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!):

Sorry, tea, but what???

No one here is saying male dominance is imagined, or misogyny is a fantasy or women are abusing men.

Who do you think is saying that? Could you please quote and go through the process of breaking down how you got to this interpretation because frankly I'm completely lost here. I'm certainly not saying or thinking any of the things you claim.

No one here is saying male dominance is imagined
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clearly, imaginarium
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That's what I'm trying to say when I say that the word 'patriarchy' obscures rather than explains.

I went to great lengths to explain the feminist use of patriarchy/patriarchal to mean roughly male dominance/female submission and the associated phenomena, and not the narrow, fixed, rigid and unusual use of the word you proposed.

Well, Scotland have just turned up the dial another level to further patriarchial power (meaning male power), so I would argue that there is plenty of leverage within democracy for patriarchal power grabs!

In recent years, just in the UK, discrimination towards women and poorer outcomes for women have been independently identified in the police service, health care providers, the justice system, schools and universities. The sex-based pay gap remains, while violence towards women and girls appears to be increasing while we are simultaneously increasingly failed by the justice system.

None of these institutions nor the laws that govern them set out to be sexist or misogynistic. In fact, no-one even noticed it before women started making a noise, and then more and then more.

It's not a coincidence that the sexual discrimination/sexism in these structures and systems is directed towards women. It's not split with men, not even a little bit.

That's why, as you said, we need women's rights. Because we don't have equality, sexism and misogyny are still endemic because we live in a social system where men have more power than women.

It's patriarchal. It's not only patriarchal, but a features of our society is that organised around and recreates male dominance.

’imaginarium’ indeed.

Agree.

Just because Nicola Sturgeon is a woman, doesn’t mean the decisions she’s making aren’t increasing inequality between women and men, empowering men (even those with the darkest motives) disempowering women (those at their most vulnerable). She is the ultimate handmaiden. Creating new avenues for male dominance.

No you misunderstood Mangy's meaning. She was referring to your analogy of the solar system (I think it was). She wasn't saying patriarchy is imaginary.

I think you misunderstood.

My analogy, was to imagine a scenario where various different phenomena are observed, but you are not allowed to mention the common cause.

mangyinseam said, the analogy was wrong, it was more like observing different phenomena and making up some non-existent ‘imaginarium’ to be the common cause. Basically saying that when feminists speak of patriarchy/patriarchy they are inventing a substance like phlogiston.

I went to great lengths to explain the feminist use of patriarchy/patriarchal to mean roughly male dominance/female submission and the associated phenomena, and not the narrow, fixed, rigid and unusual use of the word you proposed.

Well gosh, tea. I also went to great lengths to explain why I disagree with your characterisation as the UK as a society of male dominance/female submission, without once ever dismissing the idea of sexism, misogyny or vawg.

And whether you agree or not, there is a valid argument about how using a label to explain particular phenomena can obscure the workings it's meant to explain. It's extremely unfair to characterise this argument as anti-feminist just because the word in question is 'patriarchy'. If the discussion was about a different label, would you be able to follow the argument being made?

I'm sure there are elements of your argument that I'm not understanding, too, but all I can do is keep asking questions and trying to clarify my own views. I'd really appreciate the same courtesy from you, rather than leaping to the worst - and frankly, most insulting - interpretation of my words and accusing me of absolutely horrible things with zero justification.

I know you did say earlier that the discussion was annoying to you. Maybe I should have stopped engaging then, before it got to this point. It's a stressful time of year.

Tea, I like you a lot, but I'm going to stop engaging with this discussion for a while. I think you've totally missed the point and for whatever reason, you're really angry about it and some of the things you've said are just upsetting. And like I say, it's a stressful time of year.

Sending you peaceful xmas vibes.

It's extremely unfair to characterise this argument as anti-feminist just because the word in question is 'patriarchy'. If the discussion was about a different label, would you be able to follow the argument being made?

It’s anti-feminist to suggest feminists using a key feminist word to describe the reality they find themselves in, from a feminist perspective, are being unethical.

Just as it would be anti-anything to tell people belonging to their school of thought that using one of their key words is unethical.

That's why, as you said, we need women's rights. Because we don't have equality, sexism and misogyny are still endemic

Agree we still need women's rights and that sexism and misogyny are still a problem. We do have equality though. We are equal citizens under the law.

because we live in a social system where men have more power than women.

Disagree. We live in a society where in some areas men have more power, but in other areas women have more power. In many areas, power is not the relevant factor that we need to deal with. I do not agree with the woke-leftist ideology that says all relations are power relations, that to understand society we just have to understand who holds more power in each interaction. That's not how our society works. Yes, power can be a relevant factor - of course. It would be stupid to discount it. But it's also wrong to suggest women don't have institutional power. And it's not the case that the answers to all the issues come down to power relations.

Okay, I just wanted to respond to you before I duck out of the thread for a bit. Hope your xmas week is suitably festive and fun.

Okay, I'm anti-feminist then. And I think women rape men and misogyny is a fantasy and whatever else it was you accused me of. You got me. You cleverly exposed the deep insanity and hatred that lies under my seemingly rational words and attempts at thinking through arguments.

Happy now?

Just something I wanted to say earlier... patriarchal power is expressed through material reality. It's not an abstract phenomena, women don't have to imagine it - we all live within it.

Saying that sexism, sex discrimination and misogyny exist because we live in a society constructed around male dominance (less formally now with legislative changes than it used to be but nevertheless).

If this wasn't the case, the fact that 15 year old girls are sexually assaulted in schools, that women still earn less than men and are regularly made redundant or sacked when they're pregnant, and that a load of MRAs feel entitled to scream abuse at women who gather to speak in public would all be isolated incidents.

i don’t want to upset you. I felt that we were getting along fine, the mangyinseam comes along, replying to me, and implies that male dominance is all in the imagination of feminists and you say ‘thank you’.

I don’t think you do think that there is an equivalence between the sexes, Mangy, I’m seriously not so sure.

My buttons were pushed when you said (perhaps after a glass of wine?) that feminists who use the word patriarchy to describe phenomena in the UK are insulting the women of Iran. It came across as uncharacteristically prohibitive of you.

Yes. It is basic feminism to draw all these things together and see the pattern.

In consciousness-raising, women first realised the prevalence of DV, CSA, etc.

Also the enactment of male dominance actually increases male dominance, for example, fear can cause women to behave in subservient ways for self preservation.

Having a bit of a faff and I want to say that I am very sorry I have caused upset. I am freaked out about what has happened in Scotland and also a bit stressed about all the Xmas stuff. I really hope everyone gets a chance to enjoy the moment, forget about these tensions, and get into a happy flow.

Thank you EndlessTea , and to you and others on this thread.

The problem is that you are saying there is one causal element, that all these things are manifestations of the same thing because you see them as having some feature in common - that the result is the oppression of women.

But there are a huge number of assumptions tied up in that, the first and foremost being that these are in fact all manifestations of one thing, with one kind of cause.

It's actually entirely possible, and I would say probable, that some of them aren't really linked at all. They are results of different kinds of things, their origins are different, the causal mechanisms are different, even though they may all affect women, or women more acutely, or perhaps some affect men too but it looks different for some reason.

To say, we have all these things that affect women negativly, therefore they are all manifestations of the same abstract entity just isn't a valid inference. But it's been a common kind of error historically in all kinds of setting, the social sciences, even the sciences.

No one is saying there aren't social structures that can be negative for women, that there are behaviours of males that can be negative for women, that no one is a sexist, nor that nothing should be done about these things.

Rather what's being said is that these things all occur for concrete reasons that can be looked at - if they are really things that happen, they have real, concrete mechanisms that make them happen in the world, like any phenomena. And these all need to be looked at and understood in their concrete form.

Which may or may not be related in some way to other concrete examples. Some perhaps have the same cause. Others may relate in a more horizontal kind of way. Others may not relate much at all. But you can only understand and give a name to the relation and cause by actually looking at the things in themselves. If you assume a relationship that assumption will influence your analysis which means it's distorted.

This is the same criticism you get from marxist scholars like Adolph Reed around terms like systemic racism - it lumps together disparate things and gives the illusion of understanding phenomena when really they've only been labeled. So hardly rejecting left wing thinking.

I thik you're the only person thinking about patriarchal power structures/patriarchy' as an abstract entity Mangy.

The problem with CRT is the fact that certain phenomena resulting from being a minority within a different culture are called ‘racism’ as a catch-all.

The natural bias towards people who look like our siblings, cousins, parents and grandparents, the natural tendency to see one’s own ethnic group as the default, is shared by everyone (unless of course, you were raised somewhere where people of your own ethnicity are in the minority and this will cause you a certain amount of frustration and difficulty). This bias towards, and seeing one’s own group as default is not something only white people experience and is simply a majority/minority issue when it presents us with difficulty. But CRT calls this bias (only one-way, of course) racism.

Racism is also used to mean ‘hatred’, like misogyny, but there isn’t really an equivalent word like ‘misogyny’ to describe hatred of people from other ethnic groups. So when someone says ‘racism’ meaning ‘bias’, someone listening can think it means ‘hatred’. This bundling together makes CRT a bit confusing and can lead people down obvious rabbit-holes into nonsense land.

Because women are not a minority group, and there is very concrete different biology between the sexes, inequality between the sexes can’t be neatly mapped onto inequality between ethnic groups.

The differences between male and female biology are not just that women get pregnant, give birth and breastfeed and that children feel an extremely strong attachment to their mother, all of which makes women pretty vulnerable (vulnerable to unwanted pregnancy, far more vulnerable to injury and illness during pregnancy, vulnerable to life-changing injury or death during childbirth, slower, more fearful to protect a vulnerable infant, more vulnerable to hunger and dehydration when breastfeeding, slower, more anxious, hampered by small children), the fact that males are physically bigger and stronger, even before you bring pregnancy into the equation, more naturally aggressive, competitive and more sexually charged, really does presents some completely natural inequality between the sexes.

Our species tends towards a patriarchal/male dominant model like baboons as a result. It doesn’t have to, but the natural urge for males to want to jostle with other males for supremacy within the group, or to war against other groups for supremacy, means that frequently this urge to dominate and sexually gratify themselves is turned against women and children. Again, it doesn’t have to be that way though, but the crime and violence statistics attest to it, as do the wars and so on.

There is absolutely nothing, nothing at all, remotely similar biologically between different ethnic groups, as there are differences between men and women, and those differences cut across all ethnic groups, because there are two distinct sexes throughout.

The tendency of CRT to lump together lots of different causes under the same word ‘racism’, is in no way similar to feminism where the different phenomena of sexism, misogyny, sex inequality, VAWG, are said to stem from male dominance/domination/patriarchy.

I can feel a WDIT/NAMALT on its way.

Yes, women have testosterone, can be aggressive, competitive and sexually charged too - I remember when I was sexually harassed when I had my children in a pram, and the man eyed my children in a disgusting manner, I felt a rush of aggression I had never felt before and was ready to fight to the death.

I am also pretty competitive too, compared to other women, when it comes to board games and so on, but there is a huge difference between the most competitive, aggressive, sexually charged woman and man. If you mapped the frequency or intensity of these things on a graph, you would see two clear spikes indicating the two sexes, just like height, strength, etc.

Also, probably the majority of men feel more vulnerable and risk averse because they feel protective of their children and partners when they become parents too, also more responsible about being a provider, but the relationships board of MN would attest to the fact that this is no guarantee for women, as do the crime stats and the CSA.

Sorry, it was me that brought up racism to make the point that it has many shades, as does patriarchal power.

Not comparing feminism to CRT at all.