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! :-)

So basically Marfisa, Brennan describes what is happening and what she has first-hand experience of, and because you don't like it (because people representing the queer community that you identify with or support are behaving badly) you object to her talking about it and you buttress your objections by claiming a degree of generalisation that is not there and forbidding any discussion of any community as a whole.

If the extremists within a community make it difficult for the moderates within that community to speak out, as we agreed is happening within the transactivist community, and the words that are come out of that community as a result are limited to the extreme, it is reasonable to describe the voice of that community as extreme, no?

You just seem so determined not to see what is happening that you are blaming the people who speak up about it rather than the people who are doing it.

How do you think it feels as a lesbian to be told you can't call yourself a lesbian because you aren't sexually attracted to people with penises? I'm straight but I can see why so many lesbians are not feeling welcome within LGBT any more.

and just a little grammatical point.
'Queers do x' does not mean 'All queers are the same. They do x' any more than 'Children throw food' when pointing to the baked beans on the floor means 'All children throw food.'

In one tweet Brennan says 'Men rape.' She follows that up with 'Women sexually assault.'
She's not saying all men rape or all women sexually assault, she's making a distinction. Saying queers silence women as men do is not a claim about every single queer, it is a comment on something that is happening to women.

Unless you want to wilfully misread, which I guess you do.

BTW do you support transactivists shouting down Sheila Jeffries and Lierre Keith when they attempt to talk about other elements of their activism, campaigning against the abuse of women in the prostitution industry, or the history of lesbianism, or green politics and feminism? Are we allowed to listen to that?
We are not talking about people writing a few letters. The protests carried out by transactivists and with the apparent support of the mainstream transactivist movement have been far more disruptive than that.

Kim, the stuff on the prostitution industry was really powerful. Rachel Moran, whose book I linked to above, talked about her own experiences in prostitution and why she now campaigns for abolition.

Sheila Jeffries followed that up with some results of her research into prostitution. The most disturbing thing was the state approved health and safety codes for prostitutes.

The take-away point for me was the importance of survivor leadership in abolitionism.

Another strong strand was the lesbian history stuff on the second day. As well as Sheila's talk (have to get the most out of her while she's here since it's so rare she's allowed to speak about anything these days thanks to the lovely extreme transactivists!) which asked why women don't come to lesbianism through feminism these days as they did in the second wave, they showed the film 'Lesbiana' about lesbian separatism. Lesbians running away to build communities without men, building their own houses and learning to be sound engineers so they could have women-only music festivals There were lots of tears among the elderly lesbians in the room!
It was kind of inspirational to hear how they had imagined a world for themselves free from patriarchy, but also rather sad thinking how much more limited our aspirations are now.
It was really good hearing about the second wave from the actual second wavers. Liberal feminism tends to be very heavily skewed towards younger women, and it was fabulous seeing a more age-diverse group of feminists.

There was a very interesting talk about the effect of white culture on indigenous women in North America, by a First Nations woman.

A fantastic talk by Femi Otitoju about how and why to listen feminists from cultures across the world.

Lots of workshops. I went to one on using the internet and learnt a few interesting things about internet security - quite useful for radfems as so many (and I don't just mean the outspoken Cathy Brennans) have been hacked and stalked. Though actually for me the best part of that was hearing a woman who used to run a lesbian switchboard talk about how they did things before the internet, driving around putting stickers in motorway service stations.

There was one on feminist parenting but it's such a big topic and tbh it is probably regularly discussed in a more developed way on here than is possible in an hour.

Hello renarde!

I'm meant to be working today (yeah, that's really going to keep me off MN .... ). But I will say, marfisa, it's very difficult to take seriously what you say when the word 'cis' is used all the time. Isn't it?

btw Marfisa, what about lying in the letters to protest our meetings? Is that ok?

Because that is what happens. The London Irish Centre were told we advocate violence against men, and that us meeting without men would be illegal under the Equalities Act, which it wasn't.

Cross posted ... yes, Rachel Moran was excellent. So powerful. I also loved Femi's talk and the way that fitted in with what several other speakers were saying. There was a really harrowing talk about the situation of first nations people in Canada - the statistics on rape and violence were really upsetting. And there was also a lot of discussion about building feminist communities across different countries.

I didn't at all feel as if Brennan had only one thing to say (though I'd be fine with it if she did) - she touched on other issues through her speech and it was obvious she has a lot of knowledge about patterns of violence at her fingertips, she just didn't happen to be speaking primarily about it.

Kim, believe me, I would rather talk about the other stuff, not trans again, but it's hard when someone accuses your group of hate speech

The phrase 'hate speech' has a similar vibe to 'treason' and 'heresy' in the 16th century, or 'witchcraft' in 17th century New England, in that if you get tarred with that brush people will shun you without actually bothering to engage with the reality behind it, so it does have to be addressed.

I think it is always difficult to counter accusations that you're not being tolerant, because we all want to be tolerant and accommodating.

I find it hard, though. Listening to the stats in that speech about first nations women was really upsetting. Other speakers also had horrific stats and examples - Julia Long's speech on male violence for example. I wish I could pretend violence against women doesn't happen, but it does. Women are an attacked group. I find it hard to understand how this can simply be ignored, so much.

I was thinking about the comment someone made earlier in the thread, about how sexual attraction must be partly socially constructed, so it's hard to have total sympathy with lesbians who say they will never be attracted to transwomen. I cannot imagine any other context in which we'd be saying to lesbians 'well, just be a bit less lesbian, dear. Just try to be attracted to someone else, someone more socially acceptable. Maybe a man? They're nice.' We just wouldn't. We'd feel like bigots.

So how come we don't feel like bigots saying this about lesbians and transwomen?

I'd forgotten Julia Long's speech about male violence!

The big point she made was about the importance of being able to name it and the ways women are prevented from doing that, for instance by renaming it 'gender-based violence' and accusing women of (guess what?) hate speech for actually naming the agent.

All of which is rather apposite in the light of Marfisa's posts.
(Cos that's the thing - it's often well-meaning feminists who think they're all for tolerance and niceness who do the silencing which allows the abusive behaviour to continue unchecked.)

Yeah, it was a pity she had to cut her speech short.

But yes, the thing about naming is really important. There's a post about it here: medusagaze.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/malespeak-with-radical-feminist.html

That's so funny ... I am partly struggling to be coherent about these talks because I kept getting sidetracked from feminism in 2013 to 'hmm, that so changes what I want to say about Middle English romances ....'. I love it when theories really come together in your mind like that. Your thesis sounds really interesting, btw.

Women are socialised to be tolerant and kind.
And to throw other women under the bus, if there are men to be placated.
Queer theory just enables them to do it while believing it is a feminist thing to do.

Has anyone linked the Who owns gender? article from Trouble and Strife yet?

(That article is great, tunip.)

Wow, there are a lot of feminist medievalists on here! That is good to see. outs self as medievalist

I know loads of queer/post-structuralist types in RL and on the internet, and I have never met one person who has said the kinds of things that Brennan says have been said to her. I certainly would never presume to tell lesbians who they should or shouldn't sleep with. I don't know anyone who would.

I don't doubt that Brennan has received the kind of verbal abuse she describes, but she is taking the extreme loony fringe as representative of entire communities. It's just not true. They're not representative.

That's why I feel frustrated. If someone said to you that the radfem community was violent and intimidating, and you had tons of radfem friends and acquaintances, none of whom were violent or intimidating, wouldn't that piss you off a little? It doesn't rule out the possibility of crazy violent people identifying themselves as radfem, but you would say, nope, that's not representative of my feminist community.

I subscribe to a number of the different ideologies that Brennan identifies as violent and fascistic. And I wholeheartedly reject her labelling of these ideologies as doctrines of hate.

I have also been very careful not to accuse radfems in general as propagating hate speech. I singled out Brennan because I read her own words.

Big generalisations and stereotypes are always easier and more alluring than complexity and nuance though.

I don't think she is taking the extreme fringe as representative, I think she's just fed up. If she were taking them as representative, why would she also have talked about helping get laws passed for trans friends of hers?

I do feel frustrated for precisely the reason you mention. That's the point. You seem to feel this is all one-sided. It isn't.

Can you honestly not see how you're generalizing and stereotyping here? You're ignoring all the nuances in order to make out it's all very black and white.

Marfisa, thank you for remaining polite and pleasant when I am being snarky and cross. I appreciate it very much.

I really want to respond fully but mustn't waste any more time when I should be working, so 2 quick points:

1. I think you're overstating the extent to which it's only a lunatic fringe of transactivism that says some of these things. It's not the mainstream of transwomen - the ones I know just want to get on with their lives - but it is often mainstream transactivists and their feminist allies.

1. No need for the hypothetical 'If someone said radfems are violent....' as if it's a hypothetical thing that only happens in Hypothetical Land. It happens all the time and we've said so on here.

Comparing that with Brennan talking about things that have actually happened to her (particularly when you are ascribing generalisation that is not in her words) is a false equivalence.

eg Cotton Ceiling workshop was at big trans conference, talked about approvingly by at least one well-known transactivist in mainstream feminist publication.

I have to work too so can't post in much detail but just wanted to add a voice of support to marfisa.

I went to RadFem 2012 last year and enjoyed it very much. I understand the radfem critique of trans issues. I have no problem with Sheila Jeffreys (well - I don't agree with her on everything but her critique of femininity is brilliant and I admire her for her courage in continuing to speak despite horrible threats and the genuine possibility of violent attack).

Nevertheless, I've stopped following Cathy Brennan on Twitter because I found her comments so loathsome. Yes of course MRAs and transactivists are much more loathsome, but I just don't understand what she achieves by making unpleasant, aggressive generalisations in that way. It's great that she's lovely in person but unfortunately more people encounter her online persona than will ever see her speak.

Why be vile? What's the point? Despite reading Tunip et al's posts above I genuinely do not understand.