I think I've figured out why the Guilty Feminists feel guilty...

[vivariumvivariumsvivaria]

@Glinner sent this round today:

"(From a thread by @Forwomenscot) The CEO of Edinburgh Rape Crisis has said "Sexual violence happens to bigoted people too. But if you bring beliefs that are discriminatory, expect to be challenged on your prejudice. Reframe your trauma" Apparently, survivors are to be "educated" in this service."

The CEO is Mridul Wadhwa, a male person who does not have a GRC and who believes that rape victims orgasm.

The podcast twitter account is blocking everyone who says "WTF?" etc

since the TRANSCRIPT of Mridul Wadhwa on the Guilty Feminist podcast the comments are recognising something...perhaps FWRs can give it a name? It's doing my head in, but it's tangible...DFW, MW, Kemah Bob prioritise validating MW and ignore / lack empathy for the service users. The fawning fuckery of that interview.

FWR points:

• in every scenario, MW becomes the central person and how little MW is able to talk about the real practical impacts on women of violence and trauma.

-MW's own words do tell of an obsession with getting abused women to affirm males as female

-Think about that. MW chose to work with womenwho couldn't say noand who were uniquely vulnerable to MW's imposed presence within what should be a female only space/service.

-MW focused on gaslighting them into denying the evidence in front of their eyes.

-RCS has simply enabled MW to inflict this obsession on all other abused women.

-MW is the person who chooses MW's political agenda at the expense of vulnerable traumatised women's need for therapeutic female only support. MW alone is responsible for the warped choices made to target women at their most vulnerable for personal validation.

-There is no discussion in that podcast about the real effects on women, there is no personal testimony or empathy.

-what comes through - forcibly - is MW's need to control perceptions and to be validated. I worry that MW has moved on from party guests to rape victims.
virginiasroom.co.uk/f/on-validation-and-tolerance

perhaps FWRs can give it a name? It's doing my head in, but it's tangible...DFW, MW, Kemah Bob prioritise validating MW and ignore / lack empathy for the service users. The fawning fuckery of that interview.

Narcissistic supply?

Flying Monkeys (The Narcissist’s Tool for the Smear Campaign)
Inner Integration
May 13, 2018
(extract)
"First of all flying monkeys are also known as the:
entourage
accomplices
enablers
extension of the narcissist
campaign managers
They’re out there recruiting other people, kind of in a way like religious people might knock on your door and try to recruit you into their religion. They’re trying to convert you into the religion of the narcissist, which is reality by the narcissist.
So the role of these flying monkeys is first of all abuse by proxy.
Abuse by proxy is when the narcissist gets other people to abuse you. That way the narcissist gets to abuse you but through these people. They’ll reject you, they’ll make you feel not good enough, they’ll shame you, maybe they’ll put you in a bad situation, they’ll tell you that you’re crazy, things like that. This way the narcissist looks like the one that’s clean. They’re not involved.

Flying monkeys make the narcissist feel like they’re important and special. They help the narcissist feel like they’re grandiose, like they have high status, like they’re famous or a celebrity, which is what the narcissist wants to feel. Narcissists often have a whole entourage around them just like a celebrity needs an entourage in order to feel secure about themselves.

So who can become flying monkeys?
There are two different categories of people.
The first category is the naive.
The naive are people who are just clueless. They can’t see it, they can’t fathom it, they’ve never been through anything like that, so they can’t even imagine that somebody would do such a thing to just make up all these lies about you and spread them across town. They just can’t even fathom that a human would do that or maybe the naive is also the fawning type. (continues)

The second category of people who can become flying monkeys are the toxic.
These are the people with no boundaries. They love gossip and drama, they’re addicted to that stuff. They have an integrity problem and usually they want something from the narcissist. They want status, they want flattery, they want favours. They’re getting something out of the narcissist, which is why they’re willing to do their bidding. (continues)

medium.com/@OwnYourReality/flying-monkeys-the-narcissists-tool-for-the-smear-campaign-798daf7a59c0

This is a really powerful & gut wrenching thread from Twitter - I'm still speechless 10 mins after reading it.

Link to thread reader of Twitter thread

I too have been thinking of the women in/around Edinburgh who have to grapple with the reality of the so-called support they are being asked to navigate. It appalls me that those in ERCC & more widely RCS have so little regard for women that they cannot walk back on their full blown support for this male they are happy to impose in what should be a therapeutic female only space for those who need it.

How the fuck did we get to this?

Yes I live in Edinburgh. Cheers rape crisis

There must have been and continue to be systemic failings within the Scottish Women's Sector that enabled someone who failed to disclose significant information at interview to remain in post/s , progress to senior management and become celebrated.

Wadwha has been entrenched within not only the Women's Sector but also LGBTQ+ organisations and SDP for over a decade.

Ibid. transcript
(extract)
"I did a Masters at Edinburgh University, there was a job going at Shakti and I just completed a masters in training. And they needed someone to do some training. It wasn't by design. I just applied for this job, it looked interesting."

^So I've worked in the women's sector now since 2005, so quite a few years. And when I worked at Shakti Women's Aid, you know, it was eye opening, not just to see an experience, like what does domestic abuse really look like... So my work in Women's Aid in the early years of my career was around raising awareness about this and it really transformed me. But I also found a real group of wonderful, and mostly immigrant women of colour, working to change this, and many of us still are, even like 15, 16 years later. But also many of us were qualified to do other things with our lives. But we couldn't find those, you know, a space and those careers that we trained for, because of
racism, really, and found ourselves in this organisation. So it's a real interesting journey how many of us got there. And for me, it was just luck and coincidence, but it changed my life completely."^

R0wantrees "and it really transformed me"

Isn't it interesting how that is a phrase that women who work with victims of male violence never use? They universally focus on the people they aim to help.

We don't need genital inspectors at toilet doors - women can see a person's sex. Even in writing.

PlayYouLikeAShark

Thank you for that. She's an eloquent writer.

And worth a follow, if you're on twitter.

The orgasm comment has me wondering if the reframing is along the lines of, “just try to enjoy yoursellf.” Some kind of queering of rape counseling.

Or 'get over yourself'. It's not such a big trauma. Not like you're trans or something.....

@R0wantrees really interesting re narcissistic supply and flying monkey abuse by proxy. My perception is that the guilty feminists fall into the 'naive' type. If they were at all informed by experts (such as Karen Ingala Smith) the interview would (I hope) have been different.

It still leaves the question around the psyche of males obsessed with and demanding entry to spaces for female bodied violence, trauma, bodily funcitons.... Narcissism sure but it's more than that...

"and it really transformed ME"

Isn't it interesting how that is a phrase that women who work with victims of male violence never use? They universally focus on the people they aim to help

Yes, it's ME, ME, ME. The guilty feminist podcast interview fawning to prioritise ME, ME, ME. The 're-frame your trauma' demand of rape victims as it's all about ME, ME, ME. The calling women wanting females only to VALIDATE ME, ME, ME

The opposite of women in VAWG who prioritise women, not themselves.

@Abhannmor

Or 'get over yourself'. It's not such a big trauma. Not like you're trans or something.....

Yes, this.

Well not surprised 😣. Another poster on another thread linked to Rape Crisis Scotland policy that MEN CAN CHOOSE THE SEX of the counsellor 🤬AIBU To be asked to reframe my trauma by the trans CEO of Scottish Rape Crisis?

source: twitter.com/Gillian_Philip/status/1425155716822753290

Yes, it's ME, ME, ME. The guilty feminist podcast interview fawning to prioritise ME, ME, ME. The 're-frame your trauma' demand of rape victims as it's all about ME, ME, ME. The calling women wanting females only to VALIDATE ME, ME, ME

The opposite of women in VAWG who prioritise women, not themselves.

As far as I can see Wadwha's involvement with VAWG services has only being in paid positions, initially providing training to volunteers and then primarily focussed on securing funding. Wadwha's previous role was training telesales teams in India how to pretend to be American so they may be better received.

Shaping the training, policies and acquired funding over more than a decade has indeed enabled Mridhul Wadwha to "create their own world" within the Women's Sector in Scotland all whilst drawing a salary.

Oh look. This might be interesting.

www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/building-intersectional-inclusion-in-rape-crisis-services-w-mridul-wadhwa-tickets-164138180717?fbclid=IwAR3uCv3eNBnWqYDFshAG-4jE3JulyYjm_bpSJpSKYJzz7MpaELAD_C1ATUE

Aka "centering ME in rape crisis services"

More info on MW if anyone hasn’t already read -
grahamlinehan.substack.com/p/a-fox-in-the-hen-house

As far as I can see Wadwha's involvement with VAWG services has only being in paid positions, initially providing training to volunteers and then primarily focussed on securing funding.

If MW was only a fundraiser, I wouldn't have any issue at all, any non frontline role that didn't give MW control of policy affecting women and girls, or the ability to push the TRA agenda.

Just been blocked on Twitter by DFW for saying that women who have been raped shouldn't have to reframe their trauma.
It doesn't say much for the strength of her argument if she blocks anyone who disagrees with her.

This is amusing. DFW will never be quite good/inclusive enough for her preferred audience..
twitter.com/GuiltFemPod/status/1425373217666048002

[quote 76FDre421]This is amusing. DFW will never be quite good/inclusive enough for her preferred audience..
twitter.com/GuiltFemPod/status/1425373217666048002[/quote]
I've just shown that tweet to my DH and watched his brain try to work through the mental gymnastics required to make sense of it.
It's a man having sex with a women to try and have a baby - where the hell is the trans in that?

^the tweeter likes to “challenge gender assumptions” by showing off their breasts but wearing a he/him badge. It must blow people’s minds. Also uses the f slur in Twitter bio.

As far as I can see Wadwha's involvement with VAWG services has only being in paid positions, initially providing training to volunteers and then primarily focussed on securing funding.

MW has worked on the National Helpline speaking to survivors and counselled four survivors a week as a manager at Forth Valley (to "stay connected with the cause").

Given the publicly demonstrated inability to empathise with female survivors and the profound ignorance on what trauma-informed counselling requires, I find this very concerning.

If MW was only a fundraiser, I wouldn't have any issue at all, any non frontline role that didn't give MW control of policy affecting women and girls, or the ability to push the TRA agenda.

As much of fundraising is about grant applications, those who have responsibility for securing funds will be influencing organisations' policy.

Yes, that's a good point R0, hadn't considered that.