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

Women achieved so much freedom and won so many rights even within my lifetime. I have never been oppressed for being female. Only now am I being prevented from having a voice.

Without a voice, women can do nothing. So what if some of the people who support my voice don't support my right to have an abortion? If I have a voice I can fight them on that. Without a right to speak I can do nothing, all my other rights can be taken away.

So it makes no sense to me to say I must only work with Feminists or only with the left. The people who are fighting for women to have a voice are the people on my side.

Maybe try reading the whole of my post?

But losing sight of the bigger aims of feminism plays right into the hands of those who would be very happy to preserve the status quo with a bit of tinkering around the edges.

But conversely focusing on women being trafficked, prostituted, exploited by grooming gangs, disproportionately living in poverty and with domestic violence, and the pay gap - but losing sight of the bigger aims of restoring enlightenment values and stopping this cultural revolution - plays right into the hands of those would be very happy to preserve the status quo with a bit of tinkering around the edges.

I guess this is one of those asymmetric things - my concerns are the "bigger picture", while yours are "tinkering around the edges" of my bigger picture.

I didn't say businesses shouldn't make a profit beastlyslumber.

I've said very clearly that it needs to be in balance with what they contribute. This is the forth time I've said it in the last hour or so.

So it's only a victory for women's rights if we win all the battles? So getting the vote wasn't a victory because women still faced employment discrimination? The criminalisation of rape in marriage wasn't a victory because rape prosecutions are still extremely difficult to achieve?

That's not fair, is it?

Yes, I agree.

Fascism is characterised by an authoritarian state that co-opts private businesses under its auspices. The merging of corporate and state interests.

If that's not what you want, then maybe you're thinking of something more like the removal of the right to private property, as in communism.

Both systems are thoroughly evil, as we have seen.

I don't know what else you could mean by saying businesses can't make a profit or should have their profits skimmed. Unless you mean more like a windfall tax on utility companies or renationalising the trains - reasonable things which can coexist with a free market, at least in theory.

Because if all we focus on is stopping children being medicalised, preserving same sex services, provisions and spaces and retaining the meaning of the word 'woman' (all utterly necessary) then we still have women being trafficking, prostituted, exploited by grooming gangs, disproportionately living in poverty and with domestic violence, unable to walk the streets safely. Heck, we would still have the sex pay gap and other types of discrimination.

That's not a victory for women's rights.

I'm not saying that individual women or groups shouldn't focus on those single issues - they have to, given that all the work is being done voluntarily in women's own time.

But losing sight of the bigger aims of feminism plays right into the hands of those who would be very happy to preserve the status quo with a bit of tinkering around the edges.

Depends what you mean by 'in balance'.

How? You've leapt from your premise to your conclusion and I don't follow.

I agree that she didn't explain her position enough for me to fully understand (hence my saying exactly that several times on this very thread).

You asked if I was saying the same as her and I said I don't think so, based on what she said.

'Tightly regulated' - so that what businesses contribute ie goods and services is in balance with what they take ie profit. As I've said twice already.

And that means I'm arguing for fascism?

Just when the water is starting to clear it all gets stirred up again.

That seems like a non sequitur. Can you show your workings?

beastlyslumber so we knew what a woman was and girls weren't having healthy parts of their body removed, yet women were still discriminated against, sexually assaulted, prostituted etc. The 1970s were still a rubbish time to be a woman.

Yes, exactly. That's exactly why trying to tackle gender ideology as separate from broader feminist aims won't be effective.

I don't think she said enough about her opinion for you to know that.

What do you mean by tightly regulated? Business is very tightly regulated in all kinds of ways right now. Or do you mean that the state should control all business/there should be no private profit?

If you don't believe in a free market then you are arguing for the control of business by the state. This is one of the definitions of fascism.

Crime has been a huge change, but I suspect has some other factors involved.

But as far as things being well funded, there is that IMF loan to account for...

Exactly this.

If you think the 70s were a better time to be a woman than now, I'm going to suggest you have your rose tinted specs on. Although at least we knew what a woman was, I guess.

I don't think so, no. HJ would seem, from what she said, to weight the balance far more in favour of a free market more than me.

I would say the market can't really be 'free' in an economic sense if we want to make society better for everyone. It needs to be very tightly regulated to ensure that what it takes in terms of profits is balanced by what it provides.

I don't recall HJ saying anything about how she felt the specifics of the British welfare state are working right now in the UK, so I am not sure why anyone would assume that she thinks it is working as best it could. There are a plethora of other examples of free markets with a strong, or not so strong, welfare state, that could be considered. There are pros and cons to all.

What there are not example of are states that do not have a free market and also do not have oppressed classes. Anywhere there has been an attempt at a planned economy, it has been a disaster, not just economically but also in terms of human rights. And even those places which tried that model have largely switched to a free market approach, which still of course making great headway at social and political oppression.

So it really seems to me that it is not at all clear why HJ would be the one who needs to provide some evidence that her economic vision could be effective, and possible - it's those who are saying they have a better option.

Which is surely not so different from a free market economy with a safety net, I.e. what HJ said she is for.

I think there's a lot of corruption within this system and lots of room for improvement but that's not going to come from people trying to destroy it.

Yes, I was.

I remember the strikes and the power losses of course, although I also remember there being far fewer wealth inequalities than there are now, a functioning health and education system, plentiful social housing, no food banks, few people sleeping on the streets. The social care system worked, as did the essential local authority services.

And of course the wave of equalities legislation that benefitted women - Equal Pay Act, Sex Discrmination Act etc that paved the way for the Disability Discrimination Act then Equality Act.

Good times.

Cross posted. So basically you're arguing for the same thing as HJ wants.

An economy that's run for the benefit of people, with the desires of the free market secondary and tightly regulated.

Sorry - that would be my suggestion.

Well funded health service, education, and social care, paid for by corporate taxes from wealthy companies and obvs private taxation.

Utility, transport, and essential services like bin collection, street cleaning in public ownership.

Basically, a state that exists and functions to improve the lives of ordinary people and a free market that is tightly, tightly regulated so that there is balance between what it provides ie good and services and what it takes ie profit.

Were you around in the 1970's?

I was thinking about that.