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?

I don't really like the concept of privilege.

I think that's mostly a terminology question. If you agree that people are oppressed on a class basis, then it doesn't matter whether you call profiting from/not being subjected that oppression "privilege" or call it something else.

Also the problem with the trans angle is its bullshit when related to "cis" women. Yes we don't struggle with gender identity but many of us will struggle with anorexia or other mental health issues. Yes we don't get murdered for being trans but we do get murdered for being female, sometimes before birth.
Periods and abortion, birth injuries and FGM, menopause and rape are not a privilege. And we can't identify out if those things.
It really makes me angry.

And i do see economic oppression as the heart of women's problems in achieving equality. If women around the world had the freedom and equality to be economically independent, then their sex based oppression would be mitigated. Obviously women won't benefit from flat out equality but need measures that take into account sex based needs of reproduction.

Has the twitter thread in the OP been taken down?

It's all navel gazing nonsense that cripples solidarity actions

Agreed.
Though I think it harms feminism more than Marxism.

There's lots and lots of women who try to identify out of womanhood, and while they might still have the common sense left to want to fight for their right to have abortions, they'll hinder the movement by throwing a tantrum every time someone refers to them as woman.

No worker has ever managed to unionize and fight for his rights by throwing a hissy fit every time someone calls him "comrade", insisting that he prefers "sir" because he identifies as capitalist. And fortunately, as of now, working class people aren't that silly.

Mostly
"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)."

Yes, absolutely. I need to think further. But there is something in the classic liberal thought of free speech and equal opportunity for all rather than equity of outcome, which seems to be what is demanded. I don't know how to get there, but it seems to me as good an ideal to aspire to than the rest

Absolutely vestal and it's firgotten in these soft modern times that early gains for women were only achieved by expending their blood.

That's partly why it's frightening and confusing to see trans gains without any mass movement, just as a parasite that latches on to others and forces them to change their will through negativity and fear of pariah status.

There's an interesting article on the fast successes of genderism, here:

4thwavenow.com/2017/03/23/the-tortoise-the-hare-gay-rights-v-gender-identity-in-us-law/

Personally, my theory is that no mass movement was needed because it is just patriarchy in action. It is not an oppressed group fighting the status quo, but just patriarchy reasserting itself, a backlash of sorts.

Though the parasite metaphor also seems plausible ... soon after the T was added to LGB, it all became about the T, and alleged feminists mainly concern themselves with fighting for the rights of males.

(Also, the way women I thought I knew turned completely against me, spewing death threats, when I said something gender-critical, reminded me of depictions of demonic possession and mind-control)

Has the twitter thread in the OP been taken down?

No, the Terf-hater who posted the original tweet will have blocked Helen Lewis or possibly deleted his tweet entirely so the photo is not visible, but the rest of the thread is still there.

Although i've never studied patterns in patriarchal control, i can see that it may be an "inevitable readjustment" by the patriarchy. Bizarre though, if the system works by such almost biological patterns.

The parasitic angle is definitely male entitlement and manipulation though.

Finally got access to the thread now. My god! "Words are violence!" except when you use the word "TERF" as it is a neutral descriptor. The mind boggles.

No worker has ever managed to unionize and fight for his rights by throwing a hissy fit every time someone calls him "comrade", insisting that he prefers "sir" because he identifies as capitalist. And fortunately, as of now, working class people aren't that silly.

That's an interesting line, because I've heard it suggested that one of the reasons socialism has never gained any real traction in the USA is because poor people in the US rarely see themselves as poor because of systematic, structural disadvantages; instead they think of themselves as "temporarily embarrassed millionaires." I've heard it used to explain why blue collar workers will vote for Trump, for example - they genuinely think he's "one of them", that he's what they could be with a mixture of hard graft and good luck. The idea that he's a member of the class that exists in virtue of systematically screwing them just doesn't come across their radar.

(Note that when the Americans do get their act together and unionize they can be very powerful - New York hotel workers are one of the few groups of hotel workers in the world actually paid decently, for instance. But these are rare exceptions to the general rule.)

BTW, I agree Assigned, I prefer (old fashioned JS Mill/ John Rawls) type liberalism (as opposed to Hobbesian race-to-the-bottom neo liberalism) to socialism - equality of opportunity. But it has to be genuine opportunity, which levels the playing field in respect of both biology (women needing time out to bear and rear children) and history (where a group are still playing catchup after historical oppression, as the black community in America still are).

Yes mostly I've read before how the rich are venerated in America in a way that is inconceivable in other Western countries. I wonder how much it's to do with the historical absence of a labour party and the consequent lack of class consciousness in public debate.

I've heard it used to explain why blue collar workers will vote for Trump, for example - they genuinely think he's "one of them", that he's what they could be with a mixture of hard graft and good luck. The idea that he's a member of the class that exists in virtue of systematically screwing them just doesn't come across their radar.

Yes, that's why, after some consideration, I used the word "silly", not "stupid". Because they are that stupid, in the US, as they voted for Trump.
That's normal, garden variety stupidity, which is just lack of consciousness. But I doubt they'd be stupid enough to insist that they actually are millionaires. They just claim they could become ones. Which is true; just very, very unlikely.
The whole American system is based on telling people everyone can become a millionaire. That's the "American Dream", and it has never been updated. (It might have been true when every white man could get his share of land stolen from the Native Americans. But those times are long gone.)

I wonder how much it's to do with the historical absence of a labour party and the consequent lack of class consciousness in public debate.

I think the fact that many of the Europeans that emigrated to America had a religion that told them their material wealth was a sign of god's approval might have something to do with it. It means rich people are automatically also better, perhaps even holy.

Whereas in the traditional Catholic religion, choosing poverty is considered virtuous (think nuns and monks) and giving to the poor is something that makes you a better person, not the being rich as such.
Now, of course the allegedly Christian conservative parties want less of a welfare state than the political left, but I think the general mentality might have something to do with it.

Thanks Mostly for commenting. I did once read many of these texts. I think I'm going to have to dig out my Uni books.

The once thing I know is that despite being very seduced by Marxist theory in my youth, the practical reality, historically, has been horrific. I find it hard to get past that, as a working theory

No vestal we had that type of immigrant in Australia. Place is full of churches. Perhaps it's the fact that many convicts were political prisoners from Ireland or the Chartist movement ...

Very interesting thread. Especially about the collective American consciousness.

Assigned - I've been thinking a bit more about where I sit on the political (and feminist) spectrum (specially since on those online questionnaires I usually come out as a mix of radfem and libfem). I suspect that what it comes down to is this: as tools of analysis, Marxism (re. what's wrong with capitalism) and radical feminism (re. how the patriarchy works, how it becomes self-sustaining, how it renders itself almost invisible, and even co-opts women into perpetuating it) can't be beaten. But I'm not sure I think their proposed fixes are actually realistic ones. (And as you say, in the case of Marxism, history suggests that it is all too likely to get so corrupted and so far from its original intentions in execution that the societies that have tried it in any sort of serious way have all degenerated into totalitarianism. Who was it said "liberal democracy is a terrible political system, apart from all the other systems which we've tried which have turned out to be even worse..."?)

Perhaps it's the fact that many convicts were political prisoners from Ireland or the Chartist movement ...

What is Australia's attitude to welfare state? I am not really informed about that, I am afraid.

I imagine being kicked out and forced to live there might have given people a somewhat different attitude than the "promised land" attitude of the immigrants to America.

But I'm not sure I think their proposed fixes are actually realistic ones.

Does radical feminism even have a proposed fix?

I always thought the lack of a proposed fix was one of the reasons it is so unpopular - liberal feminism's "Oh, it is all just a terrible misunderstanding, men don't want to oppress us, we just have to tell them we are unhappy, then they'll surely stop immediately" or "it is all women's fault, we just have to empowerfulize ourselves more, through porn and casual sex, then we'll have equal rights" is much more appealing.

Mostly
As I have said, it's been some time but there are certainly a few political theorists who believed that democracy was the least worst option and a few who skirted round the edges, like Aristotle. A quick google tells me that the quote was Churchill, who I would really rant up with the greatest of theorists, although much to be admired

I agree with : "I suspect that what it comes down to is this: as tools of analysis, Marxism (re. what's wrong with capitalism) and radical feminism (re. how the patriarchy works, how it becomes self-sustaining, how it renders itself almost invisible, and even co-opts women into perpetuating it) can't be beaten. " The problem I see with it is that it does not compel anyone other than those who believe in it, to buy into it. It just makes everyone else fuckers, which noone likes, including those who are really not too much of fuckers. The problem with calling people fuckers is that tends to entrench their fuckerdom.

not rank up

Interesting point that radical feminism doesn't necessarily propose solutions, Vestal.

Many radical feminists do, however, talk about the aim being women's liberation (liberation from oppression, male violence, male sexual violence), and tend to eschew talk of equality (whether of opportunity or outcome).

I suppose for me the value of the radical feminist analysis comes in shifting the Overton window - it's not that I want equal right to become a wage slave, for instance, but that I'd like to see the workplace re-structured to make it more woman-friendly, more parent friendly, to make men see that this would work to their advantage too (just to take one example).

I think we also need to rescue liberalism - to point out that liberalism is not the same as neo-liberalism with its rampant individualism. For instance Mill's negative and positive liberties (roughly "your right to swing your fist ends at the start of my nose"), and his utilitarianism (greatest good for the greatest number) could be used to argue against prostitution - that if it is an activity which is overall harmful to women even if a few individuals benefit from it, and if the punter's supposed right (which Amnesty believes in*) to engage in contractual sex is outweighed by the average woman's right not to be sexually harrassed on the street, then there's a case to be made for making the purchase of sex illegal. Liberal needn't and shouldn't be equated with the stupid form of neo-liberal feminism which embraces prostitution and pornography as "empowerfulising" - that's a misunderstanding of liberal theory. Just as most liberals (in Mill's sense) would argue against legalising the sale of kidneys.

*The stupidity of Amnesty's position becomes clear when you pose the thought experiment: what would become of that purported right to sex in a society where no women wanted or chose to become prostitutes? Would it morph into a right to rape? I don't think any sensible theory of human rights can include rights which in some circumstances could not exist without coercing other human beings into doing things to violate their own bodily integrity against their will.

Yes it's the classical liberal argument I'm really interested in. It represents what I have always really thought, but I think I have been sidetracked.