Oxfam training document blames women for "the root causes of sexual violence"

[ChristinaXYZ]

Original thread was deleted. Reposting according to advice received from MNHQ

The article below from the Telegraph appears to be from an Oxfam training document called Learning About Trans Rights and Inclusion

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/06/09/oxfam-training-guide-blames-privileged-white-women-root-causes/

An Oxfam staff training document says “privileged white women” are supporting the root causes of sexual violence by wanting "bad men" imprisoned.

She surely can't have said that reporting rape is contemptible if you're white and female (and well off?).

I've googled can't find it.

However the abstract that a couple have linked mentions 'accusations' of rape so yeah. Women is liars innit.

I also don't get what Phipps means by 'mainstream feminism.

I think, having listened to her speak at length on this, she means all feminism. She hates the first wave feminists with a passion, seems to regard second wave feminists as the cause of all black people's woes and opposes almost everything feminism has achieved.

She surely can't have said that reporting rape is contemptible if you're white and female (and well off?).

She waffles a lot but I have heard her say essentially that repeatedly.

I said to DH that feminism is not a club or something. It's a way of thinking and acting. The label can be handy but is not that important.

I said eg if a person donates loads of money to charity and sets up stuff to help various groups. They may not describe themselves as a philanthropist. But that's what they are

Feminist is as feminist does. Loads of women and girls who take feminist action or have feminist views do not see themselves as feminists.

Women and girls were taking feminist action forever, before there was a word for it.

Cripes thanks gerbil

That woman dislikes women

And yeah just a troll

As no one could write the shite you linked to and actually believe it

Yeah gerbil. Women just do our stuff for other women and girls and don’t call it feminist

Well Oxfam ain't going to get another penny out of me.

There's plenty of other charities out there.

I hope this is not derailing the thread but can anyone tell me if volunteers in Oxfam shops in UK would be expected to undertake this kinf of awareness training? I am looking for volunteer work and local Oxfam shops are advertising but I don't know if they are separate from the international work in terms of training ?

I don’t understand a word of this, someone help me out as I’m interested.

What is Oxfam saying?

Also, is Alison Philips saying that white female feminists are harmful (while herself being a white female academic) to men? Black women? Society?

I don't understand any of it either OhDear2200

I read the article and looked at her twitter and I'm none the wiser.

Alison needs to sit down with Kathleen Stock. It shouldn't be too hard to arrange.

I can't read all of this in one go, it's too sickening.

Fuck this racist enabling woman-hating gaslighty abusive shit. Fuck Oxfam

Oxfam rape black women and girls in Haiti and Chad and then try to pin the blame on white women?

Summarising the book’s central premise, the Oxfam document says white feminists need to ask themselves whether they are causing harm when they fight sexual violence.

That's an easy question. The answer is NO. No woman of any race is causing harm when they fight sexual violence.

The people who are causing harm are the men inflicting sexual violence on women and girls. Like the Oxfam rapists.

This is racist as fuck. The subtext is that black women and girls don't really mind being raped so much and if only those pesky white women would stfu everything would be fine.

Fuck off Oxfam and never come back.

Astonishing/horrifying

Catey I doubt it very much.

I stopped donating to Oxfam over the Haiti thing.

However, this is all head office Mgmt stuff. The volunteers on the ground just get on with it.

If you want to volunteer / need to for CV. Then go for it tbh. I'm sure you'll meet some lovely local people etc. They're not the ones driving or consuming this shit.

Such patronising rubbish. Women of colour want rapists off the streets and out of their communities as much as 'privileged white women' do. They seem to be following a narrative straight out of the USA with its toxic racial issues. There was a disturbing problem in the US during Jim Crow times of white women abusing their privilege to have black men locked up on spurious grounds or to 'cry rape' instead of admitting to a consensual interracial relationship but a.) Oxfam is a UK charity and b.) this is 2021. No-one needs to hide interracial relationships anymore by pretending they were non-consensual.

What are they trying to achieve exactly? Increase hatred towards women? There's plenty of misogyny to go around already. I'm going to go with a 'pointless virtue signaling to gain credibility with US funders' theory.

Note this doc was written by LGBT group.

Starts by saying white 'privileged' feminists are awful horrible people. Racist self interested patsies to the right etc.

Moves to real feminism embraces all women irrespective of colour etc.

Then TWAW.

This is a fairly common progression.

What it's about. And this may not go down well but is true.

Is that white middle class women in the UK esp if older.

Are more outspoken
Are less caught up in other issues eg how do I feed the kids
Are listened to more, are often more confident.

And that's privilege.

Those women are therefore dangerous because they have more voice, are taken more seriously, and can afford more to be persistent. And the older ones have had a lifetime of being told to shut up and are not having it any more.

The accusations against any woman like that who cares about women and girls as being racists etc is a very broad and major accusation that is never supported.

Yes women can be blind to things that don't apply to them as is everybody. And that is a conversation and argument that is important.

The statement that any white woman who is middle class and has feminist leanings is, well. What the author says. Is pretty strange tbh. It's so totally implausible.

The point is to try to discredit the women who, in a sexist racist classist etc society. Actually have some voice.

That's the whole point.

The fact it's peddalled and swallowed so readily. That eg black lesbian socialist long term activists can be disregarded as colonialist right wing etc etc. Is bizarre and just shows how in the end women who stand up for women have always been deeply unpopular in society.

The worrying thing I've not mentioned on here before but am seeing more and more.

Is that imo these views are gaining some grip, entering the social consciousness.

Because I'm seeing more and more posters on fwr, when it's a woman they disagree with. Saying well she's protected. She's middle class and white. She's never going to go to prison or be on a public hospital ward and can afford exclusive gyms and doesn't use public toilets and won't need a refuge...

And I just think. What???!!! What are you talking about.

Thank you NiceGerbil,I have been involved in other volunteer situations where I have helped with the equality and diversity form filling and that always causes some argument. Those delivering the courses often resort to some form of just tick these boxes so we can get on and keep our funding from what I have seen . This argument would add a whole new level of confusion.

To me the argument also seems to be saying Black men or men of colour are going to rape or use sexual violence as a matter of course so it's not acceptable to seek to punish them for what they cannot help. Which is of course morally outrageous. There is discussion to be had about whose voice is listened to and about what but the academic argument seems to go over most peoples' heads.

@cateycloggs

I hope this is not derailing the thread but can anyone tell me if volunteers in Oxfam shops in UK would be expected to undertake this kinf of awareness training? I am looking for volunteer work and local Oxfam shops are advertising but I don't know if they are separate from the international work in terms of training ?

I imagine that Oxfam do their best to hide all this shit from the kind people who volunteer in their shops.

You know about it now though.

Does it make that much difference to you if you're not actually required to do this training yourself? Are you really happy to give hours of your unpaid work to an organisation that rapes black women and girls and then comes out with this utter bullshit?

If you just want to volunteer in a charity shop there are lots of other options that don't require such an extreme level of moral compromise.

If you want to gain practical work experience and improve your CV you might do better volunteering for smaller local charities. IME they provide much better opportunities to try out different roles and gain new skills.

You probably have a volunteering centre or similar in your area (search 'volunteering' on your council website) They can help you find something suitable.

No that's not the argument.

It's a thing from the USA about women falsely accusing black men of rape if they had a grudge, a consensual relationship was going to be found out etc. In the days and areas where lynching black people happened.

In the USA there is an imo definite point about. The police (who are not all trained it recruited the same like here) being racist and lots of white people too. And how a white person esp a woman who calls them and says there's a black man I'm worried taps into those lingering cultural things. And the white woman will have the police say right we'll rescue you and the guy might be beaten or shot.

The prison system over there is a racist shitshow as well. Google USA stats black men prison. It's a mess.

It's not our mess though. We have different messes.

So it's saying that white women 'leverage' their position to get black men in trouble.

If I had time I'd look into the USA situation more tbh but I don't.

So yeah. It's about the USA. And the idea that white racist women use the racist police courts etc to fuck things up for black men.

The appropriation of that serious argument about the police prisons racism in USA made by black Americans. By white people in the UK to discredit women who disagree with them. Is crass, insensitive, silly, intellectually hopeless and I suspect actively damaging for those working in the USA. As there will be pushback against their arguments and words, as they've been stolen and bastardised.

What it's about. And this may not go down well but is true.

Is that white middle class women in the UK esp if older.

Are more outspoken
Are less caught up in other issues eg how do I feed the kids
Are listened to more, are often more confident.

And that's privilege.

Absolutely.

But here you are encouraging another woman to 'go for it' and volunteer in an Oxfam shop, despite their abusive practices against black women and girls, if it's useful for her CV.

Seriously?

My girls go to guides too. Oh no!

If a woman in covid needs employment. And volunteering will help get her a paid job. Then fuck yeah. Go for it.

Schools in the UK have been reported recently (and in the past) of having a massive problem with sex assaults on girls.

Do I boycott schools?

The NHS has fucked up for women and girls over and over. Massively. Appallingly.

Boycott?

If it helps a woman who needs a job get a job to volunteer in her local Oxfam then. She shouldn't? Because the head office are fuckers? The people on the ground are nothing to do with that.

And that's privilege I suppose. Saying that a woman who you have no idea the circs of. Who believes volunteering will help. And where there are opportunities going on a high street charity shop.

That she should not do that?!

Really?

Yes, NiceGerbil, I was going to mention the points you make about the uses and abuses of the judicial system to control, oppress and exploit for monetary gain(I understand private companies benefit hugely from the imprisoned population in the USA) the African American population and Black men in the UK and in other white majority countries. And how that plugs into the history of racism as you said in your last paragraphs the argument would come over as "crass,silly and insensitive" as it seems to argue any white woman who has been sexually abused or otherwise assaulted should not complain because some white women have and are using such accusations as racial weapons. I didn't because I was conscious I do tend to go on too much.

Sorry, I typed in more to try to show my understanding is not as disingenuous as it is coming over. Anyway thanks to those encouraging me to do some voluntary work, it would probably stop me staying up too late as tonight.

Well I say go for it. Personally.