Can men pronounce on which are the "right" feminists?

[ArcheryAnnie]

So, this morning @thelindywest (a US performer and Jezebel writer with ~39 thousand followers) retweeted a post by @SarahDitum (a UK columnist with ~8 thousand followers). This post was about domestic violence.

Within a very short time, a "progressive" man, @badassperger (about ~1000 followers), had tweeted how "sad" he was that someone had tweeted Sarah Ditum into his TL, and then, with some handwringing about how he shouldn't tell Lindy West "how to feminism", he then proceeded to tell her exactly that, and that she was retweeting a "known TERF". Her immediate response was to unretweet.

Because what women need is men thoughtpolicing women about which women are acceptable to read and listen to, even on issues which are not in any way related to trans issues. Because god forbid a woman talk about domestic violence without a man's approval of which other feminists she references.

Women pointing out that it wasn't a very "ally" thing to do for a man to police which women other women retweet were then labelled with the same "bigot" nonsense. Same happened to women who pointed out that if a man's first response to a tweet about domestic violence was to claim that the woman tweeting it was "bad" in some way (rather than addressing the subject of men's violence in the home) then he was probably not an ally.

Sarah has written the incident up: sarahditum.com/2014/07/28/how-terf-works/

Honestly, I don't know how she sticks it out online - I'd have given up with that amount of casual hostility from strangers long ago. More power to her elbow.

[ArcheryAnnie]

Ha! Exactly, AskBasil. Her stance since then has been "LALALA didn't happen. Nothing to see here."

[CaptChaos]

The other thing that I got from that article is that women, especially feminists are supposed to immediately disown anyone accused of being a TERF and to disavow any thoughts or writings the accuser says they might have had. MRAs don't even need to try anymore, they have women policing each other now, it's a gift for them.

[AskBasil]

At least the Stepford Wives would give me cleaning tips.

[AskBasil]

Oh jesus.

Flame me but Jesus Lindy West, just get a T-shirt with HANDMAIDEN emblazoned across it.

FFS

"Man told me I'm doing feminism wrong, so I've untweeted. Sorry menz, please forgive me."

FFS FFS FFS FFS.

Put me on the fucking TERF list as fast as you can because I'd rather be at a party with Stepford Wives than with craven arseholes like that.

[CaptChaos]

That was a really interesting article When thanks for posting. It's all really 'Emperor's New Clothes' isn't it?

[Curwen]

Don't you see the irony though? Monty asked me (previous page) if a discussion on equality is possible without a reverse-privilege hierarchy. I said no. You then pointed out that men hold all the privileges, which just seemed a little Pavlovian.

[CaptChaos]

Oh! My sides!

[Curwen]

As if my point need any further proof

[CaptChaos]

It's difficult for women to win a game of privilege top trumps with men though, sadly. They hold all the winning cards.

[Curwen]

Monty, privilege is a given in an unequal society. It is inescapable. You can discuss ways of making society less unequal, by eroding certain privileges over time. The equal pay act is an example of that.

I don't know how you can have a dialog between men and feminists without playing privilege top-trumps though. It's a bit like the unions trying to negotiate with a Tory government - mistrust on both sides.

[AskBasil]

Of course men can pronounce on who the right feminists are.

In fact, thank goodness they're there to tell us.

I would never know which feminist to read or listen to if the wise men didn't tell me.

[ABlandAndDeadlyCourtesy]

Thanks SGB.

[SolidGoldBrass]

I did blog. It got a bit big so I will have to have another go...

[ArcheryAnnie]

There's now something called a "TERF tracker" webpage, where women who have transgressed in whatever mysterious way can be denounced. I'm totally sure that the McCartheyite women-haters people setting up this stalker's database useful site have thought through the implications of a place where women are listed, without reason, evidence or right of reply, and set up as Bad Women who it's totally ok, indeed righteous, to abuse without restraint.

There's a very good article here about it: feministsunknown.wordpress.com/2014/07/30/tracking-the-terfs/

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

Yes, why is it 'perverse'?

You're basically saying it seems odd to want to do anything about unfairness, aren't you?

[Keepithidden]

It seems perverse to mitigate privilege with a sort of inverse-privilege power scale based on class oppression

Why? I am interested in an answer, because I've always supported positive discrimination in relation to a whole range of -isms based on the underlying privilege associated with those who are being discriminated against positively.

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

Well, yes, obviously there's a problem. That's what I'm saying.

It's a failure of logic to think this is about 'rationality'.

There is nothing 'irrational' about analysing hierarchies of privilege. It is, in fact, irrational to assume they can be discounted and we can all pretend they're not there while they continue to skew the debate.

[MontyGlee]

Buffy, Curwen, LRD

Is there a problem in achieving a coherent and functioning dialogue about equality when we have a hierarchy of privilege? If an opinion has to be weighted by a factor of the privilege of the person proffering it, aren't we failing to discuss things rationally and, in effect, continuing with a social-structure where there are varying levels of power according to sex, race etc etc? It seems perverse to mitigate privilege with a sort of inverse-privilege power scale based on class oppression.

I also go back to previous comments about my belief that money has a far greater impact on an individual level. I'm left-leaning (whatever that means) but I don't doubt that a wealthy professor may have a better understanding of how to create social and economic ladders for the poor better than the poor themselves may.

[happyhazard]

Why don't we just simply ignore male posters saying useless things. Just don't even go there. Ignore them. Answering back serves no purpose - it just muddies the waters.

Montyglee - no just no. It doesn't work, I've tried for years. Giving any airtime to entitled people who think we can all have a "reasonable" discussion and don't need to get so angry all the time is utterly pointless. Women have a right to be angry and have a right not to be told off for it. Men feel threatened in that environment and want to tell us all to calm down (or mock us). We do need penis free spaces.

We can have mixed debates too but we need the PF ones without men barging in and boohooing that they have a right to a voice there.

[Keepithidden]

It'd be nice to believe that everyone's opinion was equally valid as long as they could argue their corner and justify their position without resorting to stereotyping and bigotry...

...unfortunately one of the big facets of feminism (as I understand it) is in combatting sexual/gender stereotyping and bigotry, which does seem to be rife within both society and anti-feminists. So, on the basis of the latter point, I thinks it makes sense for men to avoid "pronouncing" anything related to right/wrong feminism and supporting the debate rather than trying to steer it.

[ArcheryAnnie]

DoctorTwo this change of position is what happened to me, too.

FloraFox this can be seen again and again, but it's never enough. Helen Lewis is, according to trans activists and allies on twitter, an evil TERF and transphobe who, like other TERFS, is "killing trans women" by denying them access to women's shelters - despite the fact that she's on the board of a shelter that includes trans women, a policy she supports. The Women's Aid thing about them being terrible, terrible transphobes, and nobody should ever donate to them again if you don't want to be an accessory to killing trans women, was despite the fact that their terms specifically include trans women. (Their crime was that the women they include should have a GRS.) It's never enough. Nothing is ever enough. I've come to a point where I don't think this is a coincidence.

[FloraFox]

For me, the interesting thing here is that Sarah Ditum, Glosswitch etc are libfems who would say "transwomen are women" (and I think Sarah Ditum has said that this week, as had the New Yorker writer). Both are realising that nothing but a complete capitulation to the notion that transwomen are not only women but female and have been female since birth will suffice to keep onside with transactivists.

They treat libfem "moderates" the same way they treat Julie Bindel or Lierre Keith. I wonder why they keep up their mantra of "transwomen are women" in the face of this hostility. I suppose it's an indication of how deep-seated women's socialisation is - the requirement to look after other people, especially the "less fortunate" even when they are attacking or exercising privilege over you.