Fuck Oxfam

[DismantledKing]

Anyone seen the tweet by Maya tonight about this little animation by Oxfam? Here’s the link:

https://twitter.com/mforstater/status/1665817901327085568?s=46&t=U7-xooKExwmFQ8mivn72lw

as I said, fuck Oxfam.

There’s been so much recently that I can’t keep track but I think it must have been on another MN thread - the rainbow-washing one, possibly - that I commented about this.

There was a Twitter thread about this bridge with lots of people justifiably upset that the severely cash-strapped NHS is throwing money away on rainbow branding - no idea what it cost but it can’t have been that cheap. The opening ceremony was graced by the enby who designed this particular iteration of the flag (who seems to turn up on a regular basis, resplendent in white). The actual hospital replied to criticisms by merrily bandying about the term 'intersex' rather than DSDs, and was called out for that, but of course didn’t care how unscientific and dim it made itself look.

I'm (sadly) not surprised by the TERF slur, I'm actually more amazed that they were ok with the racist caricatures.
We know they condone TWAW, but surely they can't condone racism?

My guess is that the stylistic resemblance to Nazi propaganda imagery went unnoticed. Which is pretty depressing in itself. Not sure how to explain the rest.

Quiet subversion in our shop today. Books by JKR put on prominent display. One of the mannequins in the window - which is Pride themed and bright colours - dressed in white, green and purple. Will go completely over the manager's head but if you know, you know.

And my very lovely volunteer colleague was incensed by the whole thing, doesn't believe that anyone can change sex and won't be ever calling a man "she". She said that from this morning she was identifying as a horse, and if we didn't communicate in whinnies, we were being hippophobic. She's 73, we love her. Neigh.

They have fully surrendered to identitarian politics, and that only really cares about racism against Afro-Carribean people. A considerable level of racism is still tolerated in the US to Asian and Latino peoples, particularly the latter as they disrupt the narrative that only black people can experience racism (most, though not all, Latino US citizens identify as white).

Quiet subversion in our shop today. Books by JKR put on prominent display. One of the mannequins in the window - which is Pride themed and bright colours - dressed in white, green and purple. Will go completely over the manager's head but if you know, you know.

Brilliant!

Fantastic but please, please give serious consideration to taking your lovely selves, and horseselves of course, and volunteering elsewhere.

It's not just labelling people who understand reality as TERFs it's also the upper echelons earning vast sums of money and using their position to exploit women and children in the very countries they're supposed to be helping. They're getting away with it and as long as the structure is there to provide the funding, they'll continue to abuse women and girls. It's clear at this point it's baked in and the Charity Commission seems unwilling to do anything about it - if they wouldn't after Haiti where none of those accused of sex with vulnerable children were in any significant way penalised (and not criminally investigated) - they won't over this.

There was a response on here a few weeks back which said exactly that - that removing the ability of trans people to have children was a population control measure and a good Green policy.

It got deleted pretty fast.

But holy fuck eh?

Fabulous!

Wonderful!

As an aside, I have just Terfed in our local charity shop. They have a rainbow clothing display in the window, so I snuck in some balls of wool in green, white and purple 💜

Fantastic but please, please give serious consideration to taking your lovely selves, and horseselves of course, and volunteering elsewhere

I dunno, if people feel brave enough to stay and fight and sabotage and ask awkward questions I actually think it’s helpful to have TERFs in all these organisations. It’s the only way they will be held to account. One by one they’ll be sued for harassment or discrimination and sooner or later the word will get out that you can’t bully and harass women because they believe men aren’t women. Perhaps the EDI companies will eventually have to start including a section in their training on belief discrimination (related to GC).

Nice work, @GulesMeansRed and colleagues.

I'm off for a nose at the charity shop windows in the High Street to see if any contain coded messages.

@Signalbox , that's my reason for hanging on in Unison. I'm branch women's officer, so am well placed to ask awkward questions about both union and company policy docs.

Well done. I think this is really important. For organisations to become captured it relies on people stepping away. Although I also understand why people do so because it’s stressful especially if you are the only person taking a stand.

@GulesMeansRed Fabulous! And give your colleague a sugar cube on me 😁

I agree with this in general but I think Oxfam is too rotten at the core. My opinion of course. Maybe all the volunteers can start a claim for discrimination, get the current lot out and take over and go back to doing what they're supposed to be doing.

You’re probably right about Oxfam. I just love the idea of naughty women carrying out acts of sabotage in their shops 😍

They actually have the words EMPOWERS WOMEN on their shop front! I stood and looked at it and spluttered today. Where do you start?!?

Appreciate I've crashed into a lovely reasonable discussion with a random outburst but I'm just so angry.

Fuck Oxfam.

Sadly I think you're right. They are no longer an organisation to relieve famine, with some organisational misogyny. They are now an organisation of which one of the primary goals is the suppression of women. It's a feature, not a bug.

That might sound like hyperbole, but consider their record. They ignored for years, and then covered up, widespread sexual abuse of children by their male staff, yet they train staff to denigrate and silence women who complain about rape. Those two flaws are not coincidental.

It's Pournelles' iron law of bureaucracy and Michels' iron law of oligarchy in action. The ideology driving Oxfam is no longer famine relief, but identarian politics, especially misogyny.

They probably mean EMPOWERS WOMEN WITH COCKS TO TAKE OVER EVERYTHING, but ran out of space...

I think if you are an Ally, this really is your "are we the baddies?" moment for the images that are very clearly sexist, agist and racist.

Its very overt propaganda which takes its reference point from not too nice propaganda from yesteryear.

Its fascinating to see, and even more fascinating to see people who try and defend it (especially after Oxfam realised themselves how offensive and probably liabilious it is).

WHY ARE YOU STILL VOLUNTEERING THERE!?

There are plenty of other places.

Drop them in it, walk out and find somewhere else more worthwhile.

I'm sorry but I think in the context of this petty acts like this really are just ridiculous and virtue signally into the void.

ACTUALLY DO SOMETHING MEANINGFUL INSTEAD.

Like quit.

Even if in-house lawyers etc saw it in advance, I suspect they would have been cowed into not saying anything. Although they could have said something about the racist overtones, even if they were nervous of saying something about the TERF aspects. This is what happens when you have groupthink and no diversity. Having DE&I policies is no good if they only work in favour of one group.

And yes, will people please stop volunteering in the shops. Just walk out. If you have relatives and friends who volunteer in the shops, please ask them to walk out and volunteer in a different shop. There are so many charity shops and most need help, it won't be difficult to find another one in most cases. It's going to be rare that the Oxfam shop is the only one someone can get to (in which case I say wellbeing comes before politics but those instances will be rare).

The mail aren't letting up on this their latest piece
'This is Oxfam's Ratner moment': Charity accused of 'turning on women' https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12173267/This-Oxfams-Ratner-moment-fire-charity-accused-turning-womens-rights.html?ito=native_share_article-nativemenubutton

My Jaw dropped on that one. Just wow.