Feminism vs Women's rights: why the division?

[TheTERFnextDoor]

Apologies if this has been covered elsewhere.

Does anyone know why many women in the gender critical movement refer to themselves as "women's rights campaigners" (or a variation of this) and reject the term "feminist"?

KJK is one of the women who does this. I always find this surprising as, to me, she's one of the best feminists in the UK! I understand feminism as someone who stands up for the rights of women and girls. Therefore, to me, the terms are synonymous?

I'd appreciate some explanation from others.

Womens Rights is my jam.

The term feminism is too often used to include men and, much as I love the many men in my life, they don't need me to campaign for them to have single sex wards, and toilets, and the right to change in the swimming pool knowing you're surrounded by females only.

Feminism as a term has been corrupted and is therefore open to interpretation.
I suspect we've lost the word forever, as it means everything, and absolutely nothing. Wishy washy mumbo jumbo.

I'll stick with "women's rights", much clearer.

And, as a pp said, "womens rights are human rights" is unarguable.

I don't sit around interviewing far right men who want to take women's rights off them like KJK does.

Can you link?

For some feminism is rooted in the idea that women are a ( necessarily) oppressed class of people; victims of patriarchy - which is rule by men, and for men. It fits into an intersectionalist way of looking at the world with oppressor groups and victim groups. To my mind aspects of feminist politics sees many of women's traditional roles and ocupations as being lesser or of less value; things to escape from. Necessarily oppressive. I don't agree.

For me, Feminism now just means being focused on women's issues and from a female perspective. The only thing that all women have in common is the fact of their sex, and the sorts of situations and circumstances that arise from that. In fact, I don't even think there is a need for a label to describe this - so I no longer identify or use the word feminist. A feminist is simply a woman who speaks out about her experiences as a woman - the positives and the negatives, and seeks to centre or prioritise them in some way.

I think we can feel empathy not just for other women - whatever their race, religion, social class or political allegiance - but for the females of other species too - especially mammals.

I'm also pretty tired of feeling like I'm being looked down on by academic "feminists" with their intellectual speak and big words and concepts.

These women are, in my humble opinion, as bad as the women who collude.

There is a lot of talk of inclusiveness these days. Ultimately I think any social justice movement needs to be inclusive of all the people it claims to represent, otherwise it is doomed to failure.

I think this is where feminism falls down. The more academic and theoretical you make it, the more you are excluding the women who need it the most. Because the kind of women who are researching and writing about feminism in a university library somewhere are overwhelmingly likely to be privileged, well-educated women living in developed countries, who might have a lot of student debt but are nonetheless at very low risk of falling through the cracks of society. They are never likely to be in prison, or subjected to female genital mutilation, or trafficked into prostitution, or forced into marriage. If they have an unplanned pregnancy, even if they live in a US state which is rolling back women's reproductive rights, they can almost certainly cobble together enough money to fly somewhere they can get an abortion.

The women and girls who need feminism the most are not writing about feminism. Many of them are not even able to write. We can only speculate what their views might be on whether trans women are women or sex work is work.

The feminism movement should, in my view, try to embrace all women everywhere, and focus its battles on the areas where it has the potential to bring about the greatest tangible benefit for the greatest number of women and girls.

But it does not do that. And now it is riven with internal divisions between warring factions who cannot even agree on what a woman is, with the side who appear to be making the extraordinary claim that a woman is something you choose whether or not to identify as currently in the lead, it does not seem likely to focus on the important issues any time soon.

Regarding the issue of trans people's inclusion in feminism, I would ask the following questions.

Is access to abortion a feminist issue? Is maternity care a feminist issue? Is ensuring that biological females are not discriminated against in the workplace for reasons connected to pregnancy and child raising a feminist issue.

If the answer to those questions is yes, should trans men and non binary people be allowed to have abortions? Should pregnant trans men and non binary people have access to high quality maternity care? Should trans men and non binary people who give birth be protected from discrimination in the workplace for reasons connected to pregnancy and child raising?

If the answer to those questions is yes, then surely feminism includes trans men and non binary people who are capable of becoming pregnant.

But trans men and non binary people who are capable of becoming pregnant share neither a biological sex nor a gender identity with trans women, who are apparently also included in feminism.

So who is this movement for?

Because if you cannot even adequately define who your movement is for, because it is for too many different groups of people with completely different (and sometimes competing) needs, how do you expect to achieve anything?

Sorry, I quoted you there @Baldieheid, and then went off on a tangent.

What I meant to say in relation to your post is that if ordinary women feel looked down on by academic feminists, and don't feel included in this movement, then who is it for?

Because many ordinary women don't seem to feel it is for them. And many extremely marginalised women such as those groups I referred to above don't seem to be seeing much benefit. (Particularly women in prison, who are currently being thrown under a bus by the "feminists" who support trans women being housed in women's prisons.)

So who is it for, other than the academic feminists themselves who need to justify their own existence, and trans people who already have their own movement?

I campaign for womens rights and I am gender critical. I don't identify as a feminist.

No, I got your point. And yes, it's all very well discussing and exploring fancy schmancy concepts but that has bugger all to do with the everyday shit that the majority of women deal with. Being able to ponder the meaning of the word "feminist" in a nice university office is a fucking luxury that most of us don't have.

These women are not better than me. They're just better off than me.

A feminist is simply a woman who speaks out about her experiences as a woman

Feminism's a political movement, aimed at freedom and self-determination for all women the world over.

Talking about your life is the starting point.

It has more than bugger all to do with you, @Baldieheid! There are laws to protect you as a woman, that ensure services for you as a woman and a mother. They are planned, drafted & promoted by feminists.

Every movement needs its academics, activists, publicists, recruiters, teachers, support workers, fundraisers, followers, even entertainers (and more). Setting some against the others is sabotage.

Those laws were fought for by feminists who knew damn well what a woman is and why we need these rights. Not the piss poor excuse for feminists we have today.

Laws may well be there to protect me as a woman.

They're not being used, though, are they? There are men in our hospital wards, in our changing rooms, in some of our sports (yay to those who've drawn the line, thank god), in our female specific jobs, in our rape shelters, RUNNING our rape shelters, in our breastfeeding groups, in our prisons.....

We may be allowed by law to exclude them. In practicality, the current batch of "feminists" appear to think males having ladyfeelz makes them way more important than women.

That's the sabotage.

Right there.

Not interested in your explanation or your scolding or whatever that was.

What @Baldieheid said.

The fact that LGBTQIA+ activists never stop campaigning whereas feminists are asleep at the wheel is the reason why women in many or even most parts of the country no longer have access to female only rape crisis support and Sarah Summers is suing a (completely unrepentant) rape crisis organisation to fight for that right.

The fact that LGBTQIA+ activists never stop campaigning whereas feminists are asleep at the wheel is the reason

Definitely. They need to wake up, organise and get active, instead of complaining about others doing it wrong.

Thank you for this message. It is on point. It is not what we expected 50 years ago when we were advocating for equality for women.

Same rights and opportunities, it says.

In a society built around the male, female biology creates a huge imbalance of rights & opportunities. Feminism seeks to guarantee the same rights and to ensure compensation or protection that equalises opportunity.

Equality of access also a thing.

Many women just cannot walk into spaces that require undressing in any way, if male people are present.

It's that simple. To provide male people with lovely affirming choice of provision, you have to exclude women from any provision at all. It removes equality of access to public life and from equality of access to services, resources, even health care.

And currently this political male-centric lobby will not even permit those accessible provisions to exist along side TQ+ male centric provided services. Even when their own needs are fully met, the dog is firmly in the manger insisting that the heretics must be punished for their failure to overcome their entire lives in order to revolve around the wishes and feelings of men.

Who have absolutely no intention of ever giving the faintest fuck about them, but will lecture you endlessly and shamelessly about 'intersectionality' and 'inclusion'.

The law has to repair this. There is no capacity for reasonability, any more than a mugger is prepared to admit they're being unreasonable when they snatch your phone and hit you for resisting.

Complacency is the root of this evil.

Feminism became complacent. It was all won, feminism thought.

It's all hung on what we call here a "shoogly peg" at the moment. Next time I think we need to fucking weld it all in place. That intersectional glue they sold feminism is crap. It's peeling away like banana skin.

Also to add to that: many of these services are tax payer funded.d

The women being excluded are tax payers. They are paying for services that they cannot use because the services have made a political choice to exclude them.

And it's no good saying that those women have 'chosen to self exclude' so they can either shut up and put up, or go without. Their choices. Because if it comes to that, tell the male people with TQ+ identities THEY have chosen to self exclude from the male facilities, and they can do the shutting up, putting up or going without.

Either answers that work for all, or hard, heartless responses to all. Equality of treatment. Otherwise it's just plain binary sex based male supremacism.

Great post.

Yes, women who cannot be in spaces with male bodies for whatever reason are being excluded from public life. This is happening a lot. No-one's measuring this of course (something academic feminists should have done).

It's why I think TRAliban is very apt. The whole ideology has women as subservient resources that are excluded from full participation in public life. We're not even allowed separate spaces alongside a fully inclusive mix of others. Once you see that's the whole point, everything falls into place.

Excellent follow up post

I am now fucking angry that my taxes are paying for services I and my daughters can't use. Hadn't really thought about this before. 😡

Bravo.

Feminism became complacent. It was all won, feminism thought.

It's a generational thing. I try not to harp on too much (!) about the sheer newness of women's "equality" and I was here! but that is the problem. You can't just sit back and say thanks, gran, it's all good. And you definitely can't expect women over 70 to keep fighting for your rights. You've got to keep shoring them up, taking back lost ground, fighting for more.

Women became complacent. Don't blame feminism, pick up the baton.

I'm not ignoring the fact that men's rights activists spotted their opportunity and set to work "queering" feminism, alongside other smart moves like misogynistic pornography and surrendered wives, etc. They will always do this. It has to be fought.

Who you preachin' to, sister?

That's what has already been said.

😂 Yep. It's the talking about what "feminism" did or doesn't do, as if it were an organisation failing to meet its objectives.

It isn't, it's all of you - including the women complaining about feminism's failures, wasting energy over what it should be called or its tone of voice.

We all know what it is and what it's for. It looks like we don't all know it's down to every one of us, and everyone we can enlist.