Cancel Culture and The Chilling Effect - a thread to share your experiences

[ArabeIIaScott]

Does the 'chilling effect' or 'cancel culture' affect you?

This is an anonymous forum, so we can speak relatively openly. But how do we speak in real life?

Are you comfortable to talk about gender/sex openly?
Would you raise it at work?
Would you/do you raise it with your child's school?
At home?
On social media?

Are women able to speak about these issues?
Have you done so and experienced consequences?

I think the effects of these issues have far reaching consequences that we really have hardly seen reported or looked at so far. How's it affecting society, women in society, relations between groups?

Thanks.

I would definitely be interested to see something like this, but it's also important to remember that not everyone who works in academia is an actual academic, there are plenty of GC other staff :)

Yes, I totally understand but I also think it has particular implications for academics as teachers and researchers aligned with our supposed academic freedom but also ethical imperatives to particular standards in both teaching and research - not the least of which is to make sure that we do kind of teach something loosely resembling if not a 'truth' then something that can be defended by the evidence. The students' sights are set on us, it is academics who have been on the front line and lost jobs and who are implicated in very direct ways.

I do think those who are students now have been “done over” in terms of fees/house prices/wages/brexit/climate emergency/now AI concerns too and I wonder if their aggression on this issue is partly a rejection of and an expression of rage against the older generation.

There are several sites established - off the top of my head I can think of

• Wild Women Writing
• One for academics (can't remember the name) - one in the UK/north America, & Holly Lawford-Smith set up one in Australia
• Kathleen Stock had a collection of stories on Medium - this was about 4 or 5 years ago (I think, because my story is there & my students' attempt at cancelling me - getting me sacked basically - was almost 6 years ago now)

But that DOESN'T mean there isn't room for more!

Would the Women's Rights Network be a congenial & willing host?

I work for myself but am regulated by two professional bodies. One of these was running a study to identify barriers to progression in the industry and the initial survey issued only asked about gender identity not sex. I sent an email to the person running the survey asking why sex was not being recorded as I thought this was a crucial piece of information. I did receive a reply from the person I emailed (genderbread person type waffle) but I also got a notification from linkedin within 1/2 hour that someone had viewed my profile - when I looked it was the EDI lead at the professional body checking out my profile. The EDI lead was not the same person I had emailed about the survey.

I hadn't mentoned anything about transpeople in my email but I still seem to have been identified as someone who needed to be checked upon. My professional body can prevent me from carrying out certain types of works and can impose almost unlimited fines for disciplinary matters.

What a great idea. Like "everyone's invited" but for GC women?

I retired from NHS nursing in 2016, so a bit before all the equalities training. I expect these days I’d be asked to put my pronouns under my name on emails, so glad to have missed out on all that.

Until I was banned from Twitter last year I kept well out of the debate, it baffled me, seemed like the new Israel/Palestine debate, where no matter how even-handed and tactful the comment, there is always someone who’ll take offence at what you said. Even tweeting that got me a mini pile-on, FFS! Most of the people I mutually followed were pro-trans, and after JKR’s essay one woman, sane, sensible, politically aligned with me, said she was blocking everyone who followed JKR, whether or not they’d liked or retweeted her. Obviously I blocked her, outraged that she should dictate who her followers were allowed to follow (I type that and think how mad it looks/sounds) but cravenly, and to my eternal shame, I did quietly unfollow JKR, couldn’t be doing with the bother.

So getting booted off Twitter made me look round for another talkboard, and within days here on Mumsnet I had been radicalised!

I haven’t really spoken to anyone IRL about it apart from my 28-year old niece, who works in a university and isn’t all that long out of uni herself. Told her as a joke I was a TERF now, and she said rather chillily “oh yes?” She was appalled at the story of “Isla Bryson” and hadn’t been aware of it until I told her. Anyway, there was no hot debate, I didn’t go on about it, maybe she feels constrained by her job and her peers, maybe she’ll keep her mind open, we usually agree on everything else politically. If we can just introduce a tiny shred of doubt where none existed before, it’s a start.

It’s made a nice change from arguing about Brexit all day and all night…

As they say great minds thinkg alike! I suggested on the Moral Maze thread that women needed a Me Too like web site to catalogue, feel they weren't isolated, by recording their experience of being silenced about being gender critical and supporting women's rights. (After reading about the young lesbian who approached Kathleen Stock after the Oxford Union and told her about being excluded from the Oxford LGBTQI+ group for being gender critical **)

But after thinking about it for a while remembered that why these sites worked (initially any way) was because MSM media spoke wrote about them.

And much as I admire some of the groups suggested to maybe act as hosts they aren't exactly well known.

And then if you think of the GC / WSBR groups that are well known you wonder whether factionalism wouldn't creep in. (Sorry but as we all know the sisterhood isn't always that much into "be kind" about each other!)

So I was thinking maybe one way forward would be to publicise this thread on places where we know women are wary of speaking out, and invite them to join in. (which could mean getting many new posters on FWR generally.)

But also suggest groups that are known in their own area eg Oxford Feminist Union, set up a reporting system on their web sites, facebook page or twitter feed.

This way it might be that a far wider group of women would be reached and have the added benefit that women in the same area of work, sport or whatever, would be more easily able to compile information about what is happening in their profession.

(** I wonder if LGB Alliance would be willing to host something like this which would show how lesbians and gay men are impacted?)

(sorry about the bold, not sure what happened - not in any way trying to say take note of this bit)

It is so much worse than I realised. The most shocking thing is the number of posters here being silenced in universities, schools, and the NHS.

Just to come back to this, I want to add that one effect is that women are rarely mentioned at all in my workplace. Either we are rolled into women, gender diverse, trans and non-binary (leaving men as the norm) or we are simply not mentioned - possibly because it is too hard.

In discussing disadvantages (more likely to be positioned as 'differences') it is also about identity and not about the kinds of old-fashioned structural disadvantages such as sex, race, class/socio-economic. We did a project once looking at difference/disadvantage in a particular area (being deliberately vague) and the fact that single mothers living very precariously were the ones most facing economic deprivation flew right past. Everyone was focused on the rainbow or on some aspects of disability (mainly mental health related). I pointed out the obvious and was met with a stony silence.

We really are being written out and over.

I seriously hope there can be an ‘Everyone’s Invited’ anonymous site for what is happening, as described here in this thread.

Megyn Kelly posted this on her Twitter feed yesterday (2.8m followers).

https://twitter.com/megynkellyshow/status/1664729347385614342?s=46&t=5tHsrgY5T97exTqeFD4LWg

within days here on Mumsnet I had been radicalised informed and educated! by intelligent women on the sweeping impacts of gender ideology on safeguarding, on the erosion of safe places for vulnerable women, on the mangling of language and erasure of the word ‘woman’ from healthcare but not the word ‘man’, on the impact for women and girls in sport, schools, hospitals, prison, politics, police ie on understanding what actually is happening.

I found FWR after an argument with DC about JKR being transphobic and all of that happened plus more. What was especially helpful was the articulation of my instinctive ‘this is wrong’ into lucid arguments.

I find the intense focus on the rainbow groups to be so, so weird - while clearly that's been a fairly recent public debate over various civil rights type questions, demographically gays and lesbians- but particularly gay men - are pretty well off materially. Typically with good incomes, university educated, and without much in the way of inherent barriers to living a productive, solvent life in the way someone who gets pregnant, or is deaf, might.

But more and more it seems like it represents the epitomy of all diversity initiatives.

Part of me things it's precisely because there aren't any really difficult problems of integration involved, you don't have to figure out what is fair in terms of employment questions, or give social benefits, or accept that some ethnic groups are more religious in ways that are no longer typical in the west, or maybe have issues with the local language etc.

People can feel virtuous about hiring/befriending people that are a lot like themselves.

As a preamble to answering the OP questions it made me realise how much I live my life based on earlier experiences of being publicly feminist (in a WLM nor current media fashion feminism).

It got so boring having people think it was just a joke, ie not a serious issue, and the hypocrasy of some women who thought you shouldn't disparage men publicly, but okay to do it behind their backs.

And it also meant that what most would see as fairly normal social interaction would end up either having to bite my tongue or being exasperated.

So in some ways that did, and still does influence how I live my life and consequently dont have so many occassions to be openly GC.

But having a reputation for being a bit of a "humourless feminist" never carried with it what so many women now experience if they are gender critical and speak up for women's sex based life.

Are you comfortable to talk about gender/sex openly?
Only after I have got to know those who I am talking to. ie when my downstairs neighbour first moved in it later transpired they we both sort of skirted round being open and it was a huge relief to know she was GC.

Would you raise it at work?
Work on my own. I found working with other people really a strain, and just cant imagine being in a workplace that is captured, and knowing you need the job, but that every hour of every day is like walking on egg shells. Everybody in the media is also going on about people's mental health. But nobody talks about the impact on women's mental health of having your reality erased and enduring if not daily bullying, daily fear of coforntations.

Would you/do you raise it with your child's school?
n/a - but I can see that were it something current in my life I would be gripped with concern and would vacillate between trying to be low key and sensible, and then going off the deep end on hearing of some new development.

At home?
The cats are very supportive

On social media?
On facebook, which I dont use consistently, I mainly have GC FB friends and we swop anecdotes. I got thrown out of AGCL, not for anything politcal, but just asking what was the purpose of the group as I couldn't quite grasp what they were about. Based on this they assumed I was a troll as they new for absolute certainty that they way they write and speak if perfect.
However on a local forum set up to help people share info about the good, bad and ugly of our local authority, I know that a woman who advertised to start a local GC group got piled on. I didn't realise this at the time as had only recently joined and all traces of this had vanished, so only know this 2nd hand from an IRL neighbour.
As yet there hasn't been an occasion where this would be relevant - and now wonder what I will do. I hope I will be honest, particularly as I dont have anything to lose by being expelled from this group. (Its not a politically aligned group, just one for unhappy rate payers)

Are women able to speak about these issues?
If I hadn't heard about it elsewhere, being on FWR has made it absolutely clear that women aren't.
It is the most bizarre development that a supposedly educated and "liberal" society is now acting as though we have the equivilent to the Red Guard over seeing our lives. Women may not be being sent to the remote countryside to be re-educated, but within social circles this is being en-acted.

Have you done so and experienced consequences?
Not that I am aware of, by that I mean I dont know if I have been shunned for being GC or shunned for just being an uppity woman.

I’ve had a couple of long time social media friends unfollow me over a post I made about Logan Brown not exactly living life as a man, being pregnant and all.

I don’t give a fuck to be honest.

At home?
The cats are very supportive

@IwantToRetire

Fancy a swap? Mine has a very withering look when I'm being vocal about certain issues! It's the one he also uses for when I forget to buy fresh mince for him!

Not sure I could afford to support your cat's life style! Fresh mince?

If my cats knew they would be packing their little knapsacks and asking for directions to yours!

Yep, imagine having a month and flags and festivals to support all the protected characteristics?!

Are you comfortable to talk about gender/sex openly? Among friends, yes, not at work.

Would you raise it at work? No- director is a gay man with pronouns on his email signature so very wary.

Would you/do you raise it with your child's school? Definitely.

At home? Yes although my husband can't bear to talk about it at all. He thinks I've fallen down a weird rabbit hole and says naive things like if males aren't being pervy why shouldn't they undress in girls locker rooms with young girls.

On social media? I'll defend JKR and have had a few fb spats, but got kicked out of a group for my genetic disorder for saying terf is a slur and completely banned from reddit. Quit twitter because I was just reading too much sad stuff all the time.

I censor myself even with friends I am but sure of.

Having tried to speak up to a canvassing Liberal Democrat counsellor recently( who then won), who mentioned he stays away from ‘both sides toxicity’ he stays away from, I suspect that if ever there is an local issue important to me which I need help with, the LD will have me marked as someone to keep a distance from.

Name changed here.

I’ve lost several friends over this issue but gained new ones. It’s been a very eye opening experience but I’m happy to have friendships which feel more honest and which don’t dodge the issue in an awkward way. I attended a very prestigious Ivy League university and am really disappointed in the number of apparently smart adults who can’t, or refuse to, see the issues at heart here.

Yes I have raised the issue at my children’s London school (private) with varying degrees of success. One staff member borrowed Material Girls as she wanted to know more, another member of staff (male) was openly hostile and attempted to mock my concerns. The second experience was very disappointing. I’m not fearful of speaking out about this issue - I will not have my children, early teens, brainwashed and gaslit. I am open to changing their schools if necessary.

In my personal life I talk about gender ideology openly. I want my kids to grow up understanding that they don’t need to be anxious about voicing opinions that are in fact very reasonable and valid.

I keep my mouth quite shut at work - US bank - but have a pretty clear idea who my female allies might be - we learn to communicate in a highly coded way and read body language. All my colleagues under the age of 35 are woke as hell so I have very little in common with them.

'we learn to communicate in a highly coded way and read body language'

Mad, isn't it?

'if males aren't being pervy why shouldn't they undress in girls locker rooms with young girls.' - wow, what is his definition of pervy?

Yes. Bonkers, as you say here in the UK. Having allies is very comforting and cheering though.