Helen Joyce & Julie Bindel: Should TERFs unite with the Right?

[ILikeDungs]

By Unherd, a debate-style response to the purity spiral after Brighton. I do admire Helen Joyce and her ability to calmly and logically discuss the issues. Unherd have made it age restricted (because of all the fucks, I suppose!):

That wasn't what JB was saying in the film. She pointed out that second wave feminism went hand in hand with effective campaigns like anti racism and gay rights.

OK

but there are lots of right wing gay and black people. They are unlikely to support racism and homophobia. So anti racism and gay rights simply cannot be left wing. They're something different.

The point is that both right-wing and left-wing people want a better society. They just have different ideas about how best to achieve this. The mentality that left = morally good, and right = morally bad is childish and clearly not true.

I think this is the key point for me. Right wing people don't wake up in the morning, rub their hands and think 'how can we make the world a little bit shitter?'

they believe they're doing the right thing, just like everyone else

Yes, several posters have criticised JB for not explaining the full political background to her position.

The last 12 years of government have been towards the 'utter shitshow' end of the not great spectrum. Labour also utter shitshow', but it's not them that have fucked the economy, public sector and lives of millions.

How is pointing this out 'dehumanising' anyone?

And yes I get that the right means much more than the current incantation of the Tory party.

By the same token, the left means much more, in fact something completely different, to the current incantation of the Labour party, TRAs, identity politics, 'Anifa' and everything else than we constantly get lumped in with.

I think what is meant by 'left' and 'right' has changed drastically over the past few decades. In general, however, you can characterise the right as more conservative - wanting to conserve traditions, ideals, institutions and traditional ways of doing things; and the left as progressive - wanting to move society closer towards an idealised future. In economic terms, the left is more associated with a larger and more centralised state, more government control, nationalised industries; where the right is more associated with the free market, competition, and individuals making their own way.

In terms of social equality and justice, both left and right have pluses and minuses. It was labour who held back the vote for women, and labour who brought in the first immigration controls (to stop Jewish immigration). Tories brought in equal marriage. Labour under Blair created many more childcare opportunities, sure start centres and expanded university access. The tories currently have a way more racially and sexually diverse leadership than labour. Labour have an antisemitism problem and a hard left that is silencing women. Tories have at least one MP who is an out and out misogynist and likes to play dress up as a lady.

I think that most people tend to find themselves somewhere in the middle of all this. We want a society that works economically and we don't want people living in tents in the city centre. Does that make us left or right? We want some immigration controls but we don't want children to die in the ocean. Does that make us left or right? We want people to be able to make a living and start their own businesses, but we don't want huge monopolies profiteering. Again, is that left or right? I think we tend to want very similar things, but when it comes to voting, we're swayed by the single issues that we care most about. For me, that's gender ideology and wokism. As long as the tories stand against that and labour stand for it, I'll vote tory. Does that make me right wing?

I'd like the tories to be more conservative. I don't think everything needs to be destroyed and remade in the image of some utopia. On the other hand, I do think some industries should be renationalised, and I'd like to save some version of the NHS. All I'm trying to say is that it's complicated; it's really not a case of right = evil, left = good. That's not a position for anyone but an ideologue to take. Most of us aren't ideologues: we want what's best for us and the country we live in.

Yes, several posters have criticised JB for not explaining the full political background to her position.

I'm not saying this hasn't happened, but the posts I remember were more saying that she doesn't make a lot of sense, that she leaps from a premise to a conclusion without providing a logical link between them. I don't think they were asking for more political background, but saying that her speaking style is unclear.

Yeah, this.

She consistently seems to believe the left-good right-evil viewpoint, and also that it is only through left political action that change occurs.

Which to me is clearly untrue, it's pretty questionable whether leftist structures, like belief in patriarchy if we are talking about feminism, result in better legislation or social change. I would tend to say they have often worked against it.

I don't think she should explain this more, I just think it's wrong, and blinkerd.

I'd also say that as far as anti-racism goes, if we are talking about current anti-racist campaigning on the left, not just in the LP but across progressive parties in the UK and other countries, I think it's a kind of race essentialism, awful stuff. Deeply racist in the 19th century sense.

Clearly there was a time when id pol and equality of outcome approaches were less powerful on the left, but it has been growing over decades and now seems to have pushed out almost every other way of thinking about justice. Which is why a lot of people who have historically seen themselves as progressives are finding they simply have no political home there.

When I consider that the very moderate approach of a John McWhorter, or Trevor Phillips, are now so truly out of step with left anti-racism, I have to wonder WTF JB means. And it's not like she really embraces old style leftism herself, she is totally about id pol thinking, except with regard to gender.

All I'm trying to say is that it's complicated; it's really not a case of right = evil, left = good. That's not a position for anyone but an ideologue to take. Most of us aren't ideologues: we want what's best for us and the country we live in.

Agreed. Well put Beastly

I agree beastlyslumber, you are making so much sense. I can’t help feeling that this is all huge exercise in kowtowing to JBs vanity.

JB gets off on being territorial and nasty towards women campaigners she doesn’t like, for reasons of the most ignoble and base kind. She throws around a bit of apparent feminist justification to make it look as though her motivations are lofty and noble. Most feminists are heavily invested in the idea that JBs motivations are always lofty and noble, so they all bend themselves backwards with their ‘I can see both sides’, ‘JB has never let me down before’, squinting hard and holding their breath to make the arguments match the behaviour, but they don’t.

She is a flawed human being and the reason for the fact that she leaps from a premise to a conclusion without providing a logical link between them, is because the arguments aren’t logical, because they aren’t truthful.

This debate showed me that my suspicions were correct.

I see it. I’m disappointed.

Oh well, people are human and flawed. It’s not the first time that revelation has been a disappointment to me. I am an often a disappointment to myself.

I largely agree with you beastlyslumber.

But by the same token, HJ didn't make any sense to me when she spoke about her political views.

She kept from a premise of free market economics to the conclusion that that could be anti-oppressive without explaining how, the logical link between the two.

She leapt from a premise of free market economics to the conclusion that that could be anti-oppressive without explaining how, the logical link between the two.

She did skim over that very quickly because that wasn’t what the debate was about. I think if HJ had a smear campaign going against left wing feminists for ‘cosying up to religious extremists’ or some such thing, the debate would have had a different title and she would needed to have explained herself a bit more.

But that’s not why the debate was held. It was really a forum created for JB to explain her mystifying behaviour, so we could all feel better.

But by the same token, HJ didn't make any sense to me when she spoke about her political views.

I think it wasn't the purpose of the discussion for either of them to set out their wider political beliefs. I'd be interested to hear more from HJ on this - she seems like someone very knowledge, sensible, and compassionate and I think it would be good to hear how she views economic questions.

I can't remember the part of the discussion you specifically refer to, but I'd say that HJ was in general very logical and easy to comprehend - but maybe that's because I tended to agree with her side of the debate more.

Yes, that's likely true. I thought JB was perfectly clear for the same reasons.

JB gets off on being territorial and nasty towards women campaigners she doesn’t like, for reasons of the most ignoble and base kind. She throws around a bit of apparent feminist justification to make it look as though her motivations are lofty and noble.

I flinch at going that far, although I do think her motivations are fairly base in this case. I do have a lot of admiration for the work JB has done on prostitution and VAWG. For whatever reason she's got a bee in her bonnet or bats in her belfry or both when it comes to KJK. I don't think her objections to 'working with the right' are principled at all, because by any measure, JB herself has worked with the right plenty of times. I think the whole debate has come about because JB hates KJK and is trying to justify it, as you say, with feminism. It's very divisive, as we have seen.

I very much agree with this:

she is totally about id pol thinking, except with regard to gender.

I remember the debate on free speech she did with her and Ayaan Hirsi Ali on one side and - I want to say Billy Bragg and someone else on the other side. The 'against free speech' side were terrible, but JB was nearly as bad. She basically argued that she didn't want free speech except when it came to her being able to talk about gender. AHA was basically left on her own to carry the whole 'for' side - it was embarrassing. She outclassed them all.

So what plans do the right have to make society better for everyone?

Are you asking this in earnest? Do you genuinely think that people on the right actively want to make society worse?

I flinch at going that far

Yes, I am not pulling any punches. I tell you what though, I have flinched a lot at the stuff JB comes out with. Her nasty streak about mothers and middle-classed women. For me, I had a really tough time as a mother with small children, it often felt that, in public, I was expected to pull off what is humanly impossible as a minimum requirement, trying to navigate around without causing inconvenience, while my kids screamed, wriggled and were impossible to pacify, while strangers could be such utter bastards about it (I do remember some really sweet people sometimes helping me and they were like angels) and her snarky comments about mothers with prams being self-important and stuff, really, really stung at the time. I respect her work, but I am not a fan of her.

I know lots of people fawn all over her darling, quirky hatred of people eating crisps on trains - so amusing.

I just think “nah, just symptomatic of intolerance”. She needs to grow up.

Having said that. I would be genuinely interested in the position of ‘never interact with the right wing’ being explained coherently, so I could really understand it.

But by the same token, HJ didn't make any sense to me when she spoke about her political views.

I seem to remember she said she was in favour of free markets plus a welfare state because whenever alternatives to free markets have been tried it has turned out very, very badly for everyone.

It's over a week since I watched this though so I could be misremembering.

Yess, she mentioned a 'safety net' but offered no explanation of who would provide that or what it would look like.

Fair enough, that wasn't the subject of the debate. But it's where free market economics never has anything to say, imvhe.

I'd be interested in who exactly has said that.

Not JB, she's regularly published in right-wing press for pragmatic reasons as left-wing outlets won't touch feminism.

Really? But surely it means something like we've got now - national health service, benefits for those who can't work, help with childcare etc. She's saying she wants all those things to be available.

I'd be interested in who exactly has said that.

I don’t think anyone expressly used the phrase ‘unite’ with either.

Here are some possible terms that seemed to get used interchangeably in the phrase “feminists shouldn’t ………………..the right/far right”.

Work with
Cosy up to
Unite with
Join with
Share a platform with
Align with

etc.

That’s why I used the odd phrasing.

However, @Shinyredbicycle i would love it if you could explain why feminists shouldn’t ………………… with the right/far right (choose the term and delete as appropriate) as far as you believe JB sees it.

Well, they're scarely available at the moment, are they? Do food banks with huge queues growing each week count as a safety net? Or waiting hours for an ambulance? Or home care workers not showing up because Brexit has meant that there just aren't enough for the jobs that the agency has taken on?

And in a free market economy, who provides them?

Well, the organisers of the debate used that phrase. I agree it's not helpful. HJ is of the right, so is already united so to speak.

So no-one has said that feminist should never interact with the right-wing? Yes., I think we agree on something. A strange, non-existent position for you to ask someone to elaborate then.

After you EndlessTea. I asked first, after all. Explain to me free market economics that povides a safety net and doesn't rely on some social groups being oppressed.

I did explain some of what I see JB as arguing near the beginning of this thread btw, if you care to look.