Terri Strange

[Delphiniumum]

I'm really struggling with her ideas. In theory, I can see where she's coming from, but I'm unsure how they would practically work.

For example, she states it's unfair that women with children take up priority in refugees or homeless spaces over childless women. I'm unsure what we could do to rectify this? One home available and two homeless women - the only difference between them being one has a child and one doesn't, who should take the house? Surely, when we have limited resources, those resources have to be given to the most vulnerable. Would she suggest that the childless woman take the homeless space while the mother and her child stayed in the streets instead? Until we have equal resources for everyone, not prioritising is impossible.

She also thinks that women should stop breeding and instead focus on creating a better more equal society. Again, good in theory, but wouldn't the human race die out if everybody did that? Does she mean that we should reduce the birth rate until this better society has been realised?

She recognised that lesbians and heterosexuals and bisexuals exist, and feel sexual atttaction, but rejects the language of "sexual orientation". She positions herself as "against heterosexuality" and feels women should resist it.

I'm not a radfem, and apparently these are basic rad fem ideas, she says.
Any thoughts and/or help understanding? Pointers in the right direction.

For example, she states it's unfair that women with children take up priority in refugees or homeless spaces over childless women. I'm unsure what we could do to rectify this? One home available and two homeless women - the only difference between them being one has a child and one doesn't, who should take the house?

It’s not about a competition between childfree women and mothers. It’s about child protection. It doesn’t need “rectifying”.

Do you have a link? I haven’t seen her work.

@Battleax

That was what I was thinking. It's about child protection, you can't have children living on the streets.

She has a YouTube channel and a Twitter.

Here is a link to the video I watched before I posted here...

I just know this isn’t going to help the insomnia

I know! I was about to go to bed when I stumbled across a tweet of hers which led me down the rabbit hole to her videos. Now I don't feel tired

Wow that’s quite hardline. TBF she does warn at the beginning that it’ll be “a bitchy rant”.

Women are responsible for for “perpetuating the patriarchy”? Of course we are. Sleeping with men is “selling out” and “sleeping with the enemy”. Okay so only lesbianism is acceptable to her. But lesbians “being onseminated by SPERM. That’s gross. That’s a waste of time” doesn’t seem to meet with her approval either.

That’s a pretty small audience she’s appealing to. Even in the second wave, lesbianism by choice (as a political act of rejecting the patriarchy) swept up and included the children.

All I can think is the alternative she wants to “build” is going to be pretty short lived 😏

There’s nothing plausible there to engage with. (And I’m sick to death of that sneery, empty phrase “mummy privilege”.)

I know. I slept much better before youtube. And smartphones. And Mumsnet

@Battleax

Thanks for your thoughts. It just made me rethink everything and I had a bit of a crisis thinking I'd been "feminisming wrong" I have listened to many radfems and thought my ideas generally aligned with theirs until I listened to some of Terri's views.

I just wanted to see how popular/mainstream the ideas on resisting heterosexuality and not having children/not prioritising women with children (in situations where that is warranted such as homelessness) really is.

I mean, this is Mumsnet though, I might get an entirely different response if I asked this on a website geared around childless-by-choice women (not that there aren't any on Mumsnet, but the demographic would be more in favour of mothers).

She's definitely a "no bullshit" woman and I admire her tenacity even if I don't agree with her on everything.

Should have said how mainstream/popular those ideas are in Radical Feminism

It’d be interesting to know what has informed and shaped her views.

From when I was younger, the whole objection to the language of sexual orientation and resisting heterosexuality isn't new. The push for gay rights saw the idea of an innate sexual orientation become the mainstream, but that also carries with it the idea that heterosexuality is also innate (and hence fixed) so cannot be resisted except by abstinence. I personally prefer the view that i'm just lucky What's so scary about wondering if sexuality was possibly more flexible, who does it currently serve believing it is not? And why the current focus on popularity of ideas rather than quality or insight they offer?

She is part of the Bev Jo woman hating club on Facebook. Men are not the only authoritarian misogynists women have to contend with.

I just wanted to see how popular/mainstream the ideas on resisting heterosexuality and not having children/not prioritising women with children (in situations where that is warranted such as homelessness) really is.

It is radical lesbianism, I think, not Radical Feminism. They argue like the men do that we need to relearn our sexual orientation in their image. They have a small core group of followers on FB but have been booted off most mainstream Feminist and Radical Feminist pages for bullying women.
I know this because I was a mod who booted Terri off two Feminist FB pages for unrelenting verbal abuse of other members.

It’s not about a competition between childfree women and mothers.
Both Terri and Bev Jo frame it as a competition, and an unfair one at that, between women with children and those who call themselves child free.

It must be very irritating to them that so many gay women embrace motherhood. And there they are doing lesbianism properly.

I can’t help being grudgingly indulgent towards warriors for lossy causes, tbough. Even the woolly, deluded ones.

What's so scary about wondering if sexuality was possibly more flexible, who does it currently serve believing it is not?

I'm bisexual, so for me sexuality is pretty flexible. The way I see it, if sexuality was that flexible for everybody, and we have some form of choice over it, most women would be lesbians, but they aren't because they cannot force themselves to feel sexual attraction to the female form if it's not there.

The push for gay rights saw the idea of an innate sexual orientation become the mainstream, but that also carries with it the idea that heterosexuality is also innate (and hence fixed) so cannot be resisted except by abstinence.

Yes, but is also implies that lesbianism is also fixed. Are you willing to concede that lesbian sexuality is so flexible and that they could also find males attractive? Why is it only people with heterosexual attraction who need to open up to the idea of "fluid sexuality"? Terri states herself that she is a lesbian - that seems quite an inflexible stance to take.

@thebewildnerness

Thank you for the insight, it's helping build a picture. I wasn't sure how "big" she was or how respected her views were in feminism.

I think my views are mainly radical feminist actually, I just had a wobble. I watch a couple of videos of Terri and instantly doubt my own views (I even said "I'm not a RF" in my OP because listening to her made me question whether I was!)... Where's my confidence and integrity!?

What's so scary about wondering if sexuality was possibly more flexible, who does it currently serve believing it is not?

That’s not the scary bit. It’s all the stuff about “breeding” (or not) that’s mad/despotic/unrealistic.

Where's my confidence and integrity!?

At 2am? Listening to someone extremely confident and uncompromising? Go easy on yourself

For me it is a matter of people who refuse to take no for an answer are not safe to be around.

What's so scary about wondering if sexuality was possibly more flexible, who does it currently serve believing it is not?

You do your sexuality and I'll do mine. The problem arises when you want to examine mine because it isn't flexible enough to suit you.

There are some strange views out there. A lot of them are interesting and make you think, like the experimental thinking of "all piv is rape" which no one actually believes but it helps you look at a things from a certain perspective.
A radical feminist view that not all RFs agree with is that IVF and other assisted forms of conception is wrong, because it puts control of reproduction in the hands of a patriarchal medical profession set up to convenience men and what they want. I think the alternative of adoption or just not having children is "approved". This reminds me of the Terri view around centering procreation.

So it's always interesting to hear ppls pov.
Curiously what somedyke said about sexual orientation reminds me of what the gender ideologues try to say. Look at the person themselves and not their sex because sexual orientation is not fixed.

I disagree just from personal experience. I can love women and can appreciate a woman's beauty, but I'm only ever sexually attracted to men. Even men I don't particularly like or love. Which is annoying.

What's so scary about wondering if sexuality was possibly more flexible, who does it currently serve believing it is not?

That is basically what Riley Dennis says.

SomeDyke has posted on this before, including on occasion berating heterosexual woman that she thinks it is very arrogant of straight women who claim to be feminist to not be willing to give a little consideration to why they are heterosexual, or at least wonder if it could have been otherwise.

And that the 'I'd be straight even if it wasn't for the patriarchy' line, or I'm just not attracted to women (and I have no real interest in thinking about why that is) line a bit of a case of head in the sand

No difference really from what Riley says.

I'm actually quite moderate Lass, but interesting to see how small a step I need to take to be considered as berating! Which in itself tells us something interesting I think.
And I still don't quite understand Monique Wittig though...........

You have been moderate on this thread. The quotes are posts by you. I don't think they are moderate.

I don't see any difference between what you said and what Riley Dennis said- which I find very interesting- both of you telling women what to do and what to think.

Riley calls woman bigoted- you say heterosexual women are arrogant and have their head in the sand.

But comparing me to Riley Lass, that's a low blow (as well as obviously false.). Gender and sexual orientation is behaviour and complicated and mutable, whereas sex is biology and not. A past based on sex is also immutable, which are two reasons Riley isn't and can never be a lesbian, however Riley may wish the future to be. I won't adjust my sexuality to include Riley not because my sexuality is fixed, but because their sex is. And since sex is I'm glad my sexuality which sees sex and history based on sex as important, is as it is and I see no reason to interrogate it.

I don't see anything in common between SomeDyke's perspective and Riley's. They're coming from different places and arguing for different things.

But then, I think it's perfectly reasonable for a lesbian to ask me to consider how my sexuality influences and is influenced by my feminism, especially if I have relationships with men. That's not telling me what to think, it's asking me to notice things I might not have noticed.

I don't usually like comparisons, but I see this as similar to women of colour asking me as a white feminist to examine how my whiteness influences my feminism. And yes, it's arrogant to dismiss the problem.