regressive and (actually transphobic) supporters of the "woman's place" position

[drwitch]

This is just a suggestion that perhaps we should be careful about retweeting and linking articles that are from the socially conservative viewpoint. writing by people Paul Embrey or Brendan O'Neil and many articles in the Daily Mail for example will often include lots that I agree with but there will be a couple of remarks that suggest that it is the non-conformity that bothers them rather than the need to provide sex based exemptions. It is a very thin line between a justification of safe spaces for women because of the interaction between physical differences and historic oppression and one that thinks women are just delicate flowers that shouldn't say boo to a goose. I think some article on the right get the balance wrong so we should watch out

On a similar note I think the concentration on bathrooms is dangerous it smacks too much of trumps bathroom ban, we should talk more about women only short lists, refuges, sports and pay monitioring

@JackyHolyoake

Just wanted to say I loved you on twitter.

I cam off it some months back because it was so toxic and twitter was shadowbanning me right left and centre.

It's a bloody scandal if you were banned but I'm glad to see you here

I'm not surprised so many people are having a fit about Hands Across The Aisle, the idea of women all across the political spectrum realizing we have some common interests and potentially working together to achieve them scares the shit out of misogynists of all stripes.

Okay take pornography - the feminist and the conservative have the same sort of worries about it so it is natural for them to work together, ditto (probably) sex work

I disagree. I believe conservatives disaprove of pornography because it encourages impure thoughts and wanking. I believe they disagree with prostitution because they see it as a form of fornication or adultery. They see both of these aspects of the sex industry as full of 'impure' 'fallen' women who are sinners. These are a million miles from feminist objections. Nevertheless it has been possible at times to form a political alliance (as opposed to 'allyship') in order to fight against these things, where we can identify common aims, despite very obvious differences.

but I have no more in common with a socially conservative thinker that worries if a man wears a dress, than I do with a woke bro who thinks transwomen are women

As illustrated on this venn diagram, feminists and religious conservatives both view sex as physical and non-changeable. I believe there is also common ground around safeguarding and children's health and wellbeing.

As illustrated here, religious conservatives and adherents to trans ideology both see gender as edifying and innate.

I'm with Natasha Chart on this:

On the subject of whether a woman is an adult human female, feminists have been made thoroughly unwelcome on the left. So if liberals think it’s very strange for feminists to work with conservatives, they should probably stop telling us to “drink bleach” or looking the other way as online mobs demand that we be fired.

I'm happy to work with people across the political spectrum. Yes caution is needed, but I see it as no different from the caution that is needed when working with gender critical trans people (#TSRaincrew was ... enlightening )

I'm also with :

Part of having a feminist resistance to male power includes expanding the base of that resistance to other women, to women you have less in common with, to women you have nothing in common with. It means active, proselytizing dialogue with women of many different political viewpoints because their lives are worth what your life is worth.

That's why.

We have to go past the conventional political barriers, the lines that the men have drawn for us. "Our girls are over there; we'll call them Democrats, we'll call them socialists, we'll call them whatever we want to call them. Those girls are over there; that's their girls. The girls on our side aren't allowed to talk to the girls on their side." Well, if the girls on either side talked to the girls on the other side, they just might find out that they're being screwed the same way by the same kinds of men.

Andrea's talk is over 30 years old. That's how long we've been dealing with this divisive crap. I'm not playing any more.

I'm not surprised so many people are having a fit about Hands Across The Aisle, the idea of women all across the political spectrum realizing we have some common interests and potentially working together to achieve them scares the shit out of misogynists of all stripes.

Yes, this!

Bumbungo Thank you for your kind words.

Many of the gender-crit women I know have a long, long history of leftish activism, solid activism of all sorts, in the labour movement, the anti-racist movements, in unions, in ye olde campaigns against Section 28, in women's liberation, in all sorts of things, so I used to be baffled when trans activists like garum try to paint us as in bed with the far right.

But then I remembered that they are also saying it's possible to change sex, and that someone with a penis can be a lesbian, so I finally grasped that reality and facts had nothing to do with the conversation.

it's only women that get vilified for daring to talk to women outside their political side. Why? Because left wing men want to remain the arbiters of who left wing women talk to, and what we talk about. If we start working as WOMEN rather than just in the pockets we have in the left wing, they lose that control and they hate it.

Excellent point, MoltenLasagne.

The attempt to redefine the category "woman" to mean "women and any male who fancies the idea or even pretends to fancy it" is an existential threat to women's rights and sex segregated spaces. It affects all women across the whole political spectrum so naturally radfems are going to find ourselves speaking up - and campaigning - with women with whom we may not normally see eye to eye.

I consider some faiths misogynistic but I'm well aware that if males are using female only spaces most observant women of those faiths - and others - will be excluded from public life. And that matters a great deal to me because I'm a feminist.

Thanks! Bit of a rant: am with Dworkin on cross-political feminism. Andrea rarely lets me down in her analysis.

Another ace post, PencilsinSpace. Andrea Dworkin. Love her.

Thing is all women - radfems, conservatives, religious - are well aware what risks can men pose. We've encountered creeps and predators, or (for the rare ones without personal experience) we know women and girls who have. You don't have to convince women that male violence and sexual entitlement are real phenomena, whatever party they vote for.

Really interesting discussion thank you everybody, it is less clear cut than I thought and it could be because I've braced myself and have been catching up with the handmaids tale and the salience of the threat from the religious and conservative side has gone up. Anyway as far as I am concerned 2d+69=G

I also find it fascinating that these same transactivists who try and paint the GC position as being in bed with the right were amazingly OK with cozying up to Maria Miller et all. Suddenly for all these revolutionary activists, the Conservative Party didn't seem at all bad. I wonder why?*

• I don't wonder why. I know why.

Garam

"It takes an overwhelming amount of abuse at trans people for twitter to take action. And they did, so please excuse me your feigned innocence."

Complete and utter nonsense, and I think you know it.

Bollocks, Garam. Total bollocks. You can get banned from Twitter for feminist views while neo-nazis flourish. We see it and we are not fooled by your claims.

This is the base misogyny typical of trans activists.

This person is talking about the women here on FWR. We are all bitches, reliant on husbands we hate but won't leave.

And we are supposed to agree with their demands?

twitter.com/Henriettaspoon/status/1021419265394692096

Jacky doesn't give a shit what men think. And she just kept on saying no to them. I think this may have been the problem!

I am out of patience with people claiming that women's right to privacy and dignity in the public toilets is a minor issue.
Public facilities for females are the reason women are able to safely participate in the public sphere at all. We no longer had to stop at a friends house to use the loo or pee in a bucket in the alley when public toilets were finally made available to women.
Telling women and girls that if they do not want to put on a strip show for men to masturbate to in changing rooms, or change their tampon while men watch, they can all stay home rolls women's rights back to the 1850s.
This is no small matter.

It just might be possible that......

The question of the day remains does 2d+69=L
Referring to women as non-trans pretty much defines exactly who you are, garam, and I will take Maya Angelou's advice and believe you.

I'm not interested in no platforming. Happy to stand on patches of common ground alongside people with whom I disagree on most other things.

I used to think that toilets were a distraction. But having read accounts of what a lack of single sex toilet provision means for women in countries without it, I now think that single sex toilets should be protected at all costs. Women fought for single sex toilets for a reason.

The 'what do women do in toilets' thread here was also an eye opener. Also the realisation that it's not all about me. I might personally be happy to share toilets in some situations but many girls and women are not. So long as women and girls want single sex toilets I will fight for them. My primary allegiance is to other women.

So now I think that the toilet issue is minimised, if anything.

This is a good article. I don't need someone's entire writing CV to agree with a single article. I don't care if he supports Brexit. I don't care if he thought the Trump march was bollocks (I actually have no idea if he does but these are the arguments I have seen used the last weeks to justify why X is 'Nazi', Evil')

Honestly, it's becoming exhausting, no wonder we are being led down shit infested rabbit holes.

www.spiked-online.com/newsite/article/trans-activism-is-now-just-misogyny-in-drag/21578#.W1YZ42RKi2y

Have been happily resisting people telling me that I'm anti p0rn and prostitution because I'm secretly religious and/or right wing for decades now, and not falling for it in a different context now!

It always goes like this in feminism. Divide and conquer. Don't let women find common ground. Purge the wrongthink. Nothing new under the sun.

Don't let women find common ground.

That's what it boils down to, isn't it?

It is also infantilising religious women to suggest that they stand up for women's rights because of puritanical beliefs. A person's religious belief isn't the source of every view they hold. I will still vote labour and encourage others to do so despite their mysogyny. I just may not join the party or attend meetings. I don't think my views would be welcome. In the same way plenty of religious people vote left wing and hold strong views on social justice. But you may not see them pavement pounding with the party that "doesn't do religion"
This was well said:
You don't have to convince women that male violence and sexual entitlement are real phenomena, whatever party they vote for.

Garam, you really should get in to see your doctor about that selective blindness. A handful of different posters can ask you the same question and receive no answer, but as soon as someone asks you a different question you miraculously regain the ability to read and respond. You're a medical mystery!