Lighthouse 'radical' bookshop Edinburgh makes a statement on 'no platform'

[Laterthanyouthink]

www.lighthousebookshop.com/2019/02/16/to-platform-or-not-to-platform-where-we-stand.html

I cannot get my head around this at all, a bookshop should be the last place to find censorship

Wait, was that the dog that went to the protest outside the forwomen scot meeting? (Nice plan to bring a large dog to a protest) I guess he/she is on board then.

She's a gorgeous (adult female) dog. I'll miss her. To be fair, I didn't see her at the protest and I was outside talking to protestors for about half an hour so I think they might have taken her for the photo-op and then taken her away again. The protest was entirely unthreatening and non-violent though the comments by Sisters Uncut and supporters on social media before and after the event were anything but, and might have put some women off attending.

I’m pretty sure the statement said they were happy to discuss the position they have adopted with anyone who comes in acting in good faith, but that if you aren’t someone who would generally shop there and are only attending for the specific purpose of telling them you think they’re wrong, they aren’t interested.

What they say is "if customers have any legitimate concerns about this policy they are welcome to discuss them with us in a constructive fashion". I've bought their books and attended their events (until the Radical Book Festival where their safe space policy made it clear I wasn't welcome) so I'm thinking about taking them up on this because I believe in dialogue and I don't spontaneously combust when someone disagrees with me. However, they've made it clear they don't consider my 'concerns' to be 'legitimate' before I've even voiced them, so I don't know that I want to waste my time.

Lila as you are keen on safe spaces do you think female beauty therapists who only have experience of waxing vulvas have the right not to have to look at or touch naked testicles and penises in their work places?

Do you think it is right that the person to whom the testicles and penis belong is entitled to sue these woman for damages on the basis this person has been discriminated against?

What is the Lighthouse view on this?

So the fairy story continues, the mothers must be killed off and the harridans beaten and banished. Just another day on mumsnet FMW board.

Who are the Virgins in this post modern body fairy tale?

Mornington I found the protestors fairly intimidating, but not so much in person as in the attempts to have the event cancelled. The dog was there when I went in, fortunately they were too busy talking to it to bother harranging me.

So the fairy story continues, the mothers must be killed off

Now I feel so guilty because I've just killed off a mother in a fairy story I've written :( Of course, the other reason mothers frequently get killed off in folk tales and fairy stories is because so many women died in childbirth in ye olde days so it was a normal occurrence for children to be left motherless.

conditioned by patriarchal control of the discourse

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

Oh, the fucking irony. Let's have a few contemporary examples, shall we?

Menstruators.
Front holes.
Cervix havers.
Cis.

ZigZagZombie
Lila is quite clearly the new owner or a very, very close friend/girlfriend.

Imagine the absolute fucking gall of showing up on a FWR board to lecture us on lit as if none of us have read The Blood Chamber FFS!!!

Read the room Lila.

I hope this gets your shop the publicity you were after. I suspect it may have the opposite effect, Edinburgh is a village after all. I would have a lot more respect for someone who could make their point without being a condescending ignoramous btw. Did you mean to be so rude?

FWIW dimorphic biology, that's where this board (and most of humanity) hangs it's hook, that's how the babies get made, post modern body bahahaha...

I tell you what is excellent post modernism is this ---->

Speaking of the book shop using their dog as a photo op I'm just wondering if my dog, who was used by a puppy farm to produce 3 litters by age 3, then suffered from breast cancer and debilitating phantom pregnancy would have been able to have avoided all that if she had self-identified as a male?

Of course Iggy because a post modern trans doggie body can self id out of sex and biology any time they choose.

Well done on the pooch rescue.

Oh, the fucking irony.

😅

Must admit I've never set foot in a feminist bookshop, and wouldn't have thought it was a viable business idea anyway, but to have a feminist bookshop and then decide to make it even more niche by making it all about men beggars belief.

😅

(should I leave FWR and never post here again now that I've outed myself?)

They sound like such fun too...

Fun sponges

They sound like such fun too...

They do, don't they? 🤣

So fucking woke and earnest.

About 20 years ago a friend of mine worked in a shop centering men. It was a transvestite's paradise. They'd come in and she'd kit them out and try and teach them how to do their make-up without looking like a dame. It was a fully-fledged fetish business and these men were "hiding" their fetish but wanted to look the part for Friday night in town/living room.

Now it's right out there in the open and if you say you're not buying in to the fetish then apparently you're a traitor to feminism. Woke progress.

Now it's right out there in the open and if you say you're not buying in to the fetish then apparently you're a traitor to feminism. Woke progress.

Indeed, this seems to be the inconvenient truth.

OP can you have the title of this thread changed to remove the word Lighthouse?

Thinking something like

Edinburgh bookshop under new ownership, once radical now just attention seeking via no platforming statement.

OP can you have the title of this thread changed to remove the word Lighthouse?

Surely Lighthouse are proud of their statement? Why remove the name?

The thread seems to be a publicity drive for a failing bookshop riding on the coat tails of a former feminist establishment.

I can't imagine that MN readers will be flocking there, except to laugh at them, but you could be right

I got this reply from HQ

Thanks for getting in touch about this. If the OP contacts us and asks us to edit thread, we'll be more than happy to do so.

Over to you @Laterthanyouthink

Over to you Laterthanyouthink

Do you not think you're being a teenshy bit controlling? 😕

as if none of us have read The Blood Chamber FFS!!!

Or Marina Warmers No go the Bogeyman or From the Beast to the Blonde or any of the numerous analysis by Jack Zipes.

we always strive to platform a wide and diverse range of voices

Provided we agree with them. If we don't, we censor them.

Regarding the discussion about censorship upthread: I don't engage with idiots. I am happy to let them make idiots of themselves of public, though.

evil old harridans

You rang?

I, and many other trans-inclusive women, feel more welcome there as a result of this stance

Yes, because no one is any danger of being exposed to an idea they don't agree with.

Just popping on to appreciate the addition of Postmodern Jukebox.

My local bookshop isn't even "radical" but they'll still engage with everyone without judging what they're buying.