Another Woman Hounded Out of Employment...

[SunsetBeetch]

A twitter account called @thewhitepube, run by two intensely irritating very young women, has been targetting a woman called Nina Edge for alleged 'transphobia', which has apparently culminated in her being sacked.

Excuse me WHO is running the @welshstreets account and retweeting bad terf bullshit logic?

I will loudly bang this drum tomorrow when everyone’s awake 😊 @edge_nina @welshstreets pls let me know in the meantime!! Sweet dreams Xxxxx

It appear the Welsh Streets account has become the soapbox for artist @edge_nina (who was recently commissioned to do the winter garden) to spout transphobia, does that represent the view of all involved in the Welsh Streets effort?

I understand why people followed the account in the past (because their housing activism has been good for Liverpool) but I would urge everyone to unfollow in the meantime because you are just putting your trans followers and audiences at arms length in the meantime.

That's quite odd. Zarina (one of the accounts behind this seems to make alt-right jihad meme videos )

I'm pretty sure that content would be illegal in several dozen countries in the world. www.timesofisrael.com/dj-to-be-charged-in-tunisia-for-muslim-prayer-remix/

Why is mocking one set of religious beliefs (Islam in that case) acceptable, but another one (that men can change sex) means you must be sacked?

ALL ‘visiting tutors’ in all subjects, in all educational establishments should be alarmed at this.

It sets a precedent for anyone to lose their positions based on a couple of student complaints, complaints potentially motivated by personal greivances, such as low grades.

If the tutor in question had actually been convicted of a hate crime, then fair enough, out they go. Otherwise, wtf?

I certainly am alarmed.

The Uni in question have this afternoon issued possibly the blandest, most information-free statement I've ever seen.

twitter.com/LJMU/status/1056163199022710786

.

mobile.twitter.com/ystriya/status/1056183049002590208

^^good thread.

I hadn't heard of Nina Edge before but it seems she is a socially engaged artist who has done some great work for different communities.

I was wondering, have the two foolish young women behind "the white pube" done any socially engaged work or helped any community in any way? They come off as spoilt arrogant children who are trying to make a career by insulting people and exploiting the worst, most vicious aspects of social media.

I wondered too at the influence of Xavier de Sousa and Vijay Patel in getting Julie Bindel no platformed. She is a lesbian, a working class woman with decades of serious women's rights activism. They are two male performance artists who focus on exploring their identities, as far as I can tell.

It's just so unbalanced. Why would anyone put more weight on the opinions of pretentious self obsessed people like these over proven social activists?

Since when was tweeting nasty shit at women online and trying to get them fired considered more socially useful than actually working to make the world better?

These two little fascists twats are seriously deranged. Their ignorance combined with the gleeful hatred and zealotry they are demonstrating is actually frightening.

To paraphrase one of their tweets. This shit needs to be stopped. Now.

Kids today eh

Not going to link to their Patreon because they don’t deserve the attention, but I laughed quite a lot at their claim that they wish to write art criticism which supports artists. Particularly at the part which claims they want to write for a living.

Given their response to one Twitter user was, “suck my duck”, let’s hope they don’t give up their day jobs.

Oh, that’s right, they don’t have one. They expect the public to support them while they witter away.

That seems a running thread with TRA activists - their jobs are self-referential, being paid by public bodies to talk about themselves.

Nina Edge was gainfully employed and working for her community, so of course a pair of entitled munchkins worked hard to lose her, her job.

In ten years time, when these spiteful children are struggling with the issues confronting adult women, I hope they have the grace and insight to apologise for the harm they have caused.

I know Andrea Dworkin said all our sisters, but she was much more patient than I. If I were their mums and dads, I’d be turning off the wifi and insisting they get a job.

It really is abhorrent. Yes I agree with the comparisons to fascist foot soldiers. At some point there has to be a pushback from the University's surely. Whether it comes from other academics, parents who pay the fees or the more free thinking students, whose to say.

I have a lot of sympathy for young people these days. They do have a lot to contend with. Soaring housing prices, high cost of living, highly competitive job markets, it really can't be easy. But ones like those two aren't doing themselves any favours.

I do wonder how our society has come to this. These self absorbed people so rigid in their beliefs. Sure there are elements of narcissism and the know it all of youth, but there has to be another factor. Maybe they haven't been told NO enough. Raised to believe they are always right?

I've been following this on twitter with increasing horror.

I have a lot of sympathy for young people these days. They do have a lot to contend with. Soaring housing prices, high cost of living, highly competitive job markets, it really can't be easy.

Most of us out of our 20s are dealing with all that too and we are more likely to have children and ageing parents to support.

The young people I know trying to get on with their lives aren't TRAs. Most of the loud young TRAs seem to be relatively privileged. Bristol Uni, Oxford and Goldsmiths fgs.

I've just commented on the other thread about academic freedom as I didn't realise that this thread was also running about the same case. The version of events that these two are presenting doesn't add up for me, as someone who has worked in HE. I find it telling that LJMU have not made any comment other than to say that they are 'aware' of the issue - they have not confirmed that there has been any dismissal. I just can't see how the timelines of this add up. They started tweeting on 24 & 25 Oct, and then by 27 Oct 'the students have had a meeting' and she's been dismissed? That doesn't fit with any university process I've ever seen in operation.

I don't doubt they've made a complaint, which is ridiculous, and if they have the University will have to investigate, which will be horribly stressful for the poor woman in question, for whom many sympathies. But I can't see how the WP have managed to achieve a dismissal at this stage; if they have, something is very wrong in LJMU's governance and would be open to challenge.

I have a lot of sympathy for young people these days. They do have a lot to contend with. Soaring housing prices, high cost of living, highly competitive job markets, it really can't be easy.

When I was 18, it had only recently become illegal to pay men and women differently for the same job.

It had only just become illegal to run a quota system for professional university studies (e.g., medicine, dentistry).

There was horrendous, truly life-alteringly bad unemployment levels. I was threatened with violence by men who resented that I had a job and women who resented that I had a job when men didn't. (Let's set aside that family bereavement meant there was no other income and no other choice.)

It was impossibly difficult to obtain a mortgage for all but a relatively small number of people - even professional women with stable employment couldn't hold one.

I could continue. Yes, circumstances are bad but they're far from distinctively more awful than many other adults have had to overcome from substantially worse positions (in some cases) and with far fewer resources (in some cases).

It’s going to come as a bit of a shock when they get to middle age and find the next gen of bright young idiots despise them for their incorrect ideology.

Yep arranfan

When I was their age a very small proportion of people got to go to university. A lot of us who didn't get that opportunity were stuck in temp job after temp job with unpredictable breaks in between, and no holiday or sick pay. Or really low paid retail because there was no minimum wage. We didn't have half as much stuff as young people seem to now, few people I knew had a computer and this was pre mobile phones and internet access. I think only one or two of my friends had cars.

Most people I know now of my age are still renting! Precariously in private rents, sitting on years and years long social housing lists, considered lucky if they are in social housing.

Not to get all "in my day we walked miles in the snow" but it seems to me like the TRA youth are probably the most privileged kids of their generation, and more privileged than any previous generation too.

I know there is a lot of shit they have to deal with, like porn everywhere and capitalism gone insane, but the TRA kids seem to celebrate those things, even while they might pretend to be anarchists.

Oh look they have been in The Guardian (credit to Jennifer James, who poated the link on twitter).

amp.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2018/jun/12/the-white-pube-art-criticism?CMP=share_btn_tw&__twitter_impression=true

From the comments

“We’re supported by people who agree that the art world is fucked – but also by people who feel powerless to change that,” they conclude. “I think that’s why it feels like we are a cult success. There are a lot of people in agreement with us about it being a white, cishet, male space for rich middle-class knobs.”

Totally agree - I dream of the day when the art critic world is full pretentious knobs of all backgrounds.

I feel like "that's nice, dear" and a pat on the head is the most appropriate response the poor bastard at the Uni who had to listen to their complaint could have given.

When you're at university your views are supposed to be challenged. That's part of what universities are for.

Well they have all the power of the establishment behind them, don't they?

The irony too that in the art world where people spend their lives trying to be controversial, that the most controversial thing an artist can say, so controversial that they lose their job over it, is that men cannot become women.

This is one of the people who went to the "meeting". Her TL at the moment is just...wow...

twitter.com/MetallicNuance/status/1056653485180096512?s=19

I'm actually struck speechless that these people think they are right and good.

I suppose melodrama is the purview of the young and clueless.

I imagine if you expend so much energy ensuring your environment contains nothing which challenges the limpid blandness of your critical thinking apparatus, even minor bumps against your smug self-righteousness must feel like colliding with a meteor.

What a pair of utter thugs. I'm speechless.

As ever, George Orwell was way ahead of the rest of us here.

'What are you in for?' said Winston.

'Thoughtcrime!' said Parsons, almost blubbering. The tone of his voice implied at once a complete admission of his guilt and a sort of incredulous horror that such a word could be applied to himself. He paused opposite Winston and began eagerly appealing to him: 'You don't think they'll shoot me, do you, old chap? They don't shoot you if you haven't actually done anything -- only thoughts, which you can't help? I know they give you a fair hearing. Oh, I trust them for that! They'll know my record, won't they? You know what kind of chap I was. Not a bad chap in my way. Not brainy, of course, but keen. I tried to do my best for the Party, didn't I? I'll get off with five years, don't you think? Or even ten years? A chap like me could make himself pretty useful in a labour-camp. They wouldn't shoot me for going off the rails just once?'

'Are you guilty?' said Winston.

'Of course I'm guilty!' cried Parsons with a servile glance at the telescreen. 'You don't think the Party would arrest an innocent man, do you?' His frog-like face grew calmer, and even took on a slightly sanctimonious expression. 'Thoughtcrime is a dreadful thing, old man,' he said sententiously. 'It's insidious. It can get hold of you without your even knowing it. Do you know how it got hold of me? In my sleep! Yes, that's a fact. There I was, working away, trying to do my bit -- never knew I had any bad stuff in my mind at all. And then I started talking in my sleep. Do you know what they heard me saying?'

He sank his voice, like someone who is obliged for medical reasons to utter an obscenity.

"Down with Big Brother!" Yes, I said that! Said it over and over again, it seems. Between you and me, old man, I'm glad they got me before it went any further. Do you know what I'm going to say to them when I go up before the tribunal? "Thank you," I'm going to say, "thank you for saving me before it was too late."

'Who denounced you?' said Winston.

'It was my little daughter,' said Parsons with a sort of doleful pride. 'She listened at the keyhole. Heard what I was saying, and nipped off to the patrols the very next day. Pretty smart for a nipper of seven, eh? I don't bear her any grudge for it. In fact I'm proud of her. It shows I brought her up in the right spirit, anyway.'