Women policing women

[therealposieparker]

Why do women do this?

Why do women, particularly left wing women, police each other's language and actions so much worse than men?

Even Germaine Greer is being hailed as no feminist for a few comments, despite the incredible work she's done in the past.

Feminists are pretty awful at this call out culture, I think men on the left do it to women but not to each other. I have a feeling this is why women are more likely to be religiously observant too, but that may be a different conversation. However I instinctively think it all feeds from the same conditioning, women "to be seen to be" XXX in order to compete with other women.

As of late I've noticed more odious behaviour from supposed feminists and it's made friends of mine abandon that label.

I am of the view that any woman who thinks that when she makes a choice it is her choice alone and it is not subject to negotiation with patriarchy is kidding herself. Even when it is a choice she wants for herself.

If she then chooses to position this choice as an example of her greater status in feminism rather than an example of good fortune within an oppressive system then it becomes a problem because it demonstrates a certain blindness to the power dynamics feminism is trying to dismantle.

People want to claim that somehow their choices are more feminist than other choices when in reality all that is going on is that their material conditions are better than other women’s or their ideology is different.

Feminism is not about choice and it certainly isn’t about a heirarchy of supposedly feminist choices being applied to women’s private lives by other women who call themselves feminists.

The early feminist pioneers re name keeping where not keeping names for their own personal status in the world so much as keeping their birth names in order to dismantle the legal position that women were property of husbands in law on marriage. Women are no longer chattels in law.

Names are now purely social signalling, which is not to say choice of name is not important or that there are no good reasons for keeping a birth name. It does mean that it is not a stick to beat other women with, it never was TBH.

If your version of feminism is marginalising women for not making the same choices as you, not thinking the same things as you or saying things you don’t agree with I think you are doing it wrong TBH.

Yy posie ‘what it says about you’ is, I think, a MASSIVE problem. It is not something applied to men in their personal and private lives to anything like the same degree.

Women are expected to be collectively responsible in their individual decisions whilst men are only ever expected to be individually responsible and in many ways not even that.

It’s part of the whole problem.

I don't like anything that imagines feminism as some kind of hierarchy with a central authority that can adjudicate on whether or not a particular woman is "allowed" to be in it. I also don't much like any feminist organising that relies on respectability politics and requires participants to reach a certain level of polite/acceptable discourse before their voices are deemed worthy. I react very badly to being policed into being "nicer" about the opinions I hold.

That said, am perfectly happy with dirty great ding dongs between feminists. How else do we get anywhere?

Yy, I’m happy with ding dongs and with criticism, debate etc.

I think it’s important to recognise though that many women are not going to have the energy or desire, after a lifetime of having their private lives scrutinised by men and the patriarchal state, to hand over their lives to be scrutinised by feminism prior to admission into ‘the club’.

Many women simply walk away in reaction.

And TBH I am probably going to walk away at some point from anything portraying itself as feminist whilst spouting stuff about ‘objectively feminist/anti feminist choices’ re women’s private lives.

It's one of the insidious triumphs of liberal feminism that somehow every choice is feminist if it is made by a woman, and that feminists must support everything other women do or say because they are women. It's all part of an age old narrative that women should be nice, and accommodating and smooth things over.....
For the record, I am becoming increasingly passed off with the twisting of "That choice is not a feminist one" to mean "If you make that choice you cannot be a feminist" It is incredibly dangerous, and plays straight into the hands of anti feminists.

Is this not also part of the bigger trend towards polarisation generally?

I'm a left wing atheist if I have to pigeonhole myself but that does not mean that I can't agree with Trump on the odd occasion or that I can't join up with Christians who oppose transing kids or that I agree with Corbyn that TW are W (actually - poor example - Corbyn does not really believe that TW are W but you get my drift).

The situation whereby people automatically disagree with something someone says because of who said it is what needs challenging. It is toxic.

‘That choice is not a feminist one’ is part of the same way of thinking as ‘Every choice a woman makes is a feminist one’ IMO.

It simply applies the rhetoric of individual choice in a different way.

Is it a symptom of a wider problem with the authoritarian Left that cannot agree to disagree but insists (or attempts to insist) on strict adherence to dogma at all times?

As a man (boring to repeat all the time but don't want to post under false pretences) I found the thread on whether or not to take your partner's last name interesting, as people shared their own experiences and opinions, and was sad when an element of 'homework marking' started to creep in.

And it is ridiculous to say that there are no objectively feminist or anti feminist choices. Just as it is ridiculous to say that if a woman makes an anti feminist choice she is automatically not a feminist.

Germaine Greer has take positions on some issues that have angered people. Trying to obliterate her 60 years worth of struggle for the feminist cause because we disagree with her on those points is not just shooting ourselves in the foot, it's digging a grave, lying down in it and shooting ourselves in the head.

I think it’s important to recognise though that many women are not going to have the energy or desire, after a lifetime of having their private lives scrutinised by men and the patriarchal state, to hand over their lives to be scrutinised by feminism prior to admission into ‘the club’.

Yes. Big difference between I don't like what you just said. Let's have it out, and What you just said is unacceptable. You are hereby ejected from feminism.

On what basis are individual women’s choices about their private and personal lives, which are all made in negotiation with patriarchy, deemed ‘objectively feminist’?

What does telling another woman that the choice she has made in her negotiation with patriarchy is ‘objectively feminist’ actually achieve?

Do you think early pioneers re names kept their birth surnames because it was ‘objectively feminist’ or was it a personal sacrifice (because there are costs) for the benefit of all women who at the time did not have legal status of their own?

*Is not ‘objectively feminist’

An objectively feminist choice is one that puts women, and what is good for women front and centre.

Women do not have to make feminist choices all the time-as a poster on anothe thread put it, you can't always put money in the collecting tin every time it comes round.

Why? In one word: fear.

You have two choices - you either police other women and get brownie points and a pass from the male power structure for doing so, or you refuse to engage with the male power structure and support the women.

Guess which option gets the wrath of the men.

Taking an extreme example - the ISIS morality patrols. Those women are doing the men’s dirty work because by doing they themselves are passed over for punishment. It gives them a degree of immunity.
The job probably also attracts people with a sadistic streak, people with a score to settle etc, but at the heart of it, it’s born of fear. Fear that the men will do to you what you’re doing to other women. Or much much worse.

We in the West have at least the semblance of security of social convention and the law to keep us safe if we speak out. For now anyway.

Unless a woman’s individual choice about her private life, which is made in negotiation with patriarchy, is being utilised for the benefit of all women then it is simply a personal choice which is made in negotiation with patriarchy.

As a result, in part, of earlier pioneers who used their choices re their names and their personal status in the public mind to make a political point women are not considered chattels or husbands.

This was a political choice which utilised personal status of individual women, who were able to use their status within a heirarchy of women, to contribute to the advancement of all women’s status in law.

Women are no longer considered property in law. There are still social and economic costs re naming for women and it needs to be recognised that this is not a one type of choice vs another type of choice issue but a women vs patriarchy issue.

Fuck sake Picasso, you single out a user on a thread she isn't even posting on in order to cut her down for the "gullible ignorance" of her views.

Offers-you seem to be very concerned about the name issue. With respect, there is a whole thread active about that- it seems a shame to make this one about it too?

I’m concerned re the ‘call out culture’ being extended by feminists to the private lives and individual choices of other women yes.

I've been trying to get a group of women I know together so that we can start a feminist group because I think a lot of the old get-togethers and networks fell apart once everyone got on FB and went to email instead of newsletters plopping through the letterbox every few months.

Anyway, I've tried arranging a get-together for maybe a dozen women who I know have been involved in women's projects and I know to be feminists and I've had so much 'Are you planning to ask J along, because if so it's a no' and 'I'd need to know what you think of this and that before I could say yes' that I've stopped even thinking about it. We seem very quick to identify our differences and slow to identify what holds us together.

I'm going to have a birthday do in a few weeks' time and I'll try to get something off the ground then but if it fails I'll check out the local Soroptomists.

We seem very quick to identify our differences and slow to identify what holds us together.

Oh god, I couldn't agree with this more!!

I skim read a post on here the other day about Soroptomists and it made me really sad. It started out with people so keen to join up with a feminist group so clearly doing good work for women and girls, and ended up with posters throwing their hands in the air and declaring that there was no feminist home for them anywhere; now who does that help? We don't have to agree on everything. We can argue all day about the things we disagree on, but it's important to still be able to come together on the things we all agree merit our cooperation.

thatdamnwoman - I’ve found the same. Everyone is entitled to their personal opinion about someone but to refuse to engage if that person is present is just disruptive to the movement as a whole.

I suppose in some ways it’s to be expected; human groups will generally always divide due to personal disagreements. I just wish we could get past all of that.

Agree also with the GG comments. Do I agree with everything she’s ever said? No. Why would I even expect to? She’s a woman with her own opinions on everything and her own lived life. I don’t agree with anyone 100% of the time - why would I?

I don’t expect to agree or disagree with everything an individual says. I find the putting of people into ‘goodies’ and ‘baddies’ boxes to be a symptom of ID politics and I want no truck with it. It kills nuance.

What I DO think about GG is that she’s inspirational, intelligent, and I think we are broadly aligned on many points which I personally think are important to me.

If she says something I disagree with I’m not going to join a pile on. This happened the other week to you, posie and it's remarkable to see it happen. Can we not accept that very few people in the world are going to agree 100% with each other on every single thing? It’s ok to disagree and say ‘actually no on that point I think that...’ but not to suddenly label someone in the ‘baddie’ category and burn them at the stake.

What unites us is that we are all women. It’s fine to disagree and debate, it’s necessary even, but we need to be united more than divided.