Spectator article: Don't fall for it people

[JenniferJames]

Comrades,

The framing of the self-id debate as 'Corbynistas vs. Mumsnet' is a deliberate tactic by the right wing propaganda machine and done to undermine Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour party and paint it as hopelessly divided. We're not.

It is important to remember that only a Corbyn gov't will lift women out of poverty, build homes, invest in the economy, make tuition fees free and stop invading the Middle East. Jeremy, though he doesn't hold our position, is the only Labour MP who has not only come out and said that women are entitled to a debate and to campaign against self-id, but that we have a right to raise money to see if the Equalities Act 2010 exemptions are being misused by AWS.

Hope everyone is well. Mumsnet you are indeed mighty.

The Guardian is very pro-trans and self ID and have been publishing endless flag waving articles supporting the medical intervention in the lives of young people with ID issues.

It’s why I’ve cancelled the money I send them as well as to labour.it doesn’t mean I’ve suddenly started reading the Torygraph and voting for May.

Yes, there have been threads on FWR before about the deep-seated misogyny of the far left. It's still a shock when we see it re-appear before us, though

Always a shock when misogyny comes into plain sight - from people you thought had your back.

Right! I'm off to make my sons clean their bloody bedrooms! No more mummy-maid for them!

Sorry to be so thick and naive but:

“don’t you remember back in the 80’s when they constantly used to say of any female politician they didn’t agree with – usually Tory women - that they’re not real women?”

what did they mean when they said that in the context of the 80s?

mirialis - I suspect it was often a homophobic slur (not a real woman = not interested in (my) cock)

Or to try to dismiss politicians like Thatcher as "ball breakers" and unfeminine therefore "not a real woman"

It's a useful deflecting technique: when a woman says something you don't agree with, attack the speaker not the sentiment

Well at the very least - being a bit too young to remember it myself - I've heard thatcher referred to as a man in drag

Ah x post olenna

Ashamed to admit it but I was a big Corbyn fan before reaching peak trans, the lily madigan fiasco and his appearance on Andrew Marr. Now i just feel let down, he was the first politician in a long time that I felt was a decent person with morals, who would genuinely make society fairer. I now see what a mug I was. I paid to vote for him, my disabled benefit dependant mother paid to vote for him, and he would rather cosy up to LM than have the balls to say " women are women, transwomen are transwomen ". I will not and cannot vote Labour while this madness continues.

I hope the politicians of all hues read this at the weekend. Women's votes should count !
www.thetimes.co.uk/article/8137fcd6-0e71-11e8-b553-b6f31437c43b (Don't think anyone has linked to it on here.)

Mirialis - it goes further back than the 80s; Indira Gandhi in the 60s was referred to as 'the only real man in a cabinet of old women' and I think the same might have been said of Thatcher.

The man in drag one about Margaret Thatcher is one I remember well. I heard similar about Edwina Currie, Teresa Gorman, Anne Widdicombe and others.

In short, the argument used to go something like:

"women don't think xyz"

"But Teresa Gorman just said on telly that she does"

"Yeah, but she's not really a woman"

Stereotyping women and using misogynistic crap in other words, rather than any attempt at engaging with the actual substance of the argument. All a bit #nodebate in fact. Placards carrying sexist insults were pretty common back then on left wing demonstrations - I went on a lot of those.

I remember that this used to drive my Tory voting mother right up the wall and she used to challenge me with "how can you associate with these sort of people when they clearly have so little regard for women?"

Another non Labour person here who donated to Jennifer James, because I was horrified to see a once great political movement acting in such an asinine way. Self ID was a Tory idea (Maria Miller) and the opposition's job is to oppose, not to clear a bloody path for the Government.

As far as Corbyn is concerned though I think he is acting true to form. It is informative to look at his performance as a Haringey councillor in the 1970s. A chancer.

Kazzer, Mirialis, Dodo I too used to remember the "she's only in the job because she's really a bloke" comments and they used to annoy me back at the time. I hated Thatcher - but she was a woman, very successfully doing those things that I hated.

look this silly student posturing that Times = Rupert Murdoch is just not helpful. We are not a student demo. There's some great work going on on the Times. Janice Turner has taken tonnes of shit speaking up for us, as has Andrew Gilligan on trans prisoners and sex offenders.

Great stuff going on in the MoS as well which is an entirely different paper to the Fail, a lot of it by Julie Bindel and co.

Even the Mail do some good campaigns.

We have to be pragmatic. Rupert Murdoch is absolutely essential the Tories getting re elected, if he doesn't like Self ID, what do you think the Tories will do?

If the Left Wing press don't like it, I suggest they actually do some journalism.

@LangCleg
Jen - this isn't a party political issue. Many women from outside Labour contributed to your crowdfunder for that very reason. At last, someone had finally done something constructive to which they could contribute. For them, this has nothing to do with internal Labour factioneering or which sections of the press support Labour and which don't. It's about women and women's rights. Only about women and women's rights.

This

I remember it in a slightly different way. Thatcher was seen as a woman acting like a man in a man's world.

The whole Corbyn thing is so Stalinist - apparently people in the camps used to say 'if Stalin knew what was really going on, he'd be appalled!'.

Now we have Jeremy doesn't mean it; he just doesn't understand it;he's biding his time; he's different when we're on our pen; his last girlfriend cheated on him and he finds it difficult to trust....

Another non-Labour person here supporting the crowd funder because it's a women's rights issue.

“Not real women” gets used so much that the “no true Scotsman” logical fallacy needs renaming.

Few days ago on Twitter someone was using “no proper Feminist”...as in “no PROPER feminist is against self ID. Those that say they’re against it aren’t proper feminists”

Still some try to gaslight us and tell us what to do. It's almost funny.

I really don't think that Corbyn/labour need any help undermining themselves.

Not a real woman is about a woman displaying what is considered male behaviour, isn't it?

A woman can't possibly be saying something strong and dominant. Women don't do that. So if a woman is doing that it's because she's a man. Gender boxes alive and kicking.

I came across this discussion on Mumsnet via the Spectator article, and as a 60-something feminist who went to uni in the early seventies, I salute all TERFS out there who are putting up a fight.

I've been perplexed for some time as to whether my natural (adverse)reaction to all this gender identify stuff was an overreaction, and maybe it was an age thing and I was just morphing into Victoria Meldrew; but I'm horrified by what I'm reading on here and truly scared for what the future holds for my grandchildren if we don't all get a grip.

I have just given up a volunteer role with a national charity, where the sex/gender debate actually had no relevance to the topic . The admin side was run by a much younger team and I'm afraid the whole gender-neutral stance just made me want to rage. I found it patronising and rude, and when I had the term 'gender-fluid' as an excuse for perceived victim-hood thrown back at me, I decided I'd had enough of listening to this cr*p.

I have no problem with anyone wanting to dress or live any way they want, so no, I'm not a bigot, but being classified as a woman is a biological, not an ideological, fact.

I doubt the vast majority of the over-40s, male or female, take this seriously, so MNs...shout it from the rooftops until they do.

Welcome to the underground feminist resistance Marge, there's thousands of us, and we aren't going down without a fight.

I've just seen it this minute on Twitter.

"SocialistMike" tweeted "This is not an important issue. Let's get the Tories out"

One answer: "yeah, calm down ladies - we'll sort out women's rights after the glorious revolution.' Nah mate #labourlosingwomen

Not this time! We're not falling for that one again...