Jane Clare Jones, her friends and their impact

[catspyjamas1]

Following the JKR (JK Rowing) fallout about pronouns, JCJ (Jane Clare Jones) is all over X / Twitter and she has thoughts on everything... That includes taking multiple aims at Kelly-Jay Keen (KJK) and her methods like this: https://x.com/janeclarejones/status/2049176034373739007?s=20

JCJ has also taken aim at the Pronouns are Rohypnol
https://fairplayforwomen.com/pronouns/ essay from Fair Play for Women.

Anyway! The point of my post is to get a gauge of womens thoughts about JCJ and her friends / colleagues / "comrades" on the current discourse after the JKR fallout. How many women actually pay attention to JCJ? She contributed to one thing in parliment once (?) - what else has she done that has reached the culture at large (in the way that KJK has)?

And I'm absolutely gobsmacked at some of the rhetoric aimed towards Sex Matters and For Women Scotland in the last few days, because they're focusing on what they think is achievable rather than what some other people want them to focus on.

Same here, and I'm normally from the handwavey 'feminists have always disagreed' school of thought. The criticism of FWS who, as far as I'm aware, still consist of three unpaid women blew my head.

Anyway JCJ: I retain a small soft spot for her because she stuck her head over the parapet when it was far from safe to do so, and I'll always respect that. However that spot just got a bit smaller after reading that 'shouting in parks' jibe in the op's link (not JCJ's own words to be fair but she clearly found it amusing). I couldn't even get through Annals of the Terf-Wars, and I did try.

I know who you mean and she has been saying similar things but I think the "unknown" in this case was someone different.

It's obviously OK for people to think the GRA should be repealed but both FWS and Akua Reindorf had very good explanations for why they're not prioritising it.

So it's just a random person on twitter then criticising?

I think FWS know they have the respect of most women, and most sex-realists (or in fact just realists). I don't think we should be too bothered if random individuals on twitter criticise their approach. They've clearly been staggeringly successful by any metric and I'm sure feel fairly confident - at this point - that the 3 of them know what they're doing!

I think the same is true of KJK she's a deeds as well as words sort of woman and fairly single minded in her focus.

Compared to the threats they get from angry men, random people criticising their approach must seem like a fairly minor thing? People are free to go ahead and try and do something about repealing the GRA themselves if they want?

I used to follow her and noticed a while ago that she can be quite aggressive / prickly / falls out with people. That's not a crime but I unfollowed because I don't like being involved in spats and side-taking and am not interested in being seen as someone's "friend" who therefore agrees with them. I follow GC accounts but prefer the calm, wise, funny and relatively detached.

But because of that I never really have a clue who's fallen out with who this week. I have no time for arguments about mean girls, head girls or whatever. I have a view on the pronoun issue but I am happy to put my view without having a row about it.

I was here for the Moldies hoo-ha and to me it's the same old same old playground clique-forming behaviour that I just don't do because I can't be arsed, never could (and to be fair, would be utterly crap at). People who do it, I politely side-step.

Agree with PPs JCJ is to be admired in some ways, she is very intelligent and brave too.

I'll be honest, the main problem I have with JCJ is similar to the main problem I have with Glinner, and that's got relatively little to do with how Glinner sometimes misjudges a tweet or his last joke fell flat. It's because with Glinner there's always a side order of drama based around some person who he feels has disrespected him, like when he decided that the real enemies of the people were Katie Herzog and Jesse Singal, and he went on and on and on about it for months, maybe years.

I even had some sympathy for his original complaint about them, but come on man, life's too short. I'm convinced this is why JKR kept her distance from him for so long, because Glinner always comes with that side order of personal drama, and he will insist on lugging you into his latest feud.

JCJ is similar, except that it's not just her, it's her clique, and while Glinner didn't go to university, the JCJ lot never tire of reminding you about how many degrees in "studies" they have. It's all very teenage.

I follow Helen Joyce because she says interesting and important things. I don't have some parasocial thing going on where I think I'm Helen's friend and I have to share all her personal beefs (I'm sure she has some, though I can't remember her mentioning them - which should be a lesson to others)

I saw Glinner speaking on a news programme once and he spent the entire interview detailing his spats with various people, all of which might well have been justified but would have been completely incomprehensible to anyone watching.

I think we can recognise people who communicate well even if we disagree with them.

I could tell Glinner this, but I don't think he can help himself. And I sort of understand why, given all the friends who have betrayed him, but it often gets in the way of the point he wants to make.

I have never seen JCJ on a news programme, but I can easily imagine her taking up the whole interview with denunciations of those women who she doesn't want to be associated with. Except in her case it's not friends who stabbed her in the back, it's the plebs who fail to recognise her as the thought leader who gets to speak on their behalf.

That's exactly it - "side order of drama". Just can't be doing with it. There's enough drama in having to fight for our right to exist as a sex class and campaign to prevent women and children being harmed by a dangerous, unevidenced ideology.

I follow Helen Joyce because she says interesting and important things. I don't have some parasocial thing going on where I think I'm Helen's friend and I have to share all her personal beefs (I'm sure she has some, though I can't remember her mentioning them - which should be a lesson to others)

The advantage of being a journalist is that you understand how to communicate things to people who might not already know about them and can identify the lede.

I read her posts way back when, probably almost a decade ago by now. Much of her writing was very lucid and illuminating. And complex, of course. Later it seemed to veer more to complexity than lucidity and being a lazy sort of blighter, I read her less and less.

Didn't follow all the various arguments between feminists.

There is a need; it helps to satisfy @BusyAzureTraybake narcissistic obsession. It's not enough to quietly hide the thread and/or simply not engage; they have to INFORM YOU they are not engaging because, because, because.

It's all so predictable with that type...

My impression of JCJ, and I don’t follow the ins and outs of it all, is that there are ins and outs. I’m fairly sure I’ve read more than one denunciation from her. An extended essay about how someone unnamed (but we are supposed to know who) is doing it wrong and we should all withdraw our support.

Sorry mate, but A I’ll support whoever is doing something useful looking in any given moment. B Don’t tell me what to think. C stop trying to send people to Coventry, we are supposed to know better.

I felt the same way about the letter from the actresses. Have opinions, share them, don’t behave as though you have the right to tell me what I ought to think.

I agree. Too much drama.

The GC movement is a very broad church. We didn't elect a leader. We haven't all signed up to a manifesto.

I don’t need to agree with everything JCJ, KJK or even JKR says.

I quite often disagree with them all.

Sex is immutable and politically and socially relevant. Women are entitled to certain single sex spaces. That’s all I need to agree with anyone on.

I really, really dislike virtue signaling, purity spirals and tribalism. I don’t have to agree with you on everything you believe in to stand with you on biological reality.

I’m not very keen on MN threads designed to whip up feeling against another woman either.

I lost respect for her when I saw her using stupid argument tactics straight from tras. She’s used one in this debacle.

There’s feminism and there’s safeguarding and the two are not the same.

Obviously the wonderful Barracker posted Rohypnol on a thread here on mumsnet first.

Is it JCJ who is always bitching about Forstater - saying that the 'belief' line was the wrong one to take because sex isn't a belief it's just reality. Given that Forstater has allowed everyone to talk about gender critical beliefs without getting fired and JCJ doesn't appear to have an alternative suggestion I started to find her a bit tiresome and unfollowed her.

No, it's not. Alessandra Asteriti maybe?

I used to follow her in the old days and nearly went to one of her Feminism 101s (chickened out of going to a city I didn't know on my own). But I muted her after several long screeds and fallings out, and the edition of her journal that was all about KJK. Can't be doing with the intensity and frequency of the drama.

JCJ and Glinner are examples of people who need to get off Twitter or Substack, put down their phones and go outside and touch grass every now and then. Their basic philosophies are in the right place, but the online world has a habit of sucking you in and driving you crazy, with its relentless petty battles and addictive drive to reply to every idiot, and these two have been quite negatively affected by it.

Ah right. My apologies !

Just to say I have no idea who she is. And dont follow indiviudalist feminists - of which there are many on SM platforms - because i believe feminism as a collective project.

But as some on this thread said they find her interesting this is a recent post https://janeclarejones.com/2026/05/17/i-have-been-defamed-in-the-telegraph/

NB I have zero interest in derailing this thread to become one about the Israel Gaza conflict, but it is noticeable that the Telegraph is relentlessly pursuing this line that "feminists" deny there was sexual violence on 7 October, as those feminist who believe all men are potential rapists and rape is a weapon of war would be so dumb.

Although recently the Telegraph has been challenged to provide evidence of which "feminist" said what when. And this seems to be par to them saying here is one, but assuming JCJ is able to show how they have edited quotes to prove the Telegraph's assertion she has every right to complain.

But I suppose this is an added risk if you put yourself forward as an individual to comment as a feminist about feminism, you then become a target of more that competint feminsts who comment about feminism and other feminists.

People who feel strongly about an issue are bound to argue among themselves if they have different ideas on how to solve the problem. The more they care, the more passionate the argument.

In my experience, feminists of the 1970s paid at least lip-service to the principle of sisterly solidarity, but that didn’t stop some pretty robust disagreements.

I’m not interested in nit-picking about women’s political purity. Her personality is even less important. If a woman defends women’s rights, she’s a feminist and I’m with her on those issues even if I dislike some of her other views.

It looks like JCJ is a target of Nicola Lampert who appears to be DESPERATE to find an example of feminists who believe that rape is resistance and a legitimate tactic in political conflict and/or deny the atrocities committed by Hamas against Israeli citizens on 7 October.

Given that there do not appear to be any, Lampert has resorted to using some of Jane's words out of context to try to prove her unevidenced view.

It's a gross thing to do to any woman, let alone someone who has put in the public domain that she is a rape survivor, as Jane has.

I enjoy much of her writing. I don’t care about stirry stirry factionalism other than feeling sorry for the people involved that other people are using them for entertainment. I do think the influence of KJK’s politics are a worry and that does go beyond personality clash nonsense.

I am adding the FULL thread from X to so people can read it and make up their own minds.

The full context, as much as JCJ is saying otherwise, was a tweet regarding the report.