Julie Bindel's withering review of Alison Phipps' latest book

[MrsSnippyPants]

"Reading the back cover of the soon to be released Me Not You: The trouble with mainstream feminism, I assumed Titania McGrath had churned out a new book. But on further inspection I realised it is in fact the latest from Alison Phipps, Professor of Gender Studies at Sussex University – a disciple of the ‘sex work is work’ and ‘trans women are women’ faux-feminism cult. This book has clearly been written for the hard-of-thinking."

www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-latest-gender-studies-literature-is-indistinguishable-from-satire

I would love to see a debate between Bindel and Phipps, but Phipps - of course - would have none of it.

Excellent review. Withering is the word. Or possibly eviscerating.

Both excellent words.

"In her chapter 'Feminists and the Far Right' Phipps tries but fails to find any credible evidence that us proper feminists are aligned with the religious right in the UK. Her only example appears to be me. When I was attacked outside Edinburgh University by a man claiming to be a woman, having, ironically, just given a talk about male violence towards women and girls, apparently some right-wing bloke I had never heard of called Carl Benjamin talked about the attack. 'The Terfs will all end up joining Ukip’, he said. If a random serial killer dedicated a poem to Phipps, penned in his prison cell, would it be reasonable to link her to his crimes?"

ffs how can you write an entire chapter about something that never happened - and get it published?

I would like to buy Julie an enormous drink for taking one for the team.

Does the UK even have a “religious far right”?

It’s actually terrifying that Phipps is in employment in a credible educational facility.
I think that it’s pure misogyny, gender studies is regarded as a lowly academic subject so they employ any idiot in order to virtue signal.

^It’s actually terrifying that Phipps is in employment in a credible educational facility.
I think that it’s pure misogyny, gender studies is regarded as a lowly academic subject so they employ any idiot in order to virtue signal.^

Agree on both counts.

Phipps is another academic like Sally Hines who doesn't believe one word of what she says, but she's happy to play the game as long as she gets the funding and the prestige of being called a professor.

She never engages in debates and always misrepresents other people's arguments when she posits her own.

The fact that she used to bring Lego to seminars to get her adult students to play with shows she has nothing to teach.

And her criticism of white women who call out sexual predators is so aligned with men's rights activism that she's dug herself into a hole she can never get out of.

Sadly for her, the pandemic will kill off any demand for her services.

Phipps is another academic like Sally Hines who doesn't believe one word of what she says,

The more terrifying possibility is that she does believe it.

One of the very few benefits of the pandemic is that nobody now gives a shit about TRA attention seeking crap, pronouns, “literal violence” or “misgendering”. We all have far more important stuff to focus on, like survival.
I imagine the narcissists will be v peeved and flouncing, but as I’m currently ill with presumed Covid and too occupied with keeping breathing, I for one don’t give a flying fuck.

Take care, Babdoc, thinking of you xxx.

Carl Benjamin isn’t even far right. He’s a centrist on the political spectrum. Just goes to show that to the far far far left, anyone to the right of them is called far right. That’s how far off the Center they are.

One of the very few benefits of the pandemic is that nobody now gives a shit about TRA attention seeking crap

Yes it must be galling that the people who really need help and support are those that are actually physically unwell or actually very old and actually infected with a virus, as opposed to a load of special labels that you can make up whenever you feel like it. There's even a sex-based distinction in the death rates - how annoyingly scientific.

Take care and get well soon Babdoc

I read the review linked to above, have not not read the book. I am thoroughly confused by the premise here, but it seems to be that (according to a tweet mobile.twitter.com/alisonphipps/status/1242027346439417856) others have said the book’s about the ‘violence white women enact when they organise to fight sexual violence’.

If that’s what it is all about, I am still confused, but also feel exasperated. Should white women just STFU then and not organise against sexual violence? Organise against sexual violence in a different way? It’s bad then is it, if relative privilege or access to justice or whatever can be used to take out sexually violent men?
Do the people critiquing how other women organise to combat sexual violence understand how poorly funded the whole area is, how fucking appallingly low conviction rates are for perpetrators, what little support there are for women who have been raped, attacked, harassed, all of it.? Are they setting up alternative services to do it better and ‘their way’, then?

What’s the idea being promoted here, if it isn’t for some women to just STFU about sexual violence? How will that help women who’s lives and bodies have been harmed? And is this one persons idiosyncratic theory or is there an academic consensus or political movement saying all this?

I am always wary of writing off whole schools of thought without trying to understand what they are saying and trying to understand why anyone would be supportive of those arguments. But I also don’t want to waste my very precious time at the moment reading a load of misogynistic crap. so I might have to leave that dilemma for another time.

Anyway, hope you get well soon Babdoc

But I also don’t want to waste my very precious time at the moment reading a load of misogynistic crap. so I might have to leave that dilemma for another time.

I think that's probably the best course of action. Maybe review it in 10 years.

Thanks for the kind wishes. It’s quite scary being ill alone at home, especially at night with a tight chest.
I’m four days into this and just wish I was seeing sone improvement.
At least I have contact via internet, and my church minister has left home made lasagne on my doorstep to keep me fed.
I just wish I could see my adult DDs, but I can’t let anyone in the house as I’m quarantined.
Best wishes to all of you on FWR, and stay safe. God bless.

UKIP are not centrist.
Benjamin (known as Sargon of Akkad online) is the person who told Jess Phillips ''I wouldn't rape you'' And he's wrong about women who can see material reality and know facts are hard flocking to UKIP.

The original Sargon of Akkad is the misogynist who made the law about smashing women in the teeth with a brick if they spoke out of turn.
www.spectator.co.uk/article/lifting-the-veil

Babdoc We're all rooting for you.

Carl Benjamin doesn’t agree with UKIPs far right politics. He only stood for them because both Labour and Lib Dem’s were trying to overturn/sabotage Brexit. He is a Euro sceptic and that is all he had in common with UKIP.

I heard about his joke to Jess Phillips, but she also joked that she would stab Jeremy Corbyn in the front. Yes joking about NOT raping someone is bad, but joking about STABBING someone is worse. Besides if she as an MP can do a “joke” stab threat, why can’t he as a candidate make a joke about not being a rapist?

So what if Sargon of Akkad in Ancient Sumeria had a bad law in 3000 BCE? Ancient times were shit for women period. King Arthur, Ceasar, Alexander the Great all ruled kingdoms that had shit laws for women. Hell, even Queen Elizabeth the II is a misogynist because her kingdom allowed men to rape their wives in law for most of her reign.

What laws were in Sumeria 3000 BC under a long dead king Have no relation to Carl Benjamin or his views or why he picked that name for a YouTube channel.

Who , apart from Phipps' wokey woke pals is going to read this bilge?

There can't be many people willing to part with £12 for this codswallop.

Or will it be compulsory course material?

Is Phipps white?

Phipps is white and very middle class. She teaches an entirely pointless course which would never be missed if it was wiped from the syllabus.

'This is a petulant howl about whose wounds are worse, who are the real victims, who is being victimised by all this talk of victimhood. '

Oh, sorry, not a review. That's an excerpt.

Babdoc, you're going to be grand. Take heart.

I heard about his joke to Jess Phillips, but she also joked that she would stab Jeremy Corbyn in the front.

The joke is not about actually stabbing someone in the front. It's about the fact she wouldn't stab him in the back. Which is, as I'm sure you're aware, an idiom for secretly betraying someone's confidence or trust.

The joke is she would not betray him secretly, he would know it was her.

I don't know of any similar idiom for joking about raping a woman.