Punching Terfs

[AssignedMentalAtBirth]

twitter.com/helenlewis/status/879622400631025664

Helen Lewis is getting dog's abuse, mostly from men, because she objects to someone having "I punch TERFs" on their tshirt. I like her, listen to the NS podcast and always impressed with her. I think she's brave to tweet about this but it's a bloody minefield. I really am struggling with the left wing on this issue. That and all the no platforming, compelled speech etc. I thought I was left wing but I think I am more liberal, in the classic sense. e.g. Free speech and all that, which doesn't include threats of violence if you don't agree with what someone says. Anyone have any thoughts on this?

Today 18:46 PoochSmooch

I do sometimes see this as part of a broader trend, perhaps fuelled by online interaction, that people seem less and less able to tolerate being disagreed with. Not just on this issue, but on many, and seemingly without the need for any objective validation of their viewpoint.

I also don't understand this obsession with respect. Respect is something you earn, not deserve. You can have manners or compassion and respect someone's struggle, sure. But respect for no reason? I don't get it. Especially if everything you say is insulting.

Vestal I haven't read Marx, but I have instantly grasped the concept of class oppression.

What I see online, is a lot of people who have also never read Marx, but also don't understand class oppression. It's all about the individual. I see white middle-class men identifying as women who say they are oppressed by black women. Cis privilege. Having an abortion is a revolting example of cis privilege.

Anyone doesn't see misogyny, a fetish, uterus envy and/or rank narcissism in this ideology is blind.

I can't believe that otherwise intelligent women are so duped by this. I've lost friends over my terfiness and been excluded from things. Because I won't prioritise men over women. Because I believe that it's physically impossible to change sex. Because I believe that a man who has transitioned to 'live as a woman' (whatever the fuck that means) does not have the same lived experience as I do and actually is putting on womanface.

And those women are so apologetic, constantly worried that they're excluding or hurting someone's feelings. And becoming more and more invisible.

It's like boiling frogs. It makes me want to fucking scream.

Vestal
What I meant was people identify as the most oppressed class, even when they are clearly not. It doesn't appear to go the other way, I would certainly like to identify as the Koch Brothers (ok, I wouldn't but you get my meaning).

I also don't understand this obsession with respect. Respect is something you earn, not deserve.

Depends on how you define respect.
There are people who say "well, you have to earn my respect" and treat everyone who hasn't "earned their respect" like crap. That's clearly wrong. You can't walk around and insult and harm random, innocent people just because they haven't done something to impress you.

If you define respect as a kind of admiration, yes, no one is entitled to that without earning it.

And no one is entitled to have other people say something they know to be untrue just to cater to his delusions.

Especially as the TRAs walk around insulting women all the time.

Vestal

From what I have understood, oppression is a class based issue. It also requires some material gain for the oppressor.

So women are oppressed because men gain male bloodline reproduction, emotional and sexual labour. Black people were oppressed for white people to gain free labour.

Trans people are discriminated against, of course, but not oppressed. There is nothing to gain from them.

The only bit of this I don't understand is that are POC still considered oppressed? If the theory is that there is something to gain by oppression, what is the gain? Or is discrimination a residue of oppression?

What I meant was people identify as the most oppressed class, even when they are clearly not.

Yes, but Marxism doesn't work like that. You cannot identify as worker; either you work in a blue collar job, or you don't.

It seems you got your knowledge on class analysis from people who abuse the word "class" to mean something it isn't. Or perhaps more accurately, something it isn't understood to mean by actual feminists.

It's been some years since I read Marx. But a lot of the SJW/intersectionalism seem to base their views on Marxist class theories. I need to look at it again to iron out my thoughts

What I meant by respect is you have to respect my position, my opinion, my stance. Just because it's mine.

I agree people sometimes will treat you like crap until you've 'earned' something different, but that doesn't really reflect the concept of respect, to me.

I think it is a word that has evolved to mean something it never used to.

Sorry, I just want to add, you cannot make someone respect you.

Thanks Datun, that's a good explanation.

The only bit of this I don't understand is that are POC still considered oppressed? If the theory is that there is something to gain by oppression, what is the gain? Or is discrimination a residue of oppression?

Considering that the US privatized prisons and they make money from having many black people imprisoned, one could argue that there still is something to be gained from the discrimination.

And of course, many black people are working class. Capitalism needs a steady supply of desperate, jobless people to keep wages low. Considering that there's a specific word for poor white people to differentiate them from poor black people, who are considered the norm, I am pretty sure there's an overlap of racism and capitalism going on.

White people profit from black people being poor so white people don't have to be poor, in short. And there need to be poor people because capitalism.

Yes, but Marxism doesn't work like that. You cannot identify as worker; either you work in a blue collar job, or you don't.

This is the dichotomy of the trans-ideology. They identify as women and, as such, are considering themselves oppressed on the basis of being both women (cat calling, sexual harassment) and also men identifying as women (different, subject to either trans mysogyny or homophobia).

vestal

Ok. Thanks for that explanation. It's bothered me. Oppression versus discrimination. I'm getting it now.

Also, in my opinion, you cannot be a member of an oppressed class (as used in class analysis as I define it) if you have the option to just opt out of it.

A working class person cannot identify as millionaire. I mean, they can, but they'll still be as poor as before.

A woman can identify as man, but she'll still be discriminated against in every possible way as long as other people are able to tell her actual sex. (And if she doesn't have her female reproductive organs removed - which leads to lifelong dependence on artificial hormones, so at the very least one medical professional will know her true sex -, she will still be subject to taxes on pads and tampons, as well as oppressed by bans of contraception and abortions)

And if a black person tells a bunch of racists planning to beat them up that they identify as white, three guesses as to how well that is going to work.

To belong to an oppressed class as I define it for the purpose of analysis, you have to be either clearly identifiable (like women and black people) to be targeted with oppression, or it must be possible to discriminate against you on a general level, without knowing what you, as individual, are. ( women and working class).

Totally agree with you Vestal but the identity politics appears to be based on identifying into being the most oppressed, even when they are clearly not.

Does the theory extend to Marx's end view; that capitalism will burn itself out and a new epoch will emerge? So oppression itself will burn itself out? Because there are a few competing groups re which is most oppressed

Vulva, I am rather reluctant to repeat any such word, but I did read the words "white trash" rather often, and as non-native speaker, have made my conclusions about why there's a "white" added ...

Assigned, well, at the moment it seems most likely that capitalism will burn itself out by destroying the earth. And sexism will burn itself out by women getting their reproductive organs removed en masse. There will be more and more women who identify as male, because no one wants to be oppressed, and once every woman has access to surgery ... well, when the last uterus has been surgically removed, they will realize that transwomen can't give birth.

It will be the end of humanity rather than the end of society, but an end there will be.

datun there was a great thread a couple of years ago where black women were sharing their experiences. One was saying in meetings where a white woman would be mistaken for a PA, she was mistaken for a cleaner.
Grenfell tower and the way the government and right wing press talk about immigrants is an illustration of how POC are oppressed. They are offered the worst of conditions in this country and we get told they are exploiting us and they like it. It makes me sick.

I hate writing stuff like that because I'm white so it's probably not my place....but black people especially earn less, have more MH problems, arrested more, convicted more, higher death rates etc. All the hallmarks of oppression and in a similar way to feminism, you have to ask why. Because I'm 100% sure they don't want or deserve that inequality

No I agree Quentin and of course they are as well as women, homosexuals, trans but the intersectionality makes it all bullshit. If you are white/cis/het, it does not make you privileged. My life would turn many people's knuckles white. I was certainly a victim because of my sex but equally I have survived because of people like my brother and DH. Some people are evil or selfish bastards and some aren't, regardless of demographics. I know women and black people are more likely to be victims of violence but to lump everyone into being privileged is not going to resolve anything

Assigned - yes some people who are white suffer enormous disadvantages and in some cases (class, income, education) structural disadvantages, and I'm sorry you were one of them.

But my understanding of class analysis is not that it involves lumping everyone into being privileged, but that it says things about the averages for the various classes. E.g. all other things being equal, on average a white working class male will earn less than his white middle class counterpart, but will still be doing better on average than a white working class woman, who, again on average, will be doing better than a black working class woman.

Of course there will be exceptions - but if we only focus on the exceptions and use them to engage in whataboutery every time someone tries to talk about class discrimination, or sexism, or racism, then we lose the ability to talk about discrimination at all in any meaningful sense. (Which of course is the end result of late 20th century/early 21st century neo-liberal individualism - we become this floating collection of disparate individuals bleating about our own individual rights and needs, without any language left to connect the dots and see the underlying patterns).

If you are white/cis/het, it does not make you privileged.

Well, I agree about the "cis", which is plain nonsense, but being white does give you privilege in the US.

Privilege in that context doesn't mean that you are automatically rich and successful, it means that it is relatively easier for you to become rich and successful, and more likely to be born into a rich family.

Even the poorest of poor men don't have to worry about being raped if they walk home alone at night, and certainly don't have to worry about it when they date women.
That is what is meant by privilege.

If a white man in the US rapes a white woman, he gets away with it.
If a black man in the US rapes a black woman, he gets away with it.
If a black man in the US rapes a white woman, then there's a chance he might not get away with it.
(Simplified. How rich and famous everyone is also plays a role)

And tbh, I really resent having to use my personal history to support a point, but it appears to be what is to be done these day

Hmmm. I don't really like the concept of privilege. I can get oppression but for all the reasons you say, privilege isn't useful for me because there are so many reasons someone can struggle.
I prefer a class analysis approach that's broad brush.

I really resent having to use my personal history to support a point, but it appears to be what is to be done these day

Don't do it, then. It was important to talk about personal experience in the early days of feminism, but at the moment, we have statistics you can refer to when talking class analysis. (We will probably have to talk about personal experience again when statistics become confused by genderism, and no one knows anymore what sex any person in a given statistic is.)

I see no relation between Marxism and identity politics. Identity politics completely takes attention away from economic oppression, by demonising parts of the vanguard just because of who they were born as.
It may use the same terminology but it is absolutely disinterested in liberating marginalised groups from their poverty and disenfranchisement. Hence it will never materially change an oppressed group's conditions.
It's all navel gazing nonsense that cripples solidarity actions which are at the heart of Marxism, the internationalist ideal and the "brotherhood of man".