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.

My criticism on the particular surname issue relates to whether it is reasonable to attribute responsibility and accountability in the way it is being attributed by princess and more broadly about whether surnames are particularly relevant re dismantling patriarchy in the modern day since the pioneers who kept birth surnames were not doing it to keep a birth surname but to aid in gaining legal status for adult women in their own right, which is something women now have.

Posie mentioned earlier about how awful it was that women ‘Police’ how other mothers bring up their children ie breastfeeding, feeding etc. I certainly agree that we are in no place to judge other parents for the decisions they make in the best interests for their children, their families and themselves.

However, I’ve just seen her comments on Twitter and am frankly shocked. I can’t see how she can make those comments here, then do the exact thing she’s complaining about elsewhere.

Regardless of my thoughts on free speech, or even trans kids, that sort of incredibly personal attack on another mother is surely wrong in anyone’s book?

Yy materialist

I have no idea about that tweet out of context - it seems to be part of a longer conversation.

If someone contacted the op via Twitter (maybe reponding to her comment/both responding to someone else's) to justify their own dubious parenting choices ('transing' their kid I assume) then I am not sure that falls into the category of 'policing'.

There is a gulf between whether or not to mutilate/castrate/gaslight your child and whether or not to breastfeed them.

The first is a child protection issue the second is a parenting 'choice'.

Again it is strange to make this thread about the op as a person and not about the op as the issue.

Maybe you should take it up with posie on Twitter red.

Though I can’t see what that twitter post has to do with a thread on MN about women policing other women? Are some people confusing being offended with being silenced?

What is it you would like people to do? Not post on a thread started by posie? Trawl her SM to make a decision about whether she is an acceptable person or not?

What I have said is women’s choices are all made in negotiation with patriarchy

Absolutely true. So let's think about that and how harshly we judge eachother.

Also I completely agree materialist - to twist 'the personal is political' to mean 'individual actions trump class actions to bring change' as a form of modern Calvinsm (so apt) which 'justifies' policing one-another, is to render it utterly meaningless and a million miles from the call to recognise interpersonal patterns which give form to the systemic oppression of women and girls under patriarchy, and then to organise to break those systems.

Furthermore this thread is about how harshly policing/judging/silencing women is possibly one of the forms of systemic oppression under patriarchy that, one would postulate, needs to be broken.

Liberal feminism has drained feminism of meaning

Weirdly I was just thinking how, regardless Offred of how you'd used "Lib fem" as a derogatory term, what you're expressing is exactly the position held by myself and the small band of liberal feminists I'm close to.

Materialist, you and others are quick to dismiss lib-femism (as anti-feminist? Is this different to dismissing liberal feminists as anti-feminist?) as being "this choice is feminist because a woman made it"; but it's not that. It's exactly as you say Offred, we appreciate that a woman's choice is in negotiation with the patriarchy.

DionetheDiabolist said something on a thread yonks ago that's stuck with me. About prostitution someone had said, "liberal feminism would see a hundred women trafficked into prostitution because of one happy hooker"; she replied, "no, liberal feminism simply doesn't blame the "happy hooker" for a hundred trafficked women, unless she herself trafficked them".

Lass I agree with you that it's a fine line between acknowledging the impact of the patriarchy and infantilisation.

Did I say ‘liberal feminism’ or did I say variations on ‘Pomo Lib fem’ rat?

"no, liberal feminism simply doesn't blame the "happy hooker" for a hundred trafficked women, unless she herself trafficked them".

Neither does radical feminism or any other sort of feminism I have ever come across.

Radical feminism doesn’t blame any of the hookers.

It says that the existence of a happy hooker is not a justification for prostitution and that even if some hookers are happy then men who use them still drive the industry as a whole and that the industry is a terrible thing.

You did Offred, correction accepted :)

I agree with you Bertrand, but it does sound a teensy bit like Princess' assertion that women changing their name on marriage are the ones making it hard for her/other women to keep hers. (I agree with what you said on the other thread though that for many women that is a contribution to feminism that would cost very little.)

Thanks rat

I have said before and still believe that liberal feminism has been utterly bastardised and corrupted and this Pomo Lib fem crap is neither liberal nor feminist. Ideologically I do not line up with actual liberal feminism but I do not like the bastardisation that has happened to it.

I also agree that keeping a surname is something many women could do without facing high costs and that often they don’t. I just think this is a different thing to ‘keeping a birth surname is an objectively feminist choice’.

(Or that scrutinising other women’s personal choices about private lives and holding them personally accountable to feminism is a productive or helpful thing because it is what happens already in the rest of the world)

liberal feminism simply doesn't blame the "happy hooker" for a hundred trafficked women, unless she herself trafficked them".

IME libfems take the word of someone who has psychologically contorted themselves to believe they are happy sucking misogynist cock for money (who later says - what was I thinking? What was I saying? It was all bravado) and accuses anyone who mentions the contortions of 'infantalising'.

I think that is why the pro prostitution lobby use disabled people as pawns. They know 'infantalisation' strikes a chord with disabled people at the same time knowing it elicits patronising public sympathy that can be used for further leverage.

Liberal feminists would see a hundred women trafficked in order to 'not infantalise' the one contorted woman saying she happens to be happy on all fours being shafted by strange men -where patriarchy wants her.

Also I do distinguish between classic liberal feminists, such as the suffragists, and the pomo funfems in the pockets of the sex industry who perform regular purges of all feminist gatherings of 'SWERFs and TERFs' to ensure feminism is as cock-friendly and ineffectual as possible.

See for me it is more about various ideologies than about people.

Liberal feminism has a particular approach to the sex industry. I think that’s different to ‘liberal feminists would...’ stuff.

I don’t think I have ever agreed with anything GG has said but most of it falls into libertarianism ideologically, I do not agree with libertarianism hence I don’t agree with the things she says. That’s not the same as deciding GG is wrong. She is consistent re libertarian ideology and libertarian ideology can be criticised but GG herself simply for having libertarian views? That’s a line too far IMO.

And even the Pomo Lib fems have a particular ideology which centres around post modernist interpretation of individualism IMO.

The issue I have with this is it is incorrect to call it either liberal or feminist and it has almost entirely invaded, colonised and corrupted liberal feminism and as a consequence feminism in general.

So is this broad-brush denigration of anyone who identifies as a liberal feminist, regardless of the actual content or nuance of their views; is this "women policing women" or not Permission?

Or that scrutinising other women’s personal choices about private lives and holding them personally accountable to feminism is a productive or helpful thing because it is what happens already in the rest of the world

Offred I 99.9% agree with you here; I agree with you in broad principle. But I think there is scope for holding the personal lives of individual women up to the scrutiny of feminism on occasion.

For example if a woman makes a lot of personal choices that really contribute some good to the feminist cause, despite her experiencing a significant patriarchal backlash, then we can say she's done a lot for feminism. I think women can and should be inspired to do what little feminist actions they can afford. They're not obliged to, but there's no harm in holding it up as good IMO (but I could be convinced?)

I don't think doing nothing to help and doing something that harms are the same thing (particularly when sometimes you simply cannot help on account of the patriarchy). But I think there's something in what Lass says that if it is patently clear that someone could easily have contributed to the cause and perhaps even took more trouble not to, then we can say that wasn't great feminism, right?

I think that’s different to ‘liberal feminists would...’ stuff.

I agree with you. I should have said "pomo funfeminism in the pocket of the sex industry would" . It isn't helpful to point at people like that or be so non-specific about the kind of liberal feminism I am talking about . Apologies.

Sorry, I always get a bit defensive about anything I see as trashing liberal feminism - "liberal feminists think xyz" - feels personal, you know? But I'm going to assume for now that unless a comment applies to an opinion I actually hold as a liberal feminist, that it isn't in fact about me :)

Rat - I’d hold achievements, arguments, ideologies etc up to scrutiny. I’d hold individuals to account for these things where it is fair to, to the extent it is fair to, and in a manner which is fair.

Obviously I am talking about ideals not positioning myself as always living up to said ideals.