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!

I think Winter is a ‘white saviour’ - a similar mindset to people who love to fight for the plight of ‘trans kids’. Do gooder/martyr/#bekind type.

WinterdeWinter said:
I honestly feel like a twat

Look, some self-awareness.

There's nothing wrong with twats, by the way. The word is a derogatory term for female genitalia.

The Winter is a saviour to ALL of us. Where would we be without them to tell us what we think? Knitting ties for Nigel Farage, that's where. Crocheting his undergrundies.

😂

www.etsy.com/uk/market/crochet_underwear

Good gracious I had no idea that’s the kind of thing people crocheted!

Ah the cook alas was upper class but fell on hard times. Of course she did vote for Brexit, but to be fair was actually Lady of the Manor at that point. The candlestick was the one remaining heirloom. And she's currently shagging an immigrant.

I lost the plot of this thread round about page 2 i think! Every time i come back to check it seems to me the same argument.

This is the most important part of the thread Boiledbeetle.

I did actually miss that. Wondered why purples were discussing book club

I met Dale Spender once. She was giving a talk on her book Man Made Language. One of the women who made me the feminist I am today.

Your post makes no sense.

but to answer your question - nothing’s changed, clearly. Racists are still racisting.

Careful readers will note @WinterDeWinter hasn't actually said much beyond gleefully slurring people.

Careful readers will note that the racists here have doubled down on their right to be racist.

it’s a human right you know. Or a sovereign right. One of those. More gin?

And some readers will just assume that some posters are talking out of their ar....

And as A non drinker got any drugs!

Or a sovereign right. One of those. More gin?

Thanks. Is there actually any left?

Careful readers will note that the racists here have doubled down on their right to be racist.

Not really seeing that, to be honest. And I expect careful readers would note the lack of any foundation to the gleeful slurs, as I said.

<swoons>

Back to the topic of the thread, I'm reading a thread about FiLiA linked on another thread and thought this comment by Dr Louise Moody was pertinent:

I personally have no issue with WPUK setting boundaries. Women can then decide if that's a group they want to align with. My puzzlement is that, having set boundaries, some continue to berate women for engaging in this fight on their own terms. If you exclude swathes of women, then you don't get to influence their strand of activism.

I have no idea how all of you have the time to keep up with threads this long.

I have got to page 12 and got stuck on the assertion that apparently FWR is full of racists, and is anti-semtic, anti-abortion and homophobic. Which clearly it isn't, and also am wary of assertions of Labour being anti-semitic, when other people who are Jewish and members of the Labour party say the issue is Zionism. So for instance a well know member of the Labour Party and survivor of Auschwitz has just resigned from Starmer's Labour because of this aspect, rather than anti semitism.

Any how, the other point is about what @GrinitchSpinach wrote is that in fact (and maybe that is why mumsnet gets caught up in this) the visit to the US which featured KJK and others was also meant to include Jean Hatchet who had a complete melt down on hearing who would be on the platform. She wrote very angrily about this and I think it (wrongly) got published here. There was a lot of discussion about it at the time, so am surprised nobody remembers. But cant find anything about it when searching here.

But the comments made at the time are now part of left history which has done much to create the left representation of KJK and others. See example here: www.workersliberty.org/story/2022-09-13/collaboration-between-transphobic-feminists-and-far-right-some-facts

But at the time how a lot of women were responding was that mothers in the US who felt their children were being lead down the transition path couldn't get any liberal let alone left groups to host a meeting about what was happening, in some cases losing custody. So when offered a platform by a known right wing group took it.

So it is the same old question, the left wont act, but just stands on a soap box pontificating whilst many women, as much from a gut reaction as theoretical analysis, think we must do something and if this is the only way then this is it. (Maybe not quite the same as writing for the Daily Mail, but part of the same rationale)

If your children were starving and the only people offering food were a group of religious fundamentalists, would you refuse that food because you are against all religions, let alone fundamentalists ones?

The toss up again seems to be between those who can polish words and points of arguement but actually do nothing of any use to anybody, and those who act to do something based as much on instinct as a clear plitical pathway.

Some women's lifes are in such stress that they dont have the luxury to be dillettante feminist.

Lets face it, if all the theoretical left did less commentating and instead did actual practical work or campaigning there wouldn't be a problem. Partly because they might even suceed(!) and partly because it would leave other women who act on a different basis to just get on with what they feel they can achieve.

I am not saying that all women working of the basis of sex based rights or being gender critical dont occassionally lob what is as much a personal attack as a political one, but I cant think of any group that is set up just to do that, or papers published or organise a conference saying it is about Women's Liberation when it is just about their group and their friends. That seems to be a system of working much deployed by the left, not just women who say they are feminist.

How much more interesting the magazine could have been if it had just focused on what was being done, what was achieved and ideas for future action and even say it was a blue print for socialist feminism.

That is one of the differences between now and the feminism of 70s. Back then women worked in groups that they felt aligned to. There were Socialist Feminists Groups, Marxist Feminist Groups, Radical Feminist Groups and many others. The point being each group had its own shared understanding of the basis on which they were working towards achieving gains for women's liberation, and not focusing their time on sniping at other women. And ideally (before it all fell apart) the individual gains combined to make a mass of gains for women.

Or maybe that's the point that we have all missed. Groups like AGCL are in fact part of the male back lash against women's liberation and we didn't see through the subterfuge!

Have found some of the FWR threads from the time of the US visit (and see the name spinach comes up) that seemed to really trigger the divisions. Hope this link works:
www.mumsnet.com/search/advanced?allTopics=false&query=Heritage+Foundation&topics[0]=Feminism%3A+Sex+%26+gender+discussions&from=2018-01-01&to=2020-01-01

If your children were starving and the only people offering food were a group of religious fundamentalists, would you refuse that food because you are against all religions, let alone fundamentalists ones?

This experiment is horribly fascinating.

twitter.com/cirnosad/status/1622407343358214146

That reminds me of an old joke. The one about how AI would prefer a stopped clock to one that was slow even if only by a microsecond. Because the slow clock was never accurate but the stopped clock was right twice a day.

Just a recap of where winter started on this thread. For those who missed what has been an eye opening thread. (For Delphinium particularly)

One thing that I have seen happen time and time again over the years is that shaming women, calling them names and tone policing them or even trying to shame women into not writing their thoughts about someone that a poster doesn’t like for whatever reason, doesn’t ever make for positive engagement on MN. If some people have this work for them in real life however, then I would be surprised.

And this is a thread about a group of women who have form for doing just that.

I have asked on a couple of threads now when people post posts that are so obviously meant to shame, whether they expected positive engagement when they had posted. Not one ever has replied. Not one ever acknowledged they posted a clearly shaming post and then complained about the negative reaction they got.

Why do posters think posting something like this post, amongst other things accusing MNers of ‘Farage Feminism’, would lead to anything but people pushing back? It was an inflammatory post and I have not seen an adequate explanation for posting it.

We are a group of diverse thinking posters from around the world with very different experiences and perspectives. However, there is one thing that I think is obvious. This quoted post from back on about page 2, could be universally classed as a shit stirring post on a thread about a group of feminists who have written a special edition of their magazine to further vilify other women and continue to stir shit.

If this poster has been on MN for 15 + years, did they think a shaming post like this would have brought positive engagement then too?

It can only be a lack of self awareness to post such shaming posts. Otherwise, probably the only other alternative is to goad and I am not sure that was the intent.

Wow. I hadn’t seen that.