Men’s “token torturers” in feminist spaces

[EatsBrainsAndLeaves]

"Where men can?t reach women because the space is women-only, these women, most of whom are deeply damaged, serve as the perfect Trojan horses and cannon fodder for the destruction of feminist spaces. To use Mary Daly?s term, they are men?s ?token torturers? in feminist spaces, doing men?s dirty work of demolishing women?s capacity for resistance.[18]

In most cases, pseudo-feminist (masculinist) practices or ideologies are the perfect terrain for such abusive behaviours because they give both the sense of legitimacy and individual rationalisation for them. Token torturers within feminist or women-only spaces almost always justify their continual acts of women-bashing with male-identified ideologies disguised as feminism, and some may be more obvious than others. This is particularly true for pro-prostitution positions, BDSM practices, pseudo anti-racism, intersectionality, male-centric anti-capitalism or leftism, focus on male institutions or law, queer theory, butch-fem ideology, radical lesbianism, and the ?phobia? ideologies (Islamophobia, etc.)."

-- Féministe radicale francophon

Speaking of "feminists could teach the left a thing or two": a lot of the energy in the American women's movement back in the early 70s came from women who'd become disillusioned with the leftist (civil rights and anti-war) groups. They said the men there were protesting government policy, but expecting women to be subordinate just as always, and of course they were right.

So in that sense, the whole modern feminist movement started as a form of intersectionality, though nobody called it that then. And the men probably wondered what the women were all making so much fuss over.

Yes, a lot of early(ish!) feminist activism arose from women realising that in fact they weren't included in the lefty men's idea of liberation. The men were only trying to tackle their own oppression, but couldn't see the problem with women remaining second class as a group. They didn't want to lose any privileges they had.

I do think some women fight radical feminism because they recognise that it IS intersectional. It challenges all systems of dominance and oppression including the systems in which they themselves are part of the dominant group. It is clever to use the concept of intersectionality to, in effect, advocate the status quo.

Thanks for the link, upthread, ComplexityAndFecundityOfDreams.

I didn't have time to read it earlier and now have had a proper look. Very thought provoking on feminism and racism.

Repeating link so anyone interested doesn't have to scroll right up the thread to find it.

Actually, what this demonstrates is more of an ongoing difficulty in being human. Which is that 'causes' always attract a percentage of bucketheads, whangers, ego-trippers, predators and whiners along with the general mass of well-meaning people who have identified a Bad Thing to get upset and angry about and fight against. So feminist groups/campaigns can start off full of good intentions eg to campaign against rape or for better funding for refuges, aaaaand all of a sudden someone pops up going 'But what about abortion?' and someone else starts hissing 'That's a heteronormative issue, you splitter!' and then someone else goes 'This is a first world problem and anyway you have a boyfriend so anything you say is invalid'.

And if you have a mixed-gender or mostly-male campaign launched to fight for a higher minimum wage, sooner or later someone will say 'But even if they increase the minimum wage it's still working in the evil fast food industry and that should be shut down and the staff educated to grow and sell organic lentils instead' and someone else will go 'We should really be fighting against outsourcing to the Third World where they pay the workers 50p a year' and someone will say that isn't the point right now and yet another someone will go 'You would say that because you're a racist, you once bought South African peaches and I SAW YOU DO IT'.

So actually what's kind of quite important to remember, if you are being Put Off Feminism because of all the nitpicky fighting and/or the obsession with single-issue stuff that isn't an issue remotely relevant to you, the one thing not to buy into is the idea that it's only feminism that goes up its own arse like this. That's a myth put about by people who don't want feminism to exist.

Ha ha, SGB.

It certainly isn't a new thing. George Orwell wanted to create socialism, and he complained about "the horriblethe really disquietingprevalence of cranks wherever Socialists are gathered together. One sometimes gets the impression that the mere words 'Socialism' and 'Communism' draw towards them with magnetic force every fruit-juice drinker, nudist, sandal-wearer, sex-maniac, Quaker, 'Nature Cure' quack, pacifist, and feminist in England."

And look who he listed dead last. Get out of my revolution, you, you intersectionist, you.

Damn, the I-won't-respect-your-italics bug strikes again.

LOL TeitTetua. Poor Eric Blair would have been well pissed off with me since I match more than a few descriptions on his list but I'm not saying exactly which ones.

(Dang, and I spelled you wrong again!)

I have no idea where these views of intersectinality as a anti feminist programme have come from, perhaps it is because being intersectional does not afford feminism any special place amongst all the other forms of oppression. This would if you so were inclined be a bit of a slap in the face if your entire political vision is mixed up with promoting the idea that women are oppressed by men. Intersectional work recognises that every individual has multiple identities and that each of these identities can be a source of discrimination. Some having nothing to do with men at all. One example would be how feminists are very anti transexuals having the identity that they want for themselves.

Being a young disabled black woman who is a lesbian and a single mother has so many types of negative stereo types and attitudes that they all need to be addressed. It is not as simple as saying that if her female identities were dealt with in a positive way that she would no longer suffer discrimination. Like wise I would not think by undoing every level of the patriarchy that it will solve all the issues resulting from her disability. In short, the notion that people are feminists, disability activists, or right wing fa4j nuts and it is that that defines them is just not so. I am many different things and I can choose what my identity is even if I choose an identity that brings with it many forms of oppression.

Yes but, WAA but, you're not addressing MMMYYY most important problem, therefore you are one of THEM and I hate you and I'm going to insist that everyone who's REALLY NICE and not ON THE SIDE OF THE ENEMY comes and joins my new group, blah blah blah....

There is one little comforting thing about this universal truth, though. It applies just as much to the rightwingers (the BNP were a splitter group from the National Front after a tantrum about who was more of a horrible fucking racist than who else and who nicked the tea money, and the EDL is the latest Judean People's Behind or whatever version...)

SGB can you explain what MMMYYY means please.

My.
I assume.

Just catching up on this thread! Yes I agree with the quote. I think in most feminist spaces there are women who espouse pseudo feminist theories that are in reality anti feminist that are an attempt to destroy real feminist spaces and discussion.

I've been mulling this over and I think one of the ways intersectionality is co-opted is by post-modernist ideology.

I think that is the issue I have with the concept really - and it is one that affects all oppressed groups, not just women.

Because intersectionality theory can be used to individualise oppression. Which in turn becomes an obstacle to dissent and organised protest. For any group. And that is very problematic.

Thanks for this thread OP, it has given me a lightbulb moment on understanding something I felt instinctively uncomfortable with, but couldn't quite put my finger on.

Something else that occurred to me is that when intersectionality theory is invoked in a meaningful real life way, the word itself doesn't even have to be used. www.blackwomensblueprint.org/2011/09/23/an-open-letter-from-black-women-to-the-slutwalk/ Like this for example. A brilliant piece of writing that highlights the intersectional problem without requiring that the focus be moved off women.

TeiTetua haha

fruit-juice drinker- Yep
nudist- I'm too much of a pacifist to scare the others
sex-maniac- Not saying, pacifist-Yep, feminist- Yep
Do we have to get a full house to be considered a crank?

Eats, do you have any examples where Pseudo feminism has destroyed women only spaces? What in your opinion would be considered Pseudo feminist theories?

That's interesting Beach I hadn't considered that shifting the focus away from the one immutable thing we all have in common (sex) might actually fracture groups and set people apart. SGM is so so correct in what she says too and funny with it. Disability can always be thought of as ability, everyone has some ability, class isn't always set in stone, to what extent we are oppressed changes over time........but sex is unchangeable however there is one thing all groups experience that is the discrimination itself, a focus on the oppression could draw people together and why is it so difficult to see where all roads lead.

Loving SGB's work on this thread.

And I have to stand up for the Quakers a bit here: if ever you find yourself on the opposite side of any ethical issue from the Quakers, it may just be time to think again.

Beach - The idea of intersectionality, even though I had never heard the word I understood the concept - stopped me seeing the truth about how men oppress women as a class, for a long long time. Yes it si often used to individualise oppression. And those who talk about intersectionality often use a long list of "oppressions", in a way that erases the actual power in the political system.

Are you speaking about the people who write 20-item "privilege check" lists I've seen where they write they have "allistic (non-autistic) privilege", "HIV negative status privilege", "vanilla (non-BDSM) privilege", etc. etc. so adding so many issues that they forget the importance of sex?

If so, I sympathise, but they're only a small proportion of intersectional feminists.

I'm not really getting why it's so important to ditch the word "intersectionality." Similarly, there are many folks who have a problem with the term "feminism" and would prefer the word be dropped in favour of just following its concepts. I personally don't see why losing either word is necessary. For me, intersectionality describes the concept in a way that "multiple oppressions" or "affected by sexism and other forms of oppression does not."

If you read Crenshaw's original concept of intersectionality, it isn't simply about one person being affected by more than one form of oppression. It's that the experience of oppression in in itself is different where two forms of oppression intersect. One example in her 1991 article (from memory) was that of workplace discrimination against women of colour in the US. Say for example, you were on the receiving end of comments relating to the stereotype of the highly sexualised, "exotic" woman of colour. The perpetrators could be either men, women or both.

You would have no redress under race equality legislation because that wouldn't apply if other employees of colour weren't similarly affected (and they wouldn't be if they were male.) You would have no recourse to sex discrimination legislation because other women in the workplace were not similarly affected (if they were white.) Your experience of harassment and discrimination is in the context of being both a woman and of colour.

The concern expressed by many women of colour is that they are regarded by feminists as women, who also happen to be affected by racism. Similarly, they are regarded in civil rights/anti-racist groups as people of colour, who also happen to be affected by sexism. Neither of these reflects who they really are and quite rightly, they may be wary of the capability or inclination of either type of group to represent their interests. They are also rightly wary of experiencing discrimination within those groups.

It's possible to translate this example to other people who are affected by intersecting forms of oppression.

So, just like throwing out the word feminism runs the risk of losing sight of what the concept is about, throwing out the word intersectionality runs the risk of losing sight of that concept as well.

I'm also a bit wary of the focus on "imutable" characteristics vs "changeable" ones with regard to people affected by oppression. It still suggests that the former somehow sit higher on the ladder or carry more weight than the former, and I can't buy that. For one, it's rather insensitive and patronising for someone who doesn't experience a characteristic that results in oppression (e.g. disability, Lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, etc.) to pronounce that their characteristic "can't be so bad" because it's something they can change, or others can change perceptions of.)

Also, if there is an argument that there should be greater "solidarity" between women because they share a sex, surely the same would apply to people of colour, because they can't change their ethnicity either.

And, where would that then leave women of colour? Torn in half? Forced to choose between being a woman or being a person of colour? I understand that is what many already feel.

The way I see it is that feminism, women's rights, etc are about women.

All women. As in women as a group.

Women as a group represent a lot of people and that is forceful and potentially powerful.

I have an image in my head of a group of women all standing together lending weight to a collective voice with a common oppressor.

Of course not all women are the same and not all women agree on everything or have the same experiences and access to privilege.

If that group is then subdivided into all the potential subdivisions then the collectivity is lost and so is the force and the power. For all women.

Here we step into the realms of individualism and post modernism.

So we need different and varied voices within feminism - in order for feminism to be representative and true to its female perspective based roots. We need to hear each other.

It is just far far too easy for intersectionality theory to be abused as 'divide and conquer'.

Intersectionality was just one thing though on quite a list of what was described as 'masculinist practices and ideologies'. It could be interesting to examine other items on the list; pro-prostitution positions, BDSM practices, pseudo anti-racism, intersectionality, male-centric anti-capitalism or leftism, focus on male institutions or law, queer theory, butch-fem ideology, radical lesbianism, and the ?phobia? ideologies (Islamophobia, etc.)

And forgot to say, I think this ties into something a lot of feminists point out about porn - porn is full of racist, ageist, etc stereotypes.

To be a young able bodied white women who doesn't have an issue with porn is to ignore how women of colour, very young women, etc are represented in porn and how misogyny manifests differently according to the women being attacked.

But that list really does boil down to 'Agree with me about everything or die!'. Feminists who take that sort of attitude are actually far more interested in browbeating and insulting and dismissing other women for petty heresies than actually fighting women's oppression - the sort of silly bitches who will try to get a protest march cancelled because among the broad feminist cross-section of people attending is someone they once fell out with who holds a different viewpoint on another aspect of life/feminism.

If that group is then subdivided into all the potential subdivisions then the collectivity is lost and so is the force and the power. For all women

True. And if we stifle the voices of those who are on the receiving end of oppression within the group as a result of specific characteristics such as race, religion or class we will, again, lose collectivity and force and power.

Please dont use the word bitch when talking about a woman sgb. It is an anti woman hating term.