Too Radical to Speak: Germaine Greer, Janice Raymond, Julia Long

[TalksOverMen]

Why aren't these strong brave Radfem women speaking at Filia, LGB Alliance etc? Why aren't they mentioned, their books, their deeds? They were early to this entire problem and spoke out fearlessly and suffered.

Janice Raymond in particular has a new book out "Doublethink: A Feminist Challenge to Transgenderism"

I never see them mentioned by JCJ (recently and not in a good way), Kathleen Stock, HelenJoyce, Julie Bindel etc..

I'm livid to see them ignored and sidelined as they are the true heroines

Rather than be livid, maybe outline why you would like to see them acknowledged or platformed more rather than direct attention to those who you say don't mention them.

It's regrettable but it's not unusual for there to be a penalty for those who end up being classed as 'premature anti-[X]' - the best known examples are being premature anti-fascist or anti-Nazi.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/4366709-Abigail-Shrier-Marci-Bowers-critical-of-puberty-blockers?msgid=111375587

I don't recall who they do name but I can recall the women you highlight as among those who acknowledge the debt to second wave feminism.

Agree OP

Spot on OP

I have been a bit surprised Greer isn't talked about much, I think she's such a legend! Don't know Raymond's work much, and yes, Julia Long is wonderful.

Interesting article, Embarrassing. I was thinking that earlier - looking back at the issues we're now seeing in the public eye, the women that called them out first have, in large part, had their voices/reputations sacrificed for speaking out. Even if we're just talking about some of the women who've been banned from Mumsnet. It's sobering.

@ArabellaScott

I have been a bit surprised Greer isn't talked about much, I think she's such a legend! Don't know Raymond's work much, and yes, Julia Long is wonderful.

Interesting article, Embarrassing. I was thinking that earlier - looking back at the issues we're now seeing in the public eye, the women that called them out first have, in large part, had their voices/reputations sacrificed for speaking out. Even if we're just talking about some of the women who've been banned from Mumsnet. It's sobering.

Apart from Transsexual Empire , Raymond's prescience in 1993 Women As Wombs is frankly disturbing in its identification of fertility and the commodification of women's reproductive capacity. Raymond anticipated so many contemporary concerns around surrogacy and (I think) reproductive (in)justice. I admit that I'd somehow forgotten her use of the phrases, ejaculatory fatherhood''; spermatic market''.

www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/janice-g-raymond/women-as-wombs/

Didn't Julie Bindel not attend the recent LGB conference thing? If what I read on Twitter is correct?

Do you think maybe it was to do with preparations for the Court of Appeal hearing on whether carers can buy women for the sexual gratification of disabled men? www.centreforwomensjustice.org.uk/news/2021/10/22/there-is-no-right-to-buy-sex-zla8t

@Scraggythang

I’m also curious. I do wonder if Germaine is just sick of talking about them (trans).

Didn’t know about Janice Raymond’s new book, so that says a lot.

Raymond's book isn't released in the UK until November 30 I don't know if there'll be some decent publicity or maybe UK interviews in the next few weeks because I know nothing about the tactics of book marketing.

Germaine Greer is old and possibly no longer has an appetite for appearing in public. She also has some fairly problematic views, brilliant though she is in other ways.

Raymond of course is based in the US.

She also has some fairly problematic views, brilliant though she is in other ways.

What's a problematic view?

Although MN is probably the only mainstream forum where we can discuss these political issues, it's worth noting that the various guidelines and the deletion of entire threads makes it very difficult to have a sense of who and what has been discussed here in the past few years.

I doubt that Greer would identify as a radfem. Some of her ideas intersect but I can’t see many others fitting.

I love Greer

Julia Long was at FiLiA? She asked a question of Helen Joyce in her session and they had an interesting, respectful exchange of views.

In various sessions I attended there were people who could have spoken but were audience members, ie Long and Criado Perez.
Greer is very much the Greer show and has not been collegiate recently. Plus she is about 80 now and probably charges £££ for appearances

What's a problematic view?

She has said that the sentence for rape should be reduced:
www.theguardian.com/books/2018/may/30/germaine-greer-calls-for-punishment-for-to-be-reduced

She's said that opposition to FGM is an attack on cultural identity:

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/535488.stm

Other stuff too if you care to search for it.

Sorry to derail. Those comments on FGM are really bizarre. She’s equating it to being the same as an adult woman giving consent and not acknowledging that it’s primarily done to female children? Wtf?

I do think that women could make politics irrelevant; by a kind of spontaneous cooperative action the like of which we have never seen; which is so far from people’s ideas of state structure or viable social structure that it seems to them like total anarchy — when what it really is, is very subtle forms of interrelation that do not follow some heirarchal pattern which is fundamentally patriarchal. The opposite to patriarchy is not matriarchy but fraternity, yet I think it’s women who are going to have to break this spiral of power and find the trick of cooperation.

-Germaine Greer

Prof David Wootton "When Germaine Greer resigned from her Cambridge College over the definition of “woman” I thought she was wrong. She wasn’t."

"Real women are being phased out; the first step, persuading them to deny their own existence, is almost complete.

Female is real, and it's sex, and femininity is unreal, and it's gender"

1999 "The Whole Woman", Germaine Greer

All of those women and more have spoken at RadFem Collective events. And Greer did it for free.

I wasn't there but I did kind of like some conferences back in the second wave when there was more emphasis on participant-led sessions - discussion, debate, consciousness-raising, problem-solving and so on.

I read Greer has retired back to Australia. She's 82 now and the last time I saw her on TV she looked tired and unsteady on her feet.

@ofwarren

I read Greer has retired back to Australia. She's 82 now and the last time I saw her on TV she looked tired and unsteady on her feet.

I may have watched the same programme. She was packing up to move house because she said it was too much for her and yes, unsteady on her feet. I took it as a goodbye to public life and I found it very poignant and a sharp reminder of mortality.

Yes, that was the programme I saw. She was selling all her possessions and was unable to look after her beloved garden.
Quite upsetting to see her like that wasn't it.