The Feminist Library Has Fallen

[WootMoggie]

...apparently you are not welcome if you believe that trans people present even a mere ‘complication’ to women’s rights.

Oh - and you’re not allowed to discuss this either.

feministlibrary.co.uk/statement-on-transphobia-and-accountability/

[ArcheryAnnie]

"You lot are so melodramatic"

You really don't understand inclusivity, do you, BlueberryCheezecake ? An organisation which only exists because of the unpaid work of women makes a statement that.many of those women are actively not allowed to use the library for feminist events, or volunteer, unless they keep quiet and hide their experiences of male oppression. That's exclusion. You don't appear to be able to grasp that this is a simple statement of fact.

[Thelnebriati]

Does anyone know what they are doing with the material they don't want? Are they trying to return it or are they burning books?

[Slothtoes]

How dare they trade on the work and donations of women and then pretend they don’t know what women are. And that notice about women being unwelcome to use the library if they ask questions. Outrageous.
How revolting that a library, a place of ideas, and women’s ideas specifically would decide to make women who have ideas ‘unwelcome’. It’s so stupid and wrong it’s actually shocking.

[BlueberryCheezecake]

@Nomnomarrgh

I’d be tempted to go there incognito and just not tell them I’m a secret free-thinker. I like to access information before someone else has decided its forbidden.

Um, absolutely nothing is stopping you going there, you'd be the same level of "incognito" as every other library user since no one's going to stop you or ask or care about your beliefs about gender, as long as you're not harassing staff or other users.

You lot are so melodramatic.

[BlueberryCheezecake]

@WootMoggie

do you have to declare your political beliefs before accessing the library?

Something about your phrasing of that sentence span me out of a second or two - a moment of temporary dizziness.

Anyone else ever get that dizzy feeling that your brain is prodding you shouting “It’s only a dream WAKE UP WAKE UP!”

I’ve been getting it a lot lately. I feel like the gas is being turned up to full on this issue recently.

Then you'll no doubt be relieved to hear that you (obviously) don't have to declare your political beliefs to access the library.

[EarthSight]

@sleepyhead

"We believe we can record and preserve the discourse around oppression and the struggle for rights without including literature that is published with the intent to cause harm. We are developing a Collection Development Policy that includes a commitment to critically reflecting on our methods and the systems we use and will make this publicly available."

Who will decide what was published with the intent to cause harm? Hmm.

@sleepyhead

That wording sounds like the beginnings of a new law or trying to fit this into an existing one.

[ArcheryAnnie]

[quote stumbledin]Previous threads about the Feminist Library www.mumsnet.com/SearchArch?mustmatch=Feminist+Library&dontmatch=&nickname=&src_displ_option=s_t_d_t&fromDate=&toDate=&topicmode=chs&chosentops=5365[/quote]
Two of those threads were started by me, one in 2015 when it first all began to go pomo, and the second a year later in 2016, when clearly the trauma of seeing all this nonsense had wiped it from my mind, and I was again baffled by what the fuck was going on!

They really should hand back all the second-wave material that women donated to them in good faith. What a shower of tedious, thieving shits.

[MarthaMMC]

Perhaps then making sure these documents are duplicated & stored in a variety of places will help protect from a total purge. If women who donate their papers could work with trusted groups that make exact copies digitally, and then print a small run of them with some sort of way of assuring readers that these are exact-not altered- copies- on acid free paper & permanent ink, then binds them into books that could be sent to secondary repositories, there would be a greater chance that they would not be totally lost. Just as there are more than 1 seed vault for the world's store of original plant seeds in case some repositories fail or are destroyed, perhaps we need similar for Women's Herstory. We have some advances in printing even at the individual level that could be the next step in feminist publishing. And printing books that publishers are trying to cancel and suppress. And getting things into the hands of regular readers so that they can inspire more women, just as the early newsletters and books and published articles did in the second wave of feminism as well as before and after.

[Daca]

Another take on the whole debacle:
theblisteringrebuttal.substack.com/p/holding-the-fauxminist-library-accountable

[Abhannmor]

@sleepyhead

"We believe we can record and preserve the discourse around oppression and the struggle for rights without including literature that is published with the intent to cause harm. We are developing a Collection Development Policy that includes a commitment to critically reflecting on our methods and the systems we use and will make this publicly available."

Who will decide what was published with the intent to cause harm? Hmm.

Whenever you see the word 'around ' in these statements you know it's all lies and evasion. In my experience anyway.

[Daca]

Nice article ICYMI

thecritic.co.uk/why-is-the-feminist-library-erasing-women/?fbclid=IwAR1ddsTws0BDBlHYryl7zHNSEbFhP4v0Ej8WAryaVmjYIAVgh9eSRK5_lI4

[MaudTheInvincible]

The hashtag #OurFeministLibrary by FiLiA in response to the authoritarian paternalist position taken by The (anti)feminist Library is a thing of beauty and full of treasure!

[nepeta]

@ThePonderer

Even if it weren’t bloody obvious what the root of women’s oppression is, why wouldn’t you attempt to find the cause?

I agree, it's amazing.

Analysis is out; you must believe.

The other night I was thinking how being kind and inclusive or at least being seen as kind and inclusive and on the right side of history is driving the erasure of our ability to fight against sex-based oppression and sexism.

It is informative about the reasons why women got to be second-class citizens to begin with. One really must fight for one's rights.

[ThePonderer]

Even if it weren’t bloody obvious what the root of women’s oppression is, why wouldn’t you attempt to find the cause?

I agree, it's amazing.

Analysis is out; you must believe.

[jellyfrizz]

@ThePonderer

we believe that there is not a singular, universal origin point for all women’s oppression across the globe nor should we attempt to find one

What's the point of feminism then? That means we're just a disparate group of people who are having bad experiences which we want to change.

No way to define us. No problems in common. No solutions which will apply to us all.

How could anybody benefit from visiting this library?

I honestly can’t get over that statement.
Even if it weren’t bloody obvious what the root of women’s oppression is, why wouldn’t you attempt to find the cause?

[FireUnderTheHand]

Feminist Library...

Fuck you, you fucking cowardly traitors.

[EvenleyWitch]

@katmarie

Surely the point of libraries is to provide literature and materials which allow people to learn and discover. I have never met a librarian yet who would willingly remove books from a library's collection, most librarians want to share knowledge and help people discover new perspectives, surely. To restrict materials or access to them based on an ideology feels like it goes against some kind of librarians code or something. Which just tells me that this isn't about running a library, it's about making a point.

Indeed
Incredible isn't it?

[EvenleyWitch]

@Laurank

Good point *@Daca* about TRA posturing being 'political theatre' when FL isn't even open anyway. There is something about indefinite LD, with its keyboard warrior-ism and impossibility of IRL resolution, that just seems to encourage extreme sabre rattling like this.
It makes me wonder what it would be like, when it reopens, to visit, perhaps with a few women, to see what it's like, chat to the collective. And to see whether (or how) they'd eject us if we ventured a GC opinion.

I'm up for that. Very interested.

[nepeta]

@Ftumch

we believe that there is not a singular, universal origin point for all women’s oppression across the globe nor should we attempt to find one

This is MRA speak. It's the polar opposite of feminism!

Indeed.

It is also nonsensical. Women are oppressed, to begin with, because women are smaller and weaker than men and because women have the ability to create the next generation. If you ignore biology then of course you will be unable to see the universal origin of women's oppression. Because it is in biology, but then spread into general sexism and misogyny.

[katmarie]

Surely the point of libraries is to provide literature and materials which allow people to learn and discover. I have never met a librarian yet who would willingly remove books from a library's collection, most librarians want to share knowledge and help people discover new perspectives, surely. To restrict materials or access to them based on an ideology feels like it goes against some kind of librarians code or something. Which just tells me that this isn't about running a library, it's about making a point.

[SmallPug]

That’s what I want to know @Thelnebriati. It’s pretty concerning. Why put a statement out now when no one can go? Also, nothing wrong with them having a collection of feminist literature that covers all different kinds of feminism, including trans feminism and radical feminism and just being a library! Letting anyone come and read the literature and - Oo, I don’t know - having their own thoughts!

[Thelnebriati]

I want to rephrase that - what will they do with the material they dont like?

[Thelnebriati]

What will happen to the material they dont like?

[Ftumch]

we believe that there is not a singular, universal origin point for all women’s oppression across the globe nor should we attempt to find one

This is MRA speak. It's the polar opposite of feminism!