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.

'BubblesOfBliss Sat 27-Apr-13 17:54:23

Protect or guard?'

Does it matter? They had still been subjected to genital mutilation (either the testies were severed or in somecases teh penis also), and lived under quite a weighty penalty system if they were found wanting. They were slaves as much as anyone else...

...but let's not forget women probably had it worse in the gilded cage that was the harem. eh. No one else could possibly have suffered.

I've backed out and listened (well read) some of these posts and radfem blogs and I have to ask.

Are you outraged at the oppression in itself or just that 'men' got there first?

Seriously.

'culture of violent masculinity'? Not just violence then, is it really a masculine thing? Women can't be violent? Have you seen the histories on various female concentration camp guards or terrorists or are we to believe that was all mans fault too?

Surely there should a drive to create a fair society for all.

"'culture of violent masculinity'? Not just violence then, is it really a masculine thing? Women can't be violent? Have you seen the histories on various female concentration camp guards or terrorists or are we to believe that was all mans fault too?"

Gender. Violence is intrinsic to the masculine gender (not the male sex - there is a difference). Boys are socialised into the masculine gender. If you have been hanging around in feminist forums for any length of time I'm sure you'll be very familiar with the grim statistics this gender socialisation results in.

Lazarus, culture of violent masculinity neither implies that all men are violent or that no women are.

It's nonsense, used to perpetuate the careers of those who spout twaddle.

Violence is not masculine, because it can be committed by both male or female sexes.

Just as empathy, sensitivity or compassion are not feminine because they can be exhibited by both sexes.

If people devoted a bit of time removing such beliefs instead of using them to support their lifestyle we'd be close to achieving to a fairer and more tolerant society.

How do you ask a man for a fairer and more tolerant society, whilst at the same time accusing him of all of the worst aspects of humanity? Even to the point of turning some of his good points in to bad?

tunip,

masculinity means the characteristic of being male.

Therefore to attach a characteristic to the term indicates that that is a male characteristic.

'Masculine violence' = male violence.

Lazarus I don't think you are understanding some of the basic concepts here - what is meant by 'a culture', the difference between maleness and masculinity.

I would happily take the time to explain them but I don't find that you're awfully good at admitting when you don't know things, so sadly you are getting an awful lot of stuff muddled up.

Lazarus There is a difference between sex and gender.

You are being emotive and aren't following logically by the way.

"Violence is not masculine, because it can be committed by both male or female sexes."

1. 'Masculine gender' is different from 'male sex' as already stated.
2. 'Violence itself' is not gendered, however it can be 'intrinsic to' a gender.
3. Not all people who are of a particular sex conform to the gender role into which they were socialised.

Therefore: "Violence is not masculine, because it can be committed by both male or female sexes." is not a logical refutation of violence being intrinsic to masculinity.

'MooncupGoddess Sat 27-Apr-13 16:06:32

Lazarus - if you've ever been to a non-Western country you should understand Basil's point about public space being designed for men. I can appreciate that it's less immediately obvious in the 21st century UK, but even now any woman who comes to harm as a result of being out alone late at night gets deluged with an avalanche of victim-blaming.'

Forgot this. BTW LRD I haven't been googling 'history'.

I have been to a number of countries, I will mention Saudi Arabia, Quatar, Bahrain, UAE, Oman and Kuwait.

Oh go on then, Thailand, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Iceland, Tunisia, Egypt, Morroco, USA, Canada, Costa Rica, Mexico, Germany, France, Spain, Portugal, Poland, Italy, Turkey, Bosnia, Macedonia, Kosovo, Iraq, Afghanistan, Nepal, India, Ukraine, Russia, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Cyprus, Greece, South Africa, Sierra Leone, Kenya, the list is long.

Non of them have been designed specifically for men. Sorry to bust your bubble, but they were designed for people to live in them.

And yet again you state 'woman who comes to harm'. Rubbish. A man who comes to harm late at night is similarly seen as at fault. Again we have a post pushing the 'women suffering' angle, as if it is only women who suffer.

If a man is attacked out alone, late at night similar blame is heaped upon him. I'll admit the 'dressed provocatively' angle is pretty much women only.

Feminists reject gender (masculinity and femininity) because it takes qualities such as violence and associates them with fifty percent of the population, divided by sex.
They believe that women are not naturally submissive and men are not naturally violent, for example, but they are encouraged to be so by the existence of gender, which is culturally constructed and not natural.

You've been to Saudi Arabia and don't understand how public space can be gendered?

Sorry but

Good news is, no wolf whistles at single women walking in Saudi streets...

The blame thing is funny. i hadd my car broken in to and my radio stolen. I mentoned it to someone and they indicated it was somehow my fault due to expense of the radio...

Victim fault seems to be a default. i should be able to leave my vehicle outside a house safe in the knowledge it wont be robbed.

Mooncup, yes, I have. I am aware of the female only malls.

If feminists reject gender... why do they use gender specific labels within their language?

The term 'feminist' itself descends from feminine.

No it doesn't, it derives from the Latin femina meaning woman.

When I last looked at this thread it was very interesting and intelligent. Now it's descended to this tiresome rubbish.

Cross post with Tunip. Not directed at you!

LOL Flora, I didn't think it was!

If a man is attacked out alone, late at night similar blame is heaped upon him. I'll admit the 'dressed provocatively' angle is pretty much women only

Who is attacking these men?

Hi Mini I've been wondering about you saying this: "The violence involved in siezing the land or assets of others could be said to be "masculine" it was after all men who went to war. However it wasn't the men who lost their lives who benefited from this but the ruling elite."

You've panned out very far as a viewpoint here. I believe the establishment of a class system by seizure of assets is a gradual process of raids and regrouping which has the dual purpose of gathering a surplus for the 'overlords' and terrorising the raided population into submission so they freely give their goods to the raiders in taxation. In other words the original violent raiders were also the beneficiaries of the raids. Dying in wars for the benefit of the elite is a bit further down the road once the class system has already been established.

JuliaScurr "the group with by far the most, if not only, possibility of changing the fundamental structure of society is the working class because they can organise on line of their own oppression and have the potential power to unite & overthrow the existing power structures & forming new ones"

But there is no guarantee these new power structures will benefit women or people with different ethnic heritage, etc.

Just want to say I am really enjoying Bubbles, Mini, Julia etc's discussion on this & learning a lot from it.

As am I Tunip.

To thnk I didn't know anything about feminism at the beginning, and am just sort of freestyling it from there.

'MiniTheMinx Sun 28-Apr-13 18:02:22

If a man is attacked out alone, late at night similar blame is heaped upon him. I'll admit the 'dressed provocatively' angle is pretty much women only

Who is attacking these men?'

Please do not try to make out it is always a blue on blue.

We'll stop this line of discussion, as you can always google such things as female attacks on men or similar.

Perhaps the most infamous en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tracie_Andrews

Oh, we've been there often enough before Kim!

Some women are violent. This doesn't pose a particular challenge to feminism, because we've never claimed the opposite.
The vast majority of violence, however, is committed by men. Their victims are both men and women. The feminists I know believe the reason is cultural conditioning, rather than genetic predisposition.
We would like to see a world where violence from both sexes is a lot less, and given the preponderance of male rather than female violence, looking at the culture of violent masculinity would seem to be one useful way to proceed.

(Banning leaded petrol seems to have been another.)

Some women have been violent, some men have been violent.

Again you use the term 'violent masculinity'. Men are no more conditioned towards violence than women.

If we look through the ages warfare was once a men and women affair, through time men took on that role to the exclusion of women, but that doesn't mean women are not just as conditioned or capable (see friday and saturday night for details). Of particular concern could be the increased incidence of female gangs attacking weaker targets (male and female) or the apparent female controlled males attacking others.

Feminism doesn't claim the opposite, because by simply dumping violence in the 'masculine' pile (regardless of who commits it) they are free of the stigma.

This may be my last post tonight... sorry everyone, I'm halfway through a bottle of homebrew (elderberry and blackcurrant from 2010 - potent stuff).