Should we apologise?

[orsinian]

When I left school, in the early 1980s, I worked for a while in West Germany, right at the height of the Cold War. At the time there were Europe-wide demos against Cruise and Pershing missiles. Whilst I worked in the country I came into contact with plenty of activists, and in due course (well actually quite a few years later) I started calling myself a feminist.

And in the course of the intervening years I've been pretty proud of the movement, with just a few exceptions (the SCUM manifesto for instance).

In the last few months though, particularly when talking to some new female students in Bradford, I'm finding the subject of one of the more embarrassing moments in history is coming up, more and more regularly, and it isn't referencing feminism in a positive fashion.

I'm writing about SRA - Satanic Ritual Abuse, from the late 1980s and 90s. It pretty much passed me by all that time ago, really 'cos I wasn't back in England until the mid-nineties.

But the subject won't go away, and I'm sick to death of hearing the accusation that feminism colluded with christian fundamentalism during the 'witch-hunt' years, and I'm really sick of hearing that idea from student historians and social scientists who are studying the subject in scary detail.

I don't want to start a thread about the existence or not of SRA-there's more than enough on the subject on the Web (try for instance 'feminists satanic ritual abuse' in Google).

No, what I want to ask is, how do we, a generation or two after the events of the 80s and 90s, get a line drawn under all of it? It had nothing to do with feminists of my age and those who followed.

In Germany, I remember that young Germans hated being associated with a generation who had made their mistakes 30-odd years ago previously. If mistakes were made during the SRA years, why should later feminists be expected to be associated with those errors?

I know its a distasteful subject, and I know it stirs emotions. If you think though it will remain just a background hum, then you will be sadly mistaken. The subject, judging by the stuff on the Web, isn't going to go away anytime soon.

That extract is balls though.

i thought that in the UK most of the population were at the idea that hundreds and hundreds of families were ritually abusing their children, while of course the press got super-excited about it.

The scandal that happened here came from and was supported by the social services departments AFAIK. The public response was "but that's can't be true, surely". I find it odd that attitudes in the UK are being paralled with the US. I very much doubt that 65% of people in the UK have a literal belief in the devil. I mean we don't really do religion here, and if we do we do it in a very low key way. The religious right is not a dominant voice in our politics or views. Totally different to US.

This is all v confusing.

lol at this thread...

Exacty ISNT, the UK is a secular country compared to the US.

I mean here if someone says "oooh they're a devil worshipper" it conjures up images of middle aged bearded men and tubby women with super-long hair prancing around a bonfire in the woods. On midsummer murders. The usual responses are sniggering and remarks about it being a bit chilly. No-one reacts with bladder-loosening fear AFAIK.

Apols to any devil worshippers who may be reading

I think feminists and the actions of social services are linked in the minds of many people, who wrongly assume that social services departments are dominated by "loony" feminists.

I think they assume that social services depts are constituted of members of the loony left - marxists communists free love types feminists and all the other usual suspects.

When people say about what happened all those years ago they talk about social services going bananas IME.

ISNT, you painted a crystal clear image in my mind in your last post

I think vesuvia is right, because most people associate the excesses of social services as being linked to the 'loony left' and many feminists are left-wingers. But this is a mistake by the public. It is not feminism that is responsible, but 'loony left' Marxism.

I know what you mean vesuvia but I think the image conjured up in some people's minds is a comglomeration of everything they disapprove of rather than just feminism IYSWIM

Feminists are falsely accused of being child abusers, prostitute abusers, woman haters etc. by those who are the child abusers, prostitute abusers and woman haters etc.

ISNT wrote - "the image conjured up in some people's minds is a comglomeration of everything they disapprove of rather than just feminism"

I agree. Feminists aren't the only scapegoats.

ditanny wrote - "I've got to say even in the more recent scandals like Baby P or Victoria Climbie, I never heard feminism mentioned once as a cause to be blamed."

Regarding less prevalent unfair blaming of feminism in recent abuse scandals, let's hope that is a positive trend, and that it continues.

I also hope for a positive trend in the reduction of abuse itself, obviously.

oops - sorry dittany for the typo in your name.

Love the fact that next time someone does google it, they will find us going "naaaah". :o

if you google "feminists satanic abuse" we come out on top :o

Sure that'll reassure MNHQ when they get their google trackbacks.

I am orsinian.

Or apparently, I'm not.

It appears I am multiple personalities. One of them a Helen Sharp.

Apparently Helen (or me, or someone else) is a troll, defined by Wikipedia (which apparently we all love) as

"who posts inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum, chat room, or blog, with the primary intent of provoking other users into a desired emotional response..."

Hang on my false mustache and ears have fallen off...

...

Ah back with you now.

Ok, first, an introduction. Helen will have to do hers on her own, or whenever I apparently have a psychotic episode to both to do so myself.

I live near Oldham, Greater Manchester, and I work in West Yorkshire. I'm an academic. My field of study is workplace bullying. I am a particular authority on the subject of 'mobbing'. Go look it up. Some might figure-out my name. That name is not Helen Sharp.

My nickname is in honor of 'Ursula K. Le Guin' and her book of short stories, 'Orsinian Tales'. Some might know of Le Guin, she wrote some book called 'The Left Hand of Darkness'.

Helen Sharp's nickname is it seems, in honor of 'Helen Sharp'.

Do I know Helen Sharp?

Yep. I do now. She messaged me, drawing my attention back to this post. At the risk of inciting conspiracy theorists, it turns out she is an academic too. She works in Europe, for 'EPO" which is something to do with telescopes. Maybe you would like to Message her (seeing as you think you'll be communicating with me)...catch me out. Just don't do it whilst I'm making tea.

So, what next. Oh, yes, apologies.

I wish I hadn't posted. I wish I had made it clearer about the subject I wished to see discussed. More than wish...

"I don't want to start a thread about the existence or not of SRA-there's more than enough on the subject on the Web (try for instance 'feminists satanic ritual abuse' in Google)."

After posting I saw the first questions about SRA and deliberately ignored them. I wasn't going to giving-out links to subscribers on the subject and then start debating its existence or not." So I dropped off. Big mistake.

Mentioning West Germany was an error. The analogy was simple; why should following generations be blamed for the past? Not 'are feminists to be associated with nazis'.

Did feminism collude with religious fundamentalism? That's the oft-seen accusation, but it is senseless. Feminists though, I think, should have spoken-up more, but didn't. That previous generation stayed quiet, and as a result a town near to where I live, called Rochdale, suffered an incident that still resonates through the years. That's the reason for the question about an apology or not.

Should feminism have collectively intervened? 65% of those falsely accused in the US and UK were women. The accusations made (such as in Rochdale) were so bizarre (and not just a few bizarre, but every accusation, completely bizarre) that I think feminists were justified in intervening, if for nothing else, on behalf of those women so accused.

As it is I went away for the weekend, sure that a lively debate would take place, and I would see a consensus reached one way or the other when I returned.

Looking back through the postings, everything went fine (well other than concerns about nazi's and a basic objection to the subject) from Saturday night when I first posted, until about 7.02 today, when H. Sharp (apparently me) posted.

Even that looked fine, with some good contributions, though still really concerned with what SRA was, until about 11.21, whereupon the wheel fell off.

The SRA panic was characterised by paranoia and false allegations. Was it necessary to have the debate characterised by the same?

Why did it occur? Well, I know, that's why I do what I do for a living. Perhaps through some 'Googling' you will know too.

Ultimately the thread served no purpose. It appears on Google. In the end it descended into farce; a serious subject rendered into a joke session.

Unless anyone has any objections, I would like to leave it running for a few more hours, for any objections to be registered. I will then request Mumsnet HQ to delete the thread, in it entirety - which as OP (that's me, not my alleged doppelgänger) should carry some weight. It should then leave the Google cache in short order.

In the words of a phrase we use in my field 'it's been an experience'.

OP - I am sorry to say that I have almost no idea that you are talking about, either in your first post or your last.

What part are feminists supposed to have played in the whole thing (whatever it was)?

As far as I have read, there was a widespread theory that lots of children were being abused in Satanic rituals (why? where? by whom? whose theory?) and social workers started taking children away where they suspected SRA because of indicators (what were they?) and then feminists did something dreadful in the form of...what?

"The SRA panic was characterised by paranoia and false allegations. Was it necessary to have the debate characterised by the same?

Why did it occur? Well, I know, that's why I do what I do for a living. Perhaps through some 'Googling' you will know too."

• This is really patronising, and to accuse us all of paranoia is a bit weird TBH. What are you getting at with your "well, i know" - ok, what do you know? It's irritating when someone has a specialised area of knowledge to just troop your knowledge in front of people rather than sharing it and letting people make up their own minds.

"After posting I saw the first questions about SRA and deliberately ignored them."

Well I was the first person to reply, and all I asked was for a bit more explanation of what you were talking about. Not because I am a mob or whatever you think, but because I was interested in a part of feminist history that you said was important and which I had never heard of. If you only want to talk to people who are coming from the exact same knowledge base etc as you then why not discuss it in your common room? :(

Not all of us are as aware of the subject as you orsinian. Why do you think it occurred and why did the state get swept up in the hysteria? Why didn't the state consult some experts on mobbing to see what was going on, when many of the inexpert general public didn't believe it? What do feminists have to apologise for? Do you mean for not speaking up against the hysteria?

In what way did feminists collude with christian fundamentalism? I don't even believe that Christian fundamentalism was at the heart of it. The media and government never listen to Christian fundamentalists and they are always ridiculed, so how could they have driven the wheels of the state to start all of these prosecutions?

CLaig: there is a strand of feminism which often does hook up with rightwing religious knobbers: what the two strands have in common is hatred and fear of sexuality and a desperate desire to control other people.
OP whoever the fuck, you are, you don't make a very convincing case for your superduper academic skills if you believe (as you appear to do) that 'feminism' is a unified, monolithic movement with no dissenters. It;s not New Labour.