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.

in what way does that alleviate poverty?

that’s the crux of it. Most people who support Oxfam want to alleviate property by ensuring girls get educated, that villages have water, that people aren’t starving. Or because Oxfam are there after events like the turkey earthquake. I bet if you approached 100 oxfam supporters or volunteers and asked what they thought the core aim of the organisation was, none would say lgbt equality.

Oxfam seem to regard the use of a misogynistic slur as so unimportant it's not even worth mentioning.

The only problem was that some people "interpreted" the cartoon-ogress with the 'TERF' badge as strongly resembling JKR. This wilful misinterpretation "was distracting" from the video's important message.

I was sufficiently frustrated to reply to the reply. Sent the below.

I’ve got some sympathy with a mass-produced reply - they must have been swamped, what else can they do? BUT not when that reply opens with assurances they’ve taken my feedback on board immediately before a clear indication they’ve not actually read it at all, & not when that reply sidesteps (arguably, reinforces?!) the very concerns it’s so confidently claiming to assuage…
„Thank you for your reply. I had hoped it would reassure me that I could continue to support a charity for which I have a long-held affection. In fact, it has confirmed that I cannot. Given that what you have written has had the opposite effect to what you intended, I hope you can take a minute to read on. If you were able to reply, I would be interested to hear your views. Your reply focusses on the commonly held perception that your video was depicting a “particular person”, yet I made no reference to this in my email, as this was not my concern. My concern was your representation of the group of people sometimes known as ‘TERFs’. In this context, your claim that you had “not intended to portray any particular… people” is cynically disingenuous: the cartoon explicitly labelled this “particular” demographic. In this context, the most logical interpretation of your email below becomes: Oxfam believes that, as long as its cartoon does not represent named individuals or organisations, it is entirely acceptable to parody and demonise a group with a “particular” legitimate political belief. This clear impression of your lack of respect for this group is reinforced in, “the fact it was being interpreted in this way was distracting from the important message“. This effectively reprimands those concerned or distressed by your “mistake” for undermining charitable aims. The fact that not only your cartoon but also the letter apologizing for it reinforce such negative impressions of your values is deeply concerning. At best, this represents remarkably bad communication; at worst, dogmatic political partisanship on complex issues of human rights. I cannot in good faith support a charity that is prepared to defend aggressive propaganda against a particular political demographic, as your email to me indicates is currently the case. With very genuine regret, I will no longer be volunteering in or using your shops.“

Huh. There were loadsa lovely paragraphs until I pressed post.

Actual reply begins after „assuage…“

Please feed back any reply you get, @Catiette , great letter.

Thanks. Rushed it a bit, & on rereading just now, worry it sounds a bit snooty & arsy (can it be both?! 😂). Also didn’t abbreviate at all, so it comes across as coldly formal! Do want to be polite, but just found their response so utterly disrespectful, really. The JKR parody meant the vid got the headlines - great - but it also gave them a great way to sidestep the overlapping & equally important issue of demonising women who have the temerity to speak up for their rights. In 2023? It’s appalling!

Their lazy reply deserves any snoot or arse you can throw at it.

😁

A whole snootful of arse in fact!

Or an arseful of snoot.

Oh, that sounds a bit eeew!

Never mind, richly deserved.

And I'm left wondering how they can tell the women suffering misogyny, VAWG, and racism from the other type of women that probably dont suffer misogyny or VAWG.

And what this has to do with their original aims,I do not know.

It's a mystery with a big dollop of enigma on the side, isn't it?

@Chersfrozenface I nearly went there... then had a think & recoiled! 😂😂😂

What frustrates me most in these generic apologies is that it would be so easy to at least include a brief, easily missed, conciliatory, "We recognise that the issues surrounding understanding of sex and gender are complex, with a range of strongly held views..." in the midst of the insultingly empty waffle. But apparently even that slight acknowledgement of the remotest possibility of the validity of women having the right to self-define is, itself, apparently an unrealistic expectation.

😠

Well, you wouldn't have found The Ink Black Heart in Oxfam...!

😂

Great reply to their awful reply.

It annoys me so much when companies send an auto reply which doesn't actually address the carefully laid out specific concerns that had been originally conveyed. It's so incredibly rude and dismissive. It would actually be more honest to reply saying 'we haven't really read your email/letter and we're just going to give a standard reply because we don't really care'. I'd respect that a lot more.

It's pretty clear what they think about women's rights. I sort of feel the same way when reading the Oxfam response as I do reading the latest offering from the Taliban. https://www.independent.co.uk/asia/south-asia/taliban-afghan-women-hibatullah-akhundzada-eid-message-b2364146.html

Deeds not words, guys, deeds not words. You can't just say you 'support women's rights' and at the same time all your actions show the opposite. It's pretty clear at this point you think women are lesser and not fully deserving of human rights, but we're not totally stupid.

Perfect reply Catiette

I saw an Oxfam bookshop with a lovely colourful display of Harry Potter, and a few of the Robert Galbraith books, dominating their window display (in-between pride colours and pronoun posters) last month ❤️

Good work. Wonder if they have a staff member on here.

Wait for that shop to be closed down and the volunteers told their services are no longer wanted.

Sadly I am currently reading Ink Black Heart huge book and very hard going. I love the Strike series on TV

I loved Troubled Blood so much and after that went back to the first couple of books in the series.
Reading Ink Black Heart coincided with a dose of covid and although I wasn't particularly unwell I needed to isolate myself from DH and DD who was about to start a new job with an intense training period so I really didn't want her to catch anything.
So shut in my room for ten days I ploughed through it.
Have to say it was hard work. It would have been better if I'd started a spreadsheet with all the online/real life names at the start.
If you're not too far in I suggest you start one now!
By the end I didn't care who had done it I just wanted to know.

I'd say it's definitely a book for the die hard fans - it was hard work. There'll probably be a lot of copies in the second hand book shops.

Looking forward to the next one now though I think I'll start jotting down names as I go along...

I was waiting outside an office and there is a charity shop next door. I often pop in to charity shops to get books or pick up jewellery to remake.

Trans flags all over the windows and a few more stripey flags that I didn’t know what they were for.

Why is everything viewed through this filter nowadays (and did I see someone on that programme where they fix things for people going on about getting hormone jabs? Only saw the screen for a flash but it jumped out).

Spreadsheet! I like the way you think.

But if they said that, it would undermine their confidence that "trans rights are human rights".

They have already come to the conclusion that it's a human right to be able to identify your way into the women's changing rooms and whatever else.

I think it undermines the concept of "human rights" if you just start using it for obviously partisan positions. It's an attempt to cheat democracy, and it's on the level of claiming, "Well my god has given everyone this commandment so you have to follow it".