Any Irish feeling a bit isolated...

[SuperStylin]

...for being critical of the gender critical?

The referendum was such a high but the repeal groups I was part of have gone on to become equality groups (I have no issue with equality but the issues they are fighting for seem in almost every case to be to the detriment of women)
It’s gone from such a high to such a low as it’s overwhelming how quickly people will dismiss you as transphobic for airing a genuine concern.

Wondered is there anyone in a similar situation or if you can point me in the direction of likeminded groups?

I have three daughters. The older two are on the same page as me but I can't speak about this to the younger one at all. She came out as gay this year and sees trans as the most marginalised of her community and totally buys the TWAW mantra. She will be going to college next year and I really worry about her being influenced by this crap.

Dinosaurkisses, yes, you were doing fine in that Twitter thread and he clearly wasn't arguing in good faith at all. It came across to me that he was just hectoring on and on about glinner (ok so it was his thread initially but...) and putting words in his and your mouths about what he had decided you each believed...

Also the fact that you slightly mixed up one of the names cited (Jess) and despite having demanded "names and numbers" he clearly never checked who these people were and what the problem might be with them! That's the proof he never intended engaging with the substance of the argument.

I don't know what the answer is here, the argument that we keep posting for visibility and for the lurkers is good for Mumsnet, a bit trickier on Twitter as it can end up leaving anyone drained and battered. But it probably still holds true that someone like Aidan has followers who may be reading along even if he himself will never admit to having been wrong.

hey Justanotherspartacus, someone alerted me that I was mentioned on here, so joined mumsnet to say thanks. The main thing to bear in mind with twitter is that the handful of 'people' (their favourite word!) trying to dominate and control the Irish feminist narrative on there are only performing feminism, they are in it for their own gain, as opposed to actually trying to lift ALL women up.
An example: on the day it was announced that Ireland has the highest child care costs in the EU, these clowns were arguing over pussy hats ('not inclusive'), or yellow flowers for the Trump protest, that was already being planned, when his visit hadn't even been announced.
The handmaid who started it all by announcing she would be knitting pussy hats, was put to the stake and told how wrong she was, and so she repented and was set free. And said she wouldn't knit the hats. So they settled on yellow flowers. This is what they call feminism. Yes, really.
But, we are many, they are few, and we have reason, intelligence, empathy and logic, where the fakes only have abuse, derision, and bullying. I am based in Dublin if anyone wants to meet up.
And beware of the fakes who will be on here, to try to disrupt and destroy the solidarity that real feminists and women naturally have for each other. No pasaran!

Great to see you RaggyAgirl. I am so pleased the OP started this thread. We are out there, even if we are a bit scattered and isolated at the moment. The woke types might be in for a shock when eventually our numbers grow. I think they think getting people thrown off twitter is the same as being constructively active. They don't realise people will just talk elsewhere, in secret if that is what it takes.

yes, good work by her. Thanks OP. One of the leading lights on woke twitter is a gender studies professor, and she believes that running a twitter account called 'manel watch', is activism. She makes her living by promoting gender nonsense. But none of them can answer the question that if gender is a social construct, A. why aren't they working to abolish gender instead of reinforcing it. B. As race is a gender construct, why can't people transition to another race, like genderists?

Right, so not a gc group, but I went to the Women for Election workshop today. It was good. Sixty women in a room looking to make a positive difference in the world. It was a valuable day. (and the only male body was a speaker)

Josepha Madigan was a bit scathing of sex gender quotas, while acknowledging she wouldn't have been elected without them, and Mary O'Rourke was a relic of stereotypes past, but Cathleen Carney Boud was gave great insight into the reality of bring a local counsellor (with clear Dail ambitions) and Orlaith Carmody gave some good media and comms training. I'm tentative that if some of the rock of sense women I met today can engage, we might have hope.

Mother Did you get any subtle GC vibes from many people?

Count me in too. I'm a lurker, having my eyes and mind opened up from reading so much here. I'm in Dublin working for a very big company that does not understand individuals who don't want to drink their Kool Aid!! Criticism by me online would get me fired. I'll will try to be more informed of what's happening. Thanks to everyone for debunking the whole mad ideology

No, dinosaur , but there was absolutely no talk about men other than, eg, "it'll really help your political aspirations if your partner and family understand and pitch in." It was a very diverse group of women from all parties and none and it was nice to be in a room full of women focused on ourselves and our futures.

Reading through this thread has finally made me sign up for an account here, and I think I'll make a Twitter too to follow some of the people mentioned here. I'm also Irish (Dublin based right now) and I've found Irish 'feminism' very frustrating in recent times despite the success of the marriage equality and repeal campaigns. And like many have already said, I've felt very alone with my views. So alone that I've often wondered if I'm wrong and am actually turning into a bigot as a I get older. So I've tried to read as much as I can, both from GC feminists and liberal feminists/TRAs and all it's doing is cementing my GC views.

So I'm glad to know you're all here!

I missed this the first time it was posted

Im happy to give anyone my LinkedIn profile if they want to meet up but not sure who you can trust. I work for my self, so am not answerable to anyone. After all the shit Irish women have had to go through, I am not going to be silenced. I wish men who have no skin in the game would focus on stopping men raping and attacking us, instead of joining in this bullying. At the end of the day I earn less money, and am a carer because I'm a woman. My biological sex determined my life outcomes.

and don't buy into the bs that if your feminism is not intersectional, then its not feminism. I see that a lot on twitter. Intersectionalist tool has been stolen from Black women, who have huge issues of racism to deal with within feminism. But now the well connected Irish feminists have leveraged that to argue they are more oppressed than working class men. Despite their better start in life, university education, access to housing etc etc. That is another con they are trying to pull.

We exist op. We're just sick and tried of the gobeens who describe themselves as "genuine Irish feminists" who are doing more harm to Irish women than any government, man or religious body has ever done. Please do feel free to search us out on Twitter

Anyone read Fintan O'Toole in the Irish Times today?

www.irishtimes.com/opinion/fintan-o-toole-metoo-cannot-win-in-a-climate-of-fear-1.3639666?localLinksEnabled=false

[...]the great insurgency against misogynistic abuse cannot achieve its full goals in an atmosphere of guilt by association. The culture of misogyny is a culture of silencing. The revolt against it is a revolt into speech, a rebellion against the old injunction: You can’t say that. It is also an opening-up of a dark, unpleasant and uncertain terrain of distorted masculinity.

So he writes in favour of people being allowed to publish difficult, challenging truths, and calls for self-examination of toxic masculinity... but somehow the article as a whole was "all about the men" and as somebody pointed out in the comments he even managed to erase an eminent past co-editor of the NYRB... a woman. He's not going to come out for gender critical women, is he?

I interpreted it differently, more about the moral imperative of a free press and how a particular editor fell short.

He definitely didn't mention anything GC but I did like the following:
"The culture of misogyny is a culture of silencing. The revolt against it is a revolt into speech, a rebellion against the old injunction: You can’t say that."

Pressed post too soon...

The above quote is verbatim what is said in the FWR boards about TRA tactics. I do wonder if Fintan was obliquely referring to such tactics in those lines, or if he's as head-in-the-sand as other journos.

Hi, MarDhea. Yes exactly, that's the quote that stood out to me, too (I was thwarted by the return-key bug earlier so gave up teasing out what I was trying to say...).

He is clearly someone acutely aware of misogyny and putting in some thinking about the roles of masculinity. Not that I expected anything about trans in this article because it was about something different, it was just that as well-meaning as he is, he didn't manage to amplify any women in this piece and I'm left wondering if he's even aware.

I was just musing on whether the intersection of the free-speech aspect (the billboard, Angelos Sofocleous being dropped as editor of the Durham philosophy journal) with the suppression of women's voices in the trans debate is something that would resonate with him.

When you imagine hypothetically someone of his stature in Irish life coming out on the side of women in this specific matter, it's an interesting thought exercise - is he unaware, doesn't think it important because "that never happens"/miniscule numbers etc, or simply knows what the reaction would be and isn't up for it. Cos I sincerely doubt he actually believes TWAW. Makes me realise that for all the wokeness pervading Irish Twitter there must be a lot more influential people like him who have managed to studiously avoid coming off the fence. What would happen if women got there first in calling on them to do so?

Is anyone involved in Irish girl guides? I'm a brownie leader and just got an invitation to an lgbt awareness training to be facilitated by TENI...

@Mother I was thinking about the Guided thing the other day.

I’m in NI where all GG groups near me seem to be attached to a Presbyterian or Methodist church and run with those ethoses in mind. I just wonder how that will mesh with the new guidelines that have come out in the last few days

I'm not long involved and I have only scanned our inclusion policies, but I believe the language refers to gender rather than sex here. I'm going to do some research tomorrow.

Our pack would generally be from a very a la carte RC/CofI area, quite lefty middle class suburbanites. But we have one Muslim girl joining us so it's become a bit more real for me thinking about how she might continue to engage if a trans girl was to join either brownies or guides. I don't know my fellow leaders long enough to be able to gauge their opinion on this.

OK, this is from the website "The Irish Girl Guides believes in providing a single-sex environment that will help girls develop to their fullest potential. As an organisation we know it is also beneficial to girls and women to have supportive families and friends. Males are welcome to support the Irish Girl Guides in various roles such as Unit Helpers".

They say single sex, so why is teni getting involved? I'm thinking I should go to the training but I fear I'd get so frustrated and angry about it I'll just cry.

'ello 'ello.

Another one in Belfast. Am a loose follower of Belfast Feminist Network but am tiring of them falling over themselves to be inclusive, i.e,. centre men and try awfully hard not to hurt their feelings (unless they're in the DUP ). It's really putting me off engaging with them, which is a pity as we still have so far to go in NI.

Imho (and I don't mean to offend any posters here by saying this) Irish feminism just isn't mature or confident enough to allow dissenting voices or even take a step back and realise that regardless of their self-IDing as feminists, they're still acting as handmaidens to entitled men abusing their positions.

The pace of political change regarding women's rights has been immense over the last thirty years, but I don't think culture has kept pace, even amongst the young. For the most part Irish women are still putting the wants and desires of men before women and girls. Ask yourself next time you see a pile on on a GC twitter exchange- what's the difference between the TWAW "feminists" commenting, and the women who a generation ago stood by and shamed their peers for extramarital sex, unplanned pregnancies, divorce or for being a victim of spousal abuse? I make no apologies for putting Irish women first, and I'm glad to see there's other posters here who feel the same.

It just feels so recent that Irish feminists have seen the results of the protests of the 70s and 80s, from the marriage bar to contraception to divorce to abortion, and having found a voice that finally won over the people (viz. the Citizens Assembly, who should collectively be awarded Persons of the Decade), and having secured recognition and a space for feminism, we are so damn quick to invite everyone else to pile into it.

It’s like we went from first wave to fourth wave with no boundaries and no appreciation of what was hard-won.

I was a few years behind Ivana Bacik in college and without the agitation of her and others, and the subsequent maturing of the movement (engaging with medics, lawyers, politicians) we wouldn’t have got Repeal over the line. It’s as if Repeal happened easily: it didn’t! I’m not prepared for this new woke feminism which is the colour-catcher in the tumble drier, losing its own identity and having to absorb general whataboutery.

Totally agree, @Snipsnip.

Let's be real- the Repeal movement was The Cool & Anti-Establishment Thing to get behind for the last couple of years, particularly since the marriage ref passed.

I get the sense that a lot of the younger feminists have spent the last 3 years wearing a Repeal jumper and having the occasional spat on Twitter, thinking that's their bit done for feminism. They forget the actual blood, sweat and tears that feminists like Ailbhe Smyth have poured into the campaign over the last 30 years.

It was easy won for them, and now they're just looking for the next win.