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.

Whereas Julie Bindel really is from a working class background and worked up to a middle class background. She left school and trained as a hairdresser, and is a carer.

She was one of the feminists who made written submissions to parliament opposing the proposed changes to the gender recognition act and I believe she's also made submissions in a number of court cases regarding sex and gender. Some of her articles on the political erasure of sex have been influential with groups like Women’s Place UK and with other writers like Helen Joyce and Kathleen Stock.

Her writing isn’t really my thing (although The Annals of the Terf Wars is good: https://janeclarejones.com/2018/11/13/the-annals-of-the-terf-wars/ ) but I think there is huge value is having these two arms of the gender critical movement - the academic activism and the street protests - finding a way to coexist.

Really helpful reply and link. Thanks

EverybodyLovesString
Thanks. If anyone has a different version of the WC/MC "credintials" of KJK/JCJ i'd like to hear it.

It's hard to imagine now but 6 years ago there was a media blackout of any GC opinion. Social media was the only place you could find people who were GC. JCJ had a huge impact at that time on twitter.

There were articles in the media 6 years ago and further back, but not many.
Julie Burchills article about transgender was in 2013. That got a lot of coverage. As did Germaine Greers remarks.

JCJ had a huge impact at that time on twitter.

As did KJK. I heard of Posie way before Jane and my discussions were largely online at that point.

The class thing is interesting. IME, it isn't about the class of the women themselves so much as who they appeal to. KJK is more straight forward so appeals more to those of us who are / were working class (my education and current occupation probably bans me from being working class now). She's often wrong though, and I can't be doing with acolytes.

One thing I do think is important is how feminists respond to uneducated or historically working class women who try to engage. Those "feminists" who denigrate people with less education, claim we aren't feminists because we haven't done enough reading or who take 3000 words when 5 will do in order to deliberately exclude us are actively harming women and the feminist cause.

There were articles in the media 6 years ago and further back, but not many.

There were a fair amount 6 years ago, actually, the time of Man Friday, the GRA consultation, Lily Madigan and various Labour Party issues.

KJK's billboard campaign.

I also hate "annals of the term wars". It's self-congratulatory nonsense which seems to argue all the hard work was done by 2018. It wasn't.

Who are these feminists who denigrate people with less education?

Because really, if what KJK, and other women with similar views, are saying isn't feminism - what the heck is feminism then?

She and many other women may have backed off and said, fine, we aren't feminists, then, we are just women who care about women's lives and women's rights and women having respect and autonomy to make their way in the world as women.

Saying that though shows up the "real" feminists as not having much to do with what most women think feminism is or should be. And I think the real feminists know that deep in their bones.

OK, so some years ago, 8 or 10, when this issue wasn't mainstream.

It was reported in mainstream media though. So in 2017 the tabloids reported that Ian Huntley wanted a "sex change". There followed a number of articles about other prisoners wanting or having what was then called sex changes.

Don't delete me MNHQ, that is what the tabloids called it at the time.

Who are these feminists who denigrate people with less education?

I don't have a list, I have a general impression from a number of feminist academics. And plenty of women will tell you the same. Maybe we're all paranoid, over-thinking, misunderstanding though. Or, we're not talking about you / your friends / academics you like so there's no need to worry.

She and many other women may have backed off and said, fine, we aren't feminists, then, we are just women who care about women's lives and women's rights and women having respect and autonomy to make their way in the world as women.

Saying that though shows up the "real" feminists as not having much to do with what most women think feminism is or should be. And I think the real feminists know that deep in their bones.

Yep. And it's never starker than on this majority female website where the majority of women posting are not academic feminists.

I had forgotten about a lot of this. There was the whole cotton ceiling workshop about 10 years ago. There was quite a bit of coverage about that.
A lot of the issues in the past principally affected lesbian communities. Maybe that is why so many straight women did not notice the media coverage?

Why do you spend so much time criticising academics? It just seems so nasty.

The cotton ceiling got almost no coverage. If you mention it even now the vast majority of people will look at you blankly. And trying to get them to see doesn't work because the websites that reported it were ones nobody had heard of (then or now).

Why do you think you can decide that many women here don't understand feminism?

The cotton ceiling got almost no coverage.

I agree. It was about 12 years ago I think.

I have just googled. There was a thread on mumsnet at the time. FILIA website covers it. The BBC has coverage of it.
It did not receive the coverage that Ian Huntley did, because it is an issue that affects lesbians.

Yes.

I would point out though - this is not a new thing. There have been years and years, maybe decades where the % of women who call themselves feminists is quite small.

The professional feminists have typically liked to claim that this was because said women were trying to appeal to men. But in my experience, a lot were turned off, in particularly due what they saw as the limitations of feminist ideas around motherhood, but also generally because the perceived it as requiring certain orthodoxies they didn't believe.

So it's not down to differences around GI, in my view, it's a much more longstanding problem.

There is lots of feminist writing about motherhood. The politics of breastfeeding was an influential feminist book that helped transform the way the NHS dealt with breastfeeding.

It's odd that you've decided to reply to my question as if i am one of those feminists JemimaTiggywinkles
I am sure you would like others to back you up and pile on, which is exactly what happens to JCJ online.
Does it matter to you if I tell you I am working class and still am so, that I don't have a degree, that I am all the things you think those feminists denigrate. Except they don't denigrate* or look down on me or anyone working class.
If you have evidence of those feminists denigrating working class women, post your evidence.