Radfem 2013 and the MRAs

[MooncupGoddess]

As many of you will remember, the Radfem 2012 conference in London was explicitly open only to born women and consequently attracted lots of condemnation and anger from people who saw this as transphobic. It was kicked out of its original venue at Conway Hall and went underground (very successfully in the end).

This year Radfem 2013 has not explicitly banned transwomen... but instead it's come under attack from Men's Rights Activists, who have staged a demo at the planned venue, the London Irish Centre, while making lots of unpleasant and ridiculous claims about how radical feminists want to murder small boys and the like. As a result the venue is threatening to cancel the booking.

www.mralondon.org/

bugbrennan.com/2013/04/20/statement-from-rad-fem-2013/

I have mixed feelings about the whole trans issue but have no hesitation in declaring the MRAs utter misogynist knobbers and am disappointed the London Irish Centre has seemingly caved into them.

Hi JuliaScurr,
interesting link, would you mind the definition of rape that classifies 1 in 12 men as rapist? Just curious.
BTW the findings of this article are enlightening, such the one that reveals that 80% of girls assume sexual assault as acceptable if the man and the woman were married. Might be the case that the definition of sexual assault collapse with normal intercourse?

Just wondering...

OK let's be frank

The meeting in the US (a few years back?) as part of a wider event that invited only MAAB trans people and talked about "breaking through the cotton ceiling".

that is so offensive I can't even think about it.

None of the feminist meetings I have been to have been so, just, grim in their aims. It's all earnest (and it is, not meant in a derogatory way) talk about sexual health and reproductive choice and DV and stuff. Getting into people's knickers? Seriously.

Now obviously that is a random example which I'm sure lots of trans people were not comfortable with but still my point is that happened. And yet rad fems talking about being female = wrong?

I don't understand it.

"BTW the findings of this article are enlightening, such the one that reveals that 80% of girls assume sexual assault as acceptable if the man and the woman were married. Might be the case that the definition of sexual assault collapse with normal intercourse? "

Please can you clarify this question.

Banning someone transphobic would be like banning someone homophobic or racist.

Banning someone because they're a radical feminist and/or would like a woman-only space, is misogynistic.

That is totally different, and the law does not (yet) uphold the rights of misogynists to ban radical feminism.

I think uranio means that heterosexual sex as patriarchy defines it is can be the same as sexual assault, nicetabard?

Give it time LRD.

I have read comments from people who are against radfem 2013, who suggest radical feminists should be raped brutally. For being radical feminists. And that they should die.

I do not see how it is ok to pretend that radical feminists are being banned because they are the ones engaging in hate speech.

The law is no more accepting of death threads to rad fems than to anyone else.

I imagine (possibly naively) that the sort of people who convene conferences to talk about getting through the 'cotton ceiling' are about as representatives as the hypothetical rad fems who don't want to bring up male babies.

However, the fact remains that women have been campaigning for legal protections for generations, and we only got rape in marriage criminalized in 1991. Transactivists have been campaigning for a much shorter time, and already, legally, the definition of women is being changed without women getting a say. Obviously, I can understand why ordinary people who're trans are nothing but pleased, and I wouldn't expect any different - why shouldn't they be? But it is indicative of how society sees us all.

Yes Kim totally and that's the thing extremist views or even unusual views are often raised. So when people say well radfems want to murder babies the whole cotton ceiling thing needs to be raised IYSWIM.

I am not surprised you have issues with some stuff said - i do too - but like all political groupings there will always be an extreme wing / people you don't agree with etc.

On balance maybe better to let people join rather than make it so closed that potentially only the more extreme people are left? Stop the meetings, drive them underground, make them scary you cut the membership back...

Some things absolutely you can't say there are laws but IME at fem meetings it's what you would expect. sensible food and how are we going to make things better for women.

I find it a bit odd that MRA bandwagon // certain trans-activists genuinely believe that this is a major conversation at these meetings. Do the even believe that? There is so much to talk about globally, and of course the difficulties faced by various "minority" groups exist eg gay people trans people poor people etc, at these meetings the focus is female people through pre birth, birth, childhood etc etc. and there's enough to think about with all the "missing girls", reproductive health, abortion rights being eroded, porn culture, etc etc ad infinitum. What is being protested is just...

I don't know.

While I don't believe the "cotton ceiling" people are representative of all trans people, they are real and do discuss this even on general feminist websites (like feministing). I actually don't believe that there are any rad fems who do advocate murdering babies.

That's true, flora, but I was using the 'murdering babies' not to be disingenuous but because I'm not terribly well up on what people do say or whether it's true.

Hi girls!
Having fun? Good, good.
First of all congrats for the level of discussion; finally I found a place where MRA topics are addressed and debated, I feel at home here. Not the usual stuff...MRA do this and that, because they are losers, or they feel "men" are losing ground. No, finally a place where MRA are fought and debunked on the ground of merit. Great.
A question: the "M" of MRA stands for "Misogynistic"? This question popped up in my head because ti seems that the acronym does not suit our taste, sisters; it can't be the "R" of rights, nothing wrong with that, we use it all the time; and the "A" is quite an innocent letter recalling advocates, this word does not hurt me, does it hurt you? I guess no. So it must be the "M" that makes us uncomfortable, but I can't figure intolerance to "men" so the "M" should mean something more vicious...

A question for sister TunipTheVegedude;
"In China alone it is estimated that over a million girl babies are aborted every year"...
I never knew that, I was informed that was a fake news. I was informed that the controlled demographic did not deal with sex. I was lucky to come here. But anyhow what's the deal with the gender of not born babies? I mean, we fought hard to have the abortion to not give birth to babies, our body our choice, after all we all know abortion does not deal with interruption of life of human beings; so I can't find much sense in defining the gender of not living beings; can you spot me with part of you light, sister Tunip?

Sisters, i do not know if I can join you at the Radfem disccussion, so I'll kindly ask someone of you if she can raise, on my behalf, few points on which I would like to have feedbacks:

• we strive for equality, even if MRAs (and most men) do not get it; I think that we should acknowledge that we do not communicate properly, it can't be only their fault unless we are inferring men/MRA are stupid. So I propose that we put in our agenda a plan to create the social conditions for which the detainee population will be composed for the 50% of women; that will debunk all their misogynistic attitudes.
• and when it comes to those F4J, let's prove them our commitment to equality; starting 2014 half of exclusive child custodies will be awarded to fathers, by law. Will shut their fucking mouth!
• regarding the pensions system, I really cannot bear them anymore; i need a break! Please sisters let women retire 4 years later than men, so those losers will be happy and women will be more empowered.

-finally, the gender quotas; I can't stand these MRAs, fuck them. Let' do this way; starting 2014, 30%....no even better...50% of personnel in school and health system should be male. Ahhhh. Freedom! Come on sister simple steps to send back these MRA to the planet they belongs to, from the Patriarchy galaxy.

Love, love, love

These are brilliant ideas uranio.

Also what we could do:

Make men do half the housework and childcare, so that they actually know how to look after their own children on divorce.

Get women to commit as much serious crime as men, so that we're justified in locking them up in equal numbers.

Make women half of our elected representatives, half of judges, half of board directors, half of leaders in education, medicine, law and media.

Make men half of all rape and sexual assault victims in the world.

Pay men and women the same wage for equal work (this still doesn't happen).

Saturate public space with pictures of men wearing considerably less clothing while posing like this

Anything else?

"A question for sister TunipTheVegedude;
"In China alone it is estimated that over a million girl babies are aborted every year"...
I never knew that, I was informed that was a fake news. I was informed that the controlled demographic did not deal with sex. I was lucky to come here. But anyhow what's the deal with the gender of not born babies? I mean, we fought hard to have the abortion to not give birth to babies, our body our choice, after all we all know abortion does not deal with interruption of life of human beings; so I can't find much sense in defining the gender of not living beings; can you spot me with part of you light, sister Tunip?"

Um
What?

you only need to google, honey
this came up first for me take a look

And surely you heard about women having forced late stage abortions in China (feminist issue) when you were growing up? How old are you I'm surprised you haven't heard about that.

So look at that
Look at other parts of asia
Look at preference for male children resulting in a heavily skewed population
Look at places where women cannot vote
Look at places where women are not allowed rights to their children
Look at places where rape is legal
Look at places where women earn less than men for the same work
Look at places where women and girls are at extremely high risk of rape from organised groups
Look at places where girls are denied an education...

Look at the world and open your eyes. Watch the news and notice how many reports come from places where there are no women to be seen, anywhere.

Then make your sarcy comments about having fun. I don't find this subject a joke, you clearly do. Yes fucking hilarious.

basil - or, alternatively, we could sit back and wait until HQ ban Bob/Edd/Mike/their little friends.

Though, I will say, it is disgusting to compare forced abortion to a woman's 'choice' over how own body.

Oh d'you reckon it's one of those?

Nuff said.

Andrew Neil's saying good night to me, so I'm off to bed.

Good night.

Are you sure that's what uranio was doing?

His postings are so incoherent that I'm not entirely sure.

Anyway really off to bed now. Damn you Question Time, Andrew Neill and Mumsnet.

I think it behoves uranio and anyone else to think for a millisecond before posting, is all.

Night, basil.

(I've wanted to say this ever since I Saw it in Moesha when I was like, 13)

Sister? My parents didn't tell me anything about you! (Flicks hair)

I have to admit, in a normal context, I quite like 'sisters' as a form of address. There aren't enough nice ways to address a group of women.

I find it way over familiar, maybe that's just my British reserve shining through!