Jean Hatchet, new blog post

[SugarPlumFairy99]

jeanhatchet.blogspot.com/2019/01/why-i-wont-be-standing-up-for-women.html

This blog post from Jean is eye-opening. Working alongside anti-abortion, hard right groups undermines decades of feminism.

Shame on Posie. I agree with Jean, I will also be sitting down for women.

Being right wing or pro life isn't actually a crime. I'm strongly pro choice but like both Kaeley Triller and Caroline Farrow who are religious and strongly pro life. They have very different outlooks to me on some issues but total agreement on this. The idea that you have to subscribe to set beliefs is the reason so many people, myself included, are becoming so alienated by the authoritarianism of some of the left.

Oxytocindeficient, okay, well maybe you can somehow reconcile that in your mind. I personally can't. I don't claim to speak for everyone at all. I am just explaining my perspective and my extreme reservations about a particular person.

Oh and no right-wing Christians, anti-abortionists or think-tanks are 'gender-critical'. If that's what you think, you have fundamentally misunderstood. They absolutely fucking love gender stereotypes. They just also happen to dislike trans people because they don't fit the gender stereotypes.

I've never seen Posie start posts with racist undertones on these boards. Which threads?

We are going back years and years and under different usernames. I have been on this site a long time.

I agree with Jean, I will also be sitting down for women.

SugarPlumFairy99 When Jean Hatchet says this she is referring to her rides for murdered women.

I think you may be new to FWR and perhaps also to feminism.

Jean Hatchet has been doing this for over two years and raised thousands of pounds for a charity supporting women (adult human females) that are the victims of male violence and abuse.

Jean explains:
"I want to raise money to help victims of domestic violence. This money will go to Wearside Women In Need who face the closure of all 4 of their women's refuges because of a planned withdrawal of funding by Sunderland Council. Women will die as a result of that decision. We must save the women in Sunderland from men who will murder them.

At first my idea was really simple. I was riding along by the coast a couple of days ago and in my head thinking, as I often do, how many women are murdered as a result of domestic violence every year. How lucky I am to be riding my bike. Free. No one to tell me not to. Not any more.

This is not so for many women. Some women are with men who would smash their bike when they returned. Some women are with men who would call them too stupid, too fat, too selfish, too old, too useless to be doing something so simple and free as riding a bike. Some women can no longer ride a bike because they are dead. A man who they thought loved them, killed them.

So, for the rest of 2017, I will cycle for women who were murdered by men known to them in 2016. It is a big list. I will dedicate each ride to a woman. I cycled on Saturday for Katrina O'Hara. Stabbed to death by her partner Stuart Thomas.

The saddest thing is wondering if I have enough cycling days left in 2017 to honour the deaths of the women murdered in 2016. That was a very sobering thought. But I will do my best.

I promise that I will never ride less than 10 miles for any woman on the list... my usual ride is between 20 and 40 miles. I promise I will ride till my lungs scream. These women were worth it. Let us honour those women and celebrate their lives.

Wearside Women In Need have kindly agreed to accept the money. Claire Moore who runs the Dead Women Walking Murder March is providing me with the list of women.

As with the last fund I set up.... no money will touch my bank account at any point and Go Fund Me will direct funds straight to the charity once it is completed. They will add their bank account and provide verification.

Please help me to help women escape men who may kill them."
uk.gofundme.com/ride-for-murdered-women

Jean Hatchet's speech from Manchester, 'We Need to Talk About Women' should really be watched:
(from 14:00 in)

Funkyfunkybeat12 "But I can't accept the argument that I should suck up the fact that these groups fundamentally hate lesbians and bi women and WOC. It may be easier to do that if you are a white heterosexual, because these issues don't directly touch you. But how can I think it's okay to form links with groups who call me unnatural and want my 'lifestyle' eradicated?"

Maybe, then, you should interact with and work with "right wing" women so that they get to know you and learn that you are no more and no less than a woman just like them?

“Just like that other 'say what I think' advocate, Katie Hopkins.”

Yeah, I get those Fb posts which declare her to be absolute evil. Thing is, though I normally would not bother to click on her ‘rent a gob’ articles, she wrote a really good one, saying the unsayable about dementia. (My mother , if she were able to articulate her views, would really prefer to be dead than in a long dotage with minimal dignity).

This condemnation of people rather than a rebuttal of thing they say, is facile. Not allowing people a voice is dangerous. Ok, and actually I have never listened to him, was Tommy Robinson right about grooming gangs? If the answer is ‘sort of’, we surely can’t simply ignore his message by vilifying the man. Those poor girls. Instead we/our politicians, take action, thus stripping him of his platform.

And those places where local Councils/police etc are still dragging their feet. We condemn them and accept that if no other voice (like those wonderful women whistleblowers) can be heard, people will support the likes of Robinson.

In the US it looks as if moderate women have not been allowed a platform, despite some real unease about self-ID. So the only platform is the ‘far right’

Posie chooses to use it, presumably after establishing some boundaries. Jean not. That is her perogative.

But inevitably judgy people like Funky will condemn. And oh heterosexuals won’t understand. Is that because we have the wrong coloured brains?

Bog off.

We are going back years and years and under different usernames. I have been on this site a long time.

Really? Which threads? Which usernames? You are accusing a woman of racism in a very specific way. Please substantiate that accusation.

I have read here for years and don't know what you are talking about. Happy to stand corrected if you can substantiate.

Funkyfunkybeat12

You repeatedly said ‘we’, as if you were speaking for everyone.

You also didn’t just talk about extreme reservations. You called her names and made accusations, none of which you have backed up with any proof and one which has been disproven.

You absolutely can, and should, make your own decisions about who you’d like to work with on issues important to you. But you’ve got a very idealistic view of things and don’t understand how politics and campaigning works. You also are of the opinion that one should only work with people or groups on the left, you appear to take issue with anyone or anything on the right. Right now, the left are hellbent on changing laws which take away a very important right for women. All women. So in this instance, I will work with all women who are on our side on this, with some personal limits of course. Every one of us are entitled to set our own limits. I will not start a character assassination of any woman fighting for all our rights, because her limits are slightly different to mine. She is not racist. I’ve seen her comment on those accusations and they’re not fair or accurate.

It's not the pro-life part that should be a warning sign, Bluestitch. It's the organized and coordinated lying and manipulation about it from groups.

When we are talking about Heritage or the US RW, we are not talking about individuals with individual views. We are talking about organization(s) which have and are using an anti-women agenda to achieve certain ends.

Polarization of US politics begins and ends with race and sex. In order to maintain electability, conservative have spent the past 2 to 4 decades appealing to white people, specifically white males by bashing The Other, whether that is POC or women.

It is a documented phenomenon. This version can even dated to a document issued by a Speaker of the House following the GOP takeover of the House in 1994.

Thank you to all the women and girls who worked hard to raise awareness around grooming gangs, including the girls themselves. Thanks to Andrew Norfolk at The Times. None of us needed Tommy Robinson.

I agree wholeheartedly with Jean in this.
The further away people are from the reality of what was / what is happening the less they understand.

R0wan I agree about Jean's Manchester speech. It should be broadcast as far and wide as possible.

Maybe, then, you should interact with and work with "right wing" women so that they get to know you and learn that you are no more and no less than a woman just like them?

Really? I should interact with homophobic/racist groups so that they can 'get to know me' and that will change their minds? Is this general advice or just aimed at me?

Thankfully I am not the only one who values integrity:

twitter.com/janeclarejones/status/1088894444223557632

Interesting how on this thread, people are saying 'oh well being an anti-abortionist/right-winger/Katie Hopkins isn't actually that bad'. And then the whole sarky comments about how heterosexuals have different coloured brains when someone is trying to explain that they cannot go along with a movement that fundamentally hate them and that if you're not hated by that movement, it might be easier to put differences aside. Sigh.

Posie Parker statement on accusations from WPUK.

www.theposieparker.com/statement-about-tweets-and-wpuk

Hate to say this (no, I don't), but lots of trans people and allies warned you about dodgy allies. We told you, we told you, we told you.

I am feeling a sliver of respect towards Ms Hatchet (in addition to the same good wishes re her health which I would extend towards any other cancer sufferer).

I stand for Jean, for Posie, and for ALL women who are fighting for our rights. Right wing, left wing, religious, atheist, rich, poor... I don't care. We stand together

Here is the statement linked above:

Statement on my tweets and WPUK

I would first like to thank all the women, and some men, who have sent messages of support. It's been quite overwhelming.

Late on Tuesday evening I received a private message on twitter from one the organisers of WPUK, it was brief and included words like religion and race and a desire to rescind my invitation to speak at their event in Cornwall. WPUK do great work for women on the left and if they feel I'm not a good fit then that's entirely up to them. However I was rather shocked at the insinuation of being racist and wondered what "religious" views really meant. I had had a facebook conversation only that day discussing issues with silence around trans activism and Islam on the left, both falling foul to "phobias".

Wednesday morning I awoke very very early, I was wondering how I could best be ejected from WPUK without damaging the movement as a whole. It seems I was alone in my concern as WPUK issued a damning statement that has really opened myself and the entire movement to the most horrific abuse. You would have to be spectacularly stupid to not foresee these consequences.

Around the same time I had allowed my temper to get the better of me and tweet an off the cuff comment to a trans activist on the day of the Irish abortion result. The activist was one of many talking about abortion being a cis privilege and exclusionary for transwomen and transmen. "Women who think they're men should be sterilised" I think this was an aggressive, but in context, tweet. As I, obviously, don't support eugenics or forced sterilisation I didn't anticipate it would be used to suggest I held these views. I understand that there are some extreme sensitivities around the suggestion of sterilisation and I had not intended to flare up any of those. I guess I was pretty stupid to think these words would not be taken as read or, worse, even more weight to be put upon them. I believe in a woman's complete autonomy over her reproduction.

As for the other, more tenuous, tweets on my views on Islam or any religion let me be clear. I am a feminist and an anti theist. Those two belief systems do not mix well with women's oppression within patriarchal religions.

There have also been various screen shots of facebook comments which are trying to paint me as a lesbophobic woman, one comment was me responding to being called a breeder. I am fully aware of the sidelining and abuse that lesbians receive from all sides in our society and I would never wish to add to that.

If anyone has any questions please feel free to contact me via usual places.

Really? I should interact with homophobic/racist groups so that they can 'get to know me' and that will change their minds? Is this general advice or just aimed at me?

I very much doubt anyone has told you who you must interact with.
From what I've read (& I have just skimmed) this seems to be about you tellling other women who they must not interact with.

(Its not all about you, no)

Funkyfunkybeat12 "I should interact with homophobic/racist groups so that they can 'get to know me' and that will change their minds? Is this general advice or just aimed at me? "

It is general advice. How else do we genuinely dismantle prejudice? Law can force people to comply superficially while not changing any actual prejudicial beliefs.

Miriam Ben-Shalom, a lesbian feminist, talking to Deep Green Resistance Women's Caucus about why she teamed up with a conservative christian woman linked to the Heritage Foundation to form Hands Across the Aisle and how they have formed a successful strategic alliance on a single issue despite having many areas of strong disagreement.

Everyone has personal boundaries and the absolute right to them.

I do think it worthwhile within the polarized context of American politics for those of us who feel able to, to actually to reach out and speak to women who don't share our party registrations or many of our other positions.

This quote from the Hands Across the Aisle website interested me:

I am a traditionalist conservative but have found my greatest partners in the fight against gender ideology in the lesbians and feminists in our Rapid Onset Dysphoria support group. Obviously we don’t agree on everything, and that’s fine — that’s part of living in a free country. But when an ideology starts driving medical malpractice and has social and legal implications which negatively impact all of us — that’s when we have to link hands across the aisle and fight to bring biological reality back to the forefront.

When I question the trans narrative, as an Eastern Orthodox Christian, I am immediately labeled a bigot. I think it is my sisters on the left of the aisle who will eventually make a breakthrough to sanity on this issue for all those of us.

My ‘sarky’ comment was in response to this “Perhaps if you have lived your life conforming to the heterosexual ideal, it is hard for you to see how offensive what Posie does and says is.”

To be honest I am completely uninterested in your sexuality. Except it comes across as quite arrogant. Do lesbians now see themselves as somehow ‘better’ women in the way that trans women appear to do. Other than the fact you are presumably GC, it sounds as if you have swallowed the rest of the left wing right think package. OK, except you might use you experience of being outside the fold on TWAW, to understand that some of us are outside the fold on lots of the current Momentum agenda. And are very sick of being lectured at and not listened to.

Nobody said that KH isn't that bad. One person said that they happened to agree with one thing she said about dementia.

I have no idea how well Hands Across the Aisle went, but isn't that an example of right and left wing women putting their differences aside to concentrate on a common issue? I imagine that this was a challenging process for women on both sides. And yet they did it.

Thankfully I am not the only one who values integrity

Disagreement does not mean lack of integrity.

We all thought about Hands Across the Aisle at the same time!

GrinitchSpinach thank you for sharing that, really worth reading

June 2018 When WPUK withdrew from the planned Truro the amazing women from the area pulled together the event and LAWS was born.

Speeches from Jean Hatchet's representative, Posie Parker & SwearyG (ManFriday)

Let women speak and listen to what they actually say.

LAWS has become an amazing established group, running really important events.

See their website 'About Us':
"You could be here.

That's right. We are just a bunch of ordinary women who decided we had to do something.

We have different backgrounds, different experiences, but one thing in common: we are women.

Women who were worried, scared, angry (in various degrees) about what we were hearing online about men accessing women's only spaces.

We all, if you like, reached "peak-trans". We all have our stories to tell.

So do you.

We are only here because we decided we had to do something beyond sitting around being worried, scared, and angry.

We still experience all of those emotions (and more), but we have purpose now too. We want to let women speak, and we want to hear women speak.

We are you."
www.letawomanspeak.org/about