Brighton libfems attempting to ban women from wearing pussy hats on Trump demo

[TheCountessofFitzdotterel]

It's too vaginacentric apparently

In case the thread hasn't been deleted by the time you see this, it's here

'Ooffii Hardwick
1 hr ·
Message from the organisers: Our intention is to make this march intersectional and inclusive for all. For that reason we respectfully request that people ensure that their signs and apparel reflect that. We ask that you do not wear pussy hats or carry "pussy power" placards. The vagina centric theme of the Womens' Marches was offensive and entirely exclusive of our trans sisters. Genitalia does not equal gender. Whilst we understand people's desire to fight back and react to Donald Trump's horrendous misogyny, we believe the best way to do this is to fight together and for each other in a space where no one feels unwelcome, and where those spaces do not exist for us to be the ones to forge them.'

There are some very pissed off feminists in Brighton now, judging by the thread.
It's meant to be a demo in support of Muslims against Trump's racist immigration policies so I am not sure why anyone would be carrying a vagina placard anyway, but not being allowed to wear the hats seems a bit extreme.

Ok, just read the FB thread. What was this Oofii woman thinking? Why would she do that - goad like that just before the march, because thst's how it came across.

Would love to be a fly on the wall when Ooffii and the other oganisers were discussing it in the pub after the march.

I think there is a point at which a genuine and sincere wish to be inclusive tips over into a 'who is more intersectional' pissing contest, and without knowing the individuals involved it's impossible to know which it is because they can look exactly the same.

I also think that liberal feminism of a particular variety encourages young women to put women last, to the extent that it is entirely possible for someone to have been involved in feminist activism for a number of years and yet still be unaware of things that seem like Feminism 101 to those of us from a slightly different feminist tradition, like the fact that historically women's oppression has involved their being told that their bodies are unspeakable, and therefore for her to genuinely not realise that banning vagina symbols is really going to upset and piss off a lot of women.
I doubt she was goading or trying to start a row - far more likely she just didn't expect the reaction she got. But again, without knowing her it's impossible to say.

I think posting that twattish meme was goady. I think you'd have to be very unselfaware not to realise how sanctimonious you were going to come across as.

But we are vagina-centric as women - all the things that have historically made women subordinate are to do with reproduction and the default position of women in the domestic sphere as a result; subject to marital rape till recently, high levels of maternal mortality until recently; still a motherhood penalty in terms of pay and professional equality.

It fails to get why feminism was ever -and still is - necessary

Well, quite, CocoaX

It bears so little resemblance to what feminism should be about IMO that it might as well be another movement. Agree it's very presumptuous of her to think that all feminists, let alone all women are going to agree with these non gender critical liberal feminist views.

She completely fails to understand that women are oppressed primarily because of their biology.

Genitalia does not equal gender. That's correct. Gender is a social construct. Genitalia equals sex and it's because of our sex - and through it - that women are oppressed. Gender is one of the tools used to oppress us.

I would go so far as to say that a woman who believes that gender is innate cannot be a feminist.

I agree prawn - the TA logic is about erasing (existing) biological difference and creating (non-existent) neurological differences in its place.

And they wonder why anyone who knows anything about sexual politics over the long term has their head in their hands in despair. Women have spent generations arguing there is no such thing as a female brain and their intellectual, rational, creative, whatever cerebral abilities are not different or inferior. The idea that there were differences in women's brains was also used to justify inequality if you go back to the nineteenth century. A brain is a brain. It is our bodies that are different.

I was wrong earlier. Trump is actually preserving (limited) federal employment protections for LGBT people. So he really is out to get primarily women and immigrants. Those women with vaginae and uteri.

As far as I recall he's also said transpeople can use whichever bathrooms they identify with.

Although some places have their own state laws against this.

This thread is making me want to get a pussy hat. And I look abysmal in pink too.

I'm gonna get one of these instead:
s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/c2/64/e9/c264e946eed91aa648d7d2071f8eeb67.jpg

to be properly and totes inclusivilicious.

Soz. Pic instead of link. Pity I can't crochet.

Countess you've just summed up exactly why this bothers me, when I've been struggling to put it into words.

Women are always "being told that their bodies are unspeakable" - whether that's a US politician being banned from saying 'vagina' in an abortion debate, or the fact that today I struggled through work with horrendous period pains, but didn't feel I could explain to my male colleagues why I was doing less (physical, heavy lifting) work than usual.

We're always being silence about our bodies by men, and now by other supposed feminists??

And in this case it's fairly obvious that there is an assault on women's bodies. Directly in the case of DT's comments about grabbing pussies and indirectly in the case of funding to the majority world. In the case of the funding, it's fairly obvious that the main victims will be poor and WoC. In the case of grabbing women, he seems indiscriminate.

So there is a definite and obvious case for intersectional feminism including and centering WoC and poor women. There is actually a case AGAINST centering trans women. Because they are not the target of Trump's orders. In fact he seems relatively 'progressive' WRT LGBT rights.

There may be a case for it in other arenas; sex work possibly. Because trans sex workers do suffer high levels of violence. As do female sex workers.

But in this case it's actually ABOUT female sex organs.

I was wrong earlier. Trump is actually preserving (limited) federal employment protections for LGBT people

I actually expected him to be pro TRA, simply because this is anti-women and is really about men's rights!

I do like that hat. It says 'dickhead' to me though. If it came in an emoticon it would be perfect for some of the trolls on this board.

Yes countess and fiona
Some of the activists read to me like "not all women's genitals are the same. Some unlucky women have those yucky dirty vulval. Let's not put those on cupcakes, yuck. Instead let's talk about my glorious ladystick"
So boring

Just a quick thank you for the posts which have helped clarify my own less coherent thoughts on the matter.

I saw a lurid and bright green pussy hat yesterday. I wonder what it meant?

That somebody had some nice wool they wanted to use?

Probably ... I was probably overthinking in terms of trying to figure out the symbolism!

Thank you for all your enlightening posts and for expressing my own disquiet.
Trump is being divisive isn't he - by bringing out so many different orders one after the other, each new one distracts from the previous, and prevents a cohesive opposition. The press coverage is now on the travel ban for people from Muslim countries, so his order to cancel funding for reproductive health in developing countries has been forgotten. Both are shocking but there is only so much news space.

It will suit Trump very well if there is in-fighting amongst his detractors about who is suffering the most (I was thinking about one post on that Facebook thread which said trans people were 'the most vulnerable' - it's not a competition!)

I was also thinking about pregnancy and birth, not mentioned at all in that thread, everyone just kept going on about pussies like they sit there on their own not attached to anything. I thought that the Women's March and the pussy hats were also about Trump's stance on abortion and the threat to the Planned Parenthood clinics. Why would that be offensive? Taking away a woman's right to choose when she has a child takes away her freedom, a trans person cannot be forced to get pregnant against their will.

Sorry for rambling I am a bit new to all of this!

Trump is being divisive isn't he - by bringing out so many different orders one after the other, each new one distracts from the previous, and prevents a cohesive opposition

Yeah ... TBH it just all feels chaotic to me. I don't think the world is in a good place.

I bet Donald Trump is shitting himself