Standing for women - Portland rally cancelled over violent threats

[ArabellaScott]

Not quite sure what's happened - seems there were credible threats to women's lives over these protests.

twitter.com/StandingforXX

Now it seems a few women went ahead and met up and were attacked. (Nobody seriously hurt as far as I can tell)

twitter.com/ReduxxMag/status/1585012546766966784

Hoping everyone is safe and well.

Another thing. I am getting a nasty vibe of prejudice against working class cockney geezers. “Aren’t they terrifying?”. Er not really.

They closely resemble the sort of men who might drink in the pub at the end of my road, or fix my electricity.

Is this some fear of ‘southerners’ coming out?

Yes, it is pretty scary when a load of blokes are in the mood for a riot, but I don’t think the colour of their skin or their accent or their beliefs play a role. I find jihadi sympathisers, IRA sympathisers, whatever, pretty scary too. I remember the Tottenham riots, all the orthodox Jewish men ducking behind cars at the end of the road - it spread all over the country. I’ve chatted to genuine football hooligans and asked them what it’s about - they basically said it was the anticipation, the adrenaline, the sense of camaraderie going into battle that they found addictive. I’ve chatted to a blokes from and in the North and many, particularly from Middlesbrough, seem to have a similar affection for going out for a fight on a Friday night. Recently in Leicester we had riots loosely between Pakistani and Indian groups. It’s all the same thing imo. Blokes venting an urge to go to battle. I’ve talked about it on other threads, but I think we can’t really move forward as feminists until we understand a bit more about this aspect of male psychology (obviously NAMALT and WDIT caveats apply).

If we want to get into the blame game about who is responsible for pushing right wing people to the ‘far right’ or ‘extreme far right’, I would say it is when people actually start to get a feeling of existential threat, because they have genuine fears and concerns about the way certain policies are affecting them, but if they talk about it, they’ll be dismissed as a ‘bigot’, because they don’t have the ‘acceptable’ language to talk about it. The injustice of the silencing and dismissing enrages them. More recently I have heard a lot of talk from established local ethnic minorities (informal chats with my Uber drivers and so on) where they are voicing concerns about what is happening with more recent influxes of minority groups - and they are pretty much identical arguments that to the ones that the ‘white working class bigots’ use.

So I lay the blame at the feet of the Buttergasping left, for pushing the working class right towards extremism, by not letting them air their views without prejudice.

i thought this link in Glinner's piece was interesting, on 'trashing' women in the feminist movement: www.jofreeman.com/joreen/trashing.htm

Wow, that is a very condensed piece.

This bit stuck out as particularly relevant:

“Trashers also tend to use nouns and adjectives of a vague and general sort to express their objections to a particular person. These terms carry a negative connotation, but don't really tell you what's wrong. That is left to your imagination. Those being trashed can do nothing right. Because they are bad, their motives are bad, and hence their actions are always bad. There is no making up for past mistakes, because these are perceived as symptoms and not mistakes.”

On the flip side, I feel that the strong defences of KJK here, suggests that the groupthink cray cray drama is is boiling away in its own small pot, rather than representing the movement as a whole. So go us and our resistance to this stupid crap.

Trashing is also a way of acting out the competitiveness that pervades our society, but in a manner that reflects the feelings of incompetence that trashers exhibit. Instead of trying to prove one is better than anyone else, one proves someone else is worse. This can provide the same sense of superiority that traditional competition does, but without the risks involved. At best the object of one's ire is put to public shame, at worst one's own position is safe within the shrouds of righteous indignation, Frankly, if we are going to have competition in the Movement, I prefer the old-fashioned kind. Such competitiveness has its costs, but there are also some collective benefits from the achievements the competitors make while trying to outdo each other. With trashing there are no beneficiaries. Ultimately everyone loses.

I've said similar to this on other threads. It seems politically unacceptable for socialist women and men too to behave competitively as this is supposedly bad. It doesn't go away though, it's just subverted into this trashing.

It seems politically unacceptable for socialist women and men too to behave competitively as this is supposedly bad. It doesn't go away though, it's just subverted into this trashing.

And on the other hand some players seem to be lionised, people saying “oh! That was so insightful/well put/pertinent/etc” and I’m thinking “sorry, did we just see the same thing there? That was a lot of muddled, I’ll-informed crap”.

BTW it is rare that I have these judgemental thoughts or seeing the Emperor is naked whilst everyone fawns, so I don’t want posters to get paranoid on this thread.

What I am talking about are few and far between - if someone isn’t articulating themselves well because they are nervous or emotional or just developing their confidence, then I see a lot of positive encouragement as a good thing. I’m not talking about that, it’s more that some people, imo, are seen as being incapable of putting a foot wrong, while others are seen as incapable of putting a foot right (they have been trashed).

It seems politically unacceptable for socialist women and men too to behave competitively as this is supposedly bad. It doesn't go away though, it's just subverted into this trashing.

I wonder if that's part of it with KJK. Part of her success is her appeal, not just her message. She's like a walking advert. Her soundbites, her platinum hair, her staying ruthlessly on brand, regularly repeating the message and videos.

She's selling it.

Yes. Her background is in sales isn’t it? Also her ‘brand’ if you were to say what vibe it has, it would be ‘fun’. She comes across as a fun person.

Furthermore, she is uninhibited when she speaks, because she isn’t bogged down by all the obligatory leftie ‘approved’ comms. This inevitably makes her a more vivacious and engaging speaker than someone who is studiously ‘correct’. But I can see how it would make someone who has imprisoned their own mind in rightthink, in order to belong, a touch resentful.

Interpreting Joreen's insightful piece in relation to this, women who lead on the trashing in written pieces, and there were quite a few after Brighton, are lionised as that is an acceptable method of equalising people who get out of line.

They all said the same ridiculous thing about "courting" the far right (which in itself was an interestingly traditional word for male wooing of women implying their own immersion in the traditional rather than KJK who "courts" either everyone or no-one, take your pick).

This was nonsense, but it's a substitute for saying that they didn't like KJK achieving anything and therefore going to be applauded for the trashing.

Gosh yes.

The reason she needs to be trashed is because she doesn’t ask for the permission from the group before doing anything.

And the lionising of the trashers is important for demonstrating to all, that the group is everything, and those who go it alone are nothing.

I don't even think the group is everything. This is not team behaviour or group working. It's ruthless s competition, socialist style.

I suppose it is like an oligarchy claiming to be egalitarian.

I suppose there are group dynamics and hierarchies coming into play - who is 'supporting/allying/cosying up to/friends with/not friends with/fans of/stanning/trashing'. Playground politics. Tribalism.

Yes. It’s all very eye-rolly for outsiders isn’t it?

I know Julie Bindel claims to be engaged in the noble pursuit of transparency, but I think she’s just a bit bored and wants to be entertained by some drama - playground stirring. Basically trolling.

In an interesting coincidence, the WDI USA conference, which took place the week after SfW's Brighton event, had a session featuring Jo Freeman herself (along with Lierre Keith and Kara Dansky) on the topic of "Ethical Communication: How we can share information and disagree ethically."

Lierre made a brief reference to KJK but the conversation focused on general patterns of behavior and strategies to deal with them.

The biggest round of applause came when either Jo or Lierre (can't remember which) said, "Social media has made this much, much worse."

Jo got a bit of pushback from some attendees when she suggested that more of the online trashing these days was coming from younger generations, and that older women needed to model ethical behavior for younger ones.

Lierre had what I thought was the best insight into how to deal with someone who "trashes." (Paraphrasing) she said she would take a step back from that person and try not to interact with her, but she would not burn her bridges with that woman, because we never know when we may need to work together on a specific effort in the future.

Lierre had what I thought was the best insight into how to deal with someone who "trashes." (Paraphrasing) she said she would take a step back from that person and try not to interact with her, but she would not burn her bridges with that woman, because we never know when we may need to work together on a specific effort in the future.

She’d just behave like a grown up, in other words.

She’d just behave like a grown up, in other words.

Indeed, Endless. There doesn't seem to be much of it going around these days!

There seems to be to be groupthink in lots of factions of this discussion.

Hence, why when I made a simple observation about feeling uncomfortable about women needing to be assaulted or protected by men with guns in order to speak as I had never seen the latter in many years of feminist organising that I was jumped on for trashing PP's entire tour.

<sits back and waits to be jumped on again>

What do you mean by women ‘needing to be assaulted’?

An example of the men feminists were organising against in the past were employers. They did not respond to us speaking in public by coming out on the streets to commit violence. Or spitting. Or threatening rape on line.

When we organise to speak up against gender identity they jdo. They behave exactly as we say they will. It's evidence they willingly give us.

You are unwilling to concede any benefit of this approach because your status is bound up in the trashing of KJK

I’d still like to understand what ‘women needing to be assaulted’ means.

Is it a suggestion that ‘women being assaulted’ is a necessary part of the protest - women are being used as bait for assault, by design?

or

Is it a suggestion that unless a protest involving women is 100% risk free, then it makes you uncomfortable @Sundaymorningtoday ?

The Suffragettes were frequently assaulted- even by police, the assaulting of protesting feminists is sadly not confined to history, or to SFW events.

Well it wasn't really a simple observation, was it? You went around the houses for ages, doing some victim blaming and then denying you were victim blaming and eventually settling on the idea that it's uncomfortable. Maybe if you'd started there, you would have got a more useful conversation.

Pretty sure everyone feels 'uncomfortable' about male violence, to say the least. It's certainly not new that female campaigners have had to deal with it though.

I feel uncomfortable seeing feminists needing armed protection in order to speak the truth too. It shows what a state we’re in. Not even the police will step in. It’s sobering.

You’re not going to get an answer you like because you’re not being honest with yourself, rendering you unable to be honest with others

It’s awful.

Women are being forced to choose.

a) Keep quiet, lose your rights, witness harms to children

b) Speak out, risk your job and physical safety, rely on the protection of private security firms because the police won’t help you (and might even arrest you).

I refuse to criticise women who choose b.