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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

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

565 replies

ILikeDungs · 09/12/2022 11:22

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!):

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WarriorN · 10/12/2022 08:56

To me this is a case where it's worth agreeing to disagree on this particular point due to differences in backgrounds.

Julie's points are worth repeating to some of my left leaning friends in order to help get them to see the rot. As they will want to remain firmly with the left as a whole on this.

And perhaps she's a stepping stone for them to Helen's pov. Or not, it doesn't matter as long as all agree that gender ideology is an issue.

WarriorN · 10/12/2022 08:57

And these people need to remain within labour and the greens in order to fight there from within.

Alltheprettyseahorses · 10/12/2022 09:20

WarriorN · 10/12/2022 08:57

And these people need to remain within labour and the greens in order to fight there from within.

Why? Neither party is going to change. More, speaking about women's rights is likely to get them thrown out. They'd be better off joining the Tories and influencing their broader policies instead.

DameMaud · 10/12/2022 09:59

LangClegsInSpace · 09/12/2022 21:50

It's great to see a good faith debate on this at last.

My impression is that JB's nose has been put out of joint, that she has taken certain things that KJK has said very personally. There was an air of 'I didn't get where I am today ...' about her arguments. And while I admire her work tremendously, the particular examples she used were both failures.

She talked about the fight against pornography and how she was not prepared to join forces with the religious right against it because they wanted to ban it for different reasons. That's great for JB's peace of mind, and I am very grateful for her clear analysis of the sex industry. But porn is worse than ever, so was that a successful strategy or not?

She talked about the grooming gangs and what happened, and she has done some really excellent work to expose what was going on, but ultimately, the narrative would not have been very different if someone else had done that work. It just needed exposing. There was a race angle, the police wanted to avoid a race row, the far right latched on and made hay. JB didn't manage to prevent that, I don't think anyone else could have prevented it either.

My impression of HJ is that she is first and foremost a pragmatist and she strives not to take things personally. I agree with her that universal human rights come first.

My politics are more aligned with JB but I think HJ has the best way forward.

Perfectly put and I have come to the same conclusion Lang.

Everyone seems to be struggling so much with context, nuance, and complexity right now!

Why is it so hard to see that there are times and places where different approaches are needed? That nothing is a perfect solution to every problem? That different strengths might need to be called on.

In work situations, or friendships, we understand that sometimes we need the kind listener, sometimes the advocate, sometimes the blunt pragmatist etc. It seems so hard for people to translate this to the macro level!

Shinyredbicycle · 10/12/2022 10:14

Joining with the far right to campaign against pornography would mean working with groups with profoundly homophobic agendas.

Not many lesbians would be on board with that, whatever their political beliefs.

FOJN · 10/12/2022 10:23

Everyone seems to be struggling so much with context, nuance, and complexity right now!

Why is it so hard to see that there are times and places where different approaches are needed? That nothing is a perfect solution to every problem? That different strengths might need to be called on.

In work situations, or friendships, we understand that sometimes we need the kind listener, sometimes the advocate, sometimes the blunt pragmatist etc. It seems so hard for people to translate this to the macro level!

I disagree that everyone seems to be struggling with context, nuance and complexity. On this board and in most other places where I have participated in discussions about gender ideology most people understand that not only are different perspectives desirable, they are necessary.

I have a huge amount of respect for the work of left wing feminists such as JB but there is no denying that it is the left sowing the seeds of division and that is what I find so unforgivable. The accusation seems to be that if we aren't doing it their way we are doing it wrong and harming women. The fact that gender ideology has taken hold in the way that it has suggests, to me, that perhaps left wing feminists don't have all the answers and they might benefit from listening a little more to ordinary women.

Until fairly recently I would have described myself as a feminist and left of center but I feel uncomfortable with declaring an association with either now because of the way that high profile women such as JB are trying to start a war within the women's movement. It feels as if left wing feminists are trying to hold onto the power which comes with being a well known authority on women's rights.

I do not know KJK and I don't think she always gets it right but she has galvanised women who may not describe themselves as feminists but recognise the misogyny of gender ideology when they see it. I hope this is the beginning of a whole new level of consciousness about how women as a class are treated and motivates ordinary women to channel their anger towards positive change.

I always feel humbled by the ordinary women who speak at SFW events. They are not practiced or polished public speakers but they speak from the heart about their experiences in a way I find powerful and compelling; this is women being given the confidence to use their voices and I cannot condemn the woman who has been pragmatic enough to ditch political and ideological purity to facilitated that.

WarriorN · 10/12/2022 10:38

Alltheprettyseahorses I have actually considered that option!

There's been some criticism of women staying with these parties from people like Helen Joyce. I know the greens want us to go and labour doesn't care so I'd prefer to be stubborn and not capitulate.

Green women are beginning to get somewhere with some internal votes. Others are suing.

DameMaud · 10/12/2022 10:54

Yes. Correction appreciated FOJN.

i don't mean 'everyone'. I mean the many who seem to get stuck in a kind of tribalism. On Twitter, in the media, political parties (and often expressed in debates on here too) etc.

That's why I find MN so valuable and also seek out heterodox podcasts.

I'm saying I have the same view as you and Lang, but in my limited experience ( maybe I need to seek out more discussion platforms), this seems rarer.

Happy to be wrong!

nac1001 · 10/12/2022 12:24

I've just watched this and although JB made some good points HJ & the "unite with the right" argument was definitely stronger and won.

Reachthesea · 10/12/2022 18:16

@FOJN I have had women attack me on line for being happily married and a mother of three! Being a mother and being married are some of the most universal experiences of women and the vast majority (at least in the West) choose their partner and to have children. To attack women for these reasons seems the opposite of feminism to me. It hasn’t escaped my notice that KJK is a woman who is also a wife and a stay at home mother of 4 (although I think at least 2 or her eldest are at University). I am sure this is the part of the reason she no longer calls herself a feminist because some women on the Left will immediately attack you for your life choices. Why can we not accept that raising children is a big undertaking and often the most efficient and most mother-friendly way to live is to chose to do that full time? When other women are patronizing towards other women because of these choices, or their job or their lack of education or not embracing what they consider the most fulfilling feminist way to live it’s a total own goal as far as I can see.

Like KJK the only times I have been viciously attacked online is by Left wing women! Especially a group of GC younger women. I was raised in a Labour voting family of unionists (female and male) and I have never voted Conservative in my life. Like so many women I now find myself politically homeless.

JoodyBlue · 10/12/2022 20:55

I've made points about protecting women's spaces to many of the caring men in my life, and been surprised that they haven't immediately seen why this is a threat to me, a petite 5'4 woman. I have come to conclude that it is because they can't imagine being within such a frame - they don't see the issue - they will never have to face it. My son now can pick me up and swing me around. He cannot imagine not being able to do that.

I kind of a had a sense of this imaginative deficiency between people with different life choices from hearing Julie speak. She said (paraphrase, so hope not to misrepresent) that conservatives want to get rid of people like me, to label us freaks and misfits. I completely heard what she said, I think for the first time, I got it.

So, I may be wrong. But I do sense a difference between the way lesbians and straight women perceive the fight. In some senses, straight married women cannot perceive the patriarchy in the same way perhaps. It is too hard to constantly view males that you love (husbands, sons) as part of your oppression.

For lesbians perhaps it is different, there are not the same chains that bind. I did really feel this is a difference of understanding. But we are women, we are good at making the leap to understanding each other. Lesbians, feel free to argue back. I was very impressed with both speakers. But in the end, Helen represents my viewpoint, but her experience is closer to mine. But I think I had more of a window into Julie's which was enlightening.

SmudgeButt · 10/12/2022 20:59

Haven't read everything but when did the term "TERF" cease to be offensive? Not trying to wind anything up just genuinely bewildered.

MangyInseam · 10/12/2022 23:47

Shinyredbicycle · 10/12/2022 10:14

Joining with the far right to campaign against pornography would mean working with groups with profoundly homophobic agendas.

Not many lesbians would be on board with that, whatever their political beliefs.

That's just a rejection of the possibility of society, or political democracy of any kind.

If they want to go off and start some kind of separatist enclaves like some of the members of the radical reformation, they are welcome to it, but I really wish they would have some self-reflection on what it is they are really proposing and stop muddying the waters for those who actually want to, or even have to, live in society.

SnapeAlways · 11/12/2022 01:10

It all sounds so Pharisaical. “I give thanks Lord, that I am a true and faithful feminist and not like these other terrible women over there.”

ExiledElsie · 11/12/2022 01:24

SmudgeButt · 10/12/2022 20:59

Haven't read everything but when did the term "TERF" cease to be offensive? Not trying to wind anything up just genuinely bewildered.

It's still used as a slur, as JB says in the debate. I do know a lot of women do use it, in a somewhat ironic "reclaimed" way. It's not an accurate term as we do not exclude trans people, we include female people as women even if they do not identify as such, and many of us are not radical feminists.

It does have the advantage of being easy to say and has pleasingly sounding plural of terven.

ExiledElsie · 11/12/2022 09:14

I do find Joyce clearer and more direct than Bindel.

One thing that struck me was Bindel's response to "the house is on fire" narrative, that nothing is more important than stopping girls/young women having their breasts cut off in the name of gender identity.

She said that appalling as things like that are she was aware of other worse things happening to girls and spoke about FGM.

My problem with that response (and why I don't really like the house on fire phrase) is that

  1. a worse thing can always be found. We often get that here with "but what about ...?"

  2. The other worse things are illegal in this country, conversely gender identity ideology is being taught in primary schools.

It strikes me that a practical win that women in the UK can achieve is getting schools to teach facts and organisations to follow current laws.

Actually, the more I think about it, the more mad it seems to expect to only work with socialist feminists. It seems like wanting to fail to me.

Shinyredbicycle · 11/12/2022 09:57

I'm pretty sure that what Julie meant by 'the house has been on fire for a long time' is that we can't look at or organise around the harms of gender ideology as separate from the bigger picture of male violence against women and girls.

Male violence against women and girls underlies everything that Julie write, campaigns about etc and has for decades. It's not 'whataboutery', it's that eg mastectomies on healthy breast tissue are part of MVAWG, not a single issue.

She's not a socialist feminist and she said in this discussion that she rarely works with left wing men as they're usually sexist if not downright misogynist.

It's interesting that you found Joyce clearer. She lost me when she started talking about contagion while acknowledging that Julie hadn't mentioned that and I don't understand how a free market can be non oppressive and not rely on some women being left at the bottom.

FOJN · 11/12/2022 10:13

Link to interesting interview with Kara Dansky on this issue.

I think the point she makes, which resonates with me and no doubt many other women, is that the political left are pushing gender ideology but supporting gender ideology is not a left wing position as most of us understand being "left wing".

She also talks about how angry she is with left leaning media for refusing to platform women who do not support gender ideology. I'm not angry with the political right, I know what they stand for and they're doing what they do but I am angry with the left for abandoning their principles.

ExiledElsie · 11/12/2022 10:46

Interesting response shiny. I also don't think capitalism is a force for good, as it doesn't prioritise well-being of people, animals or the environment.

I think framing double mastectomies as MVAW makes sense from the point of view of the success of gender identity ideology being because of patriarchy, suddenly men can remove the meaning of woman whilst claiming to be oppressed. And if women and girls are damaged in the process they don't care.

I think to change the current situation the arguments need to be made on more specific incremental points.

OldCrone · 11/12/2022 11:07

Male violence against women and girls underlies everything that Julie write, campaigns about etc and has for decades. It's not 'whataboutery', it's that eg mastectomies on healthy breast tissue are part of MVAWG, not a single issue.

But as far as I know, teenage girls and young women having 'gender affirming' mastectomies is the only VAWG which is condoned and carried out by the NHS.

Clymene · 11/12/2022 11:20

I've not watched the interview but I did listen to JB being interviewed by Katie Herzog where Bindel made the accusation that KJK invited HoO to film in Brighton.

I'm afraid I have lost a lot of respect for her. Making up lies to trash another woman's reputation is unethical and shouldn't be necessary if your argument is strong enough. It's sad that she feels she needs to do it.

beastlyslumber · 11/12/2022 12:38

I lost a lot of respect for JB when I saw her debating with Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Billy Bragg and she argued that she should not be censored, but people she didn't agree with should be.

Her comments so far in this video are very confused, likewise. She's saying that her collaboration with the right is fine, but others collaborating with the right is bad.

She doesn't seem able to understand that she can't have special rules for herself.

beastlyslumber · 11/12/2022 12:39

And yes, I also think her making up lies about KJK shows a lack of integrity.

ArabellaScott · 11/12/2022 12:46

I need to finish watching the whole video, but that 'special rules' thing seems to be a feature of the left quite frequently. When a leftwing person calls someone on the right 'scum' its fine, but anyone on the right using a dehumanising term = not fine.

(Because most of my friends & family are of the left, I can't really compare if this self justification is common to those on the right, too. Is it? Anyone know?)

beastlyslumber · 11/12/2022 12:49

And when JB gets called Islamophobic for protesting against the veil, that's wrong and bad. But when KJK says the same thing, JB calls her racist.

I do think JB is sincere, not a grifter. But she has a real arrogance and she's just not that smart.