The fucking Guardian again

[GCAcademic]

Just tried to comment on this article by pointing out the issues at Holbeck, down the road from where the author works:

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jun/03/uk-feminists-embrace-sex-workers-rights#comment-129762450

Only pro-prostitution comments are allowed, it seems. Mine was deleted very quickly. Men (and their inevitably privileged, middle-class, cool girl, penis-rights supporters) are the only people allowed to participate btl. They are now pre-moderating comments to ensure that us women don’t get ideas above our station and begin to think that we are anything more than commodities and spunk receptacles.

Oh, and just read the comments btl if you want to see the raging misogyny and sexual entitlement of left-wing men laid bare.

"Kate Hardy is associate professor of work and employment relations at the University of Leeds"

She says feminists refuse to let prostitutes join in the feminist movement, but has she demonstrated her feminist solidarity by joining her sisters in the Leeds managed zone a few nights a week? Solidarity is a two-way street as much in the red light district as everywhere else.

Letting men rent women's reproductive organs by the hour for male masturbation has nothing to do with men's continued control of women's reproductive organs regarding abortion because liberals say so.

She says feminists refuse to let prostitutes join in the feminist movement, but has she demonstrated her feminist solidarity by joining her sisters in the Leeds managed zone a few nights a week? Solidarity is a two-way street as much in the red light district as everywhere else.

You know, she really should. It would be so empowering for her to experience prostitution, I’m sure her day job would pale into insignificance.

Yet another privileged middle-class wanker that doesn’t give a shit about anything other than her own career and woke-cred. I wonder how empowered foreign girls trafficked into that area feel? Or the parents who have men trying to buy their children and babies by the hour? Or that teacher who was snatched from the street and gang raped, and the rapists not even charged because they had the cast-iron excuse of thinking that she was a prostitute? I’m embarrassed to be in the same profession as this dick-rights activist.

The comments are a joy. I'm particularly pleased to be informed that there is no issue with trafficked women in the UK, and that there are probably only around 4000 of them getting raped a number of times a day. Warms the heart, no?

It's the guardian ffs. Why expect anything else?

Just read this myself, and it's just so lazy and lame.

• There's just no excuse for Kate Hardy not to comment on the problematic situation in Leeds, where she works and presumably lives

• Compares Argentina to UK, no consideration at all that these two countries might be quite different in their economies and cultures

• That same old trope that abolitionist feminists 'don't like' sex workers. supporting sex workers is not the same as denying that prostitution is an abusive industry with in-built inequalities that systematically and disproportionately harm women.

• And what is going on with the image? why is pro-abortion the same as pro-prostitution?

• One of the women Hardy talks about has to work 12 hours a day. Not because she wants to but because she has to. No concern what that would do to a female body, the health implications, nothing.

A labour relations academic that doesn't analyse the exploitative nature of prostitution ... it is embarrassing. I'm willing to listen to pro-decriminalisation arguments but this is obfuscating propaganda.

The word "men" isn't mentioned once. Male violence is, once again, treated like an agent-free force of nature that just kind of happens like the weather.

A person reading that would come away thinking the worst problem facing Argentinian prostitutes in is Argentinian feminists being snobbish mean girls.

"Feminists refuse to let prostitutes join the feminist movement..."

I had no idea we have to actually join. Is there a form to fill in, a subscription to pay? Here's me, after all these years a feminist and not knowing that. Tut.

Kate Hardy's twitter feed is interesting not really

twitter.com/katerhardy?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor

twitter.com/katerhardy/status/1135309386736447489

The latter is a tweet on international sex workers day. Obviously no one gives a shit.

Leeds, eh? Are they putting stupid juice in the water or something?

I would not say that all the comments that are critical have been deleted.

It's the ONE issue relating to women where you'll get a torrent of lefty men commenting below the line. Pension inequality? Zzzz. Maternity leave entitlements? Snore. Reproductive rights? Nada. But the "right" of women to be fucked for money - the woke bros are ALL over that one

Back in the day I used to go to Holbeck sometimes - when I read what's happening there, I fucking despair. All women are getting fucked over by this - the prostitutes working for a pittance and facing violence up to and including murder (RIP Dara Pionka, murdered within a month or two of the establishment of the fucking fucked-up "safe zone"), the women and girls harassed on the street while going about their business, the women dragged into passing cars and raped because they're in an area where fucking punters assume all women's bodies belong to them.

The Guardian, the woke bros, bloody traitors like Kate Hardy - there are no words harsh enough to describe how completely and utterly I despise them. Their callous disregard for women exposes them as the complete shitstains they are.

"Kate Hardy is associate professor of work and employment relations at the University of Leeds"

So busy waffling on about Argentina she hasn't the time to look what's happening in her home town.

GCAcademic

The Guardian has had a policy of deleting comments whose feminism doesn't tally with their male approved version.

this has been going on for over 10 years, before the trans issue took centre stage.

I was one of a group of feminists who tried over a year to comment (without insults etc) stating a more radical women's liberationist view point. At that time they allowed men to comment back saying we were all just men haters etc., etc.. And one by one we not only had our comments deleted by got suspended. We all kept signing up under different names but it kept on happening. So we sort of gave up (it is a minority paper!)

Some years later they did a survey and had to admit their comment section was hostile to women. So all they did then was in most instances not allow any comments on articles by one of their approved feminists.

On the other hand if you are on facebook it seems they dont operate a moderation policy there, and in recent years on their pro trans articles it has been a real contrast to read the "approved" coments on their web site and the radical feminist comments on their facebook posts.

The article on "sex work" ie prostitution doesn't as yet have any comments! www.facebook.com/GuardianOpinion/posts/2473605796005268?xts[0]=68.ARAOlDgyhRLeXNrTKX0sVV6f24Z1TiNrz5HNqkXhZFYbU_SE6t_2L9fbhpDJjFKUgvFzrqDtiQ7KjiVIaq5Vj-L21aYRqZoLCPAzNKu848062z6gSHSE8_yYo9FB0AsvJ4IqTJ_pAOghnMFetij9RY5J7MTkmE5IKr5xhu3Mc_pQTNB-3lrosH4EM3cV489bMHiTQ-ik2dnZTPuQvrE5Uw2arBX0P4X0ItHMQMZi3qndfkijtOKfKPhdazbxqz9uIDc1UKT-B6BJiD6c9ehY61aaS2uVN8W_rjtASMNnyfq_QNcSRWp6YdiVeWX8fVo-fo3hHCmBReuIFMPRLicZ-b1-Tw&tn=-R

This is Kate Hardy speaking at a "symposium" hosted by John McDonnell in the House of Commons and organised by The English Collective in 2015.

I didn't think it was possible for me to despise McDonnell more than I already did- but hey ho, live and learn.

The Guardianis weird in its commenting policy. Yes, they aren't great on feminist posts. But they also aren't great on allowing reasonable posts that disagreed with their (supposedly?) feminist columnists. Laura Bates often had pretty reasonable comments around her empirical process, and they were almost universally deleted.
In all their social articles there seems to be a tendency to delete what criticises the article in a clear way, and their Guardian picks are almost always in line with the article's point even when the majority of the comments are not.

@LassOfFyvie - that video was illuminating. Kate Hardy says the research was funded by the ESRC. Not them again. The ESRC keep popping up - ploughing £millions into anti-women 'research'. They gave £575,435.85 to No Outsiders in 2006 to develop their "Queering the Primary School" programme, all about sexualising young children, and removal of sexual boundaries. They also funded that dreadful 'research' that is still ongoing into incorporating 'gender identity' into law with a cool £750k. I wonder how much the ESRC gave for this pro-pimp research

ESRC as in TheEconomic and Social Research Council(ESRC) is part ofUK Research and Innovation(UKRI). UKRI is a non-departmental public body(NDPB)funded by the UK government. ESRC provides funding and support for research and training in thesocial sciences. It is the UK's largest organisation for funding research on economic and social issues

Why are they funding this? I didn't actually watch more than a few seconds of the video.

I have to say this is a fantastic article from the Observer.

www.theguardian.com/society/2019/jun/02/stephen-porges-interview-survivors-are-blamed-polyvagal-theory-fight-flight-psychiatry-ace

Flight or fight? Victims should not be blamed for standing still and doing nothing.

Also from the article:

You emphasise the importance of safe spaces for the traumatised. How can these be applied?
Whether we’re talking about medical treatment or psychiatric models, the context in which the treatment is delivered becomes important, because the context triggers cues in the nervous system, which will make it either defensive or available to treatment. So the first thing is to understand how bodies respond to context. A scared individual doesn’t bring into an operating arena a nervous system that is going to cooperate and collaborate with the medical procedures. We’re not machines that are detached from our thoughts and feelings. In veterinary medicine, animals like cats often drop dead within the veterinarian’s office because of the fear and uncertainty. So we’re working on ways of giving cues of safety.

Yet another privileged middle-class wanker that doesn’t give a shit about anything other than her own career and woke-cred.

You know, women in sex work say the exact same thing about people opposed to prostitution; that they are mostly middle class women who are restricting the ability of sex workers to make a living and forcing them into poverty.

By the way, the Guardian is neither in favour of sex work nor against it. I used to see frequent articles on the Guardian arguing against it. I am actually surprised that they have started publishing articles for the other side. If you need prove that the Guardian is not biased in favour of decriminalisation of sex work, Google the articles that Julie Bindel has written for the Guardian on the subject.

The article is jawdropping:

As the Argentinian experience shows us, sex workers have a privileged position from which to teach us about gendered violence and women’s work.

Did she really describe experiencing the absolute worst of male violence and male sexual violence a "privilege" because it means prostituted women can teach other woman what it's like? What is this woman on? How privileged, out of touch and man-serving do you have to be to limit the significance of male violence against prostituted women to it being a useful teaching tool?

She knows that prostituted women experience men's violence on a scale quite outwith that of almost any other woman, she's telling us this, yet she has zero to say about it apart from "they can teach us a thing or two". She won't even follow the logic through that women in Argentina are desperate because there are no jobs so they turn to prostitution as a last resort. It's not a choice, it's not a job, it's a means of desperate survival in men's woman-hating world. Or not even a means of survival - how many men struggling to survive in Argentina turn their wives or girlfriends out on the street? I bet it's more than a few.

Traitor is the right word for this woman. Selling the most vulnerable women out to men for their sexual use, in order to get male approval and attention.

Did she really describe experiencing the absolute worst of male violence and male sexual violence a "privilege" because it means prostituted women can teach other woman what it's like?

It's a turn of phrase. She means sex workers have a deeper understanding of gendered violence and women's work, and that others should listen to sex workers on these issues rather than talking over the top of them.

It means women in prostitution are attacked by men more often than other women. That their "job" is unbelievably dangerous:

academic.oup.com/aje/article/159/8/778/91471

Dead women who have worked in prostitution can't really talk at all can they? When they speak to us what do we hear?

She has nothing to say about male violence against prostituted women, nothing at all. Just fucking going on about feminists who might actually do something about it.