Feminism in 2018

[NoraHorton]

New Year's resolution is to meet more feminists and engage in more feminism. I already follow all the obvious feminists on Facebook & Twitter. Want to be part of a constructive group rather than online arguments. (Possibly with the long-term aim of setting up a political party, if that's not too ambitious, which it probably is, haha!) Looking for others on here who are both feminist and leftwing and green ? Anyone ? I'm in York though....

We also have regular posters who are sex workers who believe the status quo in the UK works well and doesn't need changing.
The pro-decrim posters who come on here tend to be buyers not sex workers. No doubt they will be along shortly to derail

mamadrummer
Have you spoken to any sex workers?

I dont 'speak to' people. And I wouldn't walk up to the local street women and ask them their view on the Nordic Model because I'm not a complete twat.

I've had mates and neighbours who are prostitutes. They don't call themselves 'sex workers'.
We live on a rough estate with a bad reputation. Its actually a step up from my last place which was in the red light district. I used to get harassed by punters every single day.

I have never found radfems hostile to mothers, quite the opposite. In my experience, it's been young liberal "feminists" telling me I'm old and irrelevant (in my 40s!) for being mean enough to insist that men don't have periods or babies.

Lots of great people on Twitter but be careful. After just a couple of months I found I'd been added to "Terfblocker" and a group called "Cunts" - charming

Radfems are hostile to mothers?

How odd. In my experience it’s often becoming a mother that shifts women from liberal feminism to radical feminism as that’s when the structural inequality of having a vagina really slaps you in the face.

I think if anyone want to make a simple resolution, you could simply do one thing:

Claim your own rightful entitlement. Complain more.

Normalise women standing up and complaining when they should and when men in the same situation would. Set your standards and expectations higher and be less willing to compromise on things you would now reluctantly accept. Stuff like healthcare.

You don't have to be part of a group or a movement. You can do things in isolation and set your own personal one woman crusades, which if others decide to do the same, is more effective than you think.

#Metoo need not be just about sexual harassment or assault.

Applauds RedToothBrush . It's always a pleasure and an education to read your constructive and thoughtful posts.

Great idea red!

Nora,
This page from transgender trend has some excellent writers, bloggers etc mentioned:
www.transgendertrend.com/2017-round-up-happy-new-year

I have spoken to several former prostitutes yes. I do have sympathy with people who want to make money in sex work. But politics has to be about minimisation of harm though. It hasn't worked in Germany and New Zealand. Most of the girls are from poor countries and shipped from town to town, without ever seeing that town, eating and working in the same room. Legalisation brings down prices, so they have to see more clients just to cover the cost of the room. Sexual assualt and rape increases in communities where its legalised. The most common brothel reception question is 'whats the youngest girl you've got?'. Hardly any legal brothels are registered in women's name. Its male business-pimps making big money. Its impossible to regulate, e.g. with condom use. Nordic model criminalizes the buyers, not the sellers.

Not saying all or even very many radfems are 'hostile' to mothers . Agree that its often through becoming a mother that you realise that you can't identify out of your biology, and understand the reality of unpaid work or lower paid part time work etc. (And also don't see your primary purpose as looking good for the male gaze in the same way you did before!). Just that in my experience, a few vocal ones on FAcebook are unsympathetic ('don't have kids then', 'breeder', singles have it worse as their rich husband doesn't pay for everything, ), rather than wanting to give mothers equal voice within the movement. They aren't really focusing on the same issues. Its a shame, because the individuals I am talking about are are articulate and intelligent and it would be better if there wasn't a division here. Agree you can do things in isolation, and I do, but I would like to be in a women's organization and I think women need to organize and show their numbers and then maybe Labour and the Greens will listen and change their emphasis, given that more of their voters are women than men. If anyone is interested in this too, can you PM me ?

Where prostitution has been legalised, the number of illegal brothels has risen alongside the legal ones. Once you legalise and normalise it, demand rockets, the girls have internal injuries and infections and take constant pain killers. It changes how women and girls in the wider culture are trated, it normalises male violence and entitlement, and its linked to the porn industry because punters demand violent acts from porn. It would be nice if it could be regulated. But no-one is proposing salary and pension and sick pay for the girls, are they ? Business pimps are making money out of young girls from poor countries. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is higher among prostituted women than among soldiers.

THanks guardianfree, am reading the transgendertrend 2017 round-up now.

The pimp industry has been very clever, making 'sex worker phobic' a thing, or SWERF. So nobody can criticise exploitation of girls (who are voiceless) without being called a SWERF. Also the highest trans murder rates are among Brazillian trans sex workers !

I know two other women in York who would like to start a York RadFems group, and I'm sure manyothers would join once its started. So that's one thing (anyone interested in York RadFems please PM me - or maybe we could broaden it out to a Northern or Yorkshire thing?). I am also collecting names (nationally) for anyone who is interested in starting a new women's group (either protest group or longer term political party for the politically homeless, obviously we don't want to split the leftwing vote at next general election) , and working on a few proposals and objectives to circulate (by email) and get feedback on. So anyone interested in that please PM me too. (Am thinking the latter will be done by a reply-to-all email group)

Women and girls are not for sale, not that hard a concept to get your head around really. The sex workers that matter in this debate are rarely heard. It's so odd that we even have to make these statements in 2018 isn't it? Girls are not for sale. Women do not have penises. Women are allowed boundaries.

Just to let people who are unsure know. A lot of former prostituted women, find the terms 'sex work' and 'sex worker ' extremely offensive. They view prostitution as financially compensated sexual abuse not "work". Allies of the prostituted also find it offensive too.

The term 'sex worker' is highly political and has been promoted by punters, pimps, etc to piggy back on the trade union movement and make the harmful abuse, the slave trade and the sex inequality invisible.

Survivors of prostitution deserve to have their ordeal understood as just that- an ordeal, not silenced by calling it 'work'.

Duly noted Guardian. It is a way of normalising prostitution isn't it.

I don't understand how people who are so big on enthusiastic consent can think that you can buy consent. It's a big clash.

Another thing about Germany is the proliferation of brothels in the style of "all you can eat" restaurants. :(

The fact we even have to say these things about prostitution in 2018 is depressing, I wish people would fuck off with their happy hooker fantasies and ‘feminism is about choice’ crap.

Women are not commodities to be bought and sold, the end.

And you know what, I don’t care if I’m called a swerf or a terf or whatever name they’ve come up with for feminist these days, I still remember when being called feminist was a dirty word. The more thugs change the more they stay the same eh?

The most gender non conforming thing a woman can be is angry, vocal and non apologetic about standing under for herself. That’s the irony about it all, we’re the ones pushing the gender binary not the heterosexual white men who think putting on a pair of silk stockings and wanking to the replies on gloss and the goss makes them an actual woman, and therefore gives them a voice to speak on behalf of women in the sex industry and obviously as women their sexual fetish and porn addiction obviously has no influence in the way they see the situation .

It’s actual madness.

Disclaimer, obviously not all Tim are like that and the vast majority want to just get on with their lives but when the umberella was widened to include the fetishists this was when the madness started. It’s gaslighting through and through.

Disclaimer, obviously not all Tim are like that and the vast majority want to just get on with their lives but when the umberella was widened to include the fetishists this was when the madness started. It’s gaslighting through and through.

This.