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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Finn Mackay in Guardian today

82 replies

FFSitsonlyMonday · 18/10/2021 19:08

I quite liked this today. I am very poorly informed but think I will get reading.

Guardian link Finn Mackay article

OP posts:
Franca123 · 19/10/2021 22:54

Oh dear. I just went to this person's twitter feed. It's worse than I thought. I can't take this crap.

EnidFrighten · 19/10/2021 22:58

I think she's great. She's got a point about the creativity and action of 70s radfems, today it's just sniping on the internet for the most part, like this thread!

Reptar · 19/10/2021 23:05

You are joking, right? You missed the Holbeck red light district protests? Getting coercive control added to the DV bill? Getting strangulation made a specific offence?

Franca123 · 19/10/2021 23:13

Maybe we'd be achieving more if all the time and energy wasn't sapped by people playing silly buggers with 'identities'.

PurgatoryOfPotholes · 19/10/2021 23:18

I second the recommendation of bell hooks feminist theory: from margin to center.

Regarding the actual topic of the OP, I am bored of the valorising of the yoof, in sentences like [y]ounger people today are much more fluent in their understandings of sex, gender and sexuality and I get to say that, being a decade younger than Dr Mackay.

My feminist praxis has benefited hugely from joining mumsnet at 21, and listening to older women who had been there, done that. I didn't know it all at 21, I just thought I did, and the same goes for today's current crop of earnest 21 year olds.

Shedbuilder · 19/10/2021 23:37

@PurgatoryOfPotholes

I second the recommendation of bell hooks feminist theory: from margin to center.

Regarding the actual topic of the OP, I am bored of the valorising of the yoof, in sentences like [y]ounger people today are much more fluent in their understandings of sex, gender and sexuality and I get to say that, being a decade younger than Dr Mackay.

My feminist praxis has benefited hugely from joining mumsnet at 21, and listening to older women who had been there, done that. I didn't know it all at 21, I just thought I did, and the same goes for today's current crop of earnest 21 year olds.

Thank you, young Purgatory! I am being frowned at and patronised half to death by the woke under-40s of my acquaintance who are displaying previously unknown levels of ageism.
PurgatoryOfPotholes · 19/10/2021 23:47

Funny how they're all progressive until they're asked to confront their unexamined mother-issues and to treat older women as individuals, and not as a giant cardiganed monolith.

1Week · 19/10/2021 23:47

Purgatory absolutely. And I can't quite articulate it but I do think that a lot of our current problems are somehow tied in to the valorisation of youth.
All cultures have recognised joyfullness, sexuality and idealism of youth.

Youth and sex are enmeshed in our culture, and we're obsessed by both.

Traditionally we have also recognised the steadfastness and productivity of middle age and the wisdom of old age.

My granny had a saying, what's rare is wonderful.

Old people were rare, for most if human history. Now, we have an aging population and a declining birth rate. Is that a kind of undercurrent? There's definitely a denigration of middle and old age

SimonedeBeauvoirscat · 20/10/2021 00:09

Lurking here but just to say, ‘giant cardiganed monolith’ is a fantastic turn of phrase.

foxgoosefinch · 20/10/2021 00:28

I do love a cardigan though. (Since I was a teenager as well!)

SimonedeBeauvoirscat · 20/10/2021 01:05

Yes I actually feel like a giant cardiganed monolith myself a lot of the time 😆

Shedbuilder · 20/10/2021 01:27

@PurgatoryOfPotholes

Funny how they're all progressive until they're asked to confront their unexamined mother-issues and to treat older women as individuals, and not as a giant cardiganed monolith.
Having put on a bit of weight during lockdown I'm afraid that from November through to March I will be a cardiganed monolith...
PurgatoryOfPotholes · 20/10/2021 01:36

This was a thought-provoking response to Dr Mackay a couple of weeks ago.

twitter.com/Aisha__Hashem/status/1444295197345583114?t=y_HLMdcUhwpPaT4iMz9qmg&s=19

CharlieParley · 20/10/2021 10:38

[quote PurgatoryOfPotholes]This was a thought-provoking response to Dr Mackay a couple of weeks ago.

twitter.com/Aisha__Hashem/status/1444295197345583114?t=y_HLMdcUhwpPaT4iMz9qmg&s=19[/quote]
And it demonstrates clearly where FM stands on the issue - she dismissively waves away our objections to self-id as a "manufactured culture war". I do agree with her that it's manufactured, but not by us - this has been deliberately created by the proponents of queer and critical theories, which here manifests as the doctrine of gender identity.

Our response to that has reinvigorated the women's rights movement in a way we haven't seen in 50 years. This is a genuine grassroots movement. We don't just have Filia and meetings organised in big assemblies. We have small meetings in village hall after village hall with mostly women asking What is this? Why is this happening? What can we do about it?

There's no funding for that. They each chip in a few pounds to pay for hiring that wee hall. The last one I spoke at had homebaking and lovely cups of tea. There's no payment for the speakers, nor travel costs. We do it anyway, because it matters that much to us.

I'd love to see FM come to one of those small meetings in a Scottish village and hear about the real problems her ideology is causing to little girls and boys, to teenage girls and boys, to women of any age. Hear about working class mums and grans desperately try to find ways to stand up for their kids without any recourse to legal advice, and no money to move them to a school that isn't captured, let alone homeschool them. Hear about councils defunding women's refuges to give the money instead to non-specialist commercial groups, who cannot deliver the service a battered woman and her children need, because they don't understand the effect that domestic abuse has had on her and her kids. Again, these are working class women who cannot book a hotel room to get away. Who cannot pay for their own therapy.

EmbarrassingHadrosaurus · 20/10/2021 10:54

CharlieParley - both your words and Aisha H's thread made me tear up a little.

I don't why it looks like everything has been resolved to someone hanging out with academics in Bristol but it certainly doesn't look that way to vast numbers of women in different circumstances. I'm sorry that FM doesn't realise that.

CharlieParley · 26/10/2021 23:15

Just in case anyone is still in any doubt about FM's stance on women's rights, in response to a BBC article about the "Cotton Ceiling", here is FM's considered opinion on lesbians disclosing their rape by male members of the trans community:

I worry articles like this do a disservice to survivors in LGBTQ community. Are there predators & sex creeps in this community? Yes. Does the community do enough? No. But this is closing down speech as ppl worry their words will be weaponized in an agenda to remove trans rights.

twitter.com/Finn_Mackay/status/1453048080039809027?s=20

This is a BBC article that raises awareness about lesbians being coerced by some male members of the trans community to have sex with them. The stories include disclosure of rape. The survivors specifically wanted to raise awareness not only of what happened to them, but also how the LGBT community reacted to their experiences and their rejection of those males as sexual partners.

This article does the opposite of closing down speech, it gives a voice to these survivors on mainstream media for the first time. After their own community ostracized them for asserting sexual boundaries against all males.

It seems FM would have preferred them to remain silent.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-57853385

Franca123 · 26/10/2021 23:38

Yep. Hardly a surprise is it.

SpindelWhorl · 27/10/2021 00:20

I worry articles like this do a disservice to survivors in LGBTQ community ... (etc etc)

Oh fgs that tweet doesn't even make sense. It's like cognitive dissonance meets decompensation on Tinder posing as academic popular journalism in a little basket of venom.

Lazy

CharlieParley · 27/10/2021 00:49

Lazy and stupid.

FM is claiming that the next survivor won't be able to disclose a sexual offence perpetrated by another member of the LGBT community for fear of us seizing upon that crime to support our arguments.

Our arguments are about male violence against female people. And we include males who identify as trans in that argument. Not because they are identifying as trans but because they are male.

Finn knows this, of course. So, FM claims that the next female survivor won't be able to speak out about being violated by a male member of the trans community, because that would support our argument that male members of the trans community pose the exact same risk to female people as all other males.

And why on earth would that need to be kept quiet? And this is lesbians speaking about male predators who happen to identify as trans.

The only rights FM claims we are after are about male people accessing female-only provisions.

So this is all about making sure that we cannot legitimately seek to prevent predators from accessing our provisions on the basis of their sex. (Coz we cannot know beforehand who is a predator and who isn't, we must blanket ban all males.)
FM has nothing to suggest here about how the LGBT community should a) treat those predators and b) prevent more attacks from happening. But that would require addressing the coercive nature of an ideology that has suffused the community.

ErrolTheDragon · 27/10/2021 00:57

So... better just close down lesbians speech because they've lost their rights already, is that it?Hmm

1Week · 27/10/2021 02:15

"A good Catholic would never accuse a priest of such a thing. It only gives aid to the Godless"

EmbarrassingHadrosaurus · 27/10/2021 02:27

A devoted partner would never report domestic violence because it undermines the concept of the family and destabilises society.

Have I got the hang of this?

CharlieParley · 27/10/2021 09:01

And here is FM's comment to one woman on Twitter who told Finn that she took part in the research and that she and two of her friends had been assaulted by a male member of the trans community:

First FM says emphatically "I do believe you" and then

Yes, that is a problem. There are rapey creeps in our community unfortunately. I jst don't think it's going to help us to address it, with the sex & gender conservative mainstream peering in from outside & using that to pursue an anti LGBTQ agenda, picking off trans women first.

FM seems to only care about one sex. And it's not the women survivors of male violence.

twitter.com/Finn_Mackay/status/1453053866455470081?s=20

CharlieParley · 27/10/2021 09:04

I mean why is the responsibility for bringing the community into disrepute not firmly laid at the feet of the "rapey creeps"? Why on earth is a supposed feminist laying that responsibility at the feet of their victims?

BloodinGutters · 27/10/2021 09:23

[quote CharlieParley]Just in case anyone is still in any doubt about FM's stance on women's rights, in response to a BBC article about the "Cotton Ceiling", here is FM's considered opinion on lesbians disclosing their rape by male members of the trans community:

I worry articles like this do a disservice to survivors in LGBTQ community. Are there predators & sex creeps in this community? Yes. Does the community do enough? No. But this is closing down speech as ppl worry their words will be weaponized in an agenda to remove trans rights.

twitter.com/Finn_Mackay/status/1453048080039809027?s=20

This is a BBC article that raises awareness about lesbians being coerced by some male members of the trans community to have sex with them. The stories include disclosure of rape. The survivors specifically wanted to raise awareness not only of what happened to them, but also how the LGBT community reacted to their experiences and their rejection of those males as sexual partners.

This article does the opposite of closing down speech, it gives a voice to these survivors on mainstream media for the first time. After their own community ostracized them for asserting sexual boundaries against all males.

It seems FM would have preferred them to remain silent.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-57853385[/quote]
Said this on the other thread but that reads very much like shhh let’s keep it in the family incase anyone thinks badly of us.

Which is all kinds of gross.