Just posting from Radfem 2013 with the MN feminists - couple of interesting comments :-)

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

I'm just posting because I'm at a conference with a few MN feminists. We've just been to a panel about feminist parenting, and the others are chatting with other feminist mums.

I've been listening in on the discussion mostly on account of not having any children - which is why I'm posting on MN instead of talking - but a couple of women mentioned the old stereotype of MN being full of anti-feminist middle-class white mothers who only talk about nappies. And a couple of FWR regulars were saying that we're actually quite nice. So, I am hoping maybe people who were at the conference will come to check out this section.

Or maybe they won't, but if they do - hello! :-)

I'm defending Cathy Brennan because I do not agree that a woman has no right to reply when hate speech is aimed at her.

Is that what you believe Marfisa?

I also do not agree it is hate speech to hold a different view about gender from queer theorists, and to dare to state that view publicly.

Isn't that the truth, kim.

Keyboard warriors, innit ? So much easier to voice an extreme opinion or threats from behind the safety and anonymity of an internet blog/forum.

I disagree with a lot of Brennan's views but I do admire the fact that she's prepared to put herself out there. And she does get a shedload of provocation that sometimes she seems to have a kneejerk reaction to.

I don't think the view that woman = biological woman is necessarily a radfem one, I think it's quite a mainstream view and it's a shame that a lot of valuable discussion is shouted down as radfem and extreme. The hating between the radfem and trans extremists means the discussion isn't had which is a shame IMO.

You know what though, I can take a few nutty transactivists or equally nutty transallies telling me to eat shit or that they hope I get raped.

What really makes me upset is when feminists who most of the time are in the mainstream totally refuse to see how they are operating double standards in the behaviour they expect from radfems and transactivists/allies.

Rape threats are deplorable. Thank you. But if we dare to name what they have said or God forbid, respond to them in any way, our words are hate speech.

and now I'm leaving the thread to cuddle my children and try to calm down.

I don't know what would have happened if a transwoman had popped up and said 'I'm a radical feminist, I believe in the aims of radical feminism, and I want to come.'

I am pretty sure what Cathy Brennan would have said, Tunip. And it would have been along the lines of 'You're a man with a dick.'

I'm signing off now, for the time being anyway, because I think we're starting to go round in circles a bit. And while I disagree with Brennan and find her inflammatory language upsetting, she is not my public enemy number one. That would be, ahem, the patriarchy. Which I am undoubtedly part of with my queer-supporting post-structuralist gender-questioning ways.

"You're a man with a dick"

I just think that ^^ is rude. I don't think it's hate speech. It's just a really crude way of voicing what many think. There are times where it's not relevant to anything so shouldn't be said and there are times where it is relevant but could be said so much better.

Sorry if I stressed you out, Tunip. That wasn't my intention.

Blistory, I tried to explain what I think of as hate speech. To me, it's making big generalisations about entire groups of people. And Brennan's twitter feed is absolutely chock full of pejorative statements that begin with, "Trans-activism is X", "Transwomen are X", "Queers are X", "Queer theory is X". It's the rhetorical force of statements like that that I object to. Compare "Jews are X", "Women are X", "Rad fems are X", said by people who are not themselves Jews or women or rad fems - that would be equally offensive.

Women are complicated and diverse. So are transwomen. So are queers. Trying to label one whole group of human beings at one go is precisely the strategy that patriarchy has used for millennia.

I am going now. Really.

Since we are at the 'signing off' stage and this debate does become circular, would anyone like to know about other stuff that was interesting at the conference? I know I said I'd get into the postmodernism but it will lead us straight back to the trans stuff, so for now I'll leave that.

One thing I wanted to come back and tell you about was a little throwaway line in Shiela Jeffries' speech that I found interesting. She was observing that that fewer than 4% of train drivers are women (just to take an example of a job that is seen as a good, solid, blue-collar job that would bring you more security and status than many). And she said that it's telling how, broadly, we've found women are allowed to get into jobs where they can wear high heels ... but not jobs like this, where they can't. Ie., women who're working class have fewer options to get into male-dominated jobs.

I thought that was really interesting given that a few months ago someone on here linked to a report on the 'feminization of poverty' which was saying how increasingly women take on jobs that are not well paid, tend to be hire-and-fire, and don't build up skill portfolios.

So far so predictably depressing, I guess. But what was really funny was that someone (basil? I forget, but it was a MNer) had just told me that there are some train drivers who've recently been banned from wearing shorts as it's unprofessional, so the men all took advantage of the dress code and started wearing skirts to keep cool in the summer! It's funny, but it's also interesting that there seem to be two very opposite impulses in one single male-dominated profession.

Oh ... btw, Brennan is in the article tunip linked to saying heterosexual married women are her biggest supporters because they get it about the dick thing. I don't get the impression she has an issue with dick-endowed persons who're pro radfem, or she'd have a problem with said hetero married types too.

I think you have a really odd definition of hate speech Marfisa, and I'm not sure I'm seeing the same Twitter feed as you.

If statements that begin 'Queer theory is x' constitute hate speech, how are we meant to discuss anything ever?

I also don't get how on earth objecting to queer theory could possibly be hate speech.

I'm also comparing 'Jews are x' with Cathy Brennan's tweets and not seeing an awful lot of similarity

Because the patriarchy loves queer theory and questioning it is hate speech, I reckon.

Actually that is probably hate speech since I used a subject-verb-object sentence structure.

Or could it possibly be that what counts as hate speech has more to do with who says it than what the content is....

Well, this is true.

I am really glad I went to this conference because it's given me some theoretical framework to use in my proper work against queer theory.

I don't know if people know what is annoying about it?

It's not annoying per se, it's just a hugely over-exposed theory, and it's become hard to disagree with it. And of course, when theory becomes ideology and when you're dissuaded from disagreeing with it, it's an issue.

Personally, I find queer theory applied to my subject quite annoying because 90% of the time, I feel it's suggesting certain people had agency when they were in fact being treated in a horrible way. It's become a way of celebrating 'transgression' and 'difference' without acknowledging the huge punishments societies have meted out to those who're different. It's like someone relentlessly positive telling you how wonderful it is that someone is speaking out against FGM, but refusing to acknowledge that the fact FGM exists at all is pretty shit.

I don't see the issue with criticizing a theory at all.

Actually, it's interesting.
What Marfisa describes is a prohibition on class-based analysis of any kind. This is why queer theory, though it claims to be radical, is in effect deeply conservative: without class-based analysis and action there can be no challenge to the status quo. Which is why the right loves it.

No political challenge to the status quo, that should be.

Absolutely.

To be entirely fair, I know people who use queer theory and acknowledge it is not radical. That is why it lends itself to sympathetic analyses of historical power structures.

I struggle with queer theory. Probably because it seems largely theoretical and I can't really see the real world application of it.

And I appreciate that I'm probably coming from a blinkered straight white woman stance on that.

I think discrimination against women is wrong and discrimination against transpeople is wrong, as is any form of discrimination against anyone. I just can't help thinking that the theories are all well and good but detract from the RL problems and solutions.

So I think that woman = biological woman but that doesn't preclude me from rejecting any form of discrimination of transwomen in real life. It just seems to me that the argument is all about feminists must agree that woman is redefined instead of concentrating on what the actual problems are that transwomen face and dealing with that as a specific issue in its own right. Surely the fact that Kim feels possibly discriminated against in real life applying for jobs is more important to address than whether disagreeing with theory is hate speech.

I'd like to be able to discuss theory without being attacked or accused of being an extremist particularly when it's one that I'm floundering with or trying to get to grips with. It's why I'm grateful that the FWR boards exist and that so many posters generously impart their knowledge and views. But I still think the theory is an aside to practical action.

Mmm. My perspective is that queer theory is particularly bad on racial issues. But of course, I am also a blinkered white woman, so perhaps I am wrong.

I totally agree that the issue of kim feeling - and I would say, btw, we shouldn't say feeling, we need to say being, because the evidence is there - discriminated against is more important.

We obviously agree on so much. We need to be able to do that.

I don't know, maybe the answer is we ignore the lunatic fringe and just get together?

(I have to admit, to be fair, that it's not exactly hard for me to sacrifice queer theory as 'less important' here! I can't stand it.)

what is queer theory...?

in a nutshell

Oh, I'm going to be terrible at summing it up.

Basically, it's heavily influenced by Judith Butler (and unsubtle readings of Butler), as well as some others. Obviously the term itself originally had a lot to do with reclaiming 'queer', though it's now moved away from that.

As I understand it, the postive aspects are that gender and sex and sexuality are all things we can choose to act out in different ways. It's a theory that recognises and celebrates the richness of different experiences - so it's saying, there are lots of different ways to act, and they're all valid, and everything in the garden is lovely.

As I understand it, queer theory applied to stuff I know about tends to result in people assuming all transgressive behaviour is positive. You see, the idea is you're celebrating transgression as a powerful activity that challenges people's perceptions. Obviously that's good in itself, but it can IMO lead to people ignoring the realities of how transgressors are punished.

Lierre Keith's speech included lots of points that touched on this, but the one I understood best was her talking about the permeability of female bodies and the lack of boundaries female bodies have, in a patriarchial society. Basically, as we know, the patriarchy would love to say that all female bodies are permeable, in that they could all be penetrated and all women are interchangeable (sorry, I know this is really basic). But queer theory would try to say, maybe this permeability is a source of power ... maybe if we all transgress, we're changing society by acting against its norms.

The problem being, of course, that this doesn't necessarily work.

Anyway, I digress. As I understand it, the basic tenet of queer theory is that everything is to do with how you behave or identify yourself. There aren't absolutes, there are only spectums. In that sense it's postmodern. However, IMO applications of queer theory end up reinforcing the same limiting binaries as ever.

I am about to stop wittering on - honest - but the other issue I have with queer theory is that the category of 'queer' is expanded beyond what makes sense. I've had mates tell me I am a queer theorist because I am not a right-wing heterosexual defender of marriage. IMO if we label most everyone as 'queer', it erases lesbians and gay men.