know the rules. Those who do not know the rules and are not chosen for initiation must remain in confusion, or suffer from paranoid delusions that something is happening of which they are not quite aware.”

“The idea of "structurelessness" has created the "star" system. We live in a society which expects political groups to make decisions and to select people to articulate those decisions to the public at large. The press and the public do not know how to listen seriously to individual women as women; they want to know how the group feels.……While it has consciously not chosen spokespeople, the movement has thrown up many women who have caught the public eye for varying reasons. These women represent no particular group or established opinion; they know this and usually say so. But because there are no official spokespeople nor any decision-making body that the press can query when it wants to know the movement's position on a subject, these women are perceived as the spokespeople. Thus, whether they want to or not, whether the movement likes it or not, women of public note are put in the role of spokespeople by default.
This is one main source of the ire that is often felt toward the women who are labeled "stars." Because they were not selected by the women in the movement to represent the movement's views, they are resented when the press presumes that they speak for the movement. But as long as the movement does not select its own spokeswomen, such women will be placed in that role by the press and the public, regardless of their own desires.
This has several negative consequences for both the movement and the women labeled "stars." First, because the movement didn't put them in the role of spokesperson, the movement cannot remove them.……..Second, women put in this position often find themselves viciously attacked by their sisters. This achieves nothing for the movement and is painfully destructive to the individuals involved. Such attacks only result in either the woman leaving the movement entirely-often bitterly alienated -- or in her ceasing to feel responsible to her "sisters."……….. Thus the backlash to the "star" system in effect encourages the very kind of individualistic nonresponsibility that the movement condemns. By purging a sister as a "star," the movement loses whatever control it may have had over the person who then becomes free to commit all of the individualistic sins of which she has been accused.”

“When a group has no specific task (and consciousness raising is a task), the people in it turn their energies to controlling others in the group. This is not done so much out of a malicious desire to manipulate others (though sometimes it is) as out of a lack of anything better to do with their talents. Able people with time on their hands and a need to justify their coming together put their efforts into personal control, and spend their time criticizing the personalities of the other members in the group. Infighting and personal power games rule the day. When a group is involved in a task, people learn to get along with others as they are and to subsume personal dislikes for the sake of the larger goal. There are limits placed on the compulsion to remold every person in our image of what they should be.”

EndlessTea · 19/12/2022 23:33

Finished reading it now, and it’s all in there isn’t it? How Posie has been vilified for becoming an unelected ‘star’ and then the hurt sends her completely rogue.

It made me think about how useful MN is for avoiding many of the pitfalls of structurelessness.

People have anonymous user names (generally), so our background or status can’t make ‘birds of a feather flock together’ and it is entirely public communication - anyone is equally entitled to post their opinion, so informal ‘elites’ can’t occur.

EndlessTea · 19/12/2022 22:42

LangClegsInSpace · 19/12/2022 18:35

This seems kind of relevant here:

Jo Freeman: The Tyranny of Structurelessness
www.jofreeman.com/joreen/tyranny.htm

I have just started reading and it already seems so apt. The tone of the intro about its publishing without permissions and everything, speaks volumes about the massive bloody headache of it all! I’m exhausted already and I’ve only just begun.

MangyInseam · 19/12/2022 22:41

LangClegsInSpace · 19/12/2022 18:35

This seems kind of relevant here:

Jo Freeman: The Tyranny of Structurelessness
www.jofreeman.com/joreen/tyranny.htm

That's very interesting. Thanks for posting it.

beastlyslumber · 19/12/2022 20:16

With the feminism point bike, you said that winning single sex spaces and stopping child abuse would not be a victory for women's rights unless we won all the other rights as well. That is what you said and that's what I was responding to, trying to figure out why it wouldn't be a victory by pointing to some other achievements that would also be discounted by this principle. If you didn't mean that, then of course my response wasn't right, but it is what you said! Sorry if I misunderstood.

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