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!):

Thanks, Bosky for the history behind barefoot and pregnant and unclean. It is really interesting. I'm just skeptical that right wing men believe this or act on it. I suspect it is often male bravado. It is interesting that Julie quotes what men think, rather than what women think. It implies that these women are doormats and always do what men say. This is very far from my experience.

A lot of those examples seem pretty tenuous to me. No female equivalent of a man cave? No domineering sisters or women in families? Those seem pretty obviously false.

Which is part of the problem with the whole nebulous concept of feminist patriarchy - it becomes a word that can be slapped on any example where a person feels there is some differential between the sexes - the real cause of the differential is obscured. Looking at traditional marriage only in light of an assumption it's meant to advantage men is a good example - that's a really one sided way to look at it, in many ways marriage rules have had as many (or more)
advantages for women, and also for society more generally, as it has for individual men.

How can an account of it as "patriarchy" ever dig into that?

In many ways this kind of concept is what a lot of identity politics and the modern gender and anti-racist essentialist movements are rooted in. An abstract entity - patriarchy or systemic racism or whatever - that becomes the only lens for examining disparities, because it is the label put on the disparities themselves. But it ceases to be grounded in a strong materialist explanation of specific events or mechanisms, it's enough to hand wave towards a disparity and anyone who doubts it is denying racism or misogyny or something.

If you actually do the work to talk about the mechanism for the difference, there generally isn't any utility to that kind of language, anyway - it doesn't add anthing.

Thanks for giving some examples as they help me to understand where you're coming from, tea. I did type out a whole load of words in response to those examples, but as you say, we'll just be quibbling over them. I'm sure you have loads more you could bring as well, but it would probably be the same back and forth. So suffice to say that your examples enlightened me a little more about your views, but didn't convince me to move further towards them (and if you want more explanation why, then of course I can give it.)

I think this is where the heart of our disagreement lies:

It’s a necessary word and I think the insistence that it has no meaning other than it’s most extreme, unequivocal form is anti feminist. It is like saying left wing = communist totalitarianism. It is stripping an important term from use in such a way that makes feminist discussion about our own lives impossible.

I don't think it's impossible to talk about our lives without using the word 'patriarchy'. I am still able to observe inequalities and misogynies without subscribing to the idea that there is an overarching system of oppression that determines every relationship or every aspect of society. I don't believe that to be the case and so I'm not going to use a word that implies that belief. I don't think that's anti-feminist. I don't see why this word should be so important to women in the UK who are legally equal to males. Our issues here are different.

I agree with Mangy here:

In many ways this kind of concept is what a lot of identity politics and the modern gender and anti-racist essentialist movements are rooted in. An abstract entity - patriarchy or systemic racism or whatever - that becomes the only lens for examining disparities, because it is the label put on the disparities themselves. But it ceases to be grounded in a strong materialist explanation of specific events or mechanisms, it's enough to hand wave towards a disparity and anyone who doubts it is denying racism or misogyny or something.

That's how I see the use of the word 'patriarchy' to describe the UK. There's nothing concrete you can point to that shows we as a society are ruled by males. We're not. We are equal in the law. And even the horrendous things happening to women's rights in Scotland just now are being perpetrated and led by women. So patriarchy can only mean something abstract and subjective when applied to the UK. It might exist in certain families or even workplaces, but it's not in the social structure or institutions. Whereas in Iran, it means something concrete and objective, and it's helpful to understand because it's literally how society is structured and it's also a coherent enemy that can be fought back.

I am still able to observe inequalities and misogynies

Are these inequalities and misogynies groundless, unrelated phenomena from nowhere, with no reason, floating around, inexplicable, independent and randomly popping into existence?

If there is any common thread to them, what word would you use to describe that common thread?

Looking at traditional marriage only in light of an assumption it's meant to advantage men is a good example

I really can’t be arsed with this. I talked about the traditional wedding ceremony, not a modern, legal protection of marriage. How does a woman taking on her husband’s surname, work well for women? It’s been shown to disadvantage women who try to get a name for themselves, for example, artists. How is the symbolism of ‘giving away’ the bride to her husband from her father not a patriarchal ritual ffs?

If there is any common thread to them, what word would you use to describe that common thread?

Sexism, misogyny, inequality - those are the words I have used.

those are the words I have used.

Is there a common thread to sexism, misogyny and inequality between women and men?

What is the cause? Has it come from nowhere?

I think that marriage has always been a form of protection for women and children, although you could argue that's because we lived in a patriarchy and women needed to be under the protection of a man. That's certainly been true at many points in our history. However, monogamous pair-bonding is highly favourable to women and less so to men, so you could argue that the practice of pair-bonding to raise children, whether in the form of traditional/modern marriage or not, is in women's favour.

I agree with you that women changing their name is a hangover from patriarchy. It has all sorts of pernicious effects, notably invisibilising and 'losing' women from the historical record. We should keep records through the maternal line (makes more sense) and women should keep their names. However, nowadays, a lot of women do keep their name, or both partners change theirs together. So I would see that as a hangover from the past rather than an example of current patriarchy. If we were living in a patriarchy, women wouldn't have the choice to keep their own name. But we do.

Those things are common in themselves? Why does there have to be some abstract thing underlying them for them to be meaningful? Saying something is misogynist doesn't imply that it comes from nowhere or has no cause.

I just don't believe that there's a single cause - patriarchy - that explains everything. It's way more complex than that.

Sorry, tea, I have to go to sleep now! Happy to pick up the discussion again later if you like.

I would see that as a hangover from the past rather than an example of current patriarchy.

Yes feminists have ensured women have many more options than the past, but the hangovers are numerous and manifold, even though the laws have changed, in many ways, society has not yet caught up.

For example, still, people largely regard males to be more authoritative than females, women are seen as unreliable witnesses, men being domineering, doing all the talking, feels natural, women act submissive for approval- I mean the shit I’ve got for being opinionated and female.

I think it is unusual to be so wedded to the ‘archy’ = rule thing, with patriarchy as yourself and mangyinsteam are. I mean, we have a monarchy, a monarch who supposedly reigns over us, but our monarch is not literally our ruler. We live in a democracy.

You don't need an overarching abstract word even if those things have a connection. You can actually just describe the connection, which is far more useful and precise. Any time that kind of label is invented in ideological systems it's prone to creating huge distortions and leads to poor analysis.

I think it's pretty clear what the main link around female people is in various societies - it's the differential that comes out of reproductive role. Sometimes that is functional, somewhat less often it comes out of competing interests of males and females in society, it also can relate to a general propensity in individual human being to be exploitative of others in various ways. But these all relate back to the primary differentiation which is differences that surround reproductive role. I'd also point out that not all things that someone feels are "sexist" need to be related by some imaginary concept or entity. Some may actually not really be related much at all.

Some of the clearest writers on feminist topics active now, ones who offer the most specific causal and materially grounded analysis, people like Kathleen Stock, who is a trained philosopher, and Mary Harrington, don't use the term patriarchy and specifically reject it's feminist meaning, are certainly not "anti-feminists. And I don't think it's an accident that such specific and clear argumentation comes without that concept attached.

Slightly an aside, but while there may be practical reasons to prefer to manage family names through the female line, it's not inherently less, or more, sexist than doing it through the male line. It's just differernt.

You can actually just describe the connection

Please do, I’m all ears.

Slightly an aside, but while there may be practical reasons to prefer to manage family names through the female line, it's not inherently less, or more, sexist than doing it through the male line. It's just differernt.

Well now you've said this, I'm wondering what the origins of the name change thing are. I always thought it was to do with ownership, but I don't know why I thought that. I know different countries have different naming conventions. I wonder where ours came from. Probably a huge history project to find out - maybe I'll pretend that's something very important I have to do instead of peeling sprouts. Hope your back's better, Mangy.

Next you’ll be saying that women not being allowed to own property wasn’t patriarchal, it was just practical and you can imagine an alternative where only women could own property…

I've heard a few podcasts with Mary Harrington and think she's very interesting, but don't know much about her idea of 'reactionary feminism'. I was just looking for articles by her referencing "the patriarchy" as Mangy mentions her critique. I found this to be fascinating (and relevant to this thread):

www.firstthings.com/article/2021/06/reactionary-feminism

Reflecting on the way sex roles delivered drudgery for my mother but creative freedom for me has prompted a ­re-evaluation of the feminist critique of “­patriarchy.” Whereas radical feminists tend to see patriarchy as akin to a mass conspiracy to oppress women, I’ve come to see it as the aggregate result of historical human efforts to balance the conflicting interests of the two sexes. It has sometimes given rise to abuses and injustices, which are rightly condemned. But the solution is not to be found in some state of perfect symmetry between the sexes. For this cannot be had—the sexes are not interchangeable.

Marriage, for example, is often framed as a patriarchal institution aimed at controlling women’s sexuality. But because premarital sex carries much greater risks for women than for men, social norms in favor of marriage as a precondition for sex benefit women (and children) at least as much as men. It is not clear that feminist efforts to smash those norms have delivered greater happiness for women.

and in her conclusion, she states:

We are liberated enough. What we need is more and better obligations: a feminism that seeks the proper limits on freedom for both sexes. Such a feminism occupies the most reviled position of all. Dissenting from the theology of progress, it revels in the mantle of the “reactionary.”

The whole article is fascinating.

This from Brides magazine (www.brides.com/why-do-women-take-husband-last-name-5116974):

“Coverture is a legal formation that held that no female person had a legal identity,” explains Allgor. “A female baby was covered by her father’s identity, and then, when she was married, by her husband’s.” Under coverture, a husband and wife became “one” under marriage. “It sounds romantic, but the ‘one’ was the husband,” Allgor continues. “She becomes, and this is the phrase, ‘legally dead.’ So it’s not that women take the last names of their husbands, which is how we think of it—it’s that they become part of [the husband’s] body. She does not exist in law, only the husband does.” Eerily enough, this is why characters in the Hulu series The Handmaid’s Tale are renamed things like “Offred” and “Ofglen” in the dystopian society of Gilead—these women are literally considered “of” the specific men that rule them.

Codified into written law by William Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England in 1765, coverture negated a female’s existence as an independent identity. As a result, her rights were severely limited. “Married women could not make contracts, because they couldn’t own businesses,” Allgor says. “Married women owned nothing—not even the clothes on their backs. They had no rights to their children, and no rights to their bodies, so men could send their wives out to labor, and [the men] could collect the wages. He also had an absolute right to sexual access. Within marriage, a woman’s consent was implied, so rape was legitimate.”

While not always put fully into practice in real life—“You can’t really run a society where women are this oppressed,” Allgor notes—these customs carried over from England to America during the establishment of the colonies. Though there were opportunities to formally abolish or amend coverture during the creation of the U.S. Constitution in the 1780s—Abigail Adams addressed the very matter in her “Remember the Ladies” letter to her husband, Constitutional Convention member John Adams—the first break in coverture the U.S. didn’t arrive until the Married Women’s Property Act of 1848.

According to wikipedia, in the UK: Coverture was first substantially modified by late-19th-century Married Women's Property Acts passed in various common-law jurisdictions, and was weakened and eventually eliminated by later reforms.

That does sound pretty patriarchal to me! Thank god we don't live like that anymore.

More on coverture here: digpodcast.org/2018/02/25/coverture/

More on the word Patriarchy.

I spoken a bit how I find it a novel, and a bit weird use of the word patriarchy, to say ‘a patriarchy’ as a noun. It is linguistically clunky and doesn’t fit in the majority of cases.

I wouldn’t describe Iran as ‘a patriarchy’ (I said upthread I would describe it as a totalitarian, theocratic, patriarchal regime), I wouldn’t describe the Catholic Church as ‘a patriarchy’ either.

Although the Catholic Church is a patriarchal religion, you call the priests “father” ie pater, and you would refer to them as ‘patriarchs’, the church as a whole isn’t ‘a patriarchy’. It has many sub- structures within it which may not be patriarchal in the way they are organised, for example, a Catholic convent, full of nuns, has a ‘matriarchal’ structure, within the wider ‘patriarchal religion’. Although God ‘the father’ is worshipped, Mary, the ‘mother of God’, is almost more significant. So that’s why it would be weird, crass and inaccurate, in my opinion, to call it ‘a patriarchy’, although it is undoubtedly patriarchal over all.

Patriarchy = male dominance/male domination of women and girls

In terms of feminist discourse, patriarchy means a social organisation where males dominate females, but this is not an exact fit. ‘Dominated’ or ‘dominant’, etc, can refer just to number and frequency, such as ‘primary education is dominated by women’, even though the lesser number of men in primary education are disproportionately heads and leaders. So you can’t always swap out the word ‘patriarchal’ with ‘male-dominated’ or ‘male dominance’.

In sociology, anthropology, and feminist analysis, the generalised tendency of human social organisation, where males dominate and females submit, can, for brevity, be described as ‘patriarchy’, and any system or practice which serves to uphold male dominance over women and girls, and uphold female submissiveness towards men and boys, can be described as ‘patriarchal’. There is no need to reify the abstract generality of patriarchy/male dominance into a concrete ‘thing’, for the purposes of analysis and discussion (as both you beastlyslumber and mangyinseam are insisting upon).

In sociology, anthropology, and feminist analysis, the generalised tendency of human social organisation, where males dominate and females submit, can, for brevity, be described as ‘patriarchy’, and any system or practice which serves to uphold male dominance over women and girls, and uphold female submissiveness towards men and boys, can be described as ‘patriarchal’.

Alright. But I don't agree that the general tendency is male domination and female submission. I mean, that's the substance of my disagreement with you on this: I don't agree that we live in a patriarchy, unless you define patriarchy as something completely other than 'male rule'.

Here in the UK we have many areas of life where women dominate and where systems uphold female dominance. Societies are becoming more feminised in terms of how we interact and compete. How does that fit in to the idea that we live in a system of male dominance?

Even if I conceded that male dominance doesn't have to be encoded in law to be a patriarchy, I still wouldn't agree that we live in a system of male dominance.

The main weak spot I see in my argument here is the increasing restriction on women's speech. I'm not convinced that this is about male dominance, so much as an attack on reality generally, but women definitely are bearing the brunt of that. And also of course the erosion of single sex spaces and the changing of language affects women disproportionately. If you were to argue that this was about encoding a new system of male dominance into society, I'd be interested in thinking that through. But I tend to believe what Helen Joyce said in the debate, that this is a wholesale attack on reality that women suffer disproportionately from, rather than an attack on women per se. I.e. it's not about establishing male dominance over women - that's a side effect of the movement to control reality. And it is being spearheaded by women, too, so that is another element to be considered.

Rubbishing any use of the word Patriarchy or Patriarchal if it does not refer specifically to a contemporary formalised oppressive regime of male domination of women and girls, (in fact claiming it is unethical to, because it lessens the plight of women and girls currently oppressed in a formalised totalitarian patriarchal regime)

Clearly I am pretty annoyed about this. And I would rather not be needing to defend the need for feminism, or the tools for feminist analysis on a bloody feminism board. I thought these days were over for me, since I tend to gravitate towards people and places where feminism and it’s tools are accepted.

I am going to give an analogy, maybe a couple.

Imagine a group of specialists discussing the aftermath of a supernova, but being told that the word ‘star’ should be avoided, because the observed phenomenon are not technically a star. You can discuss the phenomena of gravitational shockwaves, you can discuss the neutron, you can mention nebula, gasses, particles, light, because they all currently exist, but don’t say anything like ‘neutron star’, ‘stardust’, ‘fading starlight’, or ‘exploding star’. That’s all in the past.

It would be ridiculous to observe all those phenomena separately, because they wouldn’t exist or be where they are if there hadn’t been a star that exploded in that location. Likewise, it is ridiculous to discuss sex inequality, misogyny, sexism, blah, blah, but to argue that the cause of those phenomena is off limits for discussion, or is somehow unethical.

I don't agree that the general tendency is male domination and female submission.

I know, I see you and mangyinseam have not observed this phenomena in your lives.

I don't agree that we live in a patriarchy,

This is head desk territory. I do not accept your term ‘a patriarchy’. It is inaccurate and an unusual. It doesn’t describe anything real or make sense. The ‘rulers’ in Iran don’t rule because they are male, they rule because they have achieved a certain status (only available to men) in their patriarchal religion and theocratic society.

unless you define patriarchy as something completely other than 'male rule'.

What do you mean by ‘rule’?

This thread has taken an interesting turn, thanks to all for continuing it.

I largely agree with EndlessTea. Patriarchial not 'the patriarchy' to describe structures of male oppression of women.

I can't see any historical evidence that suggests it was purely coincidental that it was women not men who weren't permitted to vote, own property in their name, continue working when they married etc etc and that it could just as easily have been men in that position.

Even if you foreground the reality denying aspects of gender ideology (which are no doubt there), there must be mechanisms of social power enabling this ideology and its effects to take hold in the way it has.

What word other than 'patriarchal' could you use to describe this power?

it's not about establishing male dominance over women - that's a side effect of the movement to control reality.

The way I saw this unfold, was that MRAs (who fight to undo feminist gains and return to male dominance) saw this opportunity and seized upon it, promoting and defending it at every turn. It’s been a while since I have been confronted by the pro-prostitution lobby, or the anti-family courts brigade. This movement was a gift to them.

Clearly I am pretty annoyed about this. And I would rather not be needing to defend the need for feminism, or the tools for feminist analysis on a bloody feminism board. I thought these days were over for me, since I tend to gravitate towards people and places where feminism and it’s tools are accepted.

I'm not sure why you're insisting that defending the idea of patriarchy is the same as defending the need for feminism.

We need women's rights even if we don't live in a patriarchy.

I don't feel like you're really reading my responses if you think what I'm doing is attacking feminism or tools for feminist analysis.

This is head desk territory. I do not accept your term ‘a patriarchy’. It is inaccurate and an unusual. It doesn’t describe anything real or make sense.

That's literally my argument. 'Patriarchy' doesn't describe anything real or make sense. Except if you are talking about actual patriarchies.

The ‘rulers’ in Iran don’t rule because they are male, they rule because they have achieved a certain status (only available to men) in their patriarchal religion and theocratic society.

I think this is a tautology. Or I'm not smart enough to understand the distinction.

What do you mean by ‘rule’?

From Merriam-Webster: Governing power or its possession or use; authority. The duration of such power. An authoritative, prescribed direction for conduct, especially one of the regulations governing procedure in a legislative body or a regulation observed by the players in a game, sport, or contest.

I'm sorry you're getting annoyed, tea. I'm happy to talk about this in good faith and explore ideas with you in a collegiate fashion. But if you're getting upset and accusing me of attacking feminism, then maybe we should drop this and come back to it another time when you feel more open to discussion.

Yes, I agree with this.