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.

correction: That's where I would send it.

thanks - think i'll stick to the smaller charity shops that are attached to local interests. i looked on Cancer Research website and found something on there saying they aim to consult with organisations such as Stonewall so emailed them to ask them to confirm any ties they may have with GI, Mermaids or SW

As I dont contribute tp and have never shop at Oxfam shops I cant really email them saying you have made me stop supporting you.

But do hope those of you who have volunteered, donated or whatever will let them know they have lost your support.

For me it is just the disrespect for women. Whoever a woman is irrsepective of race, class, age, religion, rape is an act of violence by men against women. And as an organisation working in areas of conflict and development they must be aware that rape is also used as a weapon of war.

Why weren't their women's network asked to prepare training material.

On what grounds have they allowed another group to colonise women's experiences.

Basically are they fit to be doing the work they are doing, because if they are so easily swayed by obscure academics, how can they offer fact based, proven programmes of support.

(Although it is troubling that they continue to have a high profile, because not only was there the scandal of abuse of women in Haiti, it is only in April this year, ie just over a month ago that the Government withdrew funding because of allegations of abuse. But Oxfam is a true warning that many, many of our "trusted" organisations are now poisened by the queer politics that drives the TRA narrative.)

Has anyone actually seen the training material. The DM article is just a rehash of the Telegraph one which are just reports.

It would be good if anyone can get hold of a copy.

On 31st March this year Oxfam stated:

Understanding sex and gender

• Sex refers to “the different biological and physiological characteristics of males and females, such as reproductive organs, chromosomes, hormones, etc.
• These sex characteristics can vary and some people have biological attributes of both sexes or have biological attributes that do not fit with societal assumptions about what constitutes male or female (i.e. people who are intersex).
• Gender refers to "the socially constructed characteristics of women and men – such as norms, roles and relationships of and between groups of women and men.
• A person’s innate sense of their own gender may or may not correspond to the sex they were assigned at birth, for example, trans men and women and non-binary people
• We believe everyone has the human right to freedom of gender identity and expression. Because we’re not safe until all of us are safe.

" ... Gender identity and biological sex are two very separate things... biological sex is what you're physically born as, and it's what the doctor assigns you as when you are born... right?...Trans people agree that biological sex exists. Trans inclusionists know that biological sex exists. They just also know that gender identity exists as well.”

www.oxfam.org.uk/oxfam-in-action/oxfam-blog/happy-international-day-of-transgender-visibility-resources-for-your-inclusive-journey/

So not saying this is a perfect statement but more open to accepting that sex is a biological reality than many other so called progressive development agencies.

Yes, it is not a bad statement.
Anything however that suggests women being raped can be okay is not acceptable.
It reeks of the issue for those white working class girls who were raped by Asian men in Rotherham who saw white girls as fair game and where there was reluctance to look into it in case the police were acused of being racist. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotherham_child_sexual_exploitation_scandal

We need to look into these things without fear or favour no matter what the kind colour of the male rapist and no matter what a hard life men have had that might lead them to rape women. The law is the law.

What I was pointing out is that nobody has seen the actually document, and assuming it is true, why did Oxfam allow the training?

I think the Daily Telegraph as the paper who started this story should provide images. They are meant to be a more professional paper than the DM for instance.

Like others I have googled, and searched the Oxfam web site (which is why I saw the statment I post up thread) but cant find anything.

I don't think this is it
policy-practice.oxfam.org/resources/changing-families-and-communities-an-lgbt-contribution-to-an-alternative-develo-131041/

But it looks a bit dodgy in its own right:

Until now, most discussions on the place of lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender (LGBT) people in global civil society have focused on their access to citizenship, rather than their socio-economic rights and role in development processes. This article argues that an alternative vision of development should challenge heteronormative family structures; build alternative, queer communities; wage activist, sexually emancipatory campaigns on concrete social issues (as the Treatment-Action Campaign has done on HIV and AIDS in South Africa); and rethink existing models of democratic participation. The author emphasises the paradoxes of LGBT organisation in the context of neo-liberalism and globalisation, with an eye toward queering, or challenging heteronormativity in, global social-justice movements.

I shall keep looking

Like others I have googled, and searched the Oxfam web site (which is why I saw the statment I post up thread) but cant find anything.

tbh, I wouldn't expect most organisations to put their internal training online (I assume this is why it was leaked to the Telegraph)?

OxFam Training manual from Prof (of what?) Phipps
twitter.com/alisonphipps/status/1305420376743317505?s=20

@PaleGreenGhost

Is this related to the fallacy that women "weaponise their trauma"?

The woeful statistics for how few of their rapes women even report to the police show that this supremely misogynist viewpoint has no basis in reality or truth.

What about the rapists Oxfam paid to deliver Aid in Haiti? Weren't they white? Did they ever go to jail?

It's only white women who do that, apparently. The way they weaponise their tears.

/rolls eyes

The only charity shops I deal with now are those that support animals.

This article argues that an alternative vision of development should challenge heteronormative family structures

This seems like cultural imperialism.

GrimPol - so do you think that it isn't actually Oxfam Training Material but the LGBT+ Oxfam network has just pushed Me Not You by Alison Phipps?

ie the ultimate get out. Criticism of feminist analysis of male violence by another woman which convenient fits their narrative of its just whiny white women making this trouble for men.

I think the Telegraph should clarify.

But also not enough for Oxfam to do they our networks can say and do what they want.

Having now read her original thread of handy quick quotes I am beginning to suspect it is. twitter.com/alisonphipps/status/1254678219451760641

Some of them are so convoluted in their thinking as to how to make sure that everything is the fault of white women.

If it wasn't so hateful and potentially dangerous everyone of her hand quotes deserves to be in Psueds Corner.

Does this woman have a teaching postion?

Alison Phipps
Professor of Gender Studies (Sociology),
Professor of Gender Studies (Cultural Studies),
Professor of Gender Studies (Sussex Centre for Cultural Studies)
School of Law, Politics and Sociology
profiles.sussex.ac.uk/p188060-alison-phipps/grants

I've just seen the news that Jeffrey Toobin is back on CNN news - a mere 8 months after his transgression during a public Zoom call.

Reflecting on this, will we ever know what it takes for even a low-level but connected white man to lose his career or be held accountable for his own behaviour? Courtesy of people like Alison P, we might never find out.

Toobin said his conduct "was deeply moronic and indefensible."
He said "I didn't think other people could see me" but admitted that was no defense.
In the interview, Toobin expressed apologies to his wife and family, to the people who were on the Zoom call that day, and to his colleagues.
"And I'm sorry to the people who read my work and who watched me on CNN who thought I was a better person than this. And so, you know, I got a lot to rebuild, but I feel very privileged and very lucky that I'm going to be able to try to do that," he said.
Toobin said he has spent his "miserable months" off-air "trying to be a better person."
He mentioned "therapy;" public service like working a food bank

edition.cnn.com/2021/06/10/media/jeffrey-toobin-returns-cnn/index.html

I'm not clear on who was getting this "training". I'm a shop volunteer and have never had this training. Neither has our manager. I didn't even know Oxfam HAD a LGBT network. They are a very right-on, woke crowd at HQ though and will jump onto whichever bandwagon is the current trend in social justice.

It's weird, because the type of person working in Head Office is totally different from your average shop volunteer.

I did notice though that the new volunteer application form asks people to state their "preferred pronouns"

@stumbledin

GrimPol - so do you think that it isn't actually Oxfam Training Material but the LGBT+ Oxfam network has just pushed Me Not You by Alison Phipps?

ie the ultimate get out. Criticism of feminist analysis of male violence by another woman which convenient fits their narrative of its just whiny white women making this trouble for men.

I think the Telegraph should clarify.

But also not enough for Oxfam to do they our networks can say and do what they want.

Having now read her original thread of handy quick quotes I am beginning to suspect it is. twitter.com/alisonphipps/status/1254678219451760641

Some of them are so convoluted in their thinking as to how to make sure that everything is the fault of white women.

If it wasn't so hateful and potentially dangerous everyone of her hand quotes deserves to be in Psueds Corner.

Does this woman have a teaching postion?

I couldn’t read some those quotes. White text on a red background is awful. I hope Professor Phipps does not have any dyslexic students. But really thinking Harvey Weinstein shouldn’t go to prison. What would she do with him.

I do think sexual predators should be sacked from their jobs actually. It should not put other women in more danger. In the context of the aid workers raping children sacking them from their job would protect more vulnerable people.

Yurk.

It seems very odd to be in a work meeting and think oh I think I'll knock one out while they talk about work stuff. And presumably be ready to talk if needed in the meeting.

I assume the transgressiveness and essentially disrespecting them was part of the fun? Which is a really dodgy attitude.

It seems it's for employees - presumably that's HQ staff (as PPs suggest) and Aid Workers rather than volunteers in the shops and similar but I can't be confident of that.

The training manual was written after the charity’s LGBT+ network wrote to the leadership team demanding that they publicly support trans people and suggested that any debate about rights was part of a “patriarchal and white supremacist narrative” used by the far right.

The letter called for specific resources to be made available, adding: “To argue that trans-inclusivity would undermine the vital work we do for women and girls is not only transphobic, but also perpetuates the white saviour complex that assumes that we know best for the people we work with."

It's certainly not the sort of thing we get trained on. Pre-Covid we had in person training on things shop-related, like display, or spotting a fake Radley Bag. Lots of training now is through the volunteer facebook group but again it's all about maximising sales and training on specific product groups. We also had a really interesting talk from a guy once who talked us through a water project, how the logistics work and so on.

We don't get any "campaign" training at all - and there's no appetite for it.

The disconnect between the type of person at HQ and shops is huge. The staff in HQ (and they have lots of volunteers and students there too) are young, millennials, woke, left-wing, Glastonbury-going, Corbynistas.

Your average shop volunteer (in our shop at least) is female, retired, achingly middle class, no real interest in gender theory and would never have heard of this "academic".

But even if - as would appear likely - this "training document" has come out of some over keen intern approaching an academic on behalf of a group of activists, someone higher up should have put the brakes on it.

But again, we all know how standing up to the woke brigade when you don't agree with their ideology isn't easy.

No excuses - but please don't assume everyone in Oxfam shops and HQ believes in this nonsense. Because that's just not true. Changes were made after the Haiti revelations and the Charity Commission were happy with the steps the charity took. Irrespective of that, this is another PR disaster.

In a sense that description of the difference bet3ween the weird views of the metropolitan elite at head office and normal people in the branches illustrates how out of touch the woke left is with sensible normal voters (and one reason Labour has not won an election since 2005).

I do think some charities need more scrutiny too more generally. A few years ago there were some proposals for change including to tax relief as so many rich people were setting up a pet charity and using to get free holidays and that kind of thing. The great and the good objected so the Chancellor backed down but that was a pity.

Sexual abuse by charities and NGOs is a massive problem that they don't seem to want to face up to.

@LangClegsInSpace

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.

Exactly. Their virtue signalling is an own goal surely?

“White women shouldn’t report rape because it results in black men going to prison” - doesn’t that mean they’re making a very racist assumption about black men.

Or maybe it’s about discouraging UK-based staff from reporting on the many instances Oxfam staff have sexually abused women and girls in the field.

“Sexual exploitation in Haiti is fine because the women [girls] are poor and need the money” - so they think that if you’re a poor Black person prostitution and child abuse is acceptable.

It reminds me of a midwifery lecture on FGM and depressingly fellow students in their eagerness to be inclusive were saying “Who am I to judge another culture?”. Right, so it’s not acceptable for a White British girl, but it is okay for a Black or Brown girl?”. Do they not have the same rights to health, to protection, to a childhood that all other humans do?

Or maybe it’s about discouraging UK-based staff from reporting on the many instances Oxfam staff have sexually abused women and girls in the field.

That would, of course, be the entirely unintended consequence of dissuading UK staff from lodging reports or abuses.

Phipps loves her fonts!

I used to love my Oxfam bookshop...