Squeamish about far right hangers on

[pawpawpawpaw]

Where do you stand on signing a petition for single-sex spaces which has among its signatories/co-authors a number of far right Christian and anti-feminist groups (Independent Women's Forum, Richard and Helen DeVos Foundation, Concerned Women For America, Family Research Council)?

Not shit stirring, I'm genuinely finding my way on this.

Jayne Egerton writes 'Woman’s Place UK has consistently stated an opposition to working with, or supporting the work of the religious right': womansplaceuk.org/2020/06/18/womens-rights-under-attack-hungary/ On international GC matters (like the Olympics) I suspect they'll be difficult to avoid.

I will always align myself with radical feminists, but I approach GC organisations with caution because of the overlap with other less-desirable causes.

The truth is the truth, whoever says it.

I share your concerns though. It's easy to twist

I think people can agree on one thing and not others, but you're right in that listing one's own name among those opposing your rights in other areas leaves a bad taste.
If it was an anti racism petition I still would sign, albeit after carefully checking everything the petition said!

I hate that they try to blend in by giving themselves right on names like the Independent Women's Forum to gain credibility, it's so cowardly and uses feminist values to gain credibility, which they use to gain power.

I take some comfort in knowing that I will never knowingly vote these people into power but I'm not sure aligning myself with them, even on something like a petition, is not harmful.

You probably also agree with them that water is necessary to keep the body hydrated. And that the earth is round.

I always carefully read what and how something is written. However, I don't think that agreement on the facts by people I don't disagree with other things about is reason not to stand up for this issue.

That sounded dismississive - sorry! I get what you mean.

@pawpawpawpaw

I hate that they try to blend in by giving themselves right on names like the Independent Women's Forum to gain credibility, it's so cowardly and uses feminist values to gain credibility, which they use to gain power.

I take some comfort in knowing that I will never knowingly vote these people into power but I'm not sure aligning myself with them, even on something like a petition, is not harmful.

I don't think this is fair and it's part of the problem that arises with this sort of drive to political purity.

Women with different ideas than yours are allowed to build organisations around their viewpoints and goals. They aren't less women and their viewpoints about what that means deserve as much airing as feminist viewpoints do. They don't have to give up the word "woman" on your say-so.

Goose maybe we've got our wires crossed, I'm not saying that they shouldn't exist or express their views, or that they are 'less women'. They are anti-feminist, and I feel uncomfortable putting my name on a petition which they have signed. I believe WPUK have views similar to mine.
I don't need purity, but I feel these organisations are dangerous and I don't trust their support on this kind of issue.

I probably wouldn't sign a petition initiated solely/mainly by a group I knew to be working against my interests. Otherwise, my concern would be whether I agreed with the wording of the petition. If I didn't, I'd find one more in line with my beliefs, or start one.

More generally - speaking up for women always runs the risk of (in some cases disingenuously-framed) guilt by association with "right wingers". That problem isn't going to go away until the general public prioritise nuanced and critical arguments and cooperation and compromise over name-calling, point-scoring, mudslinging, and threats. I also think this "you agree with the religious right!" business, in a UK context, is (mainly) an imported problem argued by US-centric voices - but that's (thankfully) a separate rant.

I think it's important to be very clear (in your own head) about your end goal. If we refused to take any stand or work toward any outcome because it COULD be misunderstood or hijacked or used against us, we'd be paralysed. For me, preserving women's sex-segregated spaces and services is a band-aid; we should be eradicating the need for them by ending the systemic disadvantage of women as a group, globally. (Lots of people don't think that's possible, lots don't think it's desirable - I have a different ideology, but share a short-term goal.)

Until someone convinces me that women as a group are NOT systematically disadvantaged, marginalised, endangered, and exploited on the basis of sex, the constructed protections and separations that women of previous generations worked for and demanded - even if the concept of protections "can" be viewed as paternalistic or ideologically suspect - have to stay. Removing these rights prematurely also means we'll never be able to know if those systemic disadvantages are being effectively reduced and what is or isn't working to reduce them.

In the 1920s, fundamentalists and other right-wing types were often the forces behind anti-eugenics campaigns, because they saw eugenics as "playing God" while progressives believed it would usher in a new age of prosperity and end the problems of generational poverty.

The right wing isn't always "backwards" or wrong, even if I disagree with them most of the time (which I do). Imagine having accepted eugenics a hundred years ago because all the do-gooder left-wing people thought it was brilliant and many of the people speaking out had a conservative bias.

Maduixa Womb thanks, good points well made. I'm not a lefty purist, far from it, but their views are properly repugnant.

You are talking about signing a petition not a contract. Petitions don't do much most of the time. If you are that bothered find a different petition to sign.

I would draw the line at signing a petition run by organisations and people who are actively anti-abortion ie engaged in restricting access, shutting down clinics, active lobbying for a ban.

I would happily work with conservative women who hold different beliefs to me - I see conservatism and progressivism as able to check each other's worst impulses.

So yeah, I guess - does this person/organisation have different beliefs to me on some issues, while aligning on this? will not stop me working with them on a single issue.

But is the person /organisation actively seeking through their activism to restrict reproductive health and abortion rights? That will stop me from working with them.

In general, I don't dismiss lower case c conservatives, most of whom I don't consider to be far-right. Although I may disagree with them on many issues, I find their thoughts and responses a helpful counterweight to my own.

Re this specific petition, which I haven't signed...I don't align with FRC at all. I'd put them in the category of actively anti-women's rights and actively homophobic. I haven't heard of/researched the others. On the basis of the FRC being involved, no, I won't be signing.

Other women are absolutely free to make their own choices on this, however. Not up to me to dictate to them. This is a purely personal decision.

Good timing OP - I was thinking today about how you used to read articles saying that, sometimes, on some issues, you have to look who's lined up alongside you and reconsider your posiiton (David Aaronovitch has made this argument before, but he's not the only one).

I've read so many people on this board who are shocked to find themselves not only lined up alongside Spectator readers but also opposed (and vehemently opposed) to Wokebros with whom they've been shoulder to shoulder on just about every other issue bar the trans one. (And I'm not making fun - it's clear there's very real pain to have gone through all that only to find yourself under attack the second you fall out of the approved line for a single issue).

All of which is a very long-winded way to say it's not just that the rules have changed - the whole chessboard has been knocked up in the air and there's been a huge realignment of the pieces. To dismiss all that as 'lining up with the Far Right is to spectacularly miss the point (imho).

There are conservatives I'll align with on the new chessboard, and then there's the FRC....just saying.

Melia100
Oh, say away, I just think it's an angle that appeals more to Americans than to Brits.

@Freespeecher

Melia100 Oh, say away, I just think it's an angle that appeals more to Americans than to Brits.

Fair enough, and I take the general point, and even agree with it.

To me, though, there's a difference in partnering with, say a Christian conservative women who puts her pro-life energy into volunteering to help struggling families, and a Christian conservative organisation that lobbies to ban abortion and supports the criminalisation of gay sex, for example.

It’s a tough one.

For example, while I agree with WOLf (USA GC org) on a lot of things I do think that their joining with the right has ultimately led to a leaning to the right on issues.

For example the recent SCOTUS ruling. Wolf filed a brief against it. While I saw their point, they like other women’s orgs did could have advocated for a position supporting protection while still defining sex as natal sex... which is in fact what ultimately SCOTUS did.

If you’re going to work with the right you REALLY have to stick to your guns wrt the issues you don’t agree on.

I accept the fact that right wing women love their children just as much as Feminists do.

Is one of these groups organising the petition, OP?

Is there a likelihood they will be publicising it and directing the narrative? For example going on TV saying 'this is what we think and why, and look, we have all these people who think the same'.

I take some comfort in knowing that I will never knowingly vote these people into power

I think if they are running the petition, I would probably make my decision based on whether or not I would be prepared to vote them into power if they were the only group willing to enforce women's rights in accordance with GC thinking.

If not, I don't think I'd align myself with them for this. Although if they are only signatories and have zero control over the messaging, I might consider it, depending on the context (wording, how and why the petition came into being, etc).

@pawpawpawpaw

Goose maybe we've got our wires crossed, I'm not saying that they shouldn't exist or express their views, or that they are 'less women'. They are anti-feminist, and I feel uncomfortable putting my name on a petition which they have signed. I believe WPUK have views similar to mine. I don't need purity, but I feel these organisations are dangerous and I don't trust their support on this kind of issue.

But you think they are trying to "claim credibility" by using names for their organisations that have words like woman in them. There is no reason they shouldn't do that.

The main reason that conservatives and GC leftists tend to be on a similar page about this is that they both believe that the material, physical body is real, and that the differences in male and female bodies matter - they make a difference to people's lives. It's not just chance that they happen to line up.

I'm not sure petitions are really effective in the first place, even as they seem very popular these days. They create a feeling of political action where there really isn't any.

However, any movement at all, does, & will, bring together all sorts of people with different backgrounds and wider intentions. That's the nature of mass democracy and certainly of issues around which many coalesce.

Left and right are not moral standpoints, they are largely economic positions

Yes, and yet increasingly the contemporary, usually youthful left is determined to make them into moral standpoints, in which the so-called 'progressive' position is seen as without question the morally superior position to inhabit.

I don't even think that ,any take the trouble to investigate, or even inhabit for a while, the imagined, reviled opposite flank. So, you don't need, personally, ever to read anything written in The Spectator because your tribe accepts, purely on hearsay, that this is a bad publication.

Personally think some of the most interesting, writers, commentators, authors are those that have in the past firmly inhabited the left, but who have since become disillusioned with it. You can only really critique something if you understand it. If you've been there, yourself.