We come together not because we may identify as women; rather, we come together because we believe that we can only be free and live better lives with the end of capitalism, white supremacy, Western empire, and patriarchy. - Feminist Library

IwantToRetire · 2023-10-16T17:40:44+00:00

^We write this statement in the spirit of radical feminist collectives that have come before us such as OWAAD* and the BWG*, who took firm stances against apartheid and settler colonialism in South Africa and Palestine and were founded on the principle of transnational solidarity. Our solidarity is based on political and ethical principles that exceed gender. Sara Salem writes “We come together not because we may identify as women; rather, we come together because we believe that we can only be free and live better lives with the end of capitalism, white supremacy, Western empire, and patriarchy.” Transnational feminist practice requires us to analyse how people in different geographical spaces are subject to unequal power relations and ensure that every person has access to dignified life regardless of the borders that separate us.^ [[https://feministlibrary.co.uk/statement-of-solidarity-with-palestine https://feministlibrary.co.uk/statement-of-solidarity-with-palestine/]] I'm posting this not to comment on the situation between Israel and Gaza (although realise some might want to) but because it seems another example of groups originally established on the basis on the oppression of women as a sex classhaving been colonised (to use their language) by women who see it as a platform to advance their personal politics. Similar to this supposed manifesto to lobby MPs about women's rights posted here [[https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4900356-vawg-is-a-gendered-issue-which-is-deeply-rooted-in-societal-inequality-it-is-violence-that-is-directed-against-a-woman-because-she-is-a-woman-or-that-affects-women-disproportionately https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4900356-vawg-is-a-gendered-issue-which-is-deeply-rooted-in-societal-inequality-it-is-violence-that-is-directed-against-a-woman-because-she-is-a-woman-or-that-affects-women-disproportionately]] Large gatherings like FiLia might be satisfying to attend, but if groups set up to support women are being occupied by women who dont see the oppression of women as being directly because of their sex, it means we are even further away from putting feminism into action. ie what is the point of theory if there is no practice of it.

ArcheryAnnie · 23/10/2023 01:29

"Of course there are problems with capitalism but there have been hundreds of goes at capitalism and none have exterminated large proportions of their population as part of their implementation."

ArcheryAnnie · 23/10/2023 01:16

IwantToRetire · 16/10/2023 20:11

The feminist library is building something and they can define their community how they like.

The Feminist Library was created and only has the archive material it has because it was formed from and came out of the Women's Liberation Movement.

Its importance is because of that and its "assets" are the collections that women willingly gave on the basis that they were creating a shared memory and history.

The group that is now pontificating about something totally other, are just the custodians of that shared contribution.

And as some may know, the reason they got hold of this was because of extreme bullying and public humiliation of some of the older women who had kept the collection together through some really grim economic times.

And apart from that disgusting and unsisterly behaviour, they then spat in the face of those who had provided their asset ie the personal papers of women activists, who had donated them on the basis that they would only be made available to other women. And no it didn't need to be defined what a woman is, because at the time of its creation and the activism it was set up to preserve everyone knew what a woman is, because the basis of women's liberation was to organise against the sex class opprese of women by the male sex class.

Totally agree with this. The current Librarians didn't build anything - they captured it.

(I totally regret handing over my old Spare Ribs to the Feminist Library, not least because I don't trust them not to get all Stalinist about the bits of the collection that is second-wave, and make it disappear.)

JanesLittleGirl · 22/10/2023 21:35

In the late 1980's the Soviet Union loaded up their stuff into their tanks and went home. The Warsaw Pact countries that they left behind had enjoyed 40 years of a Communist paradise. Why didn't they stay with Communism?

donquixotedelamancha · 22/10/2023 21:23

CliantheLang · 22/10/2023 21:14

Of course there are problems with capitalism but there have been hundreds of goes at capitalism and none have exterminated large proportions of their population as part of their implementation.

...as opposed to exterminating large proportions of other country's populations.

Just since 9/11:

Key Findings

432,093 civilians have died violent deaths as a direct result of the U.S. post-9/11 wars.

An estimated 3.6-3.8 million people have died indirectly in post-9/11 war zones, bringing the total death toll to at least 4.5-4.7 million and counting.

More than 7.6 million children under five in post-9/11 war zones are suffering from acute malnutrition

War deaths from malnutrition and a damaged health system and environment likely far outnumber deaths from combat.

https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/costs/human/civilians

That link seems to think the US has invaded Syria and Yemen, so I'm not sure how good it is.

I'm no fan of US foreign policy but if you think the US is just as bad as communist China, Russia or Cambodia then we have little to discuss.

CliantheLang · 22/10/2023 21:14

Of course there are problems with capitalism but there have been hundreds of goes at capitalism and none have exterminated large proportions of their population as part of their implementation.

...as opposed to exterminating large proportions of other country's populations.

Just since 9/11:

Key Findings

432,093 civilians have died violent deaths as a direct result of the U.S. post-9/11 wars.

An estimated 3.6-3.8 million people have died indirectly in post-9/11 war zones, bringing the total death toll to at least 4.5-4.7 million and counting.

More than 7.6 million children under five in post-9/11 war zones are suffering from acute malnutrition

War deaths from malnutrition and a damaged health system and environment likely far outnumber deaths from combat.

https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/costs/human/civilians

Civilians Killed & Wounded | Costs of War

The Costs of War Project is a team of 35 scholars, legal experts, human rights practitioners, and physicians, which began its work in 2011. We use research and a public website to facilitate debate about the costs of the post-9/11 wars in Iraq, Afghani...

https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/costs/human/civilians

donquixotedelamancha · 22/10/2023 20:36

IwantToRetire · 22/10/2023 01:11

Personally, I tend to think one holocaust can be put down to carelessness but once you get past 3 there are probably flaws in the system. Nobody's arguing that National Socialism was just badly implemented.

I know you think you are being ever so righteous, but this reply above could equally be said about capitalism. It might not appear to be as bad because it isn't overtly state organised, but many many people have their lives destroyed by capitalism.

So my comment about any system depending on who implements it is actually the issue. eg northern european capitalism is streets away in terms of negative outcomes compared to the USA.

Not forgetting of course (without getting into current issues) many aspects of early Israel ie the Kibbutz were based on socialist collectivism, where the "ideals" of the adults meant that children were raised as a community group not in families and ownership was by the collective.

Obviously how politics are practiced and acted on are as much a reflection of the society it grew out of. I suspect for those at the bottom end of society found their lives were probably no different than living under Czarist Russia. It was just a different hierarchical structure oppressing them. ie its the hierarchy.

I am, by the way, not in the least interested in communism, but using facile tropes such as 1 is carelessness more is a fundmental flaw is clearly not actually an answer. All sorts of breakthroughs occur after many repititions with negative outcomes in an attempt to get it right. We wouldn't say that about scientific breakthroughs.

Or in fact marriage. How many marriages are actually happy. I am all for saying lets throw marriage out of the window, because based on the number of divorces, let alone the appalling violence some women experience, these combined exhibit that there are more than "flaws in the system".

Edited

Of course there are problems with capitalism but there have been hundreds of goes at capitalism and none have exterminated large proportions of their population as part of their implementation. Even the 'best' versions of communism have imprisoned and killed to achieve their goals.

It's not remotely comparable between the two systems.

It's not overly righteous to say that Communism and Naziism are evil. Tens of millions murdered is not merely a 'negative outcome' to a test that should be repeated to 'get it right'.

BCCoach · 22/10/2023 17:34

This is not some new thing - radical feminism has encompassed anti-capitalism and anti-colonialism since the 60s. It was very much rooted in the commune movement.

nepeta · 22/10/2023 17:31

Coveescapee · 22/10/2023 07:24

Marriage has been tried and tested over millenia as the best system to raise children. Communism has been tried over 100 years and constantly failed, not just Russia/China but even Czech Republic, Cuba etc. I think fascism gets a worse rap as it is associated with racism -ie Hitler killed millions because of racism rather than millions killed under Communism for opposing the system etc. I personally think capitalism only works well with a moral system underpinning it which is Christianity in this country. Now that has been thrown under the bus, capitalism has led to extreme consumerism and selfishness.

The worst aspects of capitalism were kept under some constraints by the competing ideology of communism, and perhaps vice versa, though I have not thought about that as much. Once the Soviet Union and its bloc fell, capitalism has produced more of those negative aspects than was the case when it had real competing ideologies to worry about.

I tend to believe in mixed systems, which allow some of the best aspects of both while limiting the worst aspects of both. Where that combination is met (Nordic countries in the recent past), life is better for most people.

Coveescapee · 22/10/2023 07:24

Marriage has been tried and tested over millenia as the best system to raise children. Communism has been tried over 100 years and constantly failed, not just Russia/China but even Czech Republic, Cuba etc. I think fascism gets a worse rap as it is associated with racism -ie Hitler killed millions because of racism rather than millions killed under Communism for opposing the system etc. I personally think capitalism only works well with a moral system underpinning it which is Christianity in this country. Now that has been thrown under the bus, capitalism has led to extreme consumerism and selfishness.

Original poster

IwantToRetire · 22/10/2023 01:11

Personally, I tend to think one holocaust can be put down to carelessness but once you get past 3 there are probably flaws in the system. Nobody's arguing that National Socialism was just badly implemented.

I know you think you are being ever so righteous, but this reply above could equally be said about capitalism. It might not appear to be as bad because it isn't overtly state organised, but many many people have their lives destroyed by capitalism.

So my comment about any system depending on who implements it is actually the issue. eg northern european capitalism is streets away in terms of negative outcomes compared to the USA.

Not forgetting of course (without getting into current issues) many aspects of early Israel ie the Kibbutz were based on socialist collectivism, where the "ideals" of the adults meant that children were raised as a community group not in families and ownership was by the collective.

Obviously how politics are practiced and acted on are as much a reflection of the society it grew out of. I suspect for those at the bottom end of society found their lives were probably no different than living under Czarist Russia. It was just a different hierarchical structure oppressing them. ie its the hierarchy.

I am, by the way, not in the least interested in communism, but using facile tropes such as 1 is carelessness more is a fundmental flaw is clearly not actually an answer. All sorts of breakthroughs occur after many repititions with negative outcomes in an attempt to get it right. We wouldn't say that about scientific breakthroughs.

Or in fact marriage. How many marriages are actually happy. I am all for saying lets throw marriage out of the window, because based on the number of divorces, let alone the appalling violence some women experience, these combined exhibit that there are more than "flaws in the system".

OP posts:

donquixotedelamancha · 21/10/2023 22:53

The Soviet union had guaranteed holiday for everyone, and homes for everyone.

In fairness, quite a lot of those holidays were in Siberia and you didn't come back.

I'm no supporter of communism but it could well be that those who implement communist systems were not that competent or nice (which could be said about any number of other countries with different political structure)

Personally, I tend to think one holocaust can be put down to carelessness but once you get past 3 there are probably flaws in the system. Nobody's arguing that National Socialism was just badly implemented.

I don't think I've ever seen anything more blindly stupid and frightening on the FWR boards than: Communism not's so bad: Yes 60 million people were killed by their own regimes but on the other hand there were free holidays for some people.

Indeed. I struggle to imagine such insensitivity over any comparable historical phenomenon:

'Slavery was like a free holiday'
'At least the Nazis made good cars'
'When women didn't have the vote we had more time to think about what to cook for tea'

If my family had been murdered by Communists I'd be pretty pissed off by the apologists.

Froodwithatowel · 21/10/2023 20:34

It's rather like the whole

"Raaaahhh evil colonalists!" <insert long pomo rant here> while doing colonialism on homosexuals, women and anyone who believes in sex as a fixed reality. There is much identifying as being a Good Person Against Colonialism, but not seeing the links at all.

"Raaaaah evil slavery!" <insert long pomo rant here, plus willingness to tear things down and dramatically throw statues around> while believing that it's ok to dehumanise and give some people in society lesser rights in law and less equality/access/tolerance on the grounds of one specific characteristic that renders them untouchable. For the Nazis, it was skin colour and faith. For the American South, it was skin colour. For the current political movement it's believing that reality means sex is a fixed fact, and that women need sex based rights. There is much identifying as being A Good Person Against Such Things without apparent capacity to see any of the links or the irony.

Don't even get me started on 'inclusion' and 'be kind'.

I often think I could take some of the leading lights of this movement with the loudest public voices into a pub, as an under cover activist, and within a pint and a half get them to say out loud that Magdalen Laundries would be a great way of managing Terfs and should be brought back as a means of dealing with them, and that the concentration camps probably had a point in getting rid of people with political beliefs that are a bane to society. If you're willing to actually imagine and say that you think a woman should die in a grease fire or be 'kerb stomped' - the level of disturbance there is extreme - for non cooperation and different beliefs then you're already there. But if you then confronted them with this, they'd absolutely insist it was different and ok when they did it.

Froodwithatowel · 21/10/2023 20:29

BlessedKali · 20/10/2023 17:21

what is weird, is that the TRAa seem to be anti-capitalist/pro communism (which is weird cos they also hold a 'fuck the system' attitude, even though communism is literally the biggest 'system' possible.

capitalism = the individual freedom over the collective.

communism = the collective over the individual

YET,

they want to put the rights of the individual -the right to self-identify, over that of the collective rights (such as women's)

Literally none of it is coherent.

DO THEY EVEN KNOW WHAT THEY WANT?

Liking words, the feelz of the words, the costume and LARP of a word,

has nothing to do with actually knowing what the word means, having any contextual or historical understanding of the concept, or any commitment to the values it represents.

Hence the apparent total lack of coherence. The only linking point is 'I quite like feeling/enacting/the image of doing/saying this'. Once you get that bit straight, a whole lot more of this political movement makes sense.

VWdieselnightmare · 21/10/2023 12:01

BlessedKali · 19/10/2023 22:31

what bits were good?

Show quote history

Oh, the good old days — you know, the starvation, the gulags, the labour camps, the frostbite, being forcibly moved thousands of miles to work on the land with only starvation rations and no roof over our heads, that sort of thing. Fun, fun, fun.

ARockIsASlowSlowCooledOffFlameAndACradle · 21/10/2023 11:36

@IwantToRetire

If they think women are so irrelevant why are they gate crashing these services.

PREACH!
I feel like if I could figure this out I'd have solved the puzzle of human nature or something.
The industrial scale gaslighting has kind of broken me.

Baldieheid · 21/10/2023 09:35

The only explanation I can come up with is sheer stupidity, selfishness and a remarkable capacity to ignore history.

Coyoacan · 20/10/2023 18:40

@BlessedKali

Yeap, and they are working in the interests of the pharmaceutical companies.

BlessedKali · 20/10/2023 17:21

what is weird, is that the TRAa seem to be anti-capitalist/pro communism (which is weird cos they also hold a 'fuck the system' attitude, even though communism is literally the biggest 'system' possible.

capitalism = the individual freedom over the collective.

communism = the collective over the individual

YET,

they want to put the rights of the individual -the right to self-identify, over that of the collective rights (such as women's)

Literally none of it is coherent.

DO THEY EVEN KNOW WHAT THEY WANT?

BlessedKali · 20/10/2023 17:16

Thank god for the last few responses, I have managed to retrieve my eyebrows which had risen so highly they had got lost in my hair.

If you support communism it probably means you don't know enough about it, which is fine, but I suggest going away and acquainting yourselves with some history books before making yourself look ignorant and/or morally bankrupt.

As stated befor, communism as a nationwide political policy can ONLY work if it is enforced. You cannot get millions or billions of people to agree to live by a fairly extreme set of rules (it's hard enought to get seven people to share a vision and live by the rules). So you enforce it. But what do you do when people don't adhere? work camps and death squads seem to be the result. It has proven itself to be so every single time it has occurred in history.

It also means that ALL the wealth and power of the entire country are in the hands of a tiny few. And not just a proportion of the wealth and power( like in capitalism) but ALL of it controlled by a minority. How do you ensure those people are the right people to hold that?

Quite frankly, saying that it didn't matter that millions of people were killed because some got to go to a holiday camp is one of the most idiotically distasteful things I have ever read.

Original poster

IwantToRetire · 20/10/2023 16:07

It's not admirable, it's self serving narcissism dressed up as virtue.
It's pathetic.

Exactly. And it would be fine if they were still messing about at school.

But they have hijacked a valuable women's resource and used it as a platform to make it sound like serious grown ups are talking.

OP posts:

MrGHardy · 20/10/2023 09:56

As much as I despise people who blindly worship capitalism and 'the market', getting rid of it is just plain stupid. If you wanna live in some collective farm type deal go right ahead, but wanting to force that on everyone is the height of arrogance. Can't take anyone seriously who has such a position.

MalagaNights · 20/10/2023 09:56

And to the OP: that statement reads like naive show boating 6th formers who've read 2 books and now want a revolution to bring in their new idea of 'utopia'!

Except they don't know quite how they're going to run this utopia given pesky human nature, and their desire to stay alive and stuff, but they do know they are against bad things they don't like now.

It's not admirable, it's self serving narcissism dressed up as virtue.
It's pathetic.

hamstersarse · 20/10/2023 09:55

Jesus Christ

What is actually happening on this thread?

It's like a mental asylum

I am not surprised feminism has lost it's way if the desire is a literal introduction of communism. Jesus Christ.

I hope you are in your 20's or below @slore - that is the only reasonable explanation for a support for communism

MalagaNights · 20/10/2023 09:50

I don't think I've ever seen anything more blindly stupid and frightening on the FWR boards than:
Communism not's so bad: Yes 60 million people were killed by their own regimes but on the other hand there were free holidays for some people.

And what's capitalism done? Raised millions out of poverty and saved millions of lives world wide. Yes unrestrained capitalism needs to be critiqued but if there are really people who believe communism was pretty nice, we could be on the road to hell. Fast.

HHhiak · 20/10/2023 01:14

@slore Emmm no you couldn’t, you couldn’t just say the same about capitalism at all. The difference of course is every single attempt to implement communism has had those terrible results. That is not true of capitalism, there are many examples of successful capitalist countries but zero examples of successful communist ones. Knowing what we know now I conclude that communists, like fascists are immoral people.

I make absolutely no apologies for saying that anyone who supports communism is as bad as a fascist and they deserve to be treated as such. Words cannot express the contempt I have for both sets of extremists. They deserve to be shunned.