First they came for KJK, now Helen Joyce

[Jellycats4life]

I’ve been feeling very disillusioned by leftist feminists denigrating the single issue campaigners for not being feminist enough (even if they never claimed to be feminists in the first place) and for either being right wing or aligning with the right wing. I know HJ copped a tremendous amount of flak for attending KJK’s event in Brighton (and I actually suspect she might have lost a few friends too) but now we have this.

I know HJ is economically right wing and centrist/conservative in her politics. I’m politically homeless and so couldn’t care less about anyone’s politics not aligning with my own. This purity spiral I keep seeing within left wing GC circles is so deleterious to the movement, surely?

I thought it had all died down but clearly not.

I have never heard HJ discuss her views on abortion, and even if her opinion differs to mine I seriously doubt it would impact upon my opinion of her as a GC campaigner. I think she’s one of the best voices we’ve got. Will we ever get anywhere if disagreeing with someone means you have to cast them out?

Anyway, the upshot of this is I’m interested in the journal, haha!

I adore HJ, I love listening to her and reading her articles. Also Bindel.

My only ever gripe with HJ was recently when she tweeted that labour women were allowing themselves to be abused by remaining in such a terrible party on this issue. I disagree and see them as stalwarts, the resistance. Labour really don't care if labour are loosing women. The greens don't either and celebrate it.

I think there's a place for women who draw their boundaries firmly within "the left" as well as those who set their boundaries elsewhere for clearly defined reasons. I think debate skills could be sharpened for some of the former (not Bindel!)

I find Helen Lewis v interesting; current series of the new gurus on r4 is was both bonkers, fascinating and concerning at the same time.

I don't feel abused by still being a Labour member. I'm Fucking annoyed at them and it feels like a waste if the money at v the moment. But b out does mean I'm in the list v off b people that v they phone when they are looking for votes or csndidates so i get to spend an hour on the phone telling them exactly what I think. It's very cathartic.

Ignore random letters tablet if ducked

Helen Joyce is amazing.

When did "pro-nuclear family" become a slur?

There's no doubt that people feel very tribal about their politics and want to conduct their version of feminism within it.

What I don't get is why they don't just get on with it, then. Instead of making it all about someone doing it differently. What's the bloody point? It achieves nothing.

What is the gain?

Good for you beetle. I joined the greens deliberately to piss some of the blue haired lot off. why aren't they using non chemical dye like we used to??

I think they identify as Greens - probably lots of easy, virtue signalling behaviour but no real deep thought or nuance.

Personally, I’ve been put right off joining any sort of political organisation in recent years. I can’t be arsed with all the tribal thinking - I want to be able to debate, examine an issue from all angles and not feel like I have to subscribe to certain beliefs to fit.

Helen Joyce, that name sounds familiar.

There's a photo floating around Twitter with 2 women stomping on an LGBT pride flag and one appears to be doing a Nazi salute. Is Helen in that one?

I am posting this on any threads where women might need to hear the voice of hope.

make sure the sound is turned on.

twitter.com/quirkathon/status/1609619946165927936?s=46&t=_v6TGwDOjWOQXCLosQOHmw

Sorry if I am late to the party in posting this. And The Victoria G - thank you!!

What a load of shit. Do you really think you win anyone over with obvious lies?

From what I remember she is standing next to a butch lesbian who has cut off the "progressive" part of the flag and has her hand in the air dropping the bit that's been cut off.
Of course, the lying TRAs say it looks like a Nazi salute because they don't know how to not lie and have no better arguments.

What a load of shit. Do you really think you win anyone over with obvious lies?

They don't think at all. They're like one of those Pez dispensers. Someone presses their head and stuff comes out. 🙄

That is indeed what happened.

To my distress, she didn't appear to have used pinking shears which does constitute a crime against haberdashery, but it was her fabric to cut up.

Oh no, Helen Joyce is a Nazi? That sounds quite definitive, how distressing. Nazis are the bad guys! No need to validate this info, I've seen the error of my ways and will be off to the nearest trans rights rally to atone for my sins. Thanks so much for enlightening me @MargaritaPie !

I think a proportion of this behaviour is because various women have come in and shown their articulacy, intelligence, tenacity and media skills and moved the debate on in so many ways. There is jealousy yes but I think they feel shown up as well. Look at these non-feminists coming in and doing our job better than us and everyone knowing it. We’d better say they’re not doing it the right way.

Oh I think that some posters work on the theory that if they can say something like that that there is a chance that 1 person will go off and spread it as gospel.

I used to think they expected someone to come and cheerlead them. But then notice the only posts that did that cheerleading these days tend towards being deleted as a PBP.

😂🤐

I stopped following Jeni Harvey a while back, when I realised every single tweet of hers I clocked was slagging off another woman campaigner for Feministing the Wrong Way, rather than actually campaigning on behalf of women.

I had a fairly crisp exchange with Helen Lewis on the same subject. She advanced the theory that unsubscribing because you don't want to read women who knock lumps out of other women is itself a purity spiral, which bothered me and I'm still reflecting on.

I don't think that's what I'm doing. I'm just sick to the tits of all the wasted energy when there's still so much to be done.

I used to think they expected someone to come and cheerlead them. But then notice the only posts that did that cheerleading these days tend towards being deleted as a PBP.

And one regular poster (serial name changer).

LOL

I don’t understand this idea that if you campaign with someone on an important issue, you must agree with them on absolutely everything else. I think we need to develop tolerance for different views again. I don’t see any need to demonize conservatives or anyone else.

I also see a lot of intolerance towards religious women especially (some of my family are in a minority religious community). I can happily coexist with them despite having different views. Time for us to relearn tolerance imo.

This is it. She wouldn't. She's not really that sort of person is she.

We much more than the sum of our parts.

As a group we are so much more powerful and effective when we work together instead of in isolation or against each other.

Which is surely what we want to achieve.

I don't know anyone who has exactly the same opinions as me on all the big money topics.

What a boring conversation that would be! We are not Stepford Wives for Christ sake.

Why do we have to suffer purity spirals we are the supposed to be the side that is acting with science behind us not somee holier than though ideology. some

I mean it's an ideology we are fighting against we don't want to have to fight another one within our own midst

As a group we are so much more powerful and effective when we work together instead of in isolation or against each other.

I agree. I don't know why and it may not work, but when I see all this stuff going on, I think of that scene in Aliens where Ripley says (to Burke?):

"You don't see them screwing each other over for a goddamn percentage"

That's what this feels like. Screwing others over for clicks or likes. Just fucking stop it.

I'm sad to hear this about Helen Lewis, whom I admire on an intellectual level — but I can certainly imagine her saying it. She's a bit of a slippery fish: she will argue any side of a debate with equal passion. She's not full-on GC and I'm not sure I'd necessarily consider her a full-on feminist.

We can state our case clearly (as HJ does) and accept that other women have their own positions, some of which overlap and others that don't, and work on getting the job in hand done despite differences of opinion. That's quite different from the way some women lay into other women in an attempt to personally undermine them on the basis that they're not good enough or ideologically 'wrong'. That 'I am right, you are wrong' position, adopted by so many far-left ideologues (including Jeni Harvey) strikes me as not only patriarchal and destructive but also adolescent. There's no requirement to engage with people who believe their way is the only way.

Helen Lewis has long been a disappointment. She declared TWAW for a long time on the New Statesman podcast, then finally seeemed to step away from that when she discovered her spine.
She wrote 'Different Women' about women who break barriers and sterotypes, which was an excellent read yet seems to have left her critical thinking behind when it comes to Kellie-Jay Keen. And also baulks at the term 'Head Girls' as sexist, while wagging her finger at normal women who protest, as her pal from NS calls KJK 'Poundshop Le Pen'.

Anyway, who the fuck is Jeni Harvey, and why does she think we should listen to her?

Another point is that if an issue is universal and feminism is about all women, then in fact it is really important that it is advanced in all areas and in ways appropriate to those areas.

If you say it can only be fought in one way, you are in fact demoting the cause / issue as being less important than the process - or virtue signalling to people who have no real interest in the cause / issue.