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 noticed it mostly around Brexit. Right on feminist women announcing that people who aren’t educated to degree level, should not have been given a vote.

It was a shit storm. The term ‘champagne socialist’ made perfect sense to me when I saw how utterly worthless the London elite considered the rest of the country.

Feminism is a very competitive business. The petty point scoring that goes on to try to prove that one form of female lifestyle is more feminist (and therefore has the moral high ground over everything) than another is appalling.

"The petty point scoring that goes on to try to prove that one form of female lifestyle is more feminist (and therefore has the moral high ground over everything) than another is appalling"

Where have you seen this happening?

I think it's a thing on the left generally, not just feminism. I've been to events where people attending seem to spend more time arguing among themselves about different political views, language etc rather than focusing what they're supposed to be there for.

The other thing going on is unconscious sexism and bias that even those of us who are feminists hold unconsciously. I was phoned yesterday by a woman who, seven years ago, sought me out to do a job for her because she wanted a woman to do it. I did it and for seven years the design/ installation work I completed for her has worked to her satisfaction. But last week she phoned to say that a male engineer had looked at the work and declared that it had not been done properly — and she was immediately on the phone to say how disappointed she was not just in the work but in me. She's a feminist, a woman who thinks about things, and yet her first response was personal upset because I had designed something to work one way and a man disagreed that that was the best way to achieve the effect. When she started saying 'I knew I shouldn't trust a woman' I told her to go away for 48 hours and cool down. We consciously or unconsciously look for the problems with women while consciously or unconsciously expecting men to know better.

Hi all.
We have made a few deletions on this thread. Please remember that personal attacks are not allowed.

Answering the op.

There are a core of uber purist feminists who will not be compromised and are relentlessly attacked and ridiculed. IME they are 2nd wave political lesbians who are generally wary - on high alert for the next woman to be traitor like Erin Prizzy or Stephen Whittle who then sets about trying to destroy the very feminism that was their nursery.

Then there's the next level to be wary of - the well-meaning fat footed types who blunder around, big gob flapping, unaware of the damage they do to the fragile feminist gains by their ignorant and insensitive words and actions (I fit into this category - tbh so does Germaine Greer).

These purist feminists are not 'call out culture' types in the sense of young pomo nitwits saying "yah check your privilege, yah, yah, intersectionality, excessive incomprehesible pretentious long-word usage, yah, woke " , but they can spot a loose cannon or a traitor and will make a public statement and/or freeze them out trying to avert too much damage to women's rights and gains.

I think disagreeing is good. I disagree with people I love, value and admire all the time, and the process of disagreeing makes people grow. Growing and learning should never be over in our lives.

The thing that pisses me off is the idea that people need to carefully toe the line all the time, avoid offending, kid gloves, suppressing what they believe otherwise they will be publicly roasted, singled out and isolated. That is just bullshit. We need to be able to thrash out honest conversations and have faith that people will learn and grow (but perhaps it is best to put away your best china when a bull is in your midst). There's no need to turn someone into a pariah - it is cruel and inhumane.

"The petty point scoring that goes on to try to prove that one form of female lifestyle is more feminist (and therefore has the moral high ground over everything) than another is appalling"

Where have you seen this happening?

Every single time a woman uses status as ‘a feminist’ to apply standards re what is feminist or what isn’t to another woman’s choices regarding her private life this is happening and it is not the same as critiquing the context in which the choices are made. It actually makes the choices personal in a way that divorces of them of context.

Whether it is intended or not.

It is a level of personalisation that is profoundly unhelpful IMO.

Make your own negotiations re what is important to you and what your material conditions allow you to do or not but don’t apply standards to other women as though there can be any ‘objectively feminist’ choice about a personal life when every choice still involves negotiation with patriarchy to some degree.

The problem is not that more women don’t choose whatever name or more women don’t choose to be political lesbians or more women don’t choose cohabiting rather than marriage or more women don’t choose not to have DC.

The problem is that all women’s choices regarding their personal lives are public in a way men’s are not and they all involve negotiations with patriarchy and therefore choice is indicative of relative privilege, cultural capital or ideology.

All women can do without having their personal lives held up as accountable to standards of feminism by feminists themselves. That’s one of the ways the patriarchy works.

Where have you seen this happening?

The semi-regular libfem versus radfems threads are particularly vicious, though nothing quite matches the brutal gang-up on poor Laurie Penny. I actually felt sorry for her, and she's quite the misandrist. Now my number one go-to link when people talk about polite debate amongst feminists.

I love disagreeing, I did a personality test thing and it seemed suggest I like to provoke and dig out motives and all that crap (it makes it sound far more grand than it really is).... I like meaty conversations. I don't care if you completely disagree I just like to know why and how.... I probably come across as argumentative.

Many women take things very personally.

"she's quite the misandrist."

Define, please.

I like meaty conversations. I don't care if you completely disagree I just like to know why and how.... I probably come across as argumentative.

I think GG likes them too. I get the sense that opinionated people in the public domain like GG are not saying ' this is the final word' more that 'this assumption needs to be questioned'. They plough through the hard soil of habitual thought, turning it over, oxygenating it. Hopefully creating the right conditions for some new ideas.

@therealposieparker

really good question.

I have also been wondering whether Greer's libertarian background helped her stay free of this.

I think men do do it to men as well within organisations that have a higher purpose such as churches, the Labour movement and charities. There is a very different flavour to their disputes.

The why and the how is the only important part IMO.

They plough through the hard soil of habitual thought, turning it over, oxygenating it. Hopefully creating the right conditions for some new ideas.

This is an excellent way of putting it.

I also think we are in a febrile environment at the moment and I think we all need to beware of throwing sisters - even the sisters we can't stand or whose opinions we despise - under a bus that is currently made up of doxxing, punching, terrifying men with political power.

Yes, and I sometimes sense with GG that she's taken aback when others get so angry with her because they disagree. She's coming from intellectual background where (most) people learn how to argue and disagree about ideas without it becoming personal and recriminatory.

GG is an individualist libertarian. This is why she has become a feminist icon and why she has been so useful.

Precisely because patriarchy oppresses women through authoritarianism and by making them responsible and accountable in every aspect of their lives.

I don’t even know whether GG would call herself ‘a feminist’ TBH. Has she ever called herself a feminist?

I think the idea that you can divorce your private life from your views is just saying ‘it is ok to be a hypocrite’.

Clearly no one can live a perfect life all the time but a feminist posting here all day because her husband is earning big bucks, a champagne socialist or, best of all, a Question Time panel extolling comprehensive schools whilst almost to a man/woman choosing private for their own children are hypocrites. It is a good old fashioned word which still bites.

If you don’t live by your views they are clearly not strong views.

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.

You appear to be talking about the surname discussion here Offred, as you made that point a number of times on the recent threads. For the part about material conditions to be true, women who keep their names on marriage would have to enjoy better material conditions than women who don't. That's quite a claim. Do you have any evidence at all for this? Given that women from some communities with very high marriage and poverty rates such as the Somali and Bangladeshi communities typically keep their own names, one wonders.

And the fact that there's often different ideology going on here is kind of the point!

If we agree that all men have a fear that their conflict could come to blows do you think this is why they can disagree and move on? A social need to avoid violence?

Females, even as girls, ostracise over conflict resolve. They don't punch someone in the face, they socially shun. As a little girl I found girls really difficult in this regard and played mostly with boys. A more straight forward thing. I found girls dishonest with the bitching behind your back , boys didn't do it.... they would relentlessly take the piss to your face. I thought the was I felt about women would disappear but then it continued throughout my early working life and into motherhood. But I really have found it the absolute worst in feminist groups. They also practice calling out and silencing.... the attacks are really vicious.

Princess. Her point is broad enough to apply here without bringing up another thread.

Larry’s post is exactly why I strongly feel any move by feminists to hold women to account for their personal and private lives is unhelpful.

It’s buying into ‘live your beliefs or they can’t be that important’ that directly undermines feminism by imagining women are free to do that in the first place.

Even if it is not intended to do that. That is the context in which it is happening and it enables and empowers men to dismiss feminism in a variety of ways.

I'm sure it's discussed in the programme on the BBC Offred As I recall, GG doesn't see herself as particularly feminist.

She's the one that mentioned surnames posie, and you'll note that I specifically addressed the words she wrote here on this thread.