Why it's important to talk to 'Handmaids'

[arranfan]

twitter.com/GNCmaninpink/status/1047455815567904768

There are many thoughtful points in that thread that approach the polarisation that Kirkup talks about in today's piece about Gender Orthodoxy leaving No Room for Dissent.

Some of these women that have been called "handmaidens" aren't going to budge. Many of them are hardened Labour / anarchist activists. They wont budge position and will stand by and even take part in the harassment, doxxing and violence against radical feminists & allies.

3. For example the attack on Bristol WNTT event wasn't organised by TAs it was organised by feminist women in Bristol. Same with London, Brighton, Cardiff & Leeds. Where there's large pockets of already active feminist women there will be counter-demos to radical feminist events.

5. The refusal to challenge other women over self ID and just write them off as "handmaidens" will make sure Self ID will become law in the UK. TA's like many other men are crap at organising and only have gotten as far as they did through intersectional feminist involvement.

The whole thread is worth reading - that's the wisdom of someone who's been through a number of civil rights campaigns.

I know we all call them handmaids now, so it's common parlance, but I it is more apt to call them Serena Joys! Regardless of the nomenclature, it would be useful to know if anybody on the board has ever been able to persuade a person of this ilk to look at the wider picture. I suppose there are a wide range of motivations/reasons why they get swept up in it (social conditioning for one, and many of them seem young) but any pointers would help, in case I get a chance to converse with one. Grass roots feminism.

I agree but many of them are so brainwashed. It makes me feel sad to see them betraying their own sex.

I once read an article about a man who was working with young Islamic militants post-9/11. He was trying to get them to abandon their ideology, with most being absolutely rigid about it being right. These were young men who wanted to martyr themselves and kill Westeners.

He said the only way to do it was to question them. Talking at them didn't work because they dug their heels in but questions exposed holes in their beliefs. I think any religion is vulnerable to questions being asked.

I think we need to use this tactic too. Questions around consent, sport, prisons and people like rape victims are all good ones to ask.

Socratic questioning?

Good frameworks here:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socratic_questioning
changingminds.org/techniques/questioning/socratic_questions.htm

Yes! That's an excellent link

@drradfem has posted one approach here but it's notable that people were shouting over her to say that she wasn't being silenced - advising her to hold her own meetings and then refusing to accept that that is not proving to be possible. www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3384525-vast-hairy-prongs

I don't even know what a handmaid is???

I cant keep up with his name changes! He was Madonna the other day.

He's a battle-hardened warrior that one - quite fearless. I don't always agree with everything but the man speaks a lot of sense, and with warmth and compassion. And has some cracking dresses.

Here he is: smashinggenderchange.wordpress.com/2018/09/30/to-conclude/

I used to live in a country where ladies were so 'loved and protected' that they didn't need to drive
Quite a few - a shocking amount - believed that lie. I heard it so often I wanted to scream 'Wake Up love'. I just recently watched the Handmaid's Tale and saw the comparisons. These women aren't Handmaids they are Serenas. They are bright intelligent women, they've been or have lived outside their home country where they drive, work, go to school, DONT wear a black cloak and mask, yet they perpetuate the old lie about 'protection' once back in their homeland.
I compare the women who believe the trans claptrap to them.
Sad times.

I have a question that's been bugging me since the IW-PP tv appearance, which might also be asked by a well-meaning t-ally as an easy 'gotcha'.

It does need an easy answer (not just "not our problem", even though that is the factually and legally, and even morally correct answer), if we are to engage with them rather than descend into wall-against-wall arguments.

Where do men who have been raped need to go to get help/ support?

I know when people ask that they are basically showing their MRA tendencies, but instead of accusing them, could we work out a 'helpful' reply (that could work in 240 characters...)?

Safeline works with male rape victims

The is also the National Male Survivors Helpline

And other charities too. A very quick google flags them up. TRA's could find that info very quickly.

Quite a few - a shocking amount - believed that lie

A lot of women spoke out against women getting the vote, too. We focus so much on the actions of the suffragettes, it's easy to forget how many women would have been against their actions and their cause. I read an account just recently which was written by an affluent, educated woman who wrote how ridiculous she thought it was that any women believed having the vote mattered. She couldn't see that her life had been affected by not having it. The suffragettes bored and irritated her.

I think, like a lot of women, I was possibly more handmaidy when I was younger (although I never believed men could become women). But I was definitely more 'lipstick is a chooooice' and 'sex work is a chooooice' and 'everything is a fucking chooooice'. So I do wonder if I was 10 years younger if I'd also be on the libfem side of things.

It was actually this place that changed my mind, over a course of two or three years. It took time, but a lot of women making great arguments eventually got me to see the light. They weren't even polite about it, which is what changed my mind I think, they outright told me I was being dim, which obviously massively offended me at first, but in the end, yeah, I was being dim lol.

I'm hoping that a lot of libfems are reading here and gradually gradually realising that they're being lied to.

I think it happens to most women as they get older, get married, have kids and realise the world is stacked against them.

Me too (!)

It wasn't even arguing one way or another on the theory- just the constant stories of abuse by men of women, and how and why it happens, and the fact that refuges and Women's Aid are constantly targeted by abusive men...

gendercritter

thanks - I didn't know what to google. It's not the agenda driven TRAs (or indeed the MRAs) who need the info, though, is it? It's the well-meaning and slightly distracted allies, who may think that the only provision for sexual assault is that for women and therefore once people have been raped they need access to those spaces too.

And a lot of these women have been outright lied to about what radical feminism or any kind of gender-critical position actually is.