Julie Bindel Triggernometry interview

[childbearinghipsterF]

Apologies if someone’s already posted about this, the interview is now on YouTube (after a delay).

Sensible discussion on class and feminism, especially with respect to sex work.

I enjoyed watching it dawn on Konstantin that the sort of feminism that he disagrees with… isn’t feminism.

I was just coming on to start a thread about this interview. I really want to get on board with her more as her work around women in prisons and violence against women is amazing. But… her contempt for mother’s is just so apparent.
I wonder if Konstantin’s wife having a baby will radicalise him when he sees his shit maternity care is.

JB is certainly unapologetic about the type of feminism she practices/espouses. I don't know anything about her past comments on motherhood, but in this interview I thought she was railing against a particular group of MC mothers (I'd call them "lean in" feminists a lactation Sheryl Sandberg), not necessarily mothers in general. I think she isn't interested in anything that she perceives to be a "privileged" feminist issue (possibly wrongly IMO). I did think the comments about the colleague who had had three babies in three years and was supposedly trying to bleed her employer dry were really weird and anti-natalist.

I also think that as a child-free woman who's never been in a relationship with a man, Julie doesn't really appreciate the toll that motherhood and wifehood can take on women, regardless of social class.

I really admire her tenacity and am in awe of the work she's done. So I wanted to love the interview - but I just didn't. I know she's unapologetic about the issues she chooses to campaign and fight for - but I thought her dismissal of sexism was off. Isn't it the drip, drip, drip of all of the small things that lead to the gross misogynism which permits the huge things. I dunno - I was unimpressed.

'but I thought her dismissal of sexism was off'

She didn't really answer KK's question about why the firefighters uniform issue is sexism. He was adamant that it wasn't, I agree with her that it is, but she was quite dismissive of the issue in general and didn't really engage with it. Also thought the point about the woman who had 3 maternity leaves in quick succession and went to Pilates was strange and very unclear.

That said, she can't fight on all fronts, and she has chosen violence against women as her absolute number one priority, which makes total sense to me. She's clearly less interested in motherhood, apart being broadly in favour of maternity rights and benefits.

Yes I didn’t like the mat leave comments. You could argue I did similar as a working mum, I timed pregnancy 2 to fit in with first child going to nursery to minimise my childcare costs and maximise my income during may leave. Nothing wrong with that imo and finances are something people do for all sorts of reasons. And as women are the ones that take the potential hit to their income with mat leave in first place it’s sexist imo to suggest they should somehow do it altruistically and plan their families around their employer.
But I do get the argument of privileged women campaigning for things that just benefit them solely. I think the Stella Creasey recent stuff is a good example of this. But most women just look at their companies mat leave policy and try and work it to their best advantage which is fair game.

She didn't really answer KK's question about why the firefighters uniform issue is sexism. He was adamant that it wasn't, I agree with her that it is, but she was quite dismissive of the issue in general and didn't really engage with it.

She mentioned Invisible Women, but I thought it was a shame that she didn't get away from the firefighter question and pivot to any one of 100 other examples of insidious sexism from that book that are more easily explained. The firefighter one isn't a good example because there are so few female firefighters that it's easily dismissed.

"I enjoyed watching it dawn on Konstantin that the sort of feminism that he disagrees with… isn’t feminism."

I saw about 40 mins and haven't had a chance to finish watching

Does it eventually dawn on him? I felt they, the presenters, were getting caught up in semantics and complaining that they never heard about important stuff - where are they looking, I wonder.