Jane Clare Jones blog on Tommy Robinson

[CassieMaddox]

Just a really great read
https://janeclarejones.com/2024/07/28/tommy-robinson-far-right-populism-and-gender-criticism/

These are my favourite bits:

The greatest danger to women and girls has always been, and remains, the men inside their own houses. This is the nature, and the devastation, of endemic male sexual violence. It usually happens in the place, and with the people, who are supposed to be most safe. It would perhaps be comforting to imagine that we could easily identify the men who are dangerous – the Muslims, the brown ones, the ones in dresses – and then we could keep ourselves safe by keeping them out. But the argument materialist feminists made throughout the early years of the gender wars applies equally here: men are a statistical danger to women as a class and there is prima facie no way of working out which ones are dangerous and which ones are not.

The argument is no longer ‘guilt by association’ or ‘purity politics,’ it is now a) What even is the far right anyway?, b) The far right doesn’t mean anything because I was called far right for knowing men aren’t women, c) You people think anyone who disagrees with you is far right, and d) He is not far right anyway. That is, it has moved from claiming that association with the far right is either not happening or if it is happening has no impact on the substance of GC discourse, to people openly associating with the far right and recycling far right talking points while denying that the far right is the far right.

But what feminist women have tried, largely unsuccessfully, to get across, is that these kinds of men are not on ‘your side,’ if ‘your side’ is genuinely defending women’s rights. These men are on their side, and their side wants a largely white patriarchal nation, in which ‘their’ women know their place and are ‘protected’ only insofar as ‘protection’ means keeping them guarded from ‘other’ men.

The pictures at the end of the article are very illuminating too.

Brava JCJ 👏

In the same way as "I didn't leave the Left, the Left left me" has become something of a truism, so "I don't agree with Tommy Robinson on single-sex spaces, he agrees with me" should be. Gender-critical feminists have been holding this line long before those on the right - far or otherwise - saw there was political capital to be gained by taking the same stance but for very different reasons.

I agree. I think what we need to remember about this debate is that the view that men can be women, or vice versa, is a very niche opinion largely confined to certain sectors of the middle-class in Western societies. It's an opinion that the vast majority of people around the world would regard as either lunatic or morally abhorrent or both.

It's not at all surprising that when progressive liberals/socialists adopt an opinion that is clearly lunatic, sections of the right will seize on it gleefully. Why wouldn't they? From their point of view, the decision of chunks of the left to pretend that men can be women is an absolute gift. If you want to push the view that the left are morally bankrupt, then all you need do is highlight the fact that they are allowing men to take part in boxing matches against women, or putting male rapists in women's prisons. From the point of view of Tommy Robinson et al, making the left look stupid and evil is like taking candy from a baby. They're doing his work for him.

Of course, I agree with JCJ that women shouldn't be fooled by this into siding with Robinson, who is quite clearly a fascist. But the biggest moral failing comes, not from those women, but from that section of the left that actively endorses and celebrates harm towards the most vulnerable women and girls.

It's not at all surprising that when progressive liberals/socialists adopt an opinion that is clearly lunatic, sections of the right will seize on it gleefully. Why wouldn't they? From their point of view, the decision of chunks of the left to pretend that men can be women is an absolute gift.

I agree.

Shades of grey does not mean "all the same".

You mean there is a difference between countries like this?

What relevance is Afghanistan to a conversation about Tommy Robinson?

The Taliban is bad for women (ans humans generally). That doesn't equate to Afghan men are inherently "worse" and we can protect women by keeping them out. That's flawed logic.

The only way this "cultural" argument works is if you believe that people born into Western culture (I.e. white) are innately less patriarchal.

If you believe, as I do, that theculture is systems and rules that have developed over time then an Afghan man living in the UK will be treated the same as a white man born here. Improving women's safety in the UK will be better achieved by putting in place effective structures here (e.g. better prosecuting rape, better tracking of DV suspects and abuse prevention measures) than preventing immigration of Afghan men.

Logic and evidence would lead you to that conclusion. Fear and a sense of superiority would lead you to the "keep the brown men away" one.

Do you believe in multiculturalism?

You miss the massive holes in your own logic, Cassie as several people have pointed out. You're the one that said the important issue globally was "the patriarchy" and that "The fundamental issue really, which we touched on upthread, is some feminists (like me) believe no society treats women as "broadly equal to men". "

But it's good to hear that you see the difference between the U.K. and Afghanistan.

Don't be ridiculous.
"The left" did not make Tommy Robinson into a lying racist criminal grifter. And "the left" did not force people to believe him. Those people's own gullibility and prejudice did that.

Tommy Robinson started the EDL in 2009, when he got fed up of the BNP. The Tories were in power. The GRA wasn't enacted.

You are not going to get away with that glib, sneering tosh without pushback.

Which is why left wing feminists like JCJ have been building a separate left wing analysis and praxis.

Jennifer Bilek seems to be doing a better job of that by researching and then writing intelligibly about the influence of billionaires, capitalism, the medical-pharmaceutical complex and the corruption of US and global politics. You know, the stuff "The Left" used to care about.

The only time her friends and admirers post on FWR about JCJ's ramblings are when she pens, or is involving in publishing, overt or thinly disguised hit-pieces on popular, actually influential women's right campaigner Kelly-Jay Keen (aka Posie Parker) or more general diatribes about "the GC movement" that she perceives as being politically naive and/or "populist".

I have just had a look at the "About" section on JCJ's blog, posted in April 2014:

"By 2004 I’d grown up enough to not care whether pompous men thought my intellectual trajectory unfortunate and went back to university, studying continental and feminist philosophy at Goldsmiths (MPhil) and the State University of New York (PhD). Since 2011 I have been involved in feminist activism while writing popular pieces at the intersection of feminism, politics and culture. In 2013 I ran into trans activism online while helping set up a feminist party that got firebombed into oblivion before it began. My curiosity was piqued. Then my brain exploded. And here I am, several years later, still trying to explain how shit got so bonkers."

Apart from the fact the JCJ does not advertise that she has had a proper job for the last 20 years this bit jumps out:

"In 2013 I ran into trans activism online while helping set up a feminist party that got firebombed into oblivion before it began. My curiosity was piqued."

This predates Catherine Mayer's 2015 brainwave to set up the Women's Equality Party (TWAW 👏TWAW 👏TWAW👏) by two years so what "feminist party" is JCJ talking about that got "firebombed out of existence"?

Does JCJ's GC "praxis" include her presentations at recent WEP (TWAW 👏TWAW 👏TWAW👏) Conferences?

In no way do left-wing women like her, Julie Bindel or WPUK argue or pretend that there are not systemic sexism, racism and class prejudices in the current left.

That's a sneaky little caveat at the end there: "current left".

Genuine question, because I have been involved with if not embedded in the left for about 40 years: when was there not "systemic sexism, racism and class prejudices" in the left in the UK because it must has been before my time?

It bears repeating: "Systemic sexism, racism and class prejudices in the current left."

So what are JCJ, Julie Bindel and WPUK doing about all that "systemic sexism, racism and class prejudices in the current left"?

I spent a long time smiting that shit hard when I was actively involved with the Left and making inroads. It's not my fight now and it would be "outing" to detail.

Shouldn't they be getting their own house in order and making it rather more inviting to the black and working class GC women who they castigate for attending and helping to run popular women's rights events like Let Women Speak and attending "populist" rallies against two-tier policing?

Unfortunately, that tends to get ignored in the shouting about them shrilling for left-wing misogynists or troons.

How about they try not hanging out, celebrating and sucking up to left-wing misogynists and "troons", then no one would have anything to shout about?

Let's start with what you mean by "multiculturalism" as I highly doubt i even buy into the basic concept.

Unfortunately radical feminism has been so overwhelmed with responding to gender ideology we are now a rare breed in GC circles and more common are the gender traditionalists and right wingers.

And lots of women who don't actually see themselves as any of those labels.

Yes, I've seen that page before. I doubt very much the type of blog she posts provides a livable income which is why I was asking.

Don't be ridiculous.
"The left" did not make Tommy Robinson into a lying racist criminal grifter. And "the left" did not force people to believe him. Those people's own gullibility and prejudice did that.

@RoyalCorgi wasn't just referring to Tommy Robinson, that's a disingenuous reading of what she said.

Tommy Robinson started the EDL in 2009, when he got fed up of the BNP. The Tories were in power. The GRA wasn't enacted.

Labour were in power in 2009 and the GRA was enacted in 2004. Pretty basic errors there.

There is no inconsistency between "there is no society where women are treated as broadly equal to men" and "living in Afghanistan is worse for women than living in the UK"

Again, it's interesting the erosion of feminism on this board because this is getting very close to the MRA points of old about how UK women have nothing to complain about so feminists should shut up. And that would not have been tolerated a few years ago but now seems a-OK.

Thank you! It certainly feels disingenuous to me. I didn't say that the left made Tommy Robinson into a lying racist criminal grifter. My point is that if the left adopts a political position that is both immoral and irrational, it shouldn't be surprised if the far right make hay with it.

🤣 yep. Decade out. Blame peri brain

In any case TR did not start the EDL because of trans. He started it because he's anti-muslim.

Labour were also in power in 1999.

These feminists are grossed out at being metaphorically cast out from their ivory towers and made to sit in the muck like the rest of us. They want to get back in and carry on pontificating about the world using unlimited public funding. They don't like us and are not interested in us. They are part of the elite and they talk about us in the abstract, not flesh and blood with a mind of our own. They are our superiors and in the natural order of things, they rule, we follow.

I think this is an important point to bear in mind from @TheColourOutOfSpace's superlative post.

Love it when people don't quote the post assuming others won't scroll back to read what was written:
It's not at all surprising that when progressive liberals/socialists adopt an opinion that is clearly lunatic, sections of the right will seize on it gleefully. Why wouldn't they? From their point of view, the decision of chunks of the left to pretend that men can be women is an absolute gift.

Of course, I agree with JCJ that women shouldn't be fooled by this into siding with Robinson, who is quite clearly a fascist. But the biggest moral failing comes, not from those women, but from that section of the left that actively endorses and celebrates harm towards the most vulnerable women and girls.

In any case TR did not start the EDL because of trans. He started it because he's anti-muslim.

I thought you were arguing it was about race?

I can't even be arsed

JCJ is fast becoming the British ‘feminist’ equivalent of Judith Butler.

Only less successful.

Not sure what your point is. I do think the biggest moral failing has come from the left, rather than from women now going on Tommy Robinson marches. I still didn't say what you claimed I said.

You make the point elsewhere that "it's interesting the erosion of feminism on this board because this is getting very close to the MRA points of old about how UK women have nothing to complain about so feminists should shut up."

This seems an odd and perverse take on what I and others have been saying. For the past 120 years - and more - women in the UK have fought hard for certain rights: the right to vote, the right to go to university, the right to their own bank accounts, the right to keep custody of their own children after divorce, the right to equal pay and so on. The winning of those rights has been a magnificent achievement and has made the lives of women in 2024 much better than those of our mothers and grandmothers. For you to argue, effectively, that these rights are meaningless, and that there is very little difference between the patriarchal society of the UK and the patriarchal society of Afghanistan, suggests that those feminists were wasting their time. Is that really what you intend to imply?

They will say anything to avoid criticism of islam @RoyalCorgi . Don't forget all their hatred of KJK is pinned on her tweet about female children being made to wear veils as sexualising children.