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

*derailing

Re Reality's point about Alison Phipps, I see what she's doing as sort of the woke equivalent of religious indulgences from the Middle Ages - she's "allowed" to be white and middle class and so on and still have an opinion because she's paid the required fee in the form of making a career out of trashing "white feminism".

I am liking your posts very much justadathought, please continue at your earliest convenience.

The thing is that Alison Phipps embodies all the things that she criticises other people for. She’s white

How can one criticise someone for being 'white'? Surely criticism implies some kind of agency on the part of the one receiving the criticism? If you are criticising someone purely on account of their sex, or their race, or on the circumstances of their birth, then that is prejudice, pure and simple.

Nobody cares Justathought stop detailing the thread

I care.....Because I hate lazy generalisations, whether it is Alison Phipps, or anyone else, making them.

I see what she's doing as sort of the woke equivalent of religious indulgences from the Middle Ages - she's "allowed" to be white and middle class and so on and still have an opinion because she's paid the required fee in the form of making a career out of trashing "white feminism".

Yes I agree.

Justhadathought he stood for UKIP ffs. I don’t care whether his views are really right wing or whether you can characterise them otherwise - I find them and him totally abhorrent. Can’t be arsed to debate that with you any further because it’s too draining.

As for whether people of all classes might have known deprivation, yes, true. However, the class system is well and alive in this country unfortunately and there are many who experience deprivation with little or no way out due to their background. If you don’t recognise that, that’s up to you, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.

Re Reality's point about Alison Phipps, I see what she's doing as sort of the woke equivalent of religious indulgences from the Middle Ages - she's "allowed" to be white and middle class and so on and still have an opinion because she's paid the required fee in the form of making a career out of trashing "white feminism".

Great point. Does publicly saying "TWAW" buy people similar privilege?

Paying penance, self flagellation. A white woman writes a critique of white feminism. Why not amplify the voices of others, if your position on the top of the academic shit heap causes so much guilt? Why not go and do something useful? Seems like academic self abuse, in all senses.

Agree Prodigal. Nearly all of the people who scream ‘white feminism’ are white themselves. The few who aren’t white are still incredibly privileged, eg Priyamvada Gopal, one of Phipps’ academic cronies and proponents of TWAW is upper-caste and has lived a life of privilege.

As for whether people of all classes might have known deprivation, yes, true. However, the class system is well and alive in this country unfortunately and there are many who experience deprivation with little or no way out due to their background. If you don’t recognise that, that’s up to you, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist

So culture is the definition of class then.......if you inhabit a certain kind of culture.....and identify exclusively with that culture?

Just ignore my posts if you find them irrelevant or tiring. That's fine.

I care.....Because I hate lazy generalisations, whether it is Alison Phipps, or anyone else, making them

You have missed the point. Phipps book can be summarised as "middle-class, white women should shut the fuck up".

It is not a "lazy generalisation" to point out Phipps is a middle- class, white woman.

Agree Prodigal. Nearly all of the people who scream ‘white feminism’ are white themselves

Perhaps the, it is true that anyone who stands outside of their conditions, and views them through a theoretical framework is 'middle class'? Those that seek to shape or influence, or believe they have the capacity to do so.

Justhadathought not sure how you took from that post that culture is the defining feature of class but okay then.

You have missed the point. Phipps book can be summarised as "middle-class, white women should shut the fuck up".It is not a "lazy generalisation" to point out Phipps is a middle- class, white woman

Yes, I get that......

If someone wants to translate the above into a comprehensible form I'd be grateful.

If your point, Just, is that middle class people, or white people, or whatever other group of people, should not be deemed not to deserve to have an opinion on anything* then it's unlikely that anyone here would disagree with that. The kind of people who Phipps is writing for do, though, which is what is being discussed. If you'd like to argue with them there are plenty of them to be found in the response to her tweet.

*The caveat being that they are of course allowed to have an opinion if they've paid the correct indulgences, performed the appropriate incantations, etc. Typically this seems to consist of arguing that everyone in their demographic except themselves is an arsehole.

Justhadathought not sure how you took from that post that culture is the defining feature of class but okay then

Culture is the set of norms, values and social expectations that one lives with. 'Poverty' is often passed down through generations - as a result of culture and behaviour. I know that because I've lived in very materially impoverished circumstances myself ( as a single parent), and was born into a family that struggled, and who. still do, with money and material comfort.

However, what I did have benefit from was the valuing of education, learning and a sense of personal responsibility, and with that some degree of personal freedom from being defined exclusively by certain material or social conditions.

For example.....i would walk from one side of the city to the other - to visit friends, rather than take the bus...because I valued buying a decent loaf of wholemeal bread, over spending my meagre resources on the bus. I could eat fairly well with little money ( lentils, tinned toms, potatoes, are relatively cheap), and yet would see others in similar circumstances buying fast food, or overly expensive packaged food.....buying cigarettes.....

Culture is often what traps people in certain circumstances. That's probably to do with not having any feeling of personal power or responsibility......or that you could do something to change your circumstances or conditions of living.

Alison Phipps and most other university social scientists are fast becoming an irrelevance. They just write & publish for each other. There is no longer any funding for them, and with time that will only get worse.

Alison Phipps and most other university social scientists are fast becoming an irrelevance. They just write & publish for each other. There is no longer any funding for them, and with time that will only get worse

I agee with this. Re funding drying up they won't be missed.

I do wonder if one of the side effects of living through a pandemic will be a reset of what people consider important.

Academia does not work like that, though. If you have your book reviewed in the mainstream press, then that demonstrates that your ‘research’ has ‘impact’, even if it is panned. Phipps is very powerful, knows how to play the game, and not to be underestimated.

I do wonder if one of the side effects of living through a pandemic will be a reset of what people consider important.

I hope so.

In case anyone is tempted to invest £13 in this drivel , do read the description first

The Me Too movement, started by Black feminist Tarana Burke in 2006, went viral as a hashtag eleven years later after a tweet by white actor Alyssa Milano. Mainstream movements like #MeToo have often built on and co-opted the work of women of colour, while refusing to learn from them or centre their concerns. Far too often, the message is not 'Me, Too' but 'Me, Not You'. Alison Phipps argues that this is not just a lack of solidarity. Privileged white women also sacrifice more marginalised people to achieve their aims, or even define them as enemies when they get in the way

Me, not you argues that the mainstream movement against sexual violence expresses a political whiteness that both reflects its demographics and limits its revolutionary potential. Privileged white women use their traumatic experiences to create media outrage, while relying on state power and bureaucracy to purge 'bad men' from elite institutions with little concern for where they might appear next. In their attacks on sex workers and trans people, the more reactionary branches of this feminist movement play into the hands of the resurgent far-right

Alison Phipps and most other university social scientists are fast becoming an irrelevance. They just write & publish for each other. There is no longer any funding for them, and with time that will only get worse.

I think it’s worse. What funding there is, goes to queer theoretical research into how oppressed trans people ate, how men are obviously women, and what tribulations pregnant men go through etc. Didn’t Sally Hines get £1000000 to research something like that?