Janice Turner on feminism's new (old) fight

[everythingcrossed]

Janice has a fantastic essay in the Times today about having to relitigate old ground, fight for rights that we have taken for granted because feminism has allowed itself to get complacent.

Other political movements respect their elders even when their views no longer align with modern mores. Black Lives Matter would never forsake Marcus Garvey or Malcolm X; the LGBT movement deifies those who in 1969 bravely defied homophobic police at the Stonewall Inn in New York City. Feminism alone lays waste to each preceding generation of leaders, campaigners and thinkers as impure, backward, irrelevant, wrong.

The Pankhursts: rich bitches. Marie Stopes: eugenicist. Andrea Dworkin: man-hater, fun-sucker and (most unforgivably) ugly. Germaine Greer: transphobe, no matter The Female Eunuch rocked the world. Hillary Clinton: privileged, white, pantsuit girlboss. Besides they’re all old, like your mother, the very worst thing a woman can be. So let’s wipe feminism clean and start again.

Excoriating and refreshing.

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Great piece from Janice as always.

I happen to agree with GC feminists on trans ideology but I don't think you're of much use to us beyond that.

To be honest, if you're in the US - I'm assuming you are - I am regretfully edging towards a similar conclusion here in the UK. I think our culture and our politics are now so different that we really have become two nations separated by a common language.

When it comes to legally protected rights, I know where I'd rather live, and it's not the US (and it wasn't even before last weekend). You seem to be caught up in a pincer movement between two parties, neither of which have women's interests at heart. There are definitely similarities in the UK but I think here there's still scope for women to work together across political divides whereas, in the US, that seems impossible since Trump.

I really do feel for you but constructive conversation feels so difficult at the moment that I don't know what else to say.

Interesting to see that some people struggle with the idea that a newspaper/medial outlet may have a policy of allowing many contradictory opinions. The Guardian may have given up on that idea but fortunately The Times hasn't.

Many thanks for the share token. Janice Turner is a marvellous writer.

How very interesting to regard other feminists as consumer items that need to be of use to others;

tsk tsk. What are women for, if not to be of use to other people? Wash your mouth out, Hadro.

The leader is the official view of the newspaper.

interesting too that „multiple views „are tolerated when they include strongly anti abortion views from the owner and editor of a newspaper, but not when they are about which feminists are above criticism or what positions will be tolerated by young women supporting abortion if they disagree with J Turner.

I was an eighties feminist who was out and proud of my fore sisters in the first and second waves.

The groups that you're aligning yourself with have no qualms about saying the word woman. They're very clear about knowing what a woman's body is because they want to control it. I happen to agree with GC feminists on trans ideology but I don't think you're of much use to us beyond that. I don't much relish the idea that it's okay to be dragged back to the eighteenth century because at least you didn't have trans women back then.

Which groups are we aligning ourselves with? Why would GC feminists want us to be dragged back to the eighteenth century? Why do you think transwoman are a 21st century phenomenon? Who do you think were the women who got you reproductive rights in the first place?

There are some organisations, such as Planned Parenthood in the US, who are very keen to erase the word women, even from abortion protests, because this IS seen as progress by a fairly large group of young feminists and young progressive men. I think they are unaware of how recent and fragile women's rights are, and are largely blind to sex-based oppression.

This is the impression I get from some young feminists: They truly believe that women's rights were won in the past and now it's time to fight for other rights which are more lacking. They don't see that those women's rights are now being lost, though perhaps the end of Roe might make it more apparent for some. Not for Planned Parenthood, however.

The demonization of Sanders supporters - a construction by a press captured by corporate power - is ironic given US women are going to need universal health care even more now. The US already has a maternal death rate for black women on par with countries like Tanzania. Cuts to social assistance and public programs hurt poor women most of all.

The press and mainstream Democratic power hates Sanders because he actually advocates for universal, social Democratic programs that uplift all - in fact, he’s exactly the left people here want, not identity politics but firm class-based, worker oriented policies. He has been a stronger supporter of abortion than Hillary Clinton, actually. A small portion of his supporters were the “Bernie bro” stereotype just as the K-Hive was also aggressive and bullying online just as in any group of people there’s a fringe that is extra, but many more were people including women who wanted a Democratic Party that actually substantially made policies to better our lives and not just surface gestures of wearing kinte cloth or whatever. Women and young women didn’t support Sanders because we hate feminism, we supported Sanders because Hillary Clinton/Biden weren’t offering anything more than the same corporate focused, toothless Democratic Party policies that continue to fund the military, defer to billionaires and screw everyone else over. Hillary Clinton’s story is admirable as a personal story but policy-wise she has always bowed to centrist Democratic uselessness - the same inaction, blinkered thinking and complacency that didn’t fight for abortion until it was too late.

More Sanders supporters voted for Clinton than Clinton supporters voted for Obama. It’s a myth and a lie that some huge percentage of Sanders supporters voted for Trump. Sanders did many times more events for Clinton than she did for Obama. This narrative is tired, is a deliberate smear made when he gained momentum by challenging pharma companies, insurance companies and billionaires and won the working classes including many Latino workers. Clinton wasn’t offering the policies that actually benefit women - isn’t it the height of “wokeness” to be scolded for not voting for identity because she’s a woman? I thought diversity policies and identity politics were woke and divisive, I guess until it’s a white woman (who actually are the group who has benefited most from affirmative action) then suddenly we’re not supposed to vote on policy but on identity. Where has Democratic centrism got women now?

If you don’t want a left made up of identity politics and culture wars you should be supporting Sanders, not trying to blame his movement for ending feminism.

Why would GC feminists want us to be dragged back to the eighteenth century? Why do you think transwoman are a 21st century phenomenon? Who do you think were the women who got you reproductive rights in the first place?

I've a gnawing sense that it's possible the PP who argues that women are pro C18 doesn't have much of a sense of C20 history, never mind earlier realities such as how it was to live in an era pre-suffrage, pre the Married Women's Property Act (1882) etc.

@Pluvia On the disappearance of the word 'lesbian', I've just seen a tweet from Jeanette Winterson describing Oranges are Not the Only Fruit as having 'the first gay girl kiss' on TV.

You were alive before 1882? Tell me all about it.

Not a believer in free speech then, @antifascist ?

What needs to be done is to listen to the views with which you think you disagree so that you can build arguments against their stated positions. Listening and debating is the only way to change someone's position.

That's only slightly less disappointing than the fact that JW has said nothing through this whole debate. She's among the women (Helena Kennedy springs to mind) whose previously impeccable reputations have been pretty much destroyed by their silence on this subject.

(Helena Kennedy springs to mind) whose previously impeccable reputations have been pretty much destroyed by their silence on this subject.

HK hasn't been silent, she's firmly #BeKind and TWAW.

Some previous MN threads if you put the following string into your search engine.

site:mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights helena kennedy

@Boxowine "The groups that you're aligning yourself with have no qualms about saying the word woman. They're very clear about knowing what a woman's body is because they want to control it."

Which USA groups would those be please? Could you name them? Thanks.

I was a second wave feminist, fighting in the 60s/70s for equal pay and the right to access jobs on merit etc. Come the end of the 70s I, like many of my contemporaries, thought the big battles had nearly been won.

Now, I conclude sadly that the war on women has been ignited again, by the right and the left, who, newly emboldened are telling us to stay in our lane, whether it is the anti pro-choice movement or the misogynistic trans rights ideology and their respective handmaidens, ably assisted by fourth wave feminists, many of whom think the insulting drag industry, porn and pole dancing is "empowering".

I am so tired of it all and too old to start over. I sadly conclude that women who are letting this happen with their misguided "be kind" and "inclusive" mantras deserve all that is coming their way. Enjoy your erasure ladies.

Oh, for goodness sake, there were molly houses and male brothels full of cross-dressing men up to all sorts of things in the 17th and 18th centuries. They just didn't try to promote the idea that people could change sex.

You were alive before 1882? Tell me all about it.

Sorry to tell you but there are two things human.beings can't do , live for more than 150 years or change sex. HTH

Superb piece.

There were crossdressers in Ancient Rome for goodness sake. It's well documented.

Feminism alone lays waste to each preceding generation of leaders, campaigners and thinkers as impure, backward, irrelevant, wrong.

I think there's a tendendency in feminism to do the same to it's younger generation.