A vindication of British feminists

[ArabellaScott]

https://alexmassie.substack.com/p/the-vindication-of-britains-feminists

I want to tip my hat to every woman who has signed petitions, attended demos, written letters, responded to consultations, had patient conversations, had enraged conversations, gardened, and kept things moving forward.

Women won't wheesht, and especially not when it comes to the wellbeing of children.



The broad brush used to paint an inaccurate solution to this problem will have a life time of ramifications. It's never going to be the end of this toxic back and forth but finally there's a light being shone on what has been portrayed wrongly as the dark corners of the debate. We were written off as old, out of touch or extreme and not portrayed accurately as caring, concerned or worried for those dealing these vunerable young people tackling really big questions. It's going to take a while for the dust to settle but when it does I do feel the conversation will have shifted in the favour of those with very reasonable questions feeling that they have the strength to ask them.

I’m finding this week really hard as I’ve been shouting about the damage to children for 8 years and I’ve lost my son. He isn’t dead but he lives under a woman’s name & has nothing to do with us. The counsellor and staff at his school aided him in buying drugs from a clinic. No one challenged his thought processes. Each article I read upsets me as I think about all the girls & boys who fell into this horrible trap and how they and their parents are suffering.

The coverage this week has been interesting from two men on newscast earnestly discussing an issue mainly effecting women and girls. To a Times Radio, presenter, I can't remember which one, kindof saying well I was always quietly gender critical, but not in the same way as JK Rowling. Tone policing her.

First women were wrong. Now we are the wrong type of right. And hold on, move over, the reasonable middle centre men will take it from here.

Oohh!! Have you used invisible text? How did you do that? Is it white font?

@BigGreenOlives @SwordToFlamethrower I’m so sorry for all you have been through, and hope time and vindication will bring some peace. Hopefully when the dust settles people who thought you were being wilfully unkind will realise you were trying to help.

Cassandra springs to mind.

@MeMyselfAndMyEye This is a very good point and thank you for making it. The misogyny is really becoming clear now, isn’t it?

💐 for @BigGreenOlives and @SwordToFlamethrower and all who have suffered enormously as a result of the pernicious, insidious ideology that has taken root in healthcare and education. I can’t wait for those ubiquitous flags to be weeded out and chucked away for ever.

I totally disagree with that. A dreadful medical scandal has been unearthed, in large part due to persistent, brave women, who suffered abuse when they tried to point out potential problems. We wouldn’t even be in this position (Cass and court cases, etc) without them. Do you think men who discover things should just go away, be quiet and make sandwiches? I doubt it.

Time and time again, women raised concerns and were shouted down as nasty old bitches and conservative dinosaurs. None of that was fucking true I’ll be damned if I’m going to creep away in silence. It’s an absolute disgrace that this went on and I doubt we’re at the bottom of things yet.

Stop trying to write women out of history. It’s been done more than enough before.

to all the mothers and families of children harmed by this.

And to the women who have lost stuff - whether that be friends, faith, or peace of mind.

This isn't 'us and them', other than its women trying to whistle-blow and raise questions in the face of powerful lobbies and committed activists who want to silence us.

Women who've been learning about political process and how to organiseand continue to learn.

This isn't over by a long shot, and there are many more factions than 'us and them'. As I've said many times, every time women are proved right in this fight it's because of bad news being uncovered, and most of us would be far happier to be proven wrong than have it confirmed that children and young people have been harmed.

We all know that the whistle-blowers and the ones who took all the flak will continue to be painted as the wrong sort for quite some time. Even and perhaps especially by those who are now reverse ferreting. Feminists were inconvenient irritants, now they will become handy decoys:

"Of course nobody ever suggested we sterilise children, these shrill harpies are so vindictive."

There was nothing "us and them" in the OP. It was acknowledging all the women who have relentlessly raised this issue, complained about biased reporting, answered consultations, talked to MPs, walked through aggressive crowds to simply speak about the dangers of gender ideology.

Those women are going to keep on going because this ideology is still being taught in schools and the Cass report and new gender clinics are still going to put some children on a path to 'sex change' drugs and operations.

This isn't over yet.

to all those who have been affected most by this dangerous ideology.

Without FWR there would be no “receipts”, as they say, for the inevitable rewriting of history.

I think we can all agree it has been an unprecedented, horrific chapter.

It's hardly unprecedented, there are many medical scandals where the profession has jumped on the latest exciting treatment without checking it's actually beneficial.

The closest parallel is lobotomies... (mostly) women with MH problems given an irreversible medical treatment on the basis that they'd be much happier afterwards and everyone important agreed it was a super idea. Not sure if suggesting it wasn't a super idea would have got the same level of death threats in those days, but then we didn't have social media.

I cannot quite believe that the narrative has evolved to blame femminists for speaking out in the wrong way rather than to look at the processes, narratives and lobbying that led to the safeguards being ignored, the critical viewpoint being silenced and ethical and safety mechanisms being circumnavigated. All of those who included exploratory counselling within the umbrella of conversion therapy are complicit in this.

Affirming without question while guranteeing access to medication and pathways to cross sex hormones and surgery all assumes that there are no other treatment models worth pursuing that have better outcomes and fewer long term implications.

There are few branches of medicine where pursuing better outcomes with fewer long term side effects is ever deemed to be a bad thing. We are constantly trying to find better cancer treatments, we have been doing cesarean operations for centuries and we are still finding ways to make this better for mothers and babies.

The voices that were attemtping to point out the dangers of medical intervention were the wrong type of voices and therefore contributed to the harm.. No.. the answer should be .. listen to all of the critical voices.

Until women voices are heard and women share equal contribution in all areas where descisions are made (thank you RBG), the work of femminism is not done.

Excellent article by Alex Massie.

But as others have said, it's not over yet. I'm sure there is plenty of gardening left to do.

I mainly lurk on this topic but am very grateful for the women who have taken the time to patiently and clearly talk about this. You've helped many others have conversations offline about this subject.

I do not believe that there is any way women could have raised this issue "right", so I simply do not care what anyone thinks of our tone. I don't care. There would never have been an acceptable way for us to speak on any issue so anyone who wants to complain can go to hell. I'm not changing for anyone.

And I am angry. FUMIN'. I'm angry that nobody is ever going to be properly accountable for what has happened to these children because of this completely insane ideology. I'm furious that those who are now slinking off in the pretence that they were always against it but couldn't speak out because of dreadful women will not reflect on how they've been taken in by something so obviously stupid and will be fodder for the next ridiculous and dangerous craze.

And I'm angry that people who've called me a bigot and accused me of stochastic suicide will never apologise.

Why shouldn't I be angry?

Am I too late? I’ve finally decided I need an FWR name, having tended to stay with the same name across boards.

😂

to @BigGreenOlives and @SwordToFlamethrower and to all the other people out there who've lost those they cared about to this ideology.

I think it is important to note that women are celebrating being listened to and that there is sunlight on the subject and the harms that we've all known about for years are being made public. Christ, I don't even have kids and I have the maternal instincts of a daffodil, and even I think this is all a fucking travesty.

What we are not celebrating is the harm that has been caused thus far and will continue to be caused. No-one is dancing in the streets laughing at the distress of vulnerable children.

And the harm will continue, for a while at least, because there will be an awful lot of people and organisations for whom the sunk costs fallacy applies, or they cannot face up to what they've done, or who have a vested interest in terms of money and reputation. They will be trying to ensure that nothing changes.

And the harm will continue further because there will be kids who genuinely feel traumatised by this report and changes - both in terms of policy and social attitudes - it will bring, because they absolutely believe that transitioning is the only answer to their anguish, it will bring them the comfort they so crave and it will help them fit into a world to which they don't feel they belong. They see this as an assault on their very existence and the removal of the one thing on which they have pinned all of their hopes.

If nothing else whatsoever comes out of the Cass report, it's that I genuinely hope that these children can get the real help - not bloody life-altering drugs and "clinicians" with a vested interest - that they so desperately need.

The only reason change is happening is due to the courage and determination and persistence of British feminists.

Alex Massie has captured the testimonial injustice of the way women who speak up have been disdained and dismissed. Women who have knowledge, experience, and exposure to safeguarding on a regular basis. Women who were excluded from speaking to panels that were discussing the dismantling of women's rights (Miller committee and too many others).

Comments on this thread and elsewhere capture the interesting phenomenon that not only do women struggle with imposter phenomenon, but it's also pushed upon them because others have defaulted to a position that women have a "credibility deficit". It's helpful to contrast it with the "credibility excess" that so many commenters (and occasional FWR visitors) assign to themselves when they make pronouncements.

Nice overview in a different context:

"I experienced such a situation this summer. I had tweeted a thread detailing thirteen health conditions in which Black and Asian communities had worse outcomes than White communities in the UK, to illustrate that ethnic inequalities in health existed well before COVID-19. One of the first reactions was someone quote-tweeting me with the words “Is this true and has it been medically fact checked?” I had referenced each statistic with a link directly to the cited paper, and had used my full name with Dr as my title, as well as my position and the NHS trust where I work, in my twitter profile, so this was an unwanted surprise. My partner, a philosopher, helpfully told me I had been regarded as having a “credibility deficit” and had experienced a “testimonial injustice”.

The term, testimonial injustice was coined by philosopher Miranda Fricker and is a type of epistemic injustice, or wrongdoing related to knowledge 1. Testimonial injustice occurs when the listener discounts the credibility of the speaker’s word due to prejudice about their social identity, and is often associated with gender, ethnicity, class, sexuality or religion. The speaker experiences a credibility deficit. Fricker argues that the problem, and potential solutions require us to pay attention to relationships between individuals. In contrast, the term “credibility excess” refers to those whose word is more likely to be regarded as rational, competent and therefore credible, due to their social identity. In medicine for example, they may be doctors who regularly speak with confidence about conditions outside of their specialty in public forums."
…
Imposter phenomenon is often seen as the problem of the individual, which the individual must work to overcome – solutions thus focus on building confidence. But if what we are told is imposter phenomenon is actually repeated instances of testimonial injustice, then this requires collective, not merely individual, solutions. Whilst there needs to be a shift in how societal prejudices and biases are shaped and perpetuated to reduce testimonial injustice, this may be slow. We can start in healthcare by ensuring that groups with the power to make important decisions about resource allocation and knowledge distribution are not only diverse, but proactively make efforts to ensure everyone’s voices are valued and heard. This would greatly benefit our patients and our workforce.

1. Fricker M. Epistemic injustice: power and the ethics of knowing. Oxford University Press: Oxford, 2007
2. Gallagher S, Little JM, Hooker C. Testimonial injustice: discounting women’s voices in health care priority setting. Journal of Medical Ethics Published Online First: 24 April 2020. doi: 10.1136/medethics-2019-105984

https://blogs.bmj.com/bmjleader/2020/10/08/reframing-imposter-phenomenon-by-rageshri-dhairyawan/

Thank you, RethinkingLife. I have bookmarked that.