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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Slogans!

299 replies

xxyzz · 26/12/2019 08:34

This thread is about slogans, and the need for them.

I've commented previously that one of the great strengths the TRAs currently possess is that they have had several years to frame the debate on their own terms, before most feminists were even aware that there was an issue, and in particular, to devise and propagate widely used and certain easy-to-remember slogans.

As others have pointed out, TWAW is extremely effective at ending discusssion. It pithily expresses an easy-to-understand point, but requires dense and not-easy-to-follow text to argue against.

Given that most social media interactions are brief, people are busy, and not necessarily particularly bright, and given that TWAW has been out there as a 'truth' for years, GC feminists are facing an uphill struggle to explain in similarly pithy, simple language why it is wrong.

Which brings me to SLOGANS.

GC feminists need to be redefining the debate with our own, equally, or more effective slogans. These need to explain our key points using simple words that everyone understands, and they need to be repeated relentlessly- as TWAW has been. The success of 'Get Brexit done' as a slogan - and the Tories religiously on-message use of it throughout the election campaign- was a big part of their recent success. Just as 'Take Back Control'was a hugely effective slogan before the referendum in 2016.

The importance of slogans should not be under-estimated.

FWIW, I don't think 'Women are Adult Human Females' is a successful slogan at all. Because:

a) It sounds utterly batshit to anyone not already following the debate - of course women are adult human females!
b) It allows TRAs to continue to frame the debate in terms of a discussion over who is a woman. When actually, this is something that has been known for thousands of years and even a toddler could tell you. We should not be arguing primarily on their territory. It does us no favours.
c) Most importantly, it ignores women's main issues with TRA claims. We are not arguing over terminology, we are arguing over women's and children's SAFETY and RIGHTS.The terminology matters only insofar as it is being used to undermine that safety and those rights. But by putting the cart before the horse, we have lost most of our audience, who don't follow us long enough past the batshitttery to find out WHY we care about the terminology.

So I think we need slogans that go back to basics.

We need slogans that fight on our own territory and frame the debate through our own eyes, not through the eyes of those intent on dismantling women's rights.

I would suggest that what we need are slogans that simply and clearly point out and go on the offensive over misogyny and attacks on women's rights - as feminists have always done.

Please suggest your effective slogans below. Sure that we can crowdsourced some better slogans than we have currently.

Over to you...

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xxyzz · 28/12/2019 04:25

This reply has been deleted

Message deleted by MNHQ. Here's a link to our Talk Guidelines.

ChattyLion · 28/12/2019 08:00

Another one:

My rights are not yours to give away

xxyzz · 28/12/2019 08:27

#YesDebate as a simple to understand, positive response to #NoDebate - a clear cry for free speech. Wins on their turf by making them look negative.

SOS - Save Our Spaces - as I suggested on P.1 and am shamelessly repeating as I like it and think it covers all women's literal and metaphorical spaces and has an acronym that everyone recognises as an emergency cry, which is part of what we are trying to get across, that women's rights are threatened and the situation is an emergency.

Love The Body You're In - already an existing body positivity slogan so fitting with already popular and understood ideas (even among the woke) that we are all perfect as we are.

Plus while I get and agree with PencilsInSpace's point that we want quality not quantity of slogans as what matters is that they cut through, I think there are different targets for different slogans.

So I think Medusa's Wot No Women's Toilets one is good for the much larger non-GC audience who support there being more women's loos. You don't have to be a feminist or care about or know about self ID at all to have been caught short and been furious at having to wait 20 mins for a loo, or cross at having to wait 30 mins for your daughter, granddaughter, wife or mother-in-law etc to come back from using the loo. Or to be confused and concerned that thanks to relabelling all women's loos as gender neutral, not only is the queue for the women's loos now even longer, but there are now men in it too, alongside you, your teenage daughter, elderly mother, girlfriend etc.

Caroline Criado Perez has been running a successful campaign on this on Twitter which has had a much wider reach than GC feminists (although CCP herself is obviously GC, she is canny enough to campaign on issues where there is wide crossover support and never mention conflict of rights once, so no-one can object - a lesson we can all learn from).

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HorseWithNoHumbuggery · 28/12/2019 09:44

This reply has been deleted

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shedquarters · 28/12/2019 10:18

Just been reading a twitter thread by Malcolm Clark (@twisterfilm). Sorry I don't know how to do the link but a really interesting read about the SNP evolution of championing gay rights to the GRA reforms now.
Why I mention this is because a he makes a point at the end about fear of trans activists/the trans lobby, and how this fear has allowed things to get so out of hand, silencing through fear. We all know this, but it's like the the elephant in the room in the mainstream media.
When thinking about slogans/statements and messages - would this not be the obvious place to start? Address the fear.

I have seen powerful pictures on twitter of a woman gagged and silenced with a trans flag.

There are a wealth of 2nd world War home front public information style posters - Keep Calm and Carry On) very familiar to all.

Keep Calm and Carry On - defend women's rights

Keep Calm and Carry On - female not shemale

There are lots more, not just the Keep Calm and Carry on one's - but they are the most familiar - and there is a good old common sense-ness about them.

xxyzz · 28/12/2019 10:24

Agree, shedquarters. I've seen several powerful Twitter memes of anti-suffragette images telling women to shut up with ugly women gagged etc compared to modern day anti-TE*F propaganda which likewise dehumanised women and tells us to shut up.

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HorseWithNoHumbuggery · 28/12/2019 11:02

Oh dear.

CatalogueUniverse · 28/12/2019 11:25

Rights protection not deception.

shedquarters · 28/12/2019 11:28

And likewise - the strange pervasiveness of the idea (among the woke) that feminism is about 'nice', 'kind' and 'inclusive' without any remote historical or political context or understanding of patriarchy, sexual politics and oppression. Feminism to them is a vague concept of being kind to and supportive of those who are less fortunate than ourselves.
Hence the trans are the most oppressed, so I'm on their side. There is the right kind of feminist and the wrong kind (TERFS).

The struggle for women's rights was... well.... a struggle. The right to vote was fought for and won. It wasn't kind, nice or inclusive.
In the real world women are a long way off from equality.
To hear some wokey person (woman or man, but particularly woman) so glib and casual in ceding women's rights - in effect taking women backwards is infuriating.

The trans slogan 'be kind' is a master stroke in this regard. It plays into people basic instincts and speaks to the 'well I don't want to be hurtful, so I will just say nothing'. Nobody wants to seem uncaring or harsh, particularly in living as we do in an era of hateful public discourse. Its a big problem when TRA's are linking criticism from women to extreme right-wing ideology, or if Katie Hopkins might publicly support something.
Slogans/messages/images also need to challenge this non-femenist-fememist bollocks. In recent years it seems to have become OK again the use the F word or call yourself an F, but in reality it often superficial.

I really liked one of the suggestions yesterday -
if you don't see sex, you don't see sexism.

NeurotrashWarrior · 28/12/2019 12:43

I'm just going to add the "cis is sexist" again, not mine but one that's useful I feel as some don't understand what it is and also using the term sexist highlights a number of issues with the whole ideology.

shedquarters · 28/12/2019 13:31

Trans-women are trans women - different path, different journey, different needs.

Thinkingabout1t · 28/12/2019 16:26

“ The trans slogan 'be kind' is a master stroke in this regard.”
I’d add “Be womankind”, or would that make it sound as if our rights are a favour rather than a right?

No one is born in the wrong body.
Our bodies are our selves.
Respect women’s boundaries.

Sloganeering is difficult! I still love Cis My Arse.

Thinkingabout1t · 28/12/2019 16:28

I’ve seen a t-shirt slogan “Those who make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.”

LangCleg · 28/12/2019 16:40

Have potential slogans been deleted?!

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

Oh, the irony.

NeurotrashWarrior · 28/12/2019 18:16

This is a quite by Miranda Yardley, could it be shortened?

"We cannot talk sensibly about sexuality and sexual orientation unless we are able to correctly identify sex"

NeurotrashWarrior · 28/12/2019 18:17

Some have been deleted?!

Fucking hilarious!

BickerinBrattle · 28/12/2019 20:41

I like slogans that cut right to the heart of things.

My teenage daughter shouldn’t have to shower with males.

Male rapists and female rape victims don’t belong in the same cell.

Why should Girl Guide leaders need to carry condoms for girls in a girls’ camp?

It’s a woman’s right to say keep your fingers out of my fanny.

Women aren’t empty country for men to colonize: we already live here.

Females built refuges for females; males can build refuges for males.

When did women lose the right to say no?

Women exist.

HorseWithNoHumbuggery · 28/12/2019 22:30

Those are so good, bicker, that I've had to screenshot 'em.

Ridiculous that we have to do that but there it is.

TinaBarrow · 28/12/2019 22:32

Words mean something.

Sex not gender.

Save our spaces.

Al1ceinWinterWonderland · 28/12/2019 22:43

Something about women not consenting could be powerful.

Women don’t consent to males in female spaces.

Have to say, I also love cis, my arse.

Creepster · 28/12/2019 22:52

Dworkin: "I have to ask you to resist, not to comply, to destroy the power men have over women, to refuse to accept it, to abhor it and to do whatever is necessary despite its cost to you to change it. "

xxyzz · 29/12/2019 00:00

Don't know what else got deleted but the post of mine that got deleted was just because I pointed out that one of the (non-controversial) slogans someone else had suggested previously had a rather unfortunate (snigger) acronym.

So the original slogan is still there.

But I have learnt not to make jokes. Blush

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GirlDownUnder · 29/12/2019 00:19

xxyzz what broken guideline did your deletion message state?! And as this is FWR is it a strike or ‘just’ a deletion?

Obvs sloganing is a(nother) no-joke FWR topic Confused

xxyzz · 29/12/2019 00:35

It was a strike. Communication from MN didn't tell me which guideline had been broken just included a link to all of them. I'm guessing my acronym was regarded as "derogatory ... towards trans people"?

My first strike. Sad

However, you'll be relieved to hear that no slogans were harmed in the making of my joke.

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theflushedzebra · 29/12/2019 00:35

I've always liked the v simple 'women don't have penises' and "keep your penis out of women's spaces".

But my personal favourite is attached. A mother held this sign up in a meeting discussing transgirl's access to female locker rooms in one US state. They ruled against her I believe, but kudos to her.

Slogans!
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