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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions
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8
duc748 · 28/04/2024 17:13

There's no shittier position than "Sex work is just work (but not for my daughters, of course)".

bilgewater · 28/04/2024 17:13

Thanks for this thread. I couldn't bear to click on the Observer article earlier as I assumed it would be the usual 'hallowed thoughts of Saint Billy' stuff. Will go and read it now.

DameMaud · 28/04/2024 17:21

bilgewater · 28/04/2024 17:13

Thanks for this thread. I couldn't bear to click on the Observer article earlier as I assumed it would be the usual 'hallowed thoughts of Saint Billy' stuff. Will go and read it now.

I'm the same bilgewater.
Reading the thread, and JKR's words, is like putting on a lovely, protective cloak before diving in!

IDoNotConsentToAstonResearch · 28/04/2024 17:23

RedToothBrush · 28/04/2024 17:06

My point, that I've been banging on about for years:

The right wing are exploiting an area the left wing have traditionally occupied but have recently neglected for their own agenda. If the left wing hadn't been caught napping / had a total deleriction of duty to women then they wouldn't have the right wing squatting on 'their patch' to begin with.

Its not the left wing feminist women who have moved. They've stayed in exactly the same position.

Beautifully put.

BonnyBo · 28/04/2024 18:31

He’s still at it

https://twitter.com/billybragg/status/1784596220331102334

Billy Bragg getting challenged in the Observer
ruffler45 · 28/04/2024 18:34

Does everyone else switch off when BB sticks his head above the parapet every now and again, or is it just me?

BonfireLady · 28/04/2024 18:36

IDoNotConsentToAstonResearch · 28/04/2024 17:23

Beautifully put.

Agreed 👌

Buffypaws · 28/04/2024 18:39

I can’t believe how stupid Bragg appears to be.

However mumsnet is getting a good review over on x.

Billy Bragg getting challenged in the Observer
Datun · 28/04/2024 19:01

RedToothBrush · 28/04/2024 17:03

C+P of JKR response for the no-twatters out there:
This comment by billybragg perfectly sums up what left wing women have taken from left wing men over the last few years. The problem isn’t whether Julie Bindel and I are correct on the issues, but that certain right-wingers agree with us.

If you’ve spent any time at all on the left of politics, you’re familiar with the progressive male class warrior, usually middle-class himself, whose interest in women’s issues begins and ends with sex work, stripping and abortions. He might claim to be a feminist ally and mutter vaguely about ‘equality’ if the need arises, but when a genuine assault on women’s rights erupted under his nose, he cut left wing women adrift without a second thought. He expected us to be so blindly tribal that we’d surrender single sex spaces, jettison the very language we use to describe ourselves, give up fair sport, agree rapists should be locked up in women’s prisons and that lesbians are bigots for not wanting to sleep with the penis-ed, because (horrors!) some people on the right thought these things were wrong, too.

Over the last few years, a huge number of PMCWs have become men’s rights activists in all but name, and it’s been profoundly depressing, if not entirely unexpected, to see how enjoyable they’ve found it. Even while attacking women for finding themselves on the same side as right-wingers, the PMCWs stampeded to join the team that was threatening women with rape and violence, harassing women’s conferences, attempting to block access to gender critical events and physically assaulting female demonstrators. PMCWs are everywhere online, lecturing women reliant on state-run services for not welcoming the male-bodied into communal changing rooms and rape crisis shelters, presuming to police women’s language and tone, turning a blind eye to all statistics on male sexual violence that might contradict the ‘you’re all scaremongering bigots’ narrative and demonstrating that their deepest empathy will always be reserved for those who were born with a penis.

The truth is that the left has fucked up monumentally on gender identity ideology and until it owns the mistake, it will continue to hand the right valid talking points. As more and more PMCWs realise this, they’ll take shameless refuge in accusations that we, the women criticising the injustice and insanity of gender identity ideology, were enabling the far-right. The fact is that they’ve done exactly that, by refusing to accept that there was anything wrong with a movement that was causing serious harm to troubled young people, trampling all over women’s rights and seeking to remove single-sex services for the most vulnerable.

The sense of betrayal women on the left feel towards men like Bragg will take a long time to disappear, if it ever does. I think we all take some grim satisfaction, though, in the fact that evidence of the PMCWs’ misogyny and complicity is a matter of public record, because the panicky back-pedalling and whitewashing that’s just begun is quite something to behold.

Pesky GenZ AT peskygenz
Left-wing male “feminists” will never be in any position to lecture us. Especially when their support of women primarily extends to causes that benefit men.

J.K. Rowling AT jk_rowling
Yep. When a man's 'feminism' is largely centred on ensuring that women can keep selling sex and taking off their clothes for money, it's not a massive surprise he has a problem with women who refuse to hand over whatever men want.

Jane, Empress of the Known Universe AT blablafishcakes
That is EXACTLY billybragg's brand of "feminism".
[see photo]

J.K. Rowling AT jk_rowling
Called it.

Absolutely superb. And capped off by that photo which illustrates everything she said sooo perfectly, it's breathtaking.

Datun · 28/04/2024 19:03

BonnyBo · 28/04/2024 18:31

Omg, he STILL doesn't know what gender critical means.

OldManLogan · 28/04/2024 19:12

InvisibleBuffy · 28/04/2024 15:53

I could ask the same of you about the people sitting on your side of the table.
Do you welcome and support WPATH in adding a chapter on eunuchs in their latest best practice document at the same time as removing any minimum age restrictions?
Do you welcome and support the parents of Kai Shappelly 'hard spanking' and forcing their two year old child to pray for hours for liking 'girl' toys?
What about welcoming and supporting the people who drew dicks on the pavement outside Filia last year before the vigil for murdered women took place?
What about supporting and welcoming Juno Dawson saying that gay men are only gay as a consolation prize because they can't be women?
What about the staff at the Tavistock laughing about there going to be no gay children left? Do you welcome and support that?
Your side of the table is rife with deep homophobia and violence against women.
And our side, all you have is a hell of of a stretch to somehow to connect women in the UK to a donation made in the US eight years ago.
I suggest you take much harder look at your own side of the table before you start mudslinging at ours. Trans activism is far more 'far right' in its treatment of women and gay people than feminists ever were.

Obviously not. How have made the leap from me pointing out the clear and obvious support for gender criticism from some absolute loons, to me being on the other side of the table? You sound like you're part of a cult that can't deal with an uncomfortable reality.

IDoNotConsentToAstonResearch · 28/04/2024 19:14

OldManLogan · 28/04/2024 19:12

Obviously not. How have made the leap from me pointing out the clear and obvious support for gender criticism from some absolute loons, to me being on the other side of the table? You sound like you're part of a cult that can't deal with an uncomfortable reality.

So if you think we’re connected to the far right that’s just a reasonable question to ask but if we ask if you support the things that people on the other side support we’re part of a cult that can’t deal with reality.

Terref · 28/04/2024 19:24

RandySavage · 28/04/2024 10:21

Funny how politely Billy argues with a male journalist, eh?

If I were Billy I'd maybe look at some of the people I was sitting with. He's on the same side of the table as Isla Bryson, Barbie Kardashian, Dana Rivers and Sandi Toksvig - surely that's enough to make anyone question themselves.

I've been utterly gobsmacked at the difference between Bragg's responses to males and to females. It's so fucking brazen and obvious!

BonfireLady · 28/04/2024 19:31

OldManLogan · 28/04/2024 19:12

Obviously not. How have made the leap from me pointing out the clear and obvious support for gender criticism from some absolute loons, to me being on the other side of the table? You sound like you're part of a cult that can't deal with an uncomfortable reality.

There was clear and obvious support from the far right for transvestism (now referred to as being transgender) during the second world war, with many photos showing cross-dressing senior officers in the Nazi party.
I'm not sure what it proves though, other than there are some people on the far right who embrace the idea of transgender identity and some people on the far right who reject it.

Abhannmor · 28/04/2024 19:39

Maaate · 28/04/2024 10:12

Oh is Silly Billy starting to realise the wind has changed and trying to backtrack?

Sounds like it. Today I was talking to a guy who was ' cancelled ' by some of his old college friends after he shared a Guardian editorial piece of all things. It was insufficiently TRA and one of them picked up on it etc etc.

I asked him how they would react to Cass and the change in the zeitgeist. ' Seamlessy' he replied ' they'll just say they agreed with Graham Linehan and JKR all along. Of course gnc kids just needs love and support and are not born in the wrong body. But we weren't horrible about it like the Terfs'.

These little foot soldiers and snitches can slip away into the crowd. It's harder for the likes of Bragg and Ruth Hunt.

BluntPoet · 28/04/2024 19:40

Because when I get depressed or cynical, I have the privilege of being able to go out in the dark and sing my songs, and when everyone claps, I don’t feel so bad.

I think being ‘righteous’ is a source of narcissistic supply for him. He hasn’t yet realised that this bubble has well and truly burst.

InvisibleBuffy · 28/04/2024 19:42

OldManLogan · 28/04/2024 19:12

Obviously not. How have made the leap from me pointing out the clear and obvious support for gender criticism from some absolute loons, to me being on the other side of the table? You sound like you're part of a cult that can't deal with an uncomfortable reality.

But you haven't pointed that out. You've mentioned one feminist group in the US, given some random links without evidence and somehow extrapolated that to all women on here.
So no, there was and is no 'clear and obvious support', nor have you pointed it out.
Glad to hear you don't support any of the things I pointed out though. Welcome to the gender critical side of the table.

InvisibleBuffy · 28/04/2024 19:44

But back to Bragg, I'm wondering how long it'll be before his claim is that he never supported any of this stuff and it would have been way easier if all those nasty women hadnt also been pointing out the exact same thing he has been saying all the time.
I'm putting my money on within a month.

OldManLogan · 28/04/2024 20:00

InvisibleBuffy · 28/04/2024 19:42

But you haven't pointed that out. You've mentioned one feminist group in the US, given some random links without evidence and somehow extrapolated that to all women on here.
So no, there was and is no 'clear and obvious support', nor have you pointed it out.
Glad to hear you don't support any of the things I pointed out though. Welcome to the gender critical side of the table.

You haven't read the article I posted have you? And I get the feeling if you had, nothing would meet your criteria for evidence anyway. Which is pretty much the position adopted by fundamentalists.

Personally, I have a problem with the far right or/and fundamentalist religious groups being involved in any political or cultural movement. Pretending they aren't involved seems dangerously disingenuous to me. Especially as, if you dare to point it out, you get accused of being a radical trans activist.

Abhannmor · 28/04/2024 20:11

Bragg gave up on punk and joined the British Army in May 1981. The month in which the republican hunger strikes that ended with the deaths of 10 prisoners began.

But I wouldn't accuse him of being an imperialist lackey and agent of repression on that account. Economic conscription innit? Actually the first time I saw him he was supporting the Smiths. Now he's on the same side of the table as Penny Mordaunt MP , Conservative. The Forces' Sweetheart.

Terref · 28/04/2024 20:20

'the progressive male class warrior, usually middle-class himself, whose interest in women’s issues begins and ends with sex work, stripping and abortions'

Terref · 28/04/2024 20:21

Like this:

Billy Bragg getting challenged in the Observer
Terref · 28/04/2024 20:27

RebelliousCow · 28/04/2024 10:49

Yes! A lot of people get embroiled in political activity on the basis of how good it makes them feel to belong to a certain group - with all of the emotional bonds; feeling of solidarity and so on.When you break away from group conformity and this feeling that needing to belong is the most important thing - you are able to see it more clearly

Edited

And for most women who've got involved in countering genderism, it's been the exact inverse.

We've had to learn to stand by the merits of an argument based on reason and evidence, even when nobody else would discuss, let alone agree.

If you've been paying attention over the past few years you've probably been inoculated against tribalism, at least to a degree.

Underthinker · 28/04/2024 20:42

OldManLogan · 28/04/2024 20:00

You haven't read the article I posted have you? And I get the feeling if you had, nothing would meet your criteria for evidence anyway. Which is pretty much the position adopted by fundamentalists.

Personally, I have a problem with the far right or/and fundamentalist religious groups being involved in any political or cultural movement. Pretending they aren't involved seems dangerously disingenuous to me. Especially as, if you dare to point it out, you get accused of being a radical trans activist.

It's just not a very good article.

OldManLogan · 28/04/2024 21:06

Underthinker · 28/04/2024 20:42

It's just not a very good article.

Are you saying it's factually incorrect?