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.

Ooh, can't wait to see Billy Dainty and the Cat's Protection League given the blame they so fully deserve. About time too. I blame the Felinearchy.

I wondered if we were going to appear in a book about mobbing, as an example of internet bullying. But even someone as weird as the OP wouldn't be unethical enough to stir something up deliberately for that purpose, would they?

Do you know who I blame for stirring up the SRA scare and then failing to stop it? Trees.

Fancy allowing all those misleading words to be printed all over them like that.

And did Birnam wood walk up to the courtrooms and stop proceedings? Did they bollocks?

I know you don't want to get into the SRA discussion, and as woman who call themselves feminist, it is our duty to protect the innocent. You don't hear about ritual abuse not because it doesn't still exist, but because most people today wear blinders because they fear seeing what hurts the most. When our children are abused, then we are responsible and need to take some action. The 'moral panic' of the '80s and '90s was a time of 'coming out' of those that had lived through extreme abuse, many in their own families of origin. If we, as women, don't take on the responsibility of making our world a better place for future generations, then we have missed an important point for our lives. I hope you will not be the one who allows another child, woman, innocent being to be abused at the hands of another, or we are talking genocide, not just of a people, but of all the people on this planet we call Earth. What can we do? Write to your congressmen/women and let them know that abuse will not be tolerated at any level. Let them know that you have a voice and intend to use it. Ok, I'll get off my soapbox now. I hope I have touched the consciousness of some of you.

what IS it with these people and paragraphs?

'on this planet we call Earth'. Do you mean 'Earth'?

I have no idea what that was about, but I don't have a congressman OR congresswoman :(

well im still wondering why someone is sitting in their office with all their certificates.?

do you think they are actually sitting with them?
or do you think theyre on the wall?

I agree SSM - that's what this is about I'm sure. Probably going to be part of a point about how "today's feminists refuse to listen to other viewpoints and blind themselves to the sins of their past, preferring to band together against anyone who speaks the truth". (There, I've written his/her essay for 'em.)

I was 9 in 1994. I'm not quite sure what you want from me, OP.

lol CCF!

or maybe they are using them to wipe....ok, I'll stop there. I just needed to say that it's important not to minimize things that we don't understand.

I am sitting in my kitchen with my 25yards swimming certificate. Does that count?
I also have a 'Great Worker Certificate' my daughter brought home from school.

I do not post regularly on the Feminism boards but this thread caught my attention and it has left me rather confused.

I do remember the SRA panics and both Rochdale and Orkney (I was in living Lancashire while at University) and the hand wringing and paranoia, poorly researched newspaper articles by well-meaning but misguided 'feminist' journalists and some of the dubious alliances formed (particularly in the US). I do not move in academic circles and do not have any awareness that the SRA situation is brought up as a stick to beat older feminists with but maybe it is.

So I have no particular problem with the op - I do not read it as an attempt to make Feminists take responsibility in some way for SRA - the op is questioning that assumption? She is opening a debate by asking a question. Not sure I could have made a truly informed contribution but I was interested.

I feel it is almost like the OP is being accused of 'thought crime' - I am all for rigorous debate but some posts seemed very snarky and personal. Most unpleasant to read. If you feel a question should not be asked then why become embroiled in the debate at all - ignore ignore ignore - or am I missing something?

All very strange.

I don't understand how CDs work. I must remember not to minimise that in any away

What?

BigMOuth, trust me, you're missing something.

"thought crime" BTW.... is that, like, not a crime, but a crime you think up in your head?

Bigmouth

What the OP has done is come on here asking whether feminists should apologise for (previous) feminists behaviour in a certain matter. S/he claims it is an issue that will not go away etc.

When nearly all of us have said we don't know anything about it, and could s/he please explain a little more about feminist involvement etc, she has "ignored" the questions by her own admission, and implied that she only wants to talk to people who already know all the ins and out of the issue. Stupidly we had assumed that by asking "Should we apologise?" in the feminist section of a non-academic website, she had actually wanted to discuss with or hear from ordinary common-or-garden feminists.

Now we've done our own limited research on the subject, and all we can uncover is that one or two Marxist feminists played a part in blowing up media hype over the issue. Since we're not an organisation but a lot of diverse people who share certain core beliefs about gender politics, we're not surprisingly unwilling to take responsibility for an issue that was tangentally connected to some feminists a long time ago.

Is it really that weird that we're all thinking ?

In fact since none of us (except helensharp) know anything about it, the OP presumably isn't interested in hearing our views anyway.

What's so weird is the randomness of wondering whether feminists should take responsibility for either a) abuse committed by adults or b) a moral scare over non-existent abuse that was created by police and social services.

It feels like she is "questioning an assumption" that nobody actually has made. Which makes it seem as if someone is trying to stir up a (long-forgotten in the UK at least) issue in order to chuck some dirt at feminists. Hence the snark.

Like if I went onto a forum for sailors, and asked whether "we" should apologise for the death of Robert Maxwell, in order to put to rest the lingering suspicion of sailors as a result of Maxwell's death.

Clearly I am Sakura - as I said the whole thread reads oddly to me but I am asking a question in order to get clarification. Perfectly able to accept that there is an agenda that I am not aware of.

As far as 'thought crime' I was meaning that the op was being castigated for asking (possibly leading or weighted)questions i.e. communicting her thoughts on a subject ... the crime was to ask these questions.

This is my new favourite thread.

But I really should go and write to my congressperson, whoever ze is, and ask hir to stop genocide.

Thank Elephants 'I can see clearly now' etc.

I have no axe to grind either way but do not like feeling I am missing something (a massive fault)