Men of the far right and the women's movement

[SapphosRock]

Excellent article from Jean Hatchett about the recent fascism debate.

https://thecritic.co.uk/men-of-the-far-right-and-the-womens-movement/

This bit really struck me:

On one side of the fence are aggressive men screaming “fascist” at women who are clearly not. On the other side, skulking in the shadows, beneath the banners of women, are men who clearly are.

This is getting ridiculous now. Here's how it goes:

Real Feminists: KJK is aligning herself with the far right!
Normal people: No, she's not.
RF: Well if she's accused of being aligned with the far right, it will damage our cause
NP: You're the one accusing her.
RF: See! Our cause is being damaged.

You are trying to destroy the women's rights movement because it doesn't line up perfectly with what you believe are the right tactics/optics/ideologies. There's no logic, no rational argument, no proof. Just a lot of the above nonsense.

As they say around here, give your head a wobble.

That’s the other thing- the far right are entryists, they will try to latch on to anything which is getting traction and can use for content to bring people into their worldview. The far/hard left are exactly the same, it’s the only way that these tiny political ideologies get a look in. I just don’t understand why we would help them out.

As we established some time ago, there are 29 paid up fascists in the UK. 29. Maybe there's a few more who haven't paid their subs, but only 29 who are fully committed, enough to pay up. They do not have the wit to get more than 29 paid up members. They are not going to be able to infiltrate the women's movement! Even if they were smart enough, there's no way to take over KJK. That's the whole point of her - she's just giving ordinary women a voice. The only way to take her over is to silence her and stop her events - which is what you lot are trying to do!

Plus, as we have also exhaustively established, who gives a fuck if fascists hear women saying "stop transing kids"? It's good if they hear that message!

You seem to be very confused and under the impression that women are somehow unwittingly spreading fascist ideology by holding open events that fascists could, in theory, attend if they wanted to, even though to the best of our knowledge, none have.

Make it make sense!

Maybe the whole cooked-up fear of entryism is actually projection…

Plus, as we have also exhaustively established, who gives a fuck if fascists hear women saying "stop transing kids"? It's good if they hear that message!

Yep.
I don’t think any physically healthy kid’s normal pubertal development should be artificially stopped with off label prostate cancer medications,

and this includes any and all of the children of the 29 card carrying Fascists in the UK. AND their grandkids too (as I assume some of the 29 might be getting on a bit what with Fascism not being nearly as current as it once was ‘an ‘all).

And HoO are not "far right". They're right wing, for sure. But not far right, as in fascist. Freedom of speech is one of their key principles.

I know we've gone over this exhaustively as well, but seems like it's not sinking in.

I didn’t come on here and start accusing people of working with the far right. I was responding to a lot of people saying that would be fine and anyone who thinks it’s not a great plan is an elitist puritan.

Lappil you confuse ‚working with the far right’ and ,not sabotaging one‘s own activism because someone from the far right might support the same thing or vote the same way‘.

Any hint of far right involvement will harm the gender critical case.

KJK gets accused of flirting with fascism because she once said that she didn't think little girls should be wearing burka, ffs.

You can't organise your activism around what people might say about you or accuse you of. It is ideological purity you're demanding here Lappil, by suggesting that KJK or other women should be completely pure and righteous so that they don't get accused of fascism. Well, they're going to get accused of fascism ANYWAY because that's the leftwaffe's go to move.

Yet somehow, Julie Bindel gets away with going on tour with Milo... which makes the whole 'principled distancing' thing look like a bit of a joke, doesn't it? JB can go on a speaking tour with an outspoken member of the extreme right, but KJK can't even have an event where two people from a conservative website show up and film.

It's hypocritical shite.

"Any hint of far right involvement will harm the gender critical cause."

How?

No one's working with the far right. There barely even is a far right in this country.

There is a far left, though, and they are way bigger and more organised violent authoritarians. Why the hell would anyone work with them? And yet Real Feminists are constantly trying to work with them and get them on board. Fine, if that's what you feel is the best way forward for your activism. But you don't get to dictate who other women get to speak to.

As I say, it's a load of hypocritical shite.

Hepwo, well, if anyone of the 29 card carrying fascists in Britain attends a KJK event and then concludes that he shouldn’t let his kid transition - imagine the headline!

Sometimes you might work with people who disagree to achieve a particular aim. But does it help gender critical women to work with far right groups?

Those are your words ⬆️

Can you please find me the bits where ‘lots of people said it would be fine to work with far right groups’ because I don’t think we actually said that at all.

The general position here is that we don’t need to work with far right groups and that there is no desire to work with far right groups but if a far right person does listen to a gender critical woman’s speech, that isn’t in itself a bad thing…

because the message ‘don’t trans kids’ and ‘retain single sex spaces, services and sports’ needs to be heard by absolutely bloody everyone, everywhere, as quickly as possible.

And while private, ticketed events were really, really important in 2018, they aren’t that useful any more (still interesting, and still good for meeting other GC people, of course)

Also, regarding this ‚any hint of involvement with the far right will harm the gender critical movement‘:
I distinctly remember how TRAs on Twitter, supported by all kinds of journalists and politicians, incessantly made the case that TERFs are worse than fascists. (I also never saw anyone tell a fascist to die in a fire.) From that perspective I fail to see what further harm even some card carrying fascists in the audience could do. Make us look weak?

Yeah. Those 29 Fascists really need to give us Mumsnetters a wide berth - their reputations would be in tatters if anyone saw them associating with the Tervish!

@beastlyslumber - do you really believe that Hearts of Oak founder “Tommy Robinson” (Stephen Yaxley Lennon) is not far right? Just right wing?

Ugh @Forgotthebins Keep up. We've already been over this. Tommy Robinson is not a founder of HoO. Look at their website and you will see what there is to see about them. Not fascists, by a long stretch.

Oh well if they say they are not far-right racists on their website, it must be true.

Ugh indeed.

Well really, did you go and have a look at their website? There's a lot of information about them on there. I'm not sure why you would think that they would pretend to be right-wing, conservative group but REALLY they're actual fascists. What would be the point of promoting their anti-fascist ideas? Why would they encourage free speech? Why have so many women and black people on their podcasts?

I mean, you're just wrong, aren't you @Forgotthebins ? You thought your Tommy Robinson line was a gotcha, you didn't even bother to check if you were saying something true. Forgot the bins, forgot basic fact checking, forgot to read the thread you're posting on...

I mean who cares? This is how dumb this has become, an argument about how far right.
Pitiful.

Well Hepwo I'm just sick of all the lying. People like bins just saying anything they can to support their version of events. They think that if you throw enough shit some of it will stick. But seemingly fail to understand that what they are doing is throwing shit at women who are speaking up for our rights.

So yes, I am going to have the argument.

Again.

I mean, we've been over it exhaustively, but still.

I think the shit throwers are the only ones with a bad smell hanging around them tbh.

And while The Real Feminists of Brighton having been fretting about non existent far right entryism, over on the Mermaids threads we are discussing how Mermaids seem to have become bezzy mates with paedophilic academics.

I dunno where TRFofB-right-ons priorities lie but I reckon a bit of time spent archiving wouldn’t go amiss!

You people are boring me fucking witless

I've got real life shit occupying me

Prove it or fuck off