Billy Bragg: your misogyny is showing

[RoyalCorgi]

Apparently "expressing solidarity with the trans community will only provoke a storm of angry feminists (led by a male comedy writer) to harass you for days."

Because obviously we women are too pathetic and useless to organise ourselves and only do anything when a man tells us to.

They don't even bother hiding their contempt for women any more.

m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=408380323983632&id=100044350033272

He doesn't have a job. He's got no idea what is happening in the work place.

I suppose that won't stop him mansplaining to people that do have jobs and direct experience of the exact thing he's ranting about.

@KaptainKaveman

I much prefer Kirsty's version: "Though I put you on a pedestal you put me on the pill". More accurate, IMO.

Exactly!

He’s such a prick. I love his early music (he hasn’t made a decent album since 1995), but he’s such a prick.

@Justjoinedforthis, I don't believe for one second that you're GC.
The right that trans people want that they don't have is to"access all areas female" Why don't any of them just say so?
Also why, when women have to be referred to as body parts to be "inclusive", are men never referred to as "penis havers"? Could it be that they don't want attention to the fact that most FTWs still have one?

Also, @Justjoinedforthis, I'm pretty sure it's not women, GC or not, that are doing the bullying and beating up.....

@Justjoinedforthis

But you could say the same against violence against women, does that mean we shouldn’t be campaigning against it? I feel this line of reasoning turns people off the gc viewpoint.

You can't say the same about violence against women because it's not considered a hate crime.

"Angry feminists"

Oh, there it is.

I always thought he was overrated, with a bloody awful voice. Now I see he is also a typical hypocritical lefty misogynist.

I feel this line of reasoning turns people off the gc viewpoint.

The mantra ''trans rights are human rights'' is the reason people say ''what rights do trans people not have?''

It's a silly, misleading mantra. They have the exact same human rights as every other human in this country, but if they're insisting that they don't, asking them to elaborate is hardly ''out of touch'', is it?

The mantra is wheeled out every time women try to centre ourselves, we can't talk about ourselves or our own lives and experiences without ''but trans rights'', ''but transwomen'', ''never mind women, look over here at what's happening to these people instead''. We're smeared as ''anti-trans'' by clueless men, and it's really starting to grate on us.

Brocialism is not a new thing. Andrea Dworkin wrote brilliantly about the misogynistic gaslighting carried out by men in hard left and socialist circles and campaign groups. How she was repeatedly told, with a metaphorical pat on the head, that yes feminism was important but must be subsumed into the global struggle for world communism, which was far more important. Her silly little feminist concerns would be addressed later.

Anyone who has spent any time in left and socialist campaign groups (as I did, in my misspent youth) will know this to be the case.

Novara Media activist and prominent lefty Ash Sarkar was once asked if she was a feminist. She obediently replied that feminism was not as important to her as the socialist struggle for revolution. That was very obedient and compliant of her. It's exactly what the brocialists have been telling lefty women to think, for decades.

In Scotland, sex as a category to be protected under the Hate Crime Bill was not included. Women in Scotland are not protected by the Bill. Violence against women (specifically as a category rather than just crimes against humans generally) isn't covered. Instead we have a toothless Misogny Working Group.

Hate crime against trans people is (rightly) covered in the Hate Crime Bill. But not hate crime against women. Strange that...

So disappointed in him. I used to be a huge fan. Just shows how his feminism was just a veneer - he has no understanding of women's fears about the erosion of single sex spaces.

@GrrrlPwr

He's pretty hard left though isn't he. So it would be a surprise if he wasn't blinkered

Not really if he supports an ideology that is fundamentally capitalist.

Would you say ‘what rights do gay people not have?’.

Yes, in a discussion about the rights that gay people need. I would ask it about any group.

Can you answer the question with reference to trans people?

I used to like him - he's been revealing himself to be a misogynist bit by bit over the last three/four years or so but this really takes the biscuit.

Twat.

Of course when people ask for extra rights, we should ask what rights are being proposed. Its absolutely madness to suggest no one asks.

All my teenage heroes have turned out to be wankers. Ian Brown, Morrissey, Matt Johnson, Billy Bragg…

This might come as news to you, @Justjoinedforthis, but no one has legal protection against not get glared at, sneered at. Transpeople have the same rights as everyone else not to be bullied, beaten up.

Would you say ‘what rights do gay people not have?’.

Ah, whatabouttery. My favourite logical fallacy. The conversation isn't about gay men and women; it's about trans people. And they have the same rights everyone else does, including protection under the Equality Act, which provides for single-sex spaces.

What they are asking for is an exception for this law to be made for them.

I always picked him as misogynistic.

But you could say the same against violence against women, does that mean we shouldn’t be campaigning against it?

Society has had a very high tolerance level for violence against women since the dawn of time. The fact that it still does makes the question of how to begin to address an almost impossible task. The house is rotten to its foundations and a bit of wallpaper and a quick paint job is going to do fuck all to address it.

It's good that transpeople don't face the same level of social and legal indifference to violence and murder committed against them. I wouldn't for a moment advocate for a society where the oppression of one group of people should be addressed by levelling down others, but the reality is that 3 women a week are killed by men in their own homes and rape convictions are so low as to effectively decriminalise it. Meanwhile, police forces dedicate time and resources to investigating thought crime, wrong speak and the incorrect use of pronouns. Whatever unpleasant incident you witnessed at the weekend, I'm prepared to bet that the perpetrators were men, and that - if it was reported - the police will be taking it very seriously. Which would simply not be the case if a woman reported being glared at or sneered at or harassed. Everyday occurrence, innit?

The right that trans women don't have, or only partially have, is the right for a person with a male body to self-identify as female and use all the spaces and activities that are open to women. That includes the right to share a changing room full of women getting undressed, the right to have a bed in a women's hospital ward and the right to compete in women's sporting events.

Bragg like many men on the left has a romanticised view of the working class hero which is always a white man. Women don't feature in his vision.

@RoyalCorgi

The right that trans women don't have, or only partially have, is the right for a person with a male body to self-identify as female and use all the spaces and activities that are open to women. That includes the right to share a changing room full of women getting undressed, the right to have a bed in a women's hospital ward and the right to compete in women's sporting events.

Yup.

Single-sex spaces are lawful, as confirmed in the EA, but some activists and lobby groups are demanding that right be taken away from us.

Yet it's apparently women's rights that are ''anti-trans''. It's never ''trans rights are anti-women'', is it? 🤔

Would you say ‘what rights do gay people not have?’.

No; one right that seems to be missing for gay people (in the U.K., 2021, obviously it's bloody awful elsewhere) is to be allowed to define their sexuality in terms of sex rather than 'gender' without being vilified. Applies particularly to women.

Does Bragg really have no idea why women are angry about the erosion of their rights?
As to his assumption we're being led by a man... that can really only arise in the mind of someone who tunes out women. We've got some male supporters, from the ranks of blokes who listen to us.

He wants us in clogs and shawls at the factory gate supporting the men. He's a wanker.

@Mollyollydolly

He wants us in clogs and shawls at the factory gate supporting the men. He's a wanker.

Seems to sum him up perfectly

Isn’t he trying to promote a new album and a tour?

I see a pattern with these celebrity tweets.