Munroe Bergdorf for Grazia "Women Are Getting Feminism Wrong.

[HelenaDove]

graziadaily.co.uk/life/opinion/munroe-bergdorf-women-getting-feminism-wrong/

You do have to ask yourself: what kind of person doesn't want women rallying around a powerful symbol of resistance to sexual assault and harassment?

Helen Grant MP @ HelenGrantMP
@DawnButlerBrent urgently needs to reconsider her appointment of Munroe Bergdorf. The kind of language Bergdorf has used has no place in public life and ought to be condemned by all those who are serious about promoting equality.

That's good RTB - it's about time MPs started to get involved.
Now we just need one of them to challenge Lord Patel about why he is asking convicted sex offenders / attempted rapists to advise the Labour party?

Shall I tell her that she isn’t doing mixed race or trans woman properly?

She’s doing it alllll wrong you know. And braiding her hair? Well that’s half cultural appropriation you know, like the little Mix woman.

Why are people giving agitators and stirrers like this one a voice? We had Germaine Greer and Ann Oakley, this generation of students have male persons presenting as woman (and arming not to like women very much anyway) telling us that we should dress like ikkle pink girlies or pole dancers, enjoy car calls and getting our bums pinched and bow to the mighty penis (which can be female you know).

Yup, education and critical thinking/debate really isn’t what it used to be. People swallow any kind of crap these days.

Here's the inimitable Lisa Muggeridge addressing Bergdorf directly:

idgeofreason.wordpress.com/2018/02/28/what-intersectionality-means-for-trans-women-a-post-for-munroe-bergdorf/

I can't imagine what Corbyn is thinking of in appointing this person. I am seriously starting to wonder whether Corbyn isn't very bright after all.

As for Jack Monroe, I was tempted to join in her Twitter argument yesterday but couldn't face it in the end. She had this bizarre argument that feminists who centre the "vagina" somehow exclude women who had a hysterectomy (like her mum) and women who have had FGM. Yet this is the exact opposite of the truth. For a start, both her mum and women who have had FGM still have vaginas. Secondly, her mum has only had a hysterectomy because she is a woman, with a woman's reproductive system and all the problems that creates. Thirdly, women who have had FGM are possibly one of the best examples there is of how biology is the source of our oppression. These are women who have been mutilated to suppress their sexuality. FGM causes all sorts of problems - infections, difficulty menstruating, hugely painful sex, very difficult and dangerous childbirth. How on earth could she think that a feminism less focused on biology would benefit these women?

Secondly, her mum has only had a hysterectomy because she is a woman, with a woman's reproductive system

YES exactly.

I don't get the 'are you saying that a woman who is infertile isn't a real woman then? Are you? Are you?' argument.

The reason that women some women can't make or carry a baby is because there is something wrong with their female reproductive system. Or because they have been through the very female experience of menopause and therefore have come to the end of their days as a female who is able to reproduce.

Not because they have meat and two veg.

Sometimes, with campaigning and raising awareness, the number of women who need to have a hysterectomy or become infertile can be reduced. But this can't happen if we can't talk about issues like cervical cancer or endo or PCOS without worrying that we aren't centering people without these reproductive capacities in everything we talk about.

It's so fucked up.

I also have sympathy with Jack. She is clearly vulnerable and sensitive and um... I don't think she's ever going to be the most adept at political theory or public intellectualism (that sounds meaner than I intend, but you know what I mean).

But, but, but, but, but...

... she's always doing this. She picks the fight. She gets piled on. She complains about being bullied.

Yes, she got piled on. But she only got piled on because she tried to incite her own pile on of Hadley Freeman by quote tweeting to her followers instead of simply replying to Hadley's tweets.

That's the point of quote tweeting. Jack knows this as well as the rest of us do. It just backfired on her is all.

Bergdorf is not only racist and misogynistic, but thick as shit.
Have a look at the interview he did with Andrew Neill, Ed balls, and Michael Portillo, car crash. He couldn't articulate a proper argument, just gave sound bites.
Does Corbyn actually want to get into Government, this latest appointment makes me think he's doing his best to make the Labour Party a laughing stock, so they don't have to deal with Brexit.

Maybe he's really a conservative double agent?

When he's not working undercover as the right-on trendy-lovvie labour leader he's out hunting with the hounds, or languishing in his country pile, sipping sherry and taking potshots at the local peasantry with his antique blunderbuss.

SnibbleAgain - I like your use of 'womanface' and I think we should all use it more widely. I've been considering the parallels between blackface and the whole stereotypical hair-flicking bitch-posing that a lot of men dressing up as women seem to adopt.

Be good if we could just up the use of 'womanface' more generally and just make people think about that a little bit.

Good article OP. Puts the bulk of trans ideology into one place should I need to point someone in the direction of why all this is pissing people off so much.

Altogether it sums up the misogynistic, science-denying, penis-centring shit being peddled.

Not even a dot of irony when complaining about the icon of the pink pussy hats, not even a wit of intelligence and joined up thinking about re-appropriation (particularly coming from a POC) from someone who started a club night called the 'Pussy Palace'. So its alright when Bergdorf does it but not natal born women? Fuck. Off.

And yes I like the term 'womanface' too. Different from drag artists I think, which is more about biting humour, theatre etc. This is more about mimicry and 'passing'. Drag is pretending to be a hyper visual female, womanface is more about making every one else pretend you are a woman.

I don't get the 'are you saying that a woman who is infertile isn't a real woman then? Are you? Are you?' argument.

Perhaps it should be pointed out to these stupid TRAs that when it comes to infertility 40% is "down" to the woman, 40% is "down" to the man and 20% involves problems with both partners. (NB that is not made up.Published research has confirmed this stat over and over).

None of these TRAs seem to suggest that an infertile male is not a real man do they?

They really are monumentally stupid.

God how far we've come, men telling us they're women and telling us we're doing feminism wrong, feminism needs to protect their rights

When it comes to a woman being fertile/infertile, it doesn't matter because what matters is that she was BORN a woman and her whole path/life, her parents/employers and educators have all sub consciously or consciously treated her as a person who might be a mother with all the responsibilities and disadvantages that that that brings with it. Women can't just declare that as they won't be having children they would like all the privileges men enjoy for not being discriminated against as parents.

They ask:
Can a woman who is infertile be a woman - if yes, why not them?
Can a woman born with an incomplete vagina be a woman - if yes, why not them?
Can a woman whose uterus has been removed be a woman - if yes, why not them?
Can a woman who has an intersex type chromosome abnormality be a woman - if yes, why not them?
Does a woman brought up as a boy (eg in Afghanistan) be a woman - if yes, why not them?

The answer to each one of those questions is indeed "yes". But where a person has every single 1 of those "conditions" - plus extra "conditions" associated with the male sex, such as being born with testicles and a penis - no, not a woman. And everyone knows it. Why do they get away with such stupid arguments?

morning

My understanding was that it was pink because 'girls like pink'

pink to symbolise femininity

The designers (a white woman and a woman of colour) have certainly never suggested it was an attempt to specify the colour your vulva has to be if you are to count as a woman

Morning - (pussy) hats off to your dedication to scientific enlightenment!

I don't get the 'are you saying that a woman who is infertile isn't a real woman then? Are you? Are you?' argument.

I've said it before in another thread and I'll repeat it here. It's just obfuscating on their part. They're not interested in providing a better definition of woman. They can't because all they have are subjective internal experiences. Their definitions of men and women are entirely circular. Men are people who identify as men. Women are people who identify as women.

www.counterfire.org/articles/opinion/19484-the-return-of-idealism-identity-and-the-politics-of-oppression

This is a long but good read which is mainly a criticism of identity politics but does a good critique of trans ideology.

I really think Munroe Bergdorf could have a lot to say about colour, just as Paris Lees could have a lot to say about poverty BUT they don't have anything to say about being female. WHY do they keep trying to tell us how to 'be female'!

Colour as in people of colour, not really sure what the PC way to express this is!