The latest fallouts in GC world

[Pluvia]

My terfing energy has been focussed elsewhere in recent months and I haven't been here or on TwiX or social media much. Now I've taken responsibility for tweeting/ comms on behalf of a small but potentially significant LGB group and I discover that there seems to be something going on — another schism — in GC world. Jane Clare Jones's name seems to be coming up a lot. Something seems to have gone on but I can't work out what.

If it was my own account I'd just ignore, but the followers of this account are bringing it up and seem to expect an opinion to be expressed or a side to be taken. Also I'm seeing a lot about 'ultras' and 'lites', which is new to me. Can anyone enlighten me? I need to tread carefully.

Why do you call anyone who disagrees with KJK a soc fem?

As requested

Yay, 3 flat whites. Perfect, thanks😍

Was that me a few pages back? I wanted to read what JCJ had actually said in the piece LaScapagliata had been tweeting about, so a PP kindly linked to JCJ's blog and I found it there.

It was very rash of me - I don't even have the patience for JCJ's Twitter threads so I've no idea why I thought I could get to grips with one of her academic papers and I'm afraid I gave up after a single skim read.

So, as far as LaScap's critique goes, I'm afraid I'm still on the fence.

Floisme went for the deep dive. Still awaiting her report.

Ah, managed to miss your post, Floisme. Yes, I'm sitting it out on the fence, too.

The final, final issue of the Radical Notion... Brave woman. Who's it taking a jab at? Tell me they've gone for some fun this time round.

I've just posted about it @Pluvia - it was way too deep for me, I'm afraid and I gave up pretty quickly

Do you still have the link open? Can you post it, I might have a go.

Hang on Arabella and I'll look it up

I think it's this paper. It's on JCJ's blog which a previous poster (whose name I've forgotten - sorry!) - linked for me.
LaScap also references it on her X thread but I couldn't open it.

onedrive.live.com/?redeem=aHR0cHM6Ly8xZHJ2Lm1zL2IvcyFBZ09yQmZmR1dYWHJnbGc4bmNtX0Fic21HME5D&cid=EB7559C6F705AB03&id=EB7559C6F705AB03%21344&parId=root&o=OneUp

I think the make-up counter thing is silly. Some of the greatest make-up artists, and hairdressers, have been men.

And could explain why the drag look has been push to girls.

There are stereotypes that gay men are better at hair and make up than women, and men who have careers in make up and womens hair are gay, so maybe a lot of women are more comfortable with men because of these two stereotypes?

@illinivich it may be a stereotype but it is an established fact that some gay men are much better than me at hair and makeup than me. Doesn't make them women, nor me a man. It also doesn't mean they're in woman face or cosplaying women just by virtue of wearing makeup and being good at it too. If they claim to be female or women then that's a different kettle of fish of course but it reinforces sexist stereotypes to say that makeup is only for women.

I guess I always thought KJK was gender critical in the sense that she was critical of gender ie that it is all bullshit and sex is what matters, but I am now having to reclassify her in my mind as the "sex is real and non changeable, but gender is edifying and innate" bit of the gender critical Venn diagram.

Although they go to lengths to avoid saying it, KJK has been drifting to the right. You might have noticed that 'lefties', Democrats and the Labour Party are trashed on this board, as are Soc Fems. This is a right-leaning board, quite unusual for feminism.* However, it's apparently the fault of the left.

• This does not represent every single poster of the board.

I think most of us understand this at some level. Most people will sometimes choose a business or service because of something we feel links us to the service provider. Maybe they share our cultural background, or religion, or we are involved in the same hobby, have similar political views. It's usually not something that impacts the service itself directly, it's because we feel in some way comfortable with the person we are dealing with.

But I do think we have to be careful about it because this kind of preferencing goes all ways. Just like I might prefer female plumbers, maybe some male person would rather not have a woman alone in his house, or will just prefer to talk to a male plumber because he's a young shy guy. Whatever. But that, I think, would be seen as problematic.

I suppose my question is, how much do we expect people to ignore stuff like this for fairness? Personally, I don't accept that this is ok for marginalized people but not others.

Oh, I don't know. Men have been doing make up a long time without making girls look like they are in drag make up.

In so far as that's a thing I think it's down to trying to create illusions for social media photos. But I am seeing a lot less of the weird eyelashes and such.

I've never heard that gay men are better at those things myself, but I don't think they are particularly worse. I think it has tended to be an accepting environment with some creative scope which is attractive to that group. And gay men tend to do well, all things being equal, in whatever profession they are in, as they tend not to have kids.

That diagram is very simplistic and misleading IMO.

You don't have to think "gender expression" - which is really just traditional culture expressions attached to sexual dimorphism - is edifying or wonderful, whatever that would mean.

You just have to think that it is ubiquitous, and probably inevitable, that culture, including material culture, will reflect sexual dimorphism. It's one of the most important parts of many people's lives, what are the chances it wouldn't be reflected in culture?

If that makes it innate, sure, I guess that's a reasonable claim, but somehow the implication seems to be that people think it's innate that girls like pink or are bad drivers.

Thanks. I have noticed.

@Xiaoxiong that Venn diagram is a useful tool for helping think this stuff through but I'm not sure fitting everyone on the planet into three very simplified positions is so helpful.

Keen has always taken seriously her own comfort, listened to her own discomfort and taken that to provide as important information about the world.
Alot of my upbringing (like many women's, I imagine) I was encouraged in different ways to ignore my own discomfort, to treat it as morally, socially, even personally (!) irrelevant.
I don't believe discomfort is always the key to figuring out what's right and wrong. But I cannot believe the lengths of suppression of discomfort women are exhorted to now, for the sake of the tender feelings of male fetishists - often by GC women.
I think it's a balance that's hard to get right. But "team with-me versus team not-with-me" doesn't capture the ley of the land for me.
(The word "comfort" comes from the French, "with strength" so I'm always wary of those who want to make me uncomfortable - my Daly-esque musings for the day)

I don't see it as a left/right thing. For me it's a working class vs middle class thing. The intellectual left have long abandoned the WC and regard them as inferior and ignorant. The sniping from the soc fems drips with middle-class condescension, then they wonder why they get angry pushback.

There are many schools of feminism, when I studied feminist political theory at Uni it felt like there was a new school of thought every bloody year. There are periods of history where feminist discourse is very energised and febrile, and feminist thought is not a homogenous conceptual framing of the world and the relationship between the sexes. Women can have very different experiences depending on multiple social factors such as age, race and economic status, and that informs their political views and their conceptualisation of the world around them.

In addition to this, a lot of people (like me) who are largely left-leaning also make our minds up on an issue by issue basis rather than getting all our political or policy views wholesale from one political party or another. So perhaps what you're experiencing in FWR is lots of different schools of feminist (and political thought) interacting with each other. And perhaps some of the discussion here is not what you expect 'feminism' to be because Western culture very much portrays 'whatever type of feminism that is least troublesome to those in power' as being the correct and best kind for women and girls to adhere to.

I do not view this as a right-leaning board, I view this as a pragmatic place that tackles issues on a case by case basis and teases out the nuances via discussion from multiple points of view. It's not an echo-chamber but you will see people who've been here a long time and have reached a consensus or agreement on certain issues because they've discussed them at length.

Posters are very free to bring their interpretations to the discussions but shouldn't expect disagreement or challenge to be lacking or to be malicious in intent. Something I learned very quickly about Mumsnet when I started posting is that we're not a hugbox here.

I have way less money than KJK. And yet I am very critical of her. But you obviously think I must be a middle class intellectual?

And utopia studied feminism at university? Hardly a working class thing to do? Or not my kind of working class anyway.

And utopia studied feminism at university? Hardly a working class thing to do? Or not my kind of working class anyway

Stay in your lane Utopia.

I find it fascinating that so called left leaning academics who are the proper feminists can't type sentences that a normal woman might be able to understand, and yet when someone comes along that can, they do everything in their power to destroy them. Such feministing.

And then they accuse people of moving to the right. No, they are just moving away from you.

This.

It's a little odd to see Jane, and possibly others, frame me as "conservative" and "aligned with the far right" when I'm still a left - wing lesbian who likely agrees with them on many things. I simply take a pragmatic approach about speaking to, and yes sometimes working with, those with radically different views: it's also thought - provoking and ensures we don't live in silos.

I just find that crowd despicable in their character and behaviour. Their politics are notable insofar as they are used as a shield to disguise abusing KJK and similar.

“Democrats and the Labour Party are trashed on this board”

Or, you know, their weaknesses around these particular issues are discussed with the hope to apply the political pressure to our MP’s and government as needed.

“This is a right-leaning board, quite unusual for feminism”

And this is just a lazy and polarised reaction and may reflect your own discomfort on seeing the disappointment on the lack of speed any political gain around these issues. Particularly the disappointment with those political parties who people once thought would be much stronger in protecting the rights and protections feminists campaign for. But it a
does also come across as tribalism and as a wish to ignore that these issues do impact all women and girls and that even women and girls on the right are in the discussion now.

Some people use those types of lazy accusations to shame women who have a different perspective, just as you are doing with this post.

And no, it is not every single poster on this board. There are very few people on this board who would describe themselves as being ‘right wing’. Yet, I rarely see those who describe themselves as right wing using such polarised tactics in the discussions.