And this is exactly why Posie Parker is a liability

[MerchedBeca]

Yes, she's charismatic, has style and says things out loud we all wish we'd had the ovaries to say.

But sometimes, the shit she says is fucking dangerous. HOW can she say she's standing for women's rights and then blithely say that our access to abortion is a price worth paying? WTFucking hell?

This isn't about elites, or head girls or any of that shit that Posie chucks at women who disagree with her. We're seeing the biggest pushback on women's rights since before women's lib, we need to build a grass roots movement to fight this, urgently, and Posie's tactics are harming us.

So, this morning someone called Billy Bragg out on his stance on women's rights, and he came back directly with a screenshot of Posie taking shit about Roe vs Wade.

We are NEVER going to convince the left wing that this is an issue they need to get to grips with if the loudest voice they hear on this Posie who's very obviously courting the US religious right, and if every time someone tries to have a conversation with the left about this topic, we're all smeared by association with Posie and whatever shit she's said recently. I know she says she's not a feminist but that detail is lost our detractors. She's a gift to those who want to paint us all as ultra right wing bigots, and this matters.

It's difficult to comment on that without the context. In any case, I don't think it is ever necessary (or even a good idea) to support someone's views 100%. You never know what they are going to say next!

Indeed.

Here's the context, from Billy Bragg's Facebook page today

www.facebook.com/billybraggofficial/posts/pfbid02QpbP1fE616ozQ3hSMQYAGJMMe5eaCRVpsfUFTPepD6A37hCTnwXNW6fFLtwgKwfyl

I'd like to see the bottom half of her post
It seems like you cut off a chunk.
Could you post the whole thing please.

Billy Bragg hates women anyway; he doesn't need Posie Parker as an excuse.

Billy Bragg? He utterly loathes women, especially ones with a brain and a mouth like Posie Parker.

Posie Parker doesn't speak for all feminists or all women, and it's disingenuous of Billy Bragg to suggest that she does.

Stop policing women’s speech. I don’t agree with her. I will fight for the right for women to access safe and legal abortion AND I will fight for her right to oppose me in that, if she wishes. She is her own person. So are we all.

No, he doesn't. But he has a huge platform - bigger than Posie's. And there will be a lot of people reading that don't know a lot about the debate and aren't entrenched. And they will be reading what he puts out and being swayed by what they read.

If people like Billy Bragg can brush aside feminists who oppose gender ideology so easily, by simply quoting Posie Parker to smear us all, this is a problem, isn't it.

She's allowed her views. How patronising to call her a "liability". We don't all have to be self-identified "feminists" with all the approved opinions in order to stand against gender ideology.

The biggest threat to women rights is the redefining of woman to include men who say they are women.
If that’s definition is accepted in law, then your girl children will grow up with no sex based rights - this is the biggest fight, and one which must be be fought for until the bitter end.

So, this morning someone called Billy Bragg out on his stance on women's rights, and he came back directly with a screenshot of Posie taking shit about Roe vs Wade.

well what do you expect from the likes of Billy Bragg who hates women? so glad someone called him out and no surprise he cites a woman to blame in response!

posie has done far more to help women and children than he ever has no matter how much he tries to smear her. Let’s focus on how much Billy doesn’t give a shit about women eh?

So how did you respond to his post?

Absolutely, 100%.

But Posie Parker and those who follow her are making it so much easier for people like him to imply we're all right wing bigots.

And people want to believe that, because it's much easier to think we're a load of right wing nutters than to have to examine their beliefs and realise that everyone they trusted has been lying to them on this, and face up to the fact they've been supporting the castration and sterilisation of gay, autistic and GNC kids.

We've got a difficult battle on our hands and Posie is making it harder.

Who listens to Silly Bag anyway? He is
anti women to start with. Best ignore him.

She's only a liability if she isn't performing her activism exactly the way you and certain others want her to be. I think she'd great, while being totally pro choice all the way. People can think for themselves you know, they can pick and choose what to take from commenters and their views. When did that stop being a thing? When did we all have to think exactly the same way ALL THE TIME?

I don't care if i'm called right-wing, a bigot or transphobic or what Mr Bragg has to say about it. I'm with Posie. This single subject is so dangerous for women, she can see it and is calling it out as loudly as she can - why isn't everyone else?

I don't see what's wrong about what she said.

It's not a competition. Losing access to abortion is also a huge threat to women's rights.

But, my point is that by acting as if abortion isn't an essential women's rights issue, or one that can be traded for fighting self ID, and by courting the religious right in the US, Posie is harming the fight against self ID itself. It's a badly thought out, harmful, counter-productive strategy.

Shock horror! Not all women have exactly the same views on every issue nor do they express themselves in the same way! Why didn't anyone tell me?

‘We've got a difficult battle on our hands and Posie is making it harder.’

Actually the movement countering gender ideology includes people both on the right (like PP) and on the left (like JB). There’s a reason for that: we are right. Basic facts span political divides for the precise reason that they are true. I can no more reject PP’s support for truth than I can lie about it myself.

Those screenshots have been floating around for a while. I disagree with them.

Posie is harming the fight against self ID itself.

No, she isn’t. Explain the mechanism by which saying a wrong thing on abortion counteracts everything she’s accomplished. Coincidentally or not, your reasoning is at TRA levels.

Roe is just part of it. I agree on that. Fundamentally women are being erased from law as a sex class.

I believe her point is that if you want to talk about women's rights to abortion, you need to have a biological definition of woman.

You actually can't talk about rights attached to sex without a robust legal definition of sex. If women are male or female there are no biological sex based rights.

This is actually basic and I am not sure why people don't get this, Bragg is an idiot and PP is crystal clear about it.

However, I think it's worth considering something else, which is that although it's common for many feminists to see abortion as foundationally related to women's rights, many many women do not think that. And in some cases they believe it undermines women's rights and the way they are treated under the law to claim that it is foundational.

In addition to all of that, RvW, though it's discussed in the UK as if it is about banning or allowing abortion, is actually more complex than that, and so is the recent judgement, in fact it doesn't ban abortion at all and a lot of pro-choice legal scholars believed the original decision was not justifiable legally.

All of this to say that accusations like this against PP seem to rely on the idea that obviously any women who is not seeing abortion as the most important number one issue is bad, and that there is only one view on abortion that it is ok for women to have. Which is bs, and frankly really shallow thinking.

There are far more women who are pushed away from feminism because of the common insistence that they must have this one view of abortion than are pushed away by saying that woman is a biological category of adult human female. Most women believe the latter, many do not believe that abortion should be completely unregulated.

So maybe it's not PP who is the liability here, unless you are saying getting on with certain groups of feminists is more important than reflecting women.

Yeah, it's always the other woman fighting for women on a different script that is the liability, right?