Dawn Butler and biology

[HDDD]

Clip from GBM interview this morning.
twitter.com/JammersMinde/status/1229439480064610308
She said "Babies are born without sex"
Unless she said something after to clarify what she meant by this or backtracked then I guess this is her starting point....
Astounding. Labour have lost the plot, and me.

*breed not bread obvs

Love the way this thread has gone, thank you for some really thought provoking comments.

I don't think their intent is actually a war between the sexes though.

And yet the last ten years can entirely be explained by ‘men, as a class, oppress women as a class, and biology is the basis for that oppression’.

It also has happened at the same time as a large dose of woke-policing. This is where it raises the hackles of the right, because they dislike political correctness gone mad, the snowflake generation, queer politics and are more likely to be free speech advocates. I think it’s only because of this that women have found any allies on the right.

the suffragettes were largely upper class women

The term Suffragette has come to denote the entire womens suffrage movement. At the time, there was a division.

Suffragettes wanted vote for women on the same basis as men, i.e, a property qualification.

Suffragists wanted the vote for all adults without distinction, and wished to enfrachise men as well as women.

The Lowe class women would have been too busy looking after the kids, doing crappy underpaid job to keep a roof over their heads, and feared being arrested or jailed (and the kids getting farmed out god knows where).

The Pankhurst women were divided themselves over this issue, it really isn't black and white. Almost as though women have their own opinions and stuff.

but the defining part of this political outlook is Authoritarian. This is not a live and let live movement. This is a top down enforcement of untestable individualism, one that ignores class analysis almost entirely (except when it is deemed useful to the furtherance of individualist interests

Floral
I absolutely agree with this. Its proponents repeatedly use state enforcement to punish heresy. Harry Miller is an example of this. The ideology is extremely authoritarian. I also dispute the use of 'individualism' to describe its proponent or its ideology. Conformity is at its core Independence of opinion is not permitted. It is unsurprising that regressive sex stereotypes are at its epicenter. It is almost comical to see the dismal antics of Labour's leadership contenders all trotting out the same incoherent talking points. The reason they are all desperately singing from the same script is because they are craven sycophants who think their careers will spontaneously combust in a Twitter firestorm if they go off piste. There is nothing individual about any of it. It's about state enforced identity politics orthodoxy.

SWERFs and TERFs. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that women fighting for women’s rights on two entirely different fronts can not only be easily dismissed, but dismissed as bigots and haters in 3 words

I think that is a really important insight. This is a linguistic battle, along with all its other components. The proponents of this ideology seriously believe that if they can control the language, they can bend external reality to their whim. This is Newspeak territory and that's why there is an Orwellian resonance to so much of what's happening. The biggest joke of all is calling the women opposed to this bizarre agenda 'radical.' Au contraire. The radicals are those claiming babies have no sex , men can wake up one morning, announce they are female and take a battering ram to sex segregated spaces. And that puberty blockers and surgery are an appropriate medical response to children who don't conform to rigid sex stereotypes.

Such an interesting thread - thoughtful, intellectual and women centred. A real contrast to the anti women / hate group / off to the gulag rhetoric currently miring the labour party.

I had thought it was suffragists who were more across the classes as Mockers seems to indicate.

Anyway, I still say feminism was largely a movement identified with the left for many years. Despite the Tories having had 2 women pm s.

Such an interesting thread - thoughtful, intellectual and women centred. A real contrast to the anti women / hate group / off to the gulag rhetoric currently miring the labour party

languishing I agree. I used to think how lovely it was when I first came to this board to have political discussions with Lang, even though we didn't share the same politics. She was so welcoming and generous. That respectful discussion is so rare online and it is one of the things that makes this forum special.

The ideology is extremely authoritarian. I also dispute the use of 'individualism' to describe its proponent or its ideology. Conformity is at its core Independence of opinion is not permitted. It is unsurprising that regressive sex stereotypes are at its epicenter. It is almost comical to see the dismal antics of Labour's leadership contenders all trotting out the same incoherent talking points. The reason they are all desperately singing from the same script is because they are craven sycophants who think their careers will spontaneously combust in a Twitter firestorm if they go off piste. There is nothing individual about any of it. It's about state enforced identity politics orthodoxy.

I don't disagree with your reading of 'individualism' there, but I suspect that's because both of us may connect that word to an independence of thought and life.

I think, though, that Authoritarianism alone doesn't grab the full concept we are driving at here - yes, this is state enforced, yes, there is a boggling amount of conformity for something claiming to be a rebellious movement - but the mechanism here is that the personal 'truth' of the individual, their precarious inner identity, is paramount above any collective concerns.

It's like they're all vying for some sort of Least Credible Political Figure 2020 prize.

I pity the judge of that award. How would you begin to decide?

but the mechanism here is that the personal 'truth' of the individual, their precarious inner identity, is paramount above any collective concerns

I agree. There is also the hierarchy of oppression paradigm wherein trans eclipses every other group, so women's concerns are simply collateral damage in the rush to promote the interests of the apex of the oppression pyramid.....

And yet the last ten years can entirely be explained by ‘men, as a class, oppress women as a class, and biology is the basis for that oppression’.

It would describe that as an observation rather than an explanation - that's what we see happening.

The cause is another question. One possibility is that the goal is sex oppression, but it's not the only possibility that would explain the observation in a straightforward way. So long as biological reality is in fact real, it's entirely possible for it to have an effect on outcomes even if there is no conscious of intent to produce such an outcome. In fact when the biological difference is something as significant as sex differences, it is probably the opposite, unless you are going out of your way to avoid different outcomes, you will not be able to do so.

I am inclined to think this might be part of what has happened. As people have more and more accepted the idea that there are no real differences between men and women, they actual differences have reasserted themselves in outcomes.

It also has happened at the same time as a large dose of woke-policing. This is where it raises the hackles of the right, because they dislike political correctness gone mad, the snowflake generation, queer politics and are more likely to be free speech advocates. I think it’s only because of this that women have found any allies on the right.

There are actually already quite a lot of women on the right, who have an interest in their own position and lives, and ideas of their own about how things should be.