The New Misogyny

[BadasIwannaB]

Reading the March thread (www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3309913-March) got me thinking, we need a name for the problem we want to draw attention to. And it needs to be a name that makes it clear that it’s not that we are ‘transphobic’/denying transgender people’s human rights/right to exist etc.

I think people - especially journalists - can be lazy, and when they reach for a name to give to our concerns, the closest things - to their mind - to hand are things like ‘anti-trans’ etc.

And this isn’t helping us get listened to.

And it is making it very easy for us to be ignored and dissed.

So how about a name that makes it clear at a glance what we are taking issue with? So here’s a suggestion: ‘The New Misognyny’ or maybe ‘Misogyny 2.0’.

I mean, I’m sure both expressions have been used before in slightly different contexts, but here’s my thinking:

It makes it clear that what we are objecting to is the way that this supposed right-on-ness/wokeness is really just a free pass to ignore the concerns of women (summed up very nicely in comments from Wanderabout and Popchyk on the www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3309903-Sexual-assaults-on-Vulnerable-Women-Prisoners thread:

‘The report references risk of harm to the male offender, not the female inmates forced to share accommodation 	with them.
This sums up everything that is wrong with that report and the 	state of the worldwide debate on this issue.’

and to threaten, intimidate and dehumanise women who dare to challenge the dogmas.

What do you think? Could it catch on? Could it help make clear what our problem is and get us listened to?

We are anti-penises in girls' changing rooms. We are pro-safeguarding and pro-science.

They are anti-safeguarding and anti-science.

Gynephobia

This isn't the appropriate word to describe TRAs - they aren't afraid of women - they either hate women or despise them - but fear- no

This is where it's important to understand abusive men - they say they feel something but they actually don't - they use the word feel, like transphobia, as a weapon. It's their thinking that's disordered - they think they are entitled to use and abuse women. They aggress against women all of the time, despite what they say. It's all about having power and control over women.

I'll have a think 🤔- Martinet is descriptor of them individually - fempimping - pimping women / femtyranny - persecuting women/

Femjackers

SEXX
Safeguarding Every XX

And they need reframing too as HE-GIs Hostile Enforcers of Gender Ideology.

Gender non quim-forming.

I really like @BarrackerBarmer’s idea of ‘say my name’ or something along those lines.

What troubles me most about some aspects of the current dominant discourse around gender (at least dominant in certain circles) is that it silences women. Women have fought long and hard to reclaim a positive discourse around our bodies and biology, elements of our identities that have historically always been used to suppress us.

So when someone tells me that I should use ‘ birthing person’ or ‘chest feeding’ I feel like we are getting back to a time when speaking about our bodies is in itself considered unethical.

Snappity, I googled. Just one article by Vice and 2 from Pink News. So yeah, just in your bubble. MN doesn't seem to have any such reputation anywhere else.

I like Femjackers and S E XX. Agree we need something, transphobe doesn't fit - I neither hate nor fear trans people, so I don't accept the label.

I take the point about trying to redefine and reframe the terms of the debate and I absolutely agree in principle. But the problem goes way deeper than the language we use or don’t use. The problem is that misogyny doesn’t matter precisely because we live in a world that is still misogynist to the core.

Women who talk about misogyny are perceived by a great many people of both sexes (probably the majority) as being extremists/delusional/mad old hags etc. People don’t take it seriously. Because it is absolutely ingrained in our culture (all cultures) that women are less. It’s totally and utterly normalised to the point that it’s mostly invisible, and you often come across as a bit of a conspiracy theorist type if you try and point it out.

Most people actively don’t want to acknowledge that women are institutionally lesser, because it’s a very uncomfortable, shocking truth that they’d rather not live with. Far easier to pretend that everything is fine now, we have all the equality we could possibly want, and the world is a lovely, cuddly place.

The denial around the extent and impact of universal misogyny is something that transactivism has had the effect of highlighting and bringing to the fore. When even a sizeable percentage of those women who call themselves feminists are blind to the reality of the misogyny inherent in transactivism, you know this problem runs really deep, and isn’t going to be solved by a simple change of language choices.

How we wake people up to the reality of misogyny when most of them want to stay fast asleep, I don’t know. But the number of people who’ve been peak transed by this board is a hopeful sign.

TL;DR: it doesn’t matter what language we use, specifically; the main thing is that we keep talking about it in a rational, common sense way to as many people as possible and just keep making inroads in smallish ways, while being aware of the scale of the problem and trying to address it at its root. Eventually something will have to give.

Talking you are right - but we still have to try in the meantime...I know even my DSs don’t fully get this and probably roll their eyes when I rant.

A one word slogan may work, Reclaim I think this one word is very powerful if followed up by a concerted media campaign online and in women's' mags then onto mainstream press.
It emphasises that you are just reclaiming your safe spaces reclaiming rights that have been hard fought for.
The slogan Reclaim might be simplistic but slogans with too many words people tend to switch off from, think of retail campaigns/adverts, the most successful use very little words to help stick in the buyers mind.

When I started out with this, all I got from friends and family were eyerolls and 'God, she's off again."
But I stuck at it, stayed calm, stuck to the facts and clear logic, learned to pierce through the blatant lies that were being presented everywhere, and I'm now hearing them all having conversations with other people about these things using their own words to explain the batshittery.

It is just a question of persistence.

I still think that the Achilles heel of the TRA movement is the medication of and removal of safeguarding for children. Society is a lot less willing to let that happen without complaint than they are adult women being put at risk.

@Materialist. I see where you're coming from but the blunter approach may back fire via lazy journalism and allow the media to ignore or misrepresent what your message is affecting your ability to reach out and highlight what's happening. The campaign has to be spot on to bat off the shrieks from the TRA's. However I could be wrong and the direct approach may work.

ConfessionsOfTeenageDramaQueen "The problem is misogyny isn't a dirty word like "phobia". What we need is something more literal - like femphobic."

I think current thinking is toxic to women and girls, so 'toxic2females' says it to me. The trouble with 'fem' is has come to mean something in itself, like a man who presents in a feminine way may be referred to as fem.

I've seen a trans woman arguing the risks of self id to women and girls are minimal, what right do others get to argue that women and girls should accept these risks. Even women themselves cannot push these risks on to other women.

lurking I like the word 'Reclaim'.

And I don't think he risks are minimal!

@Rednaxela "The name of that Pride protest didn't help - what does get the l out even mean? I can't work it out."

A quick google would tell!

The LGBT etc etc is not a safe place for young and/or vunerable lesbians if it is arguing they must consider males as partners. No one can argue any one, male, female or who ever, has to accept anyone in their dating pool.

If in doubt see Magdalen Berns talking about the video from Riley J Denis!

You actually have two problems here.

The first is more obvious to feminists, and that's about where power lies and that women are outside of that.

The second less obvious problem comes from within left and liberal circles, which are natural enemies to this power structure. The crux of that being three fold:

Privileged women who take their rights for granted.
A general misunderstanding of what rights are and where they derive from.
A lack of understanding of how rights work in practice and what their purpose is supposed to be.

You will never get a mass movement of women over this, without addressing poor understanding of rights and connecting that with the everyday life of women.

There are too many women who are under the impression that women's rights are solid and unreversable. They don't see a danger to them or a need to defend them. They don't see how the creep of politics in several areas is perilously close to undermining the entire foundations of all rights.

Rights are something that you have to understand in depth and be passionate about, even at times of civility and in a position of comfortable security.

Rights are only maintained through vigilence. We were all taught to be vigilant at school but most of us have forgotten the lesson.

RedToothBrush good points.

The name of that Pride protest didn't help - what does get the l out even mean?

Rednaxela the L stands for Lesbian, the L part of LGBT. The protest was about the wider "LGBT" not being supportive of that first letter, the Lesbians, and redefining the word to 'anyone who identifies as a lesbian". One banner even said "Lesbian is a female homosexual".

The other part of the 'slogan' was a play on the expression "get the hell out".

All rather simple really.

Also, this screengrab explains the ridiculousness of why a group of eight women stood up and protested this lesbian erasure.