Anti-FGM campaigner Hibo Wardere comes under attack

[JustTurtlesAllTheWayDown]

Again. I know Hibo has put out more than one video clarifying that her focus is on women and girls and on stopping FGM, but she did another one last night after being piled on and called a hater for not being 'inclusive' in her language.
mobile.twitter.com/HiboWardere/status/1362100744216866825
I am bloody angry about it this morning.
Hibo Wardere is a personal hero of mine for the amazing work she's done.
Attacking her for not focusing on other issues is the lowest of the low. The misogyny is rank.
(Also, if anyone hasn't got her book 'Cut' on their feminist book shelf, I really do recommend it. It's not an easy read but I found her journey incredibly inspiring).

Even if women in somalia were able to opt out of a cultural expectations placed on females and adopt a role more akin to that of men, I doubt that such a role would fit that of the western gender ideologues idea of a 'transman' so to use the phrase 'transmen' is western imperialism. Don't you think african countries have suffered enough from that

Another plug for the book Crazy Like Us: The Globalisation of the Western mind.

Looks at how western maladies and conditions are exported around the world, along with a ready made pharmacological and professional services solution.

As you suggest - cultural imperialism.

@Justhadathought

I am perfectly well aware of that, and my concern was raised by a friend who investigated the issue a few years ago

Dadjoke....I'm not sure how long you've been involved with women's issues, or with feminism ( however you define it), but it really cannot have been that long if it is only in the last few years that you have been alerted to the realities of FGM.

You must be aware that most people who post here have been aware of and intimately involved with such issues for many years, in many cases decades. This is not a trendy issue, like 'period poverty', which has been taken up by those with an interest in furthering the cause of transgenderism.

The reason that people are so intimate and well acquainted with such issues is because they are women, are female, and so such issues are very close to home.

I've been involved indirectly with women's issues for a while (since uni, really) but only taken a direct interest in FGM recently, because it was highlighted to me by someone who was on the ground there. Before then, I was aware of it, though I didn't know much about it.

I entirely understand I'm not personally affected by these issues, while my (almost entirely) intersectional feminist friends and women in general are. I used to be a bit transphobic until I met transgender people and listened to my feminist friends.

I take the very lazy approach of throwing money at people who are actually prepared do something about it. I do know that wherever women are educated and empowered, it helps the local community more than anything else.

The sad thing for me is that GC feminists absolute obsession with transgender issues detracts from the vast majority of issues where feminists and their allies agree - reproductive rights, harrasment, abuse, consent, rape convictions and inequality in the workplace. I know you don't agree, that you think transgender rights are a sinister plot to insert men into single sex spaces, and that the "transgender lobby" is all powerful, rather than a small, marginalised group. I'm not going to discuss these issues on this thread.

I also think that both sex and gender identity are real, and that sex in humans is primarily dimorphic.

It seems a little disturbing to me that there is a hint of exporting and promoting ideas around transgenderism to countries such as Somalia.

Both FGM & transgender surgeries surgically damage the body and most often its natural functions and rhythms too. Girls subject to FGM grow up to be women who suffer on account of what was done to them as children. They often suffer life long pain and incontinence; repeated infections; and difficulties with natural bodily functions and processes such as menstruation and childbirth; and their sexuality and sex life is often severely affected too.

I entirely understand I'm not personally affected by these issues, while my (almost entirely) intersectional feminist friends and women in general are. I used to be a bit transphobic until I met transgender people and listened to my feminist friends

So, you are quite young then, and not a parent?

I know intersectional feminism and identity politics is a huge thing in the U.S. But it is not so much so here in Britain. U.S culture and its issues are really quite different and specific to that country.

People in Britain are not so ideological in that way, and are far more pragmatic.

I take the very lazy approach of throwing money at people who are actually prepared do something about it. I do know that wherever women are educated and empowered, it helps the local community more than anything else

Dare I suggest this sounds very much like gesture politics; which is really not politics at all. Politics is in the everyday realties and lives of people. Politics is what you do yourself; what choices you make....

So, for example, if you are an anti-slavery campaigner, you don't go around wearing a Nike Sweatshirt or trainers.......and if you are an anti-capitalist -progressive, you don't buy all your stuff on Amazon, or pop into McDonald's on the way home from your protest.

What amazes me is the cognitive dissonance of 'feminists' talking about empowering and enabling women and girls, on one hand; but then trying to eradicate the language around the realities of sex on the other.

It occurs to me that a while new generation of young women has only just started to wake up to what has been always there.......that women and and girls are oppressed on account of their femaleness; their body; their sex. Hence we now see women getting upset, as if for the first time, about the murder of a young woman by a police officer; or that girls are sexually targeted and abused in schools.....

a whole new generation

When I hear about FGM, my first reaction is definitely "but what about trans women?????".

"I often wonder whether the religiosity of the U.S makes it more susceptible too, on this account."

Yes. It does. If you didn't grow up in the US (as I did), and especially if you didn't grow up outside of the pockets of liberalism in the US, it's hard to understand how much a part of ordinary communities this is, and how much homophobia there is (many US Christians are very preoccupied with homosexuality as a sin, expressly forbidden in the Bible; ones like my cousin who is a queer theology minister are much, much rather).

Cultural tone-deafness is a widespread problem.

The sad thing for me is that GC feminists absolute obsession with transgender issues detracts from the vast majority of issues where feminists and their allies agree - reproductive rights, harrasment, abuse, consent, rape convictions and inequality in the workplace

What is sad for many of us is that you have yet to realise fully the reasons why this issue is so central; so basic to all of the other issues you speak of.

You have come to a board in which you knew you would find a focus on this issue. I'm not sure why you are so surprised? But women here are involved in all sorts of other issues too; and we come from a broad political spectrum - though most are probably what would be considered to the left of politics - certainly in British terms.

The sad thing for me is that GC feminists absolute obsession with transgender issues detracts from the vast majority of issues where feminists and their allies agree - reproductive rights, harrasment, abuse, consent, rape convictions and inequality in the workplace.

Yet more guilt shaming? Ludicrous tropes about sinister plots?

Are you suggesting that we have all decided all those things should be ignored? You have absolutely no idea what people do offline or even why they congregate to chat here.

You have even gone so far as to post a leaflet about men in Kenya in support of your whataboutery. Unbelievable.

You are complaining that a campaign against female genital mutilation does not address the feelings of women who wish they were men, while at the same accusing us of 'absolute obsession with transgender issues'?

Righto.

Cultural tone-deafness is a widespread problem

We are exposed to U.S culture here all of the time; and increasingly so......though most Americans have very little awareness at all of Britain and British contexts.

I also think that both sex and gender identity are real, and that sex in humans is primarily dimorphic

Sex is a measurable reality the world over. Gender identity is not. It only exists if you believe it does, or if you identify with it. Sex is still there, however you internally identify.

What you seem to mean by gender identity is the expression of characteristics associated with social and cultural expectations around biological sex.

If you mean my views don't "play well" with GC feminists, I am well aware.

No that wasn't what I meant. I meant the wider world. Most normal well adjusted people in the U.K. wouldn't think bullying campaigners against FGM to change how they speak about things which affect only women and girls, because of your personal psychological issues around your gender identity is at all reasonable. Hope that helps.

The sad thing for me is that GC feminists absolute obsession with transgender issues detracts

Bye, not interested, to quote Hibo.

if it is only in the last few years that you have been alerted to the realities of FGM.

I've been aware of the issue and the women campaigning against it since I was a teenager in the 90s.

DadJoke

Ereshkigalangcleg
Do you actually think this plays well outside your echo chambers, Dadjoke? I'll give you a headsup, if you like.
If you mean my views don't "play well" with GC feminists, I am well aware. I also understand that this is your echo chamber, not mine, and I'm grateful I'm allowed to freely express my views.

If your "headsup "is simply that you think TWAM, that gender identity isn't real and that you think transgender people "already have rights" then I already know that's your view.

If you have any more to add, then I'm all ears, on this thread or by PM as you wish.

-

It's not GC feminists. It's everyone.

Do you seriously imagine that saying things like an FGM survivor and campaigner is transphobic for not promoting an ideology which claims sex isn't biological, only sounds batshit to a minority of people?

That she's not only demonstrating transphobia, but that her campaign would do much better if she did as you ask, as she'd get more allies and you'd give her £500. Promoting an ideology which says sex isn't biological, in a campaign about female genital mutilation?

You think that disagreeing with such a point of view is confined to a small minority?

@Ereshkigalangcleg

The sad thing for me is that GC feminists absolute obsession with transgender issues detracts

Bye, not interested, to quote Hibo.

Also, am I missing something? Did she say anything other than she's not interested?

For the purposes of clarity, this thread has made me feel like I was watching a rich, well-dressed man boast about choosing not to give food to a starving man in the street, because the begging notice had a spelling mistake in it.

Here's the headsup you were after DadJoke, most people don't believe in gender identity ideology and they don't think people have actually changed sex, or were born in the wrong body. The U.K. is mostly a liberal country where people are happy to live and let live within reasons. So when polling is carried out people say that they think a trans woman is a woman etc. However when more questions are asked it's clear they do not actually believe that, especially when they perceive the ramifications.

So various polling shows that the U.K. public is happy to accept an MTF person who identifies as a woman as a "woman", but they do not support legal sex self ID, males in female sports or pre op males in women's toilets and changing rooms.

Also, am I missing something? Did she say anything other than she's not interested?

Dadjoke also judges her for making a "snarky" comment about "chestfeeding"

For the purposes of clarity, this thread has made me feel like I was watching a rich, well-dressed man boast about choosing not to give food to a starving man in the street, because the begging notice had a spelling mistake in it.

Perfect analogy.

A woman who suffered FGM as a young child and campaigns against it got the snark off someone and was told she was slightly transphobic

What sort of privilege is that

She should have taken a leaf out of Jameela Jamil's book and just tweeted "Shut mouth. Open purse" back.

"We are exposed to U.S culture here all of the time; and increasingly so......though most Americans have very little awareness at all of Britain and British contexts."

Oh I agree--I just meant that those outside the US may not realise how much currents of thought in the US (including the trans debate) may be influenced by US puritanism/religious feeling/Biblical fear of homosexuality. Trying to transplant the US ideas wholesale into the UK or other places, without understanding the context, leads to trouble.

I also meant that perhaps DadJoke should stop telling a Somali-born campaigner how to campaign about an issue affecting Somali (and similar) girls because it's the epitome of cultural tone-deafness.