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 👏

Love it when people don't quote the post assuming others won't scroll back to read what was written:

It doesn't change anything and your post was disingenuous in implying she was talking about Tommy Robinson. Here's her response, so you can apologise for misrepresenting her in that way, due to what I'm sure is your own innocent misunderstanding of her post:

"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."

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

Only less successful.

Literal LOL

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.

It does, I agree. It seems like a desperate scrabbling about for a smear.

Anyone can advance search my posts over the last decade or so to see that I don't think that U.K. women have nothing to complain about. However, I'm not so silly as to pretend that women in some other societies don't have it worse.

Since when has questioning the impact of multiculturalism on women's rights been "unfeminist"? Since feminism was hijacked for other agendas?

These articles are very readable IMHO:

Is Multiculturalism Bad for Women?
Susan Moller Okin, 1999

Until the past few decades, minority groups—immigrants as well as indigenous peoples—were typically expected to assimilate into majority cultures. This assimilationist expectation is now often considered oppressive, and many Western countries are seeking to devise new policies that are more responsive to persistent cultural differences. The appropriate policies vary with context: Countries such as England with established churches or state supported religious education find it hard to resist demands to extend state support to minority religious schools; countries such as France with traditions of strictly secular public education struggle over whether the clothing required by minority religions may be worn in the public schools. But one issue recurs across all contexts, though it has gone virtually unnoticed in current debate: What should be done when the claims of minority cultures or religions clash with the norm of gender equality that is at least formally endorsed by liberal states (however much they continue to violate it in their practice)?

Full article:

http://fs2.american.edu/dfagel/www/Class%20Readings/Okin/Susan%20Moller%20Okin_%20Is%20Multiculturalism%20Bad%20for%20Women_.pdf

Susan Moller Okin: A New Zealand tribute ten years on
JUDITH GALTRY - 2014
Women’s Studies Journal, Volume 28 Number 2, December 2014: 93-102. ISSN 1173-6615

"Okin was the author of numerous articles and book reviews, as well as books on feminist political philosophy. These included "Women in Western Political Thought" (Okin, 1979); "Justice, Gender, and the Family" (Okin, 1989), and "Is Multiculturalism Bad for Women?" (Cohen, Howard & Nussbaum, 1999). During her career, she received various distinctions and awards for her scholarship and writing.

Okin was interested not in abstract theory for its own sake but rather in the theorising of reality (Satz & Reich, 2009). Her key intellectual claim was that gender issues should be central and not, as had previously generally been the case, peripheral to political theory. In her first book, "Women in Western Political Thought", which examined the classical theories of Plato, Aristotle, Rousseau and Mills, Okin asked whether ‘the existing tradition of political philosophy can sustain the inclusion of women in its subject matter [on the same terms with men] and, if not, why not?’ (p. 4).

Her 1989 book "Justice, Gender, and the Family" is a critique of modern theories of justice (Okin, 1989). According to Okin, traditional political theory has been written from a predominantly masculinist perspective. A primary concern for Okin was the way in which sexist values continue to be reproduced and promulgated through the socialisation of children within the family setting. For this book, Okin was a co-recipient of the American Political Science Association’s Victoria Schuck Award for the best book on women in politics.

But it is her last significant and perhaps best known piece of work, "Is Multiculturalism Bad for Women?" that is the main focus of this article. Of all her work this piece was arguably the most controversial, and inspired not only acclaim but also significant debate and criticism."

Full article:

https://www.wsanz.org.nz/journal/docs/WSJNZ282Galtry93-102.pdf

Don't forget that Cassie has said she doesn't agree that multiculturalism is a thing, presumably either positively, negatively or neutrally.

Well, the same could be said for me, except this is SO egregious:
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.

Nobody is saying that Afghan men are 'inherently "worse"' (than white men, I suppose). What is being claimed is that their cultural attitudes are likely to be fundamentally different, particularly towards women. That isn't really their fault: if you grow up being told at every turn that women are useless, but that you are great by virtue of having a cock, it's going to take a rare man to take a step back and think, hang on, not sure about this. Especially if disagreeing too loudly with the status quo could make his life both uncomfortable and short.

The culture you grow up in surrounds you, which makes it hard to see what it is doing and to question it. That is one reason why cultural attitudes can be so strong.

British culture (and modern 'western' culture more generally) is broadly in favour of educating girls, and giving women the freedom to chose their life partners, have jobs, retain control over their earnings, control their fertility, leave their husbands whilst retaining custody of the children and so on. Many of these these things are unthinkable in many places around the world. Men arriving here from those places are in for a culture shock. Some of them will not adapt to their new reality. They will try and oblige their daughters to marry men they don't want to marry, and when one of those daughters runs off with a boy she met at school, she might find herself dead in an honour killing.

That is not to say that anyone here is claiming that non-western are 'innately' more sexist than western men. I'm sure they're not. But cultural attitudes can be poles apart.

and when one of those daughters runs off with a boy she met at school, she might find herself dead in an honour killing.

Yes. What's that about?

That is not to say that anyone here is claiming that non-western are 'innately' more sexist than western men. I'm sure they're not. But cultural attitudes can be poles apart.

I think when people, mainly on the left, deny that there are any cultural differences, it just comes across as gaslighting to many people who haven't fully bought into their package of beliefs.

And we know that there are lots of people. 4 million people voted for Reform and a lot of people who voted Conservative and Labour will agree with some of these points.

The majority of voters voted Leave, which probably wasn't down to considering the intricacies of EU policy making for most.

An interesting analogy is with racism. A Black friend of mine who has lived in numerous different countries says that Britain is less racist than, for example, the US or Denmark. That's not the same as saying Britain isn't racist, simply that he has found it less racist.

I think that in part is down to the work of anti-racist activists over decades. When I was a child, Britain was horrendously racist in lots of ways, against both Black and Asian people. It's much less so now - which isn't the same as saying it's not racist at all.

Absolutely. Especially if, for example, they have had experience of a Muslim woman explaining that there are places in her home country that she will not visit, as she would be required to wear a hijab and refuses to be forced to do so.

Edited for typo.

"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"

"When someone shows you who they really are, believe them...." the first time .

To dismiss all the wise and thoughtful feminist and non feminist women and posts on here by suggesting this board is "close to the MRA points of old" IMHO is a type of Trumpian thinking - "you're all bad women thinking bad thoughts, you're bad, bad, bad".

It's very sad to see .

I honestly wonder to some posters if there's anything they ever think other women do right at all.

Your implication is that it's down to a failing on the left that there is a surge in support for the far right.
I read it again and again on here. Women feel "politically homeless", only views outside the mainstream represent them, is it any wonder they are turning to the far right.

That only holds true if you believe that racism and hostility to "others" are something that can develop as a reasonable reaction to politicians.

I don't believe that. I think racism and hostility to others are most likely values based and what this line of conversation does is provides a convenient fig leaf to those that hold those values to talk about them as if they are reasonable.

They aren't values I share or particularly want to hear about. I don't want to give prejudice oxygen.

It is also incredibly dismissive and offensive to those of us who were born and raised in these kinds of cultures, who worked hard to find a way to legally escape these cultures and move to countries like the UK precisely because we knew our life would be so much better here. We have settled and integrated and call UK our home. And now a lot issues from these countries are found here (acid attacks, honour killings, beheadings).

And me being incredibly pissed off at the kind of leftist ideologies and policies that hand wave these issues away makes me a racist, apparently.

And the "erosion of feminism" was a specific reply to eresh and others bringing up Afghanistan and the fact women have it worse there. It is a line of argument I'm familiar with as it used to be a common way MRAs would shut down debate. "What do you mean, women in the UK are discriminated against? You have equal rights in law! Try living in Afghanistan".

I want to talk about feminism in the UK and the influence of the far right. That's what JCJs article and the thread is about. I'm not interested in discussing anti-muslim prejudice. It's irrelevant, unless you think TR has a point in that regard.

I can't be arsed to nitpick over whether it's accurate to describe anti-muslim prejudice as racism is what I meant.

If you are suggesting that men from "other cultures" are a risk and need to be kept out of the UK then yes, you are suggesting they are innately worse than British born men. I don't believe that. I believe human nature is human nature.

Anyway, I find the immigration debate supremely uninteresting and not feminist at all.
When someone provides actual figures suggesting immigration is harming women I might be interested. Until then I'll stay focussed on feminism.

Quoting because Cassie appears to be talking over you in order to keep obsessing over Tommy bleedin’ Robinson (not very feminist of Cassie).

JCJ, Julie Bindel and WPUK are working from the left while trying to create a distinction between their politics and that of the mainstream left which is, I think fair to say, steeped in misogyny and has been for a very long time, probably forever.

Sorry if anyone finds that glib, sneering tosh.

It is also incredibly dismissive and offensive to those of us who were born and raised in these kinds of cultures, who worked hard to find a way to legally escape these cultures and move to countries like the UK precisely because we knew our life would be so much better here. We have settled and integrated and call UK our home. And now a lot issues from these countries are found here (acid attacks, honour killings, beheadings).

And me being incredibly pissed off at the kind of leftist ideologies and policies that hand wave these issues away makes me a racist, apparently.

It's ridiculous. I understand how you feel to the extent that I experience it as a one time left leaning feminist woman. But it's worse for women like you who have to hear this nonsense from the people who are supposedly concerned about their rights, both as women and "brown people". It's arrogant in the extreme.

Yes. That's what I mean about shades of grey.
And did you respond by telling him about the most racist country you could think of and whether he was saying the UK was like that, or did you take his point that all majority white countries have an issue with racism?

And if so, what is it about feminists saying the same thing about how women are treated globally that caused you to be defensive?

Quoting because Cassie appears to be talking over you in order to keep obsessing over Tommy bleedin’ Robinson (not very feminist of Cassie).

She doesn't want to discuss what other women feel, she wants to talk about Tommy.