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

[IwantToRetire]

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!

You're boggled because you don't understand US politics and our tribalism. The LEFT is in power and they NEED to be convinced of this and the Matt Walshes don't help us convince the left.

I don't presume to know more than UK feminists about your own politics and feminist strategy. Do you really think that all US feminists are so dumb that we need educating from you on how to persuade the left? Fucking hell.

Was it Groucho, Karl or Harpo who said he didn't want to be a member of any club that would invite him to join?

What? No, where did I say anything like that? I said I didn't get it, that it doesn't make sense to me and I asked some questions (which no one wants to answer). No need to get all up in my grill.

archive.org/details/womenofideaswhat00spen

YES!!!!💃🤸‍♀️

😚

I bet whoever took this book out of the library for the last time didn’t imagine that multiple women would be able to read it at the same time many years later!

Would you appreciate it if men got to decide what was misogynist?

Or would you think that they were fucking misogynists for even suggesting it.

Jesus Christ.

Putting down my prediction now, the EDI Vampire will eat Filia within 18 months.

I think you're right, the purity spiral which isn't a purity spiral will mysteriously behave exactly like one.

Would you appreciate it if men got to decide what was misogynist?

They do. Hadn't you noticed?

Would this be a bad time to point out that some men are TWAW because they have been told it is misogynistic/transmisogynistic not to be, and they believe it?

And what about young women who have been told the same? And young lesbians who believe it is bigoted to refuse to shag trans-identifying men?

It is permissible to use one's mind and decide for oneself. Otherwise, we see the results when people are told to trust whatever someone else says, without asking for an explanation.

you haven't addressed my point around opinions of what constitutes racism changing over the years?

and as Eresh says, men do decide what's misogynist

and are perfectly at liberty to have opinions on it. it doesn't automatically make them bad people you silly sausage!

too much time spent at those BNP mixers for you I fear!

When we are "carefully interrogating critical race theory", how do we know if we are racist or not?

i think it depends who you are eresh

are you @WinterDeWinter ? if not and you have any views on what's racist, then you're definitely racist too

and @WinterDeWinter has a signed poster of Enoch Powell, so she definitely knows racism

Only winter is allowed to decide what is racist and misogynist.

No one knows why this should be so. But questioning it definitely makes you a racist misogynist.

All hail winter, the only person allowed to make up their own mind! Tell us what is right, O Enlightened One!

But the US Democrats will not be comfortable paying attention to his views on this, given the history of politics here, so his messages might affect the political right but backfire on the left. The messenger and the message problem

I don't understand what this means. Democrats won't pay attention to Matt Walsh so his messages will backfire on them? Sorry, I might be being thick. How can messages the left aren't sending backfire on the left?

If the Matt Walshes of the world have a larger platform for the GC message people will assume that if a conservative believes this, it must be bad. A ot of people in the US see that as tainted by association. This may not be fair and it shows rightly a lack of critical thinking, but my point earlier on tribalism and how entrenched we are in the US is directly tied to this. The louder the voices tip on the right scale, the lower the same message falls on the left scale. I don't like it but it's reality.

My other question is, so what? He's not a politician, he's just a commentator/podcaster - is he really that significant that he can bring down the left if people start agreeing with him?

Matt Walsh would LOVE to see the left brought down and this is precisely why he's using an issue the left is failing miserably at. Tribalism feeds into this. The right wins some swing voters cause Matt can reach them and say, "look how dumb the left in this topic...how can you trust them on others?"

And my other other question is what effect does me thinking Matt Walsh is funny/hypothetically agreeing to stand next to him at a rally have on all of this? This is where it all falls down for me. Because it's just guilt by association, isn't it? Saying that I would somehow lose legitimacy because of my proximity to Matt Walsh (and never the other way around, note.)

Your personal legitimacy is not in question nor important, from my point of view. I don't think you're less of a feminist because you laugh at Matt Walsh. But believe me, leaders on the left WILL lose legitimacy if they associate with Walsh. Reality of US politics.

I just don't get it. I get that it sounds good to some people - "we should never align with conservatives because they're evil the left doesn't like them" - but it doesn't make any bloody sense! The left (generalisation) thinks that anyone who isn't a "woke" is a far-right bigot. So how does trying to appease the left make any sense at all?

I said below that we need to persuade the left because they are making govt policy, not appease them. No one in power in the Democratic Party nor who votes for the Democratic Party is going to be persuaded by an demonstrably very conservative right wing Christian podcaster who thinks 12-year-old rape victims don't deserve an abortion. It.will.not.happen.

Fucking hell, Jennifer James? There's a blast from the past!

I don't think anyone here has a good word to say about her.

One thing I remember about JJ's contributions here is her repeated attempts to corral us all into her cause, as if we were all an undifferentiated mass of bovine mummyhood (a PP described this better). Even before she ran off with all the money or revealed herself to be antisemitic, she pissed most of us off by treating us as a resource.

I don't see what's going on now as all that different, although the methods have changed. Instead of being appealed to as 'comrades' we are shamed as 'domesticated zombies'. The aim is the same, to herd us into doing the correct thing.

Posters here are not some kind of lumpenmummytariat who must be told who to listen to and what to do and shielded from bad influences. We're a bunch of intelligent women from all sorts of backgrounds who are having some of the best discussions anywhere online on this topic, and have been for a very long time now.

MN has been a driving force in this movement for over a decade. Without MN, 'terf island' would not be a thing.

We do have a particular slant here because we are mostly mothers so there will always be a strong focus on children in our priorities, as well as women's rights.

That's why we will never accept being told that safeguarding is a dogwhistle.

That's why we will never accept that 'the house is on fire' is a bad argument. We know that childhood is short and we all only get one and if we fuck it up for our kids then that's that.

Underestimate mothers at your own risk.

Ain't that the truth.

Rule #8 in Rules of Misogyny

"Men are whatever men say they are and women are whatever men say they are."

I've just got in from a committee meeting and I'm too pooped to catch up 10+ pages.

Tell me, someone, who were the GC anti-semites we were waiting for news of? Have we heard of any of them or are they all obscure US skateboarders?
Who are the people we shouldn't team up with or hop into bed with or stand anywhere near in a park, even though we are all allowed to set our own boundaries and do what we want.
Why does WinterdeWinter think that after coming in and calling us all literally literal it's okay to pretend that never happened? (Excellent arse-handing work, may I say)

I'm going to bed.

Delphinium I agree that Matt Walsh is a misogynist, after following him on twitter, and I can't see why anyone would listen to him who didn't already trust him. Which is not democrat voters.

So who is there that has enough credibility that people will think, "okay i should hear him/her out before I dismiss him/her as a transphobe"?

Hang on a minute. Everyone has a ‘race’ or a mix of races (I learned many moons ago that there are technically only three races).

Anyway, it is possible for anyone from those to have prejudice and disdain towards both or either of the other two to which they do not belong.

So there are grounds for disagreement.

For example @WinterDeWinter you could say “only white people can be racist” and someone else could argue “hang on that’s racist against white people”.

Who gets to decide who is right?

Whereas misogyny is something only experienced only by women, so it is not a fair comparison.

pattihews We're starting an MN feminist book club, using the power of internet piracy.

We're starting with Women of Ideas by Dale Spender.

These are the people I send my open-minded, but not peaked, left-leaning friends:

Sports:
Martina Navartilova
Lia Thomas ('cause sunlight)

Feminists on the left:
Kara Dansky
WOLF

American liberals
Helen Joyce
Kathleen Stock
Abigail Shrier
Jesse Singal
FondofBeetles

GenX and Boomer gay men:
Mr. Menno

Parents:
Genspect
Stella O'Mallory

(NYTimes readers are clearly interested in someone speaking from the GC point of view who is also on the left, the comments speak to this...I have sent recent articles on puberty blockers from both NYTimes and Reuters

Celebrity:
Dave Chappelle
Ricky Gervais

People who would move the needle:
Oprah interviewing detransistioners

But the US Democrats will not be comfortable paying attention to his views on this, given the history of politics here, so his messages might affect the political right but backfire on the left.

The US has a left?

Can I join?