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 👏

Thanks @EdithStourton

I am under no illusion about the fact that Tommy Robinson and his gang aren't on women's side, and aren't attracted to GC issues for reasons that I respect. (Tell me something I don't know, JCJ!)

But I do find the parallel between penetration of the female body and penetration of national defences a little far-fetched. I am not convinced that that many of Robinson's supporters are (consciously or subconsciously) motivated by this association. What is her evidence?

Your implication is that it's down to a failing on the left that there is a surge in support for the far right.

It's hard to deny that this is happening. Even JCJ acknowledges this.

The longer Labour ‘ums’ and ‘ahhs’ and hedges and handwaves, the more dismissive and downright sneery they are about women’s legitimate interest in their own definition in law, the more they fuel the culture war, and the more ammunition they provide for the resurgent and increasingly scary populist right. And I, for one, will not forgive them for that.

https://janeclarejones.com/2024/06/04/dear-men-on-the-left-reprise-sigh/

But I do find the parallel between penetration of the female body and penetration of national defences a little far-fetched.

Christ I missed that in my skim read.

)Cassie) "Your implication is that it's down to a failing on the left that there is a surge in support for the far right."

(OldCrone) It's hard to deny that this is happening. Even JCJ acknowledges this.

Yes. How is what JCJ says different from what most women here are saying?

That wasn't what I was asked. And I'm not answering because any conversation won't be in good faith. Which is why I asked the pp to define multiculturalism first.

In fairness, it's just not the Left. The centre has been disastrous <waves at the LibDems> and the Conservatives have (or had, I have lost track) a number of MPs who are well and truly captured.

But it was the Left and to an extent the centre that women expected to look out for them. They've been a fucking disaster.

And 12 mentions of 'Islam' (although 11 of them are in one of the notes at the end).

We have been under a conservative, right wing government for 14 years.

This makes no sense to me. The rise of the far right is because of "the left", despite a right wing government. The damage to womens rights is because of "the left" despite the right wing government.

Feminists saying things you disagree with must be doing it because of "the left".

It's scapegoating, pure and simple.

As is blaming immigrants for all societies ills.

Which is why I asked the pp to define multiculturalism first.

You said "I highly doubt that I buy into the basic concept".

Why? So in one post you are saying that you do have a concept of multiculturalism but you won't deign to discuss it with us, in another that you don't buy into an as yet unknown "concept of multiculturalism"? Is it any wonder that people don't see what (if anything) you're actually saying?

In fairness, it's just not the Left. The centre has been disastrous <waves at the LibDems> and the Conservatives have (or had, I have lost track) a number of MPs who are well and truly captured.

But it was the Left and to an extent the centre that women expected to look out for them. They've been a fucking disaster.

YY.

You've done it again

I highly doubt that I buy into the basic concept.....of her definition of multiculturalism, that I asked for in the preceding bit of the sentence you've chopped

This isn't good faith if you are going to continuously selectively quote me. And I can't be bothered to define a term someone else brought up. If you want to debate multiculturalism, you define it first.

This makes no sense to me. The rise of the far right is because of "the left", despite a right wing government.

So you don't agree with Jane Clare Jones, as quoted, when she said:

The longer Labour ‘ums’ and ‘ahhs’ and hedges and handwaves, the more dismissive and downright sneery they are about women’s legitimate interest in their own definition in law, the more they fuel the culture war, and the more ammunition they provide for the resurgent and increasingly scary populist right. And I, for one, will not forgive them for that.

Is that right Cassie? Good old Jane has the wrong end of the stick?

You never provide your definitions or explantions when people request that you do. How is it, therefore, possible to have a "good faith" discussion when one party obscures their motives or their foundational beliefs?

A "good faith" discussion involves all parties putting their cards on the table - so that everyone can see them. A poker game where people keep their cards close to their chest is not a "good faith" discussion. It's game play.

People are generally very open and honsest about what motivates them on this board, and are very patient and generous with their time; making great efforts to be as clear as possible. You never, or rarely, return the favour, or the balls.

You start lots of threads which seem to predicated on being a Left leaning 'radical' feminist in which you position people as right wing adjacent or virtual MRAs, and then get angry when people pick up your points or rebutt them with a finer analysis or a more nuanced understanding. I'm not sure what your goal is here, because it does not seem to be "good faith" discussion or an exploration of ideas.

What was it that turned you from the Lib Dem voter you said you used to be to the 'radical feminist' you now identify with, I wonder?

I highly doubt that I buy into the basic concept.....of her definition of multiculturalism, that I asked for in the preceding bit of the sentence you've chopped

How would you know? Not particularly "good faith" of you to assume.

A "good faith" discussion involves all parties putting their cards on the table - so that everyone can see them. A poker game where people keep their cards close to their chest is not a "good faith" discussion. It's game play.

People are generally very open and honsest about what motivates them on this board, and are very patient and generous with their time; making great efforts to be as clear as possible. You never return the favour or the balls.

Well said. Fully agree.

@CassieMaddox You said,
Let's start with what you mean by "multiculturalism" as I highly doubt i even buy into the basic concept.
I read that, as it seems did many others, as you meaning that you don't buy into the basic idea of multiculturalism. Not that you don't buy into the version espoused by the poster you were responding to.

You really, really need to think about how other people are going to read and comprehend what you're saying. Otherwise everyone gets frustrated.

I am suspicious based on the tone of her other posts. You'll note she didn't answer the question. So I'm not sure why you are now making demands of me to answer something that I'm unsure of the meaning of. Please stop.

My point stands.

My foundational beliefs are very clear.
Why should I jump at the whim of another poster asking me if "I agree with multiculturalism"? It's not relevant to the thread, I have said already I'm not particularly interested.

I left the lib dems because of their position on trans rights. And "radical feminist" is derived from the meaning of radical - "from the root" meaning radical feminists the root cause of women's oppression is the patriarchy. It doesn't mean extreme, as the word radical is used in other contexts.

@CassieMaddox to go back to my previous post, you could have responded with something like
'I'd like to know what you mean by multiculturalism. I very much doubt that I define it in the same way that you do.' You could have added, 'I understand it to mean [blah blah blah] and I do/don't agree with it/believe in it.'

What you did say was incredibly easy to misunderstand. This is something I find with a lot of your posts (the use of 'innate' upthread being a case in point).

And if you're talking about TR, things like multiculturalism are VERY relevant. I suppose we can at least agree on our reasons for leaving the LibDems.

Nice tone policing. Thanks for the feedback, noted

AAAAARGH!
THIS is why I tell myself, do not engage... stay away... do not engage.

Suggesting that someone posts with CLARITY is NOT tone policing.

Here is a definition of tone policing, the first one I found from a random search:
'the action or practice of criticizing the angry or emotional manner in which a person has expressed a point of view, rather than addressing the substance of the point itself.'

That is not what I was doing. I was addressing your actual point and how you had made it very hard for anyone to understand what you meant to say.

As I have repeatedly said, you need check up on what words mean before you glibly throw them around. Otherwise people will not understand you and we'll all get cross.

Tone policing my arse
.<bashes head on table>

Of course multiculturalism is relevant to the thread. If you want to discuss attitudes to immigration, then the way that immigrants are assimilated into society is relevant.

The more I read the words ‘The Left’ the less and less the term makes any sense.

Who the fuck are ‘The Left’ nowadays anyway? Is it just JCJ and The Real Feminists of Brighton? Does JCJ ever write about economics or is it just idpol?