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!):

So some of feminisms bigger aims:

Ending VAWG on the macro level, on the micro level - better conviction rates for rape and sexual assault, stemming the tide of pornography and reversing it, ending prostitution, education around domestic violence, making sure the police take stalking seriously, better funding for domestic violence and rape services, tackling FGM, forced marriage, so-called ‘honour’ crimes, etc.

Equality, tacking the pay gap and pregnancy discrimination, tackling the male as default, normalising male involvement in housework and childcare.

In my opinion, a sophisticated understanding of what a woman is and why women are oppressed by men around the world, is happening, as a result of having this nonsense forced upon us by the biology denialists. Feminists arguments are being mainstreamed. People who would have balked at ‘whiney feminists’ are starting to go “oh, I see”.

Clearly it feels meaningful to the person saying it, but it's not clear the meaning can be successfully conveyed to someone else, at least not in concrete terms. Certainly as a feeling, or mood, or an essence, but not something objective, rather than abstract.

Yes, I think it does feel meaningful to the people having these conversations between themselves and they also shortcut them by saying "I know exactly what you mean" and never demanding logical articulations. So the left gets lazy at articulating its positions and leaves people in a situation where it's so frustrating because they're thinking, 'I know I'm right, I know this is true,' but they can't actually make it make sense to another person. And they think that their interlocutor is being deliberately obtuse or stupid or unfair in not understanding, or they impute to their opponent something which they think is the opposite of their own meaning.

That's usually something along the lines of 'oh so you're racist/don't care about women/want poor people to starve,' i.e. 'you're bad.' Which logically suggests that the inarticulated feeling driving the leftist's words boils down to something like, 'I'm good; this is what good people think.'

Which is exactly what HJ said in the discussion, and others have reprised here: the idea that left = good and right/anything else = bad. And when you believe you're good, then you also may feel entitled to silence others, to condemn others, to blame others and to hate others. Because they're bad, so it's fair, and you're still good. In fact, the more you silence and condemn others, the more it consolidates the feeling that you're good. And everyone around you understands, and says, 'I know exactly what you mean,' and no one demands a logical articulation of, e.g., why you hate Posie Parker so much. They just get it. And those who don't get it are bad people. And so it goes.

It has an internal drive that is hard to resist. It's self-perpetuating and comforting. But it's very frustrating when you're talking with people who don't automatically get what you mean, or feel how you feel, because you're not in the habit of using logic and argumentation. You may be right, but you can't say why or convince anyone who doesn't already agree with you. I've definitely had that experience and it led me to change my mind about various things. I realised that I was expressing ideas and opinions without really knowing where they'd come from. In a way, that's part of the difficulty, because it feels like they've arisen independently in me, and that they're my ideas. It's only when I really started to interrogate myself about why I believed some of the things I believed that I realised I couldn't say exactly why. I just did: like a faith or a dogma. Just growing up in that leftist type of environment and a lot of ignorance.

Sorry this is turning into a very long post. But a while ago I was at a week long course with a bunch of people I'd never met before, and I started getting really weirded out because they all said the same things all the time. Whenever the conversation veered towards politics, they all said the exact same things, independently of one another. It was weird and also it was so boring. I longed for someone to say they'd voted remain or thought that people on strike were being irresponsible - just anything other than churning out the same opinions as everyone else. Received opinions, I think is the term for it. I thought, no wonder people feel so lonely and disconnected. Because instead of making genuine connections with others, they are sharing these phrases and opinions that are the same as everyone else's phrases and opinions. They were all very lovely people, but I refused to get into a 'serious' conversation with any of them and spent the whole week trying to get them to play games, drink wine, talk about their childhood trauma - anything!! Maybe I should have been the one to stir the pot a bit, but I didn't fancy being rounded on by twenty irate leftists.

I think a big part of that, beastly, is how little people really understand the structure of opposing opinions. So you get this "right wing people believe in selfishness" idea, which is only plausible if you actually know nothing about conservative thought, have never engaged in any meaningful way with it. And it helps a lot of you've not engaged meaningfully with any conservative people.

The same thing can happen on the political right, you will meet people who have a bizarre understanding of leftist ideas.

Yes, that's true. I remember all the "loony left" headlines of the past. Although I think these days more right-wing people understand the left better, because it's the dominant ideology. And the right (or some sections of it) has really had to hone its arguments and ideas.

an Irish socialist called Frankie Gaffney. … After his article What Good is Identity Politics ( iirc) he was denounced from the pulpit by over 200 feminists

Abhanmoor, my head is spinning. Were these so-called ‘third wave feminists’ who support prostitution, TWAW etc? I.E. centring men, and therefore not feminist in any visible way? Because the solipsistic individualism of identity politics seems to me the polar oposite of feminism.

this is turning into a very long post

This is what I love about MN - the ability to think through ideas like this.

I completely understand what you are saying here: instead of making genuine connections with others, they are sharing these phrases and opinions that are the same as everyone else's phrases and opinions.

It does make you feel disconnected. I hope I can be convinced to change my position by someone else’s argument, I’d feel sharpened and more vital. Instead it feels so frustrating and disappointing, that after we have been ‘round the houses, to find there was nothing of substance.

I thought, no wonder people feel so lonely and disconnected. Because instead of making genuine connections with others, they are sharing these phrases and opinions that are the same as everyone else's phrases and opinions. They were all very lovely people, but I refused to get into a 'serious' conversation with any of them and spent the whole week trying to get them to play games, drink wine, talk about their childhood trauma - anything!! Maybe I should have been the one to stir the pot a bit, but I didn't fancy being rounded on by twenty irate leftists.

I love this whole 'long post' Beastly

It's stifling living in a bubble (which seems to happen at a certain age and stage of life) and I always feel completely enlivened to meet and talk with someone who has very different views and experiences. I like to lean into it and enjoy the sense of enlarging my persoective and being able to connect based in curiosity rather than predictability and agreement.
Probably why I appreciate these exchanges on MN so much.
Learning and thinking alot from this thread!

No idea why that came out underlined🤔

I'll decline the invitations to elucidate my political views any further, as it is beyond tedious to make the same very straight forward comments repeatedly and have them either ignored or words put into my mouth.

If people are genuinely saying that the left is the dominant ideology in the UK then it's beyond sense or reason to me. Utterly mad.

I do forget the extent to which right wing thinking is so prevalent on MN from time to time and the keenest to dismiss any questioning about that as having no substance is the reminder I need to leave it's echo chamber for a while and refresh myself with different perspectives.

No one is ignoring what you said. But it's hard to understand what you mean when you are complaining that HJ favours free markets, and this is bad, when in fact she seems to be suggesting exactly what you yourself are describing - free markets with a welfare state. Which is what we find in pretty much every country in the west, as it happens.Nor is it easy to see what other models have in fact better supported women's rights.

It's confusing.

As far as whether left wing thinking is dominant - it does dominate feminist thinking, to the point that many people, like Julie Bindle, claim that feminism is by definition left wing. Anything accomplished by women on the right is, in her mind, outside of feminism. Which is an interesting take because it then becomes impossible for her to claim that only the left can accomplish things for women, as we can see that the right has also done so.

Which is perhaps why she creates a scenario where she suggests that somehow a truly leftist approach, (not any past Labour parties, or the Democrats, or the Liberals in Canada, or any other place, obviously, but real leftists,) would be able to work towards the extermination of things like rape and pornography, whereas apparently a right wing approach could never do those things, or if they did it would be for the wrong reasons and would chain women to the sink, so a woman would never get to be editor of the Economist again.

I do think leftism is dominant in the UK - identity politics, anti-capitalism, censorship and villification of the wrong views such as supporting brexit, the hatred of tories etc. We all know what "right thinking" people think, and it's left.

I appreciate that this might be a version of leftism that you don't ascribe to, though.

I do appreciate your willingness to talk bike, especially when you're getting the third degree! I think I understand where you're coming from but I'm not seeing the logical underpinning of your views. I'm seeing your views but not any arguments for your views, if that makes sense. But I do wish you had a couple of others on your side on this thread so it feels less personal/intense/annoying for you. It's always good when someone pops up and says what you're trying to say!

I do think leftism is dominant in the UK - identity politics, anti-capitalism, censorship and villification of the wrong views such as supporting brexit, the hatred of tories etc. We all know what "right thinking" people think, and it's left.

It's dominant in the media, and academia, and in classes that are mostly represented in those areas, but I'm not sure that it's dominant across the population!

I think the right are quiet, getting on with things without kicking up much dust, and the left are loud - engaging in more dominating behaviour, so there is an illusion that more people are left wing.

It's dominant in the media, and academia, and in classes that are mostly represented in those areas, but I'm not sure that it's dominant across the population!

I think you're right - but people who don't subscribe to this ideology are pushed out of 'polite' society. You don't even have to actively subscribe to it - just say the right things on cue. I'm convinced most people do it without even thinking about it.

I believe there is an argument to be had about how feminism more naturally aligns left. There is no doubt women are disadvantaged by bearing the reproductive burden, and the whole purpose of the left is to redress inequality and give every person a fair chance, no matter what their disadvantage.

What I don’t get though, is the argument that left wing feminists working with people who are right wing, is such a threat to feminism.

I do want to understand.

In my opinion, a sophisticated understanding of what a woman is and why women are oppressed by men around the world, is happening, as a result of having this nonsense forced upon us by the biology denialists. Feminists arguments are being mainstreamed. People who would have balked at ‘whiney feminists’ are starting to go “oh, I see”.

Definitely. One of the reasons why I'm finding this thread so interesting is my own acquisition of late onset feminism. The outrage over gender politics is so instant and visceral, you can't help but become interested. And it doesn't take long for the scales to fall, and before you know it, you're looking at life through a feminist lens.

And I know this is happening all over the place. Women falling out with lifelong friends and husbands, left, right and centre, because they suddenly see life utterly differently, as though they are suddenly looking through the matrix. It's actually recruiting feminists, at speed.

And tying feminism to politics seems to divide feminists. Which can't be a good thing. So the new found feeling of clarity when looking at things through this new lens, now appears opaque and like there is a logic fail going on somewhere.

and I think it's this:

Which is exactly what HJ said in the discussion, and others have reprised here: the idea that left = good and right/anything else = bad. And when you believe you're good, then you also may feel entitled to silence others, to condemn others, to blame others and to hate others. Because they're bad, so it's fair, and you're still good. In fact, the more you silence and condemn others, the more it consolidates the feeling that you're good. And everyone around you understands, and says, 'I know exactly what you mean,' and no one demands a logical articulation of, e.g., why you hate Posie Parker so much. They just get it. And those who don't get it are bad people. And so it goes.

I could never understand the dislike of Posie Parker, given the headway she was making in an aspect of feminism that everyone seems to care about.

I now see it's not good enough to be vaguely left-wing, you have to be vehemently left-wing, otherwise you're bad.

I am thinking out loud here, so I don’t necessarily know if this is what I think.

Second wave feminism grew in the 70s and 80s, through small meetings, ‘consciousness-raising’, lots of care to prevent hierarchies forming, getting stuck in, volunteering to rescue women and children from violent men, and so on. Very communitarian, egalitarian ideals, rooted in materialist, Marxist analysis, being at the coal face, roughing it a bit, many living in squats and peace camps. All very hippy ‘lefty’ - lentils, homemade yogurt and incense. A fairly solid identity and culture, with its own norms.

When I have spoken to women who parted company with second wave feminism, they tend to complain about women ‘telling them what to do’, really hating feeling controlled and berated all the time. I wasn’t the most sympathetic listener, to be honest. But this ‘wronging’ of people going on in current ‘call-out’ culture does seem to echo their complaints.

This current new influx to the understandings of second wave feminism, people who suddenly see life utterly differently, as though they are suddenly looking through the matrix, are many who would never have considered living in a dank squat, who would never leave their families to live a lesbian life, who may have financial clout. It’s a completely different set of norms. In fact, there’s no real common culture, I think.

I can see how a left-wing feminist commune would be threatened by someone joining who said “I am going to build an annex with an en suite to live in and pay for my own meals, I am not up for the ‘roughing it in solidarity thing’”, would actually mean the beginning of the end of that commune, because dissatisfaction would spread. It’s either everybody or nobody. So that’s how right wing individualism can destroy the solidarity of the left.

Perhaps it is this instinctive aversion to individualism that is at the heart of it?

tying feminism to politics seems to divide feminists.

This is why I don't call myself a feminist anymore. Because it comes with a set of demands about what I believe and how I see the world. I've lost count of the times I've been told I'm not a real feminist and I find it simpler to just say, you're right. I'm not a feminist, therefore you can't harrass me with your demands for political allegiance and purity.

I see that there are feminists like HJ and others who don't align with this take on feminism, but look how much flak they get. Because feminists like JB are convinced that feminism belongs to the left, is of the left, and if something is not of the left, it can't be feminism.

When I have spoken to women who parted company with second wave feminism, they tend to complain about women ‘telling them what to do’, really hating feeling controlled and berated all the time.

The communes may have disbanded, but women are still being berated by feminists for everything from their political beliefs to who they associate with to what they wear and whether or not they dye their hair.

I think there is something evolutionary here about how women create hierarchies and compete with one another. We destroy each other with gossip, reputational damage, cliques, manipulations and expectations, all the while maintaining a butter-wouldn't-melt smile...

Yes. I think the notion of solidarity being the moral expectation is at the heart of it.

The upside of solidarity is that ‘together we are strong’.

The downside, is that every choice becomes a moral choice and it is also morally imperative that you keep yourself properly informed to make those moral choices.

So if you are choosing, for example, what can of beans to buy, you have to trade off what is worse, exploited labour or environmental destruction.

Of course it is impossible to know everything, every possible ramification of every choice you make, so you rely on others informing you. “Don’t buy fruit from there, they exploit their workforce”, “don’t get those trainers, the rubber seal chemical is poisoning rivers”, “don’t read JK Rowling, she’s transphobic”….

I don't think it's solidarity. Solidarity implies that we're all equal, all in it together, all with an equal voice. I think it's hierarchy: do these things because someone with more status than you has decided you should. Do these things because it demonstrates your allegiance to me/the cause.

I think the hierarchy emerges without people realising.

It’s about information (still thinking out loud here). Staying informed of all the rotten things in this world is a very joyless task and most people aren’t up for it. “Just tell me what to do and what not to do fgs”.

So you have set up a dynamic of instruction and obedience without realising. It’s a hierarchy.

It makes me think of the scene in The Life of Brian.

Once you have entrusted your choice-making to the consensus, people can start making any old shit up and it will easily start to be accepted and adopted, because it comes via the untrusted channels and won’t therefore be examined.

I am definitely not arguing against solidarity, by the way.

I am just exploring why it is so morally transgressive to think as an individual and do anything which challenges the consensus if you are part of these groupthink subcultures.