Statement on the gender critical movement and the far right

[hellotowel]

https://x.com/GCAntiFarRight/status/1823790909462602205

"We, the undersigned, are deeply disturbed that populist messages particularly targeting Muslims have gained traction among significant numbers of social media accounts associated with the gender critical movement."
Read and sign our statement below.
https://gcantifarright.wordpress.com/2024/08/13/statement-on-gc-movement-and-the-far-right/

A psyop apparently

x.com/belstaffie/status/1824567401033371763?s=46&t=WHoOZ_3Kv5G6-FyQuvE0LQ

@hellotowel has not been back. Stir up a hornet's nest and fuck off. Always a good tactic.

@TempestTost
A lot of it has proven to be a dead end, anti-mother, (and by extension anti-woman,) authoritarian, dogmatic. The fact that the women committed to it are now trying to regain control of the narrative does not surprise me at all, they never really wanted engagement from most women.
That was very much how I felt when I was the trenches of motherhood, underslept, overstretched, endlessly busy: the feminism I read in the paper (we took the Grauniad in those days) didn't seem to apply to me, or consider me, because I wasn't in paid employment and had chosen to stay at home and bring up my DC, relying on DH (who didn't have to bother about pregnancy and breastfeeding in quite the same way) to go out to work. There might have been feminism out there that would have applied, but this was before the internet really took off and in any case, I was too knackered to go looking.

My life, and the life of many women like me, just didn't seem to enter the consciousness of what was then mainstream feminism. If it engaged with motherhood at all, it was all about maternity leave, shared parental leave and finding childcare, not about mothering your children they way that I found myself biologically driven to do. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe I missed great seminal and readable books that talked to women who stayed at home with their DC about why they did it, whether they considered themselves feminists and why. But it turned me off feminism for a long time.

My DM would never have called herself a feminist, but effectively, despite her RW politics, she brought me up to be one. It was largely because of her and the ethics she'd reacted me in that I gradually wandered back into the feminist fold. This sort of infighting would incline me to wander right back out again - except that we have the fight of our lives on our hands at the moment.

O rly? 🦉

Rly. Believe

Yes @BunfightBetty ideally, that would be the case.

But look at this thread. I have quite mildly stated the reason for my signing "the letter." I've received a barrage of abuse (mostly now deleted - I did NOT report any posts so obviously others saw it as abuse also). I've said several times that there's room for a range of opinions, points of view, and indeed activist actions in the women's movement, and received a whole lot of:

"No. You are wrong and should act differently."

Simply because I have stated publicly that I do not wish to be associated with racism in the name of women's rights.

There is a genuine disagreement here. And I've been arguing that there is room in the women's movement for a variety of points of view on this matter. But have been told, with quite some abusive force, that there is no room for disagreement or tolerance of diverse opinions or actions.

I do think signing a letter that accuses women of racism and inflaming riots is significantly stronger statement than people like me calling it into question and saying it’s poor behaviour.

I don't think academic feminism has added much to the material gains around women's issues. A lot of that is down to concrete issues where all or most women, and in the end most men, got on board. Yes - often with some significant public debate, but that isn't a bad thing, it's what protects us from bad policy and unexpected consequences.

Well, it depends ...

Where would we be without academic feminists like Germaine Greer ? Or Anne Oakley? Or Anna Davin, or Catherine Hall, or Leonore Davidoff, or Isobel Armstrong, or Barbara Caine, or Elaine Showalter, or Ellen Moers, or Elizabeth Grosz, or Moira Gatens, or Jo Phoenix, ior Kathleen Stock, or Dale Spender, or ...? And that's just a few women who's work I know, who are doing feminist history, feminist literary studies, feminist philosophy, and feminist sociology.

You can't separate theory and practice - you need both.

Signing the letter is not a benign act. There is specific mention of one particular person.

Why do you feel it necessary to pick out a single account?

Right, I hear you, but by signing the letter you are part of the problem. The letter itself is a problem. Rushing to condemn other feminists isn’t helpful. You don’t need to attack them.

People need to grow the fuck up frankly, and stop all this silly nonsense of demanding that others have identical opinions to them in all areas or they are shunned. People need to stop grouping others together and tarring and shaming. It’s childish.

We need to go back to the very simple understanding that just because Hitler was vegetarian that doesn’t mean all vegetarians are fascists. Similarly, just because one or two people with GC views have also promoted racist views that doesn’t make other GC people racist. I’m frustrated this even needs to be said. Any reasonable person with a brain knows that in any group of people there will be a variety of views. This is normal. If you haven’t said or done anything racist, then you don’t need to sign any letter.

There is specific mention of one particular person.

Well, there wasn't in the version of the letter I read & signed.

Don't be disingenuous. You know very well what I mean.

You signed a letter which specifically makes mention of a single person. Someone you know has already experienced violence and death threats.

So do I.

Perhaps if those who wish to be viewed,and who view themselves, as at the forefront of the current women's rights movement, had ensured that there was clear blue water between themselves and those who supported racist thug "Tommy Robinson " and his fascist supporters, there would have been no need for any letter.

Similarly, just because one or two people with GC views have also promoted racist views that doesn’t make other GC people racist. I’m frustrated this even needs to be said.

I don't think we disagree as much as you think @BunfightBetty I'm also frustrated that this needs to be said.

But I think it does need to be said because there has been an extended & false equivalence made by TRAs between feminists and far-right activists. It's been going on since at least 2017 , possibly earlier. I remember 2017 because I responded on Twitter to something Owen Jones wrote about only right-wingers opposing gender extremist ideology (he didn't use that term, of course!) and got a barrage of Twitter abuse. The Twitter abuse was to be expected but it also brought on an attempt to get me sacked (I was one of the earlier examples of this but wasn't allowed to say anything publicly for years).

And it's needed to be said ever since. Look at the Labour Women's Declaration, at Rosie Duffield (one of the letter's originators), the number of women who are - or were - staunch Labour activists who've been expelled from the party or who have left it of their own volition over this (Beatrix Campbell & Joan Smith to name two of them).

It is frustrating that it needs to be said.

You signed a letter which specifically makes mention of a single person.

The letter I signed mentions Tommy Robinson. Are you defending him?

"However, we do not for a moment believe that Robinson and his followers are genuine supporters of women’s rights or concerned for the welfare of children who would otherwise turn out to be lesbian or gay."

Well JCJ is threatening to write ANOTHER essay explaining how all her opinions are actual facts unlike everyone else's. But at least she says why she signed

Fucking quite. The only reason I am not inclined to do it is for strategic reasons for the good of the cause. The purpose of the statement is actually to protect the cause of it blows up their faces. (although that seems lost on most people, I have something to say about that very soonly.) I am not inclined to give the TRAs all the ammo they need to make it blow up.

https://x.com/janeclarejones/status/1824742129400189016?t=RRDISzViLd_sR8CcKb6tew&s=19

I really think she needs to get out more and meet some real women.

I'm talking about this..

" among significant numbers of social media accounts associated with the gender critical movement, and that one major account in particular has actively fanned the flames of racist violence with increasingly inflammatory video messages."

Are you saying that wasn't in the draft of the letter you signed?

@YellowAsteroid

Lol, that was a quick edit. Keep doubling down.

If someone is believed to be recognisable from that description in the letter, even by their own supporters, then I find that quite telling about what people believe they are supporting.

It'll be fascinating reading the reasons people signed.

A bit like the excuses given my men rocking up to A&E with a gerbil lodged up their arse.

The movement, the movement, the movement bla bla

Women are not a hive mind. The quibbling is necessary to societal development. We are not going to have sacred (virtuous and unquestionable) ideas in the name of moving women forward.

That's a trojan horse just waiting to be filled.

Is this the intellectual level that the conversation has reached?
When you run out off cogent argument bring in deviant sexual practises and suggest that other posters are involved?

22 pages filled with posters shouting at people who signed a letter opposing racism.

What on earth does Belstaffie mean? What exactly is the psy-op in this context? Why would she do this?

Well, quite.