A woman who’s dedicated her life to women’s rights
Feminist Current reported yesterday:
Women’s conference in Oslo, Norway, organized by the Norwegian Socialist Party, no-platforms Julie Bindel over pressure from individuals accusing her of “transphobia.” Rachel Moran withdrew from the conference in solidarity with Bindel, yet conference organizers have refused to publicly state the reason for her action.
Moran states:
“The Norwegian Socialist Party needs to know that I will not speak for any group that displays the extraordinary cowardice they have shown in allowing an abolitionist feminist to be bullied from the stage. Julie Bindel has been an activist on men’s violence against women almost as long as I have been living, and it is nauseating to see a woman who’s dedicated her life to women’s rights shamelessly bullied and harassed in this way. The statement the Norwegian Socialist Party later released in relation to Julie Bindel’s no-platforming was sickening to the extent that, on reading it, I felt relief to know that I had already pulled out of their event. Had I not, I would have done so immediately on reading that statement.”
Et tu Norwegian Socialist Party?
See, that’s the problem. She dedicated her life to women’s rights, not to “person’s rights”
Fuck this. Just fuck this.
This is why I wil never support the prevention or disruption of a public speaker, no matter how repulsive I find their subject.
Let them speak. If you think they’re wrong or dangerous then organise. Find your best and loudest speakers and put them in the audience. Use organisational funds if necessary to pay tickets. They should be polite and respectful but at the same time should politely and respectfully argue the toss. Make sure they’re knowledgeable and informed and have thoroughly researched the speaker. They have no chance converting the faithful or the speaker him/herself but that’s not the aim. They’re going for the uncommitted in the audience.
This way, no one is censored, no one is insulted, the challengers appear as courteous and respectful people – makes it a tad harder to dismiss them or find an excuse not to listen.
If there is to be no questions/discussion with the audience then protest outside. But, again, be courteous. Don’t block the entrance. Talk to people, don’t chant/shout. Have carefully written leaflets explaining your position to offer. (And I do mean offer. Nothing looks worse than a carpet of discarded papers dropped by folk who have had them forced into their hands.)
If you want to shout and make a noise, organise a march.
But never, never advocate to shut someone up because as we all know, censorship immediately gets turned against us.
Banning a book/movie usually turns it into a bestseller. When you ban a speaker, people wonder what you are afraid of. Do their ideas pose such a strong challenge to your own that you can’t afford to let other people realize there are different ideas? If so, then you need to revisit your own ideas. That’s hard work. That takes commitment to actual research, not just learning slogans.
To bring the person in to speak, and then challenge what they say, requires work, too. You can’t just shout slogans at people like Julie Bindel; you need information, evidence, and other logical tools. You have to do more than just shout the loudest.
‘This is why I wil never support the prevention or disruption of a public speaker, no matter how repulsive I find their subject.’
I wish I could completely agree with you on this but I’m not quite there. A few years ago we had an issue with a ‘skeptics in the pub’ venue booking someone whose topic was basically ‘are women too stupid and inherently immature to be allowed out on their own?’ I didn’t get too involved in the controversy (the speaker was eventually cancelled), but I was very disturbed that this person was given a slot–I think I wrote to the event organisers to let know I wouldn’t patronise their events in the future if they went ahead with this speaker.
A blast from the past:
http://www.skepticcanary.com/2012/07/22/leeds-skeptics-debate/
Steven Moxon; yes, I remember that; I blogged about it a fair bit. A friend of mine in Leeds was very annoyed about it – about his invitation, that is, not my blogging.
I too think differences make a difference. I think Julie specifically should not be disinvited from an event, not necessarily that no one should ever be under any circumstances. I think the bar for disinvitation should be high but not absolute. I think for instance movement skeptics should distinguish between real skeptics and “skeptics” in the style of Trump’s “skepticism” about global warming and the like.
I remembered later that you’d written about it, and found one of your posts, but I was at work and for some reason couldn’t read it (not that it was blocked–but it seemed to be swamped with ads).
I can’t clearly and simply articulate the rule that puts Rebecca Reilly-Cooper and Julie Bindel on one side of a line and Steven Moxon on another–can you?
Ugh, sorry about the ads. I should really move all those 2011-2015 posts over here. Thank you Patreon patrons for supporting ad-free B&W.
No, I can’t. That’s why I put it so generally. That’s also of course why it’s always such a vexed issue. It’s much simpler to make a firm absolute rule…but I think mostly people who declare such rules have to ignore some pretty obvious potential exceptions.
I guess maybe ‘I’m not interested in providing a public platform for anyone that argues that any difference between types of people automatically implies that some types of people are inherently a) lesser in any way, or less deserving of civil rights, b) inclined toward particular abilities/emotional states/careers/etc., or c) unfit or unsuited to do something that any person can do.’ Not super-succinct, I guess; I’ll have to think more about whether this covers all the situations people in a position to provide platforms might have to deal with.