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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Gender Critical Disputes - Radical Notion special edition free to read online

1000 replies

IwantToRetire · 04/02/2023 21:40

Cant say I have heard of Radical Notion. They say:

THE RADICAL NOTION was founded in 2020 to create a space for the resurgent wave of feminist thinking and activism. This not-for-profit magazine is run by an all-women collective of radical and socialist feminists. We are committed to the materialist analysis of sex-based oppression, and to challenging the material and symbolic structures of male dominance. This moment is a historic opportunity to deepen and widen the analysis of all aspects of women’s political condition, and its foundational role in all systems of extraction and domination.

We welcome words and images from women of all nationalities, classes, ethnicities and backgrounds to illuminate the meaning of feminist politics in their lives, and to create a global picture of this political moment. Our current battle, and the social, political and environmental unravellings we see all around us are, at their root, crises of patriarchy. We want to seize this moment to speak that truth.

theradicalnotion.org/gender-critical-disputes/

It seems quite expensive to subscribe but they have made this issue free to read online. A lot of it seems to be the ongoing antagonism (meaning the issues are real but seem to be motivated as much by personal fallouts) between radical feminist and socialist feminist gender critical women.

Some may remember this thread www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4662757-womens-place-uk-filia-event-the-elephant-ignored-yet-again and the revelation that WPUK seems to now be linked to the group Actual Gender Critical Left, who endlessly snipe about Karin Dansky and KJK.

Anyhow posting in case anyone wants to have a read.

Still not sure why some women think in the day of virtual opportunites to talk directly to other women, they need to go down the routed of "publishing" as though their ideas are somehow special and shouldn't be submitted to the rough and tumble on online forums like this one!

OP posts:
Thread gallery
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Feministwoman · 06/02/2023 19:23

ClearMoth · 06/02/2023 19:17

I'm sorry that I inadvertently had the wrong default name selected on my phone.

I'm sorry that I immediately apologised for it and clarified that I was the same poster every time, and never misled anyone or tried to pretend I was a different poster. Which I believe is the definition of sock puppeting.

But feel free to report me if it makes you feel good.

What a mess this whole thing has become.

Yet more
"poor me, I'm so marginalised/most vulnerable/worst treated ever"
Stuff

You do realise all this you are doing is straight from the TRA playbook, that we've seen so many times on FWR,?

beastlyslumber · 06/02/2023 19:24

I've named antisemites on the gc side like Jennifer James, Deborah Fink, Shahrar Ali. And misogynists / homophobes like Taylor Silverman, Matt Walsh, Andy Ngo, etc. The twitter account 'reddit lies' also makes clear the connections there.

Never heard of Deborah Fink, Shahrar Ali, Taylor Silverman. Matt Walsh isn't a misogynist. Neither is Andy Ngo. Jennifer James is not to be trusted.

Absolutely none of these people are "bedfellows" to anyone on FWR.

So I fail to see the problem. Honestly, what is the problem here?

I did not call everyone here 'bigots and fascists', that simply is not true and the post is (I assume) still here for anyone to see. I expressed concern about 'some bedfellows' which is a very different thing.

You absolutely did come on here calling names, and you then said it was a mistake and you didn't mean FWR. But you didn't apologise - you had an angry rant at other posters and demanded apologies from them!

If you want to call me a liar or a 'bad faith actor' that is up to you.

I didn't call you either of those things. You are exaggerating and playing the victim - again.

Posting from two usernames simultaneously is confusing and does make you look dodgy though. Can you just stick to one or the other, please? You'll end up getting reported for sockpuppetry at this rate.

LiverpoolMuse · 06/02/2023 19:24

pattihews · 06/02/2023 17:00

Why don't you start a new thread to ask that question? It doesn't really fit in very well with the flow of this one. I'm sure loads of women would be happy to tell you what they do.

You see I put this in to highlight that arguing about how many angels can dance on a pin head, has absolutely nothing to do with what’s going on in the real world.

You need to be engaging with institutions and your Labour Party ,not each other.
And I do want to know if you have taken the cause of women’s rights out of the philosophical concept and Into the workplace. Because unless you do, all this discussion is hot air and posturing.
As an occasional tory /Lib dem and ex Green voter I can’t see labour getting my vote until they get rid of the authoritarians and misogynists and racists

BernardBlacksMolluscs · 06/02/2023 19:25

thank you for engaging in good faith BloodAndFire

just as I wouldn't want to team up with trans activists to fight racism, so I wouldn't want to team up with racists to fight genderism. Does that make sense?

that does make sense. I think I've become very cynical about people making accusations of racism, as they're so frequently bollocks (NOT saying you do this). We've seen today people accusing Mr Menno of being a racist again (yawn). they just pop up with their lies.

It's a great example of how inaccurate accusations of racism cause harm. because you're right, some of the people who get linked to on the board can be a bit unsavoury, and we should absolutely think twice about who we personally chose to work with / give attention to / give money to / whatever

Feministwoman · 06/02/2023 19:25

And yet, you've kept on doing it

beastlyslumber · 06/02/2023 19:26

Ereshkigalangcleg · 06/02/2023 19:15

I think I only quoted a pp post in agreement (which is still there, not saying it should be deleted) and wrote "yes exactly" or something and it was deleted virtually instantly!

They do it to keep you in check. It's a flex.

Feministwoman · 06/02/2023 19:29

Feministwoman · 06/02/2023 19:25

And yet, you've kept on doing it

Sorry, was meant to tag @clearmoth and @BloodAndFire
(who are the same posters)

EndlessTea · 06/02/2023 19:29

ClearMoth · 06/02/2023 19:10

It might be that my threshold for what counts as a 'strongly' racist view is different from yours. I can't cope with it at all. I can't sit round a table laughing and 'breaking bread' with people who feel that way. What I think is... probably most of the people who stood back and watched, or half-heartedly joined in, with the Holocaust or the Spanish Inquisition or the Armenian genocide, didn't hold massively strong views to start with. Most people aren't Hitler. But they don't need to be

I completely agree here. I feel like we are always on thin ice. I feel that there are people, probably living in my street, who in the right conditions, with the right government, would murder innocent people if they were given license to. If that wasn’t the case, then the Holocaust could never have happened.

But I don’t think the link between the jokes or views people express, necessarily correlate to who those people would be. By ‘mildly racist’ I would say, for example, it would be a colleague of mine from the Caribbean who was complaining about people from Indian/Pakistani backgrounds owning shops which supply hair and beauty products for black women. I felt pretty uncomfortable and didn’t know what to say, but I don’t think it would suggest she would be likely to be one of those murderous people iyswim.

My instincts tell me, they would be the kinds of people who give me bad vibes, even if they seem super charming and never express anything controversial in the open.

What I try to do is to engage with and challenge the ‘enablers’ in society who pave the way.

nepeta · 06/02/2023 19:29

I've often wondered if all social justice movements (don't like the term, but can't think of a good replacement) experience this same phenomenon as the women's rights movement, of the movement quickly splintering into camps because of strong internal disagreements of the type we are discussing here.

The reason for that wondering is that I have seen this so many times in the thirty years I have participated in feminist political things and academic feminist stuff and so on.

Initially it made me despair, because the "divide et impera" effect which works against women overall, later I tried to see it as very bright, passionate, and intensely caring women fighting about how to order the things they value in a way which reflects the preferences of themselves, their own hurtful experiences, the smaller groups they represent and so on. I also tried to see the debate as a sign of intellectual vigour and health and growth, especially as authoritarian movements are stifling and ultimately bad for the majority, whether they are left or right or neither in politics.

But I have never grown comfortable with this, though I have grown to accept my own errors and flaws and have grown a thicker carapace over the decades. Still, I did stomp off in hurt tears and rage a few times (as we all give so much of our heart's blood to this and the fights feel like nobody else appreciating that and its costs, the death threats we have received, the earnings we have foregone and so on).

We could achieve so much more if we were willing to accept less-than-perfection, temporary alliances, and halting progress (still progress). But that is very hard to do, in particular because of several things which make the women's rights movement different from almost any other movement I can think of:

It is about something extremely central to most of us, and the lack of it has frightening consequences (think of women and girls in Afghanistan), but 'women' are a giant group, half of all human adult beings, yet split into an enormous number of sub-tribes where our allegiances are for other members of our families, tribes, religions, countries, other political views etc.

It is hard to make bridges across the chasms which are caught by the history of wars, colonialism, class oppression, being mistreated on grounds of sexual orientation or race or religion, and those bridges are fragile. It is partly because of this that the feminist movement is so easy to disrupt, to co-opt for other goals which are laudable but not about the sex-based oppression of women.

None of this is to argue that I don't get involved in these debates or that I don't have opinions on the issues. It's just that I wish I could ignore the chasms which are developing, somehow leap across them when needed, and keep focusing on the very central points, the things which absolutely need to be fixed for any progress to happen. That those central points get support from people who wish them so that progress CANNOT happen does not alter this, as I see more chance for women's rights if 'women' means biological sex rather than some sexist stereotypes about submissive social roles and feminine behaviour and dress.

I would not support or distribute the messages of Matt Walsh in this context, because he is a misogynist who is open in those views. But I can't stop him saying things superficially similar to what gender critical feminists are saying, even though he is saying them for diametrically opposite goals. And I can't stop others from arguing that I must be in league with him, even though I have spent years fighting the views he supports. So I try to ignore it.

I prefer to see the KJK and JCJ in the light of the early suffrage movement which had its radical and moderate wings. The radical wing did help the governments to see the demands of the moderate wing as more reasonable, and may have helped women to get the vote and some other partial improvements. The radical wing might have been able to attain more rights, but it never had the level of support from the wider society which was needed, though perhaps the moderate wing didn't ask enough?

No way of knowing, and we have no real way of knowing what will happen now, either.

(Just wanted to say all that once.)

Ereshkigalangcleg · 06/02/2023 19:32

So do I. And I've never tried to tell anyone else what they can or can't do. just to be clear.

Do you accept that this edition of "The Radical Notion" is trying to say that feminism is not for many women, seeing as you find its arguments so compelling?

Delphinium20 · 06/02/2023 19:33

Matt Walsh isn't a misogynist. Neither is Andy Ngo.

I've seen no evidence Ngo is or isn't.

I don't know if Walsh hates women but he sure is sexist as hell. He tweeted he thinks a young girl who is pregnant shouldn't have an abortion. Walsh steals our arguments and pawns them off as his own. Walsh wants to be the big man with the big ideas. I don't see him doing any documentaries about women being raped in prison or rape victims being forced to say "she" in US courts (happy to be corrected if I'm wrong). He's using the absurdity of gender ideology to take a swipe at the left. They may deserve it, but liberating women isn't his objective.

NicolaSturgeonsSOGIbottom · 06/02/2023 19:34

I've often wondered if all social justice movements (don't like the term, but can't think of a good replacement) experience this same phenomenon as the women's rights movement, of the movement quickly splintering into camps because of strong internal disagreements of the type we are discussing here.

I’m starting to think so.

I’m currently observing the fall out in the Gaming/Twitch sphere where the Traliban boycott of the Hogwarts game seems to be causing massive ruptures. Lots of very angry people.

Ereshkigalangcleg · 06/02/2023 19:35

Walsh steals our arguments and pawns them off as his own. Walsh wants to be the big man with the big ideas. I don't see him doing any documentaries about women being raped in prison or rape victims being forced to say "she" in US courts (happy to be corrected if I'm wrong). He's using the absurdity of gender ideology to take a swipe at the left. They may deserve it, but liberating women isn't his objective.

YY, I agree, but sometimes his input is useful to the particular goal of stopping gender identity ideology in its tracks. I don't need to think he is in any way feminist.

Ereshkigalangcleg · 06/02/2023 19:36

I’m currently observing the fall out in the Gaming/Twitch sphere where the Traliban boycott of the Hogwarts game seems to be causing massive ruptures. Lots of very angry people.

Any links? Interested to see it!

BernardBlacksMolluscs · 06/02/2023 19:38

yeah, I get this. we went through a phase of people posting a bunch of stuff from jordan peterson on here. i truly do not get it. to me he's just an overrated sexist academic (whose writing is DULL DULL DULL).

just because he knows what a woman is, doesn't mean he gives a shit about them.

but, I hope I don't just say 'god he's awful' when people post his stuff. I hope I explain why I think he's awful (and why they definitely should too)

Delphinium20 · 06/02/2023 19:40

I can see his usefulness in reaching a larger, moderate male audience of swing voters or possibly parents who feel overwhelmed with gender woo showing up at their doorsteps and he gives them some basic questions to pose.

But I prefer Dave Chapelle for that - at least Chapelle isn't actively working against feminism's other goals.

Delphinium20 · 06/02/2023 19:42

Ricky Gervais, like Chapelle, is also good for the cause despite not being an activist for women's rights.

thatsgood · 06/02/2023 19:43

Andy ngo is gay, how can he be a homophobe?

Ereshkigalangcleg · 06/02/2023 19:44

I don't have any particular brief for Matt Walsh, I am only referring to him as he was brought up.

EndlessTea · 06/02/2023 19:45

thatsgood · 06/02/2023 19:43

Andy ngo is gay, how can he be a homophobe?

I find this confusing. Homophobic gay people and anti-Semitic Jewish people.

I suppose it must be like misogynist women.

NicolaSturgeonsSOGIbottom · 06/02/2023 19:45

Ereshkigalangcleg · 06/02/2023 19:36

I’m currently observing the fall out in the Gaming/Twitch sphere where the Traliban boycott of the Hogwarts game seems to be causing massive ruptures. Lots of very angry people.

Any links? Interested to see it!

It’s all very early days but someone has made a witchhunting search engine so trans activists can easily find which Twitch streamers to target:

Gender Critical Disputes - Radical Notion special edition free to read online
Ereshkigalangcleg · 06/02/2023 19:48

Christ Shock

NicolaSturgeonsSOGIbottom · 06/02/2023 19:48

thatsgood · 06/02/2023 19:43

Andy ngo is gay, how can he be a homophobe?

He’s a Vietnamese American who gets called a white supremacist!

As far as I can tell he’s a fairly mainstream conservative who gets smeared as all sorts because he won’t back down on documenting AntiFa (lots of whom are men who say they are women).

thatsgood · 06/02/2023 19:49

I find it frustrating when people just say "x is a homophobe/bigot/sexist" bla bla rather than "x said y", specifically. It's like when everyone calls jk Rowling a transphobe with no basis

Ereshkigalangcleg · 06/02/2023 19:50

Yes, I'd need a specific reason why he is a "homophobe" which isn't "he's a conservative" or "he doesn't like antifa, BLM as a political movement or gender identity ideology".

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