Interrupting
Wadhwa has issued a statement.
It says that as if we were longing to hear more from him, rather than much much less. He probably wrote the tweet himself.
I am writing this because I want to make clear what I said on the Guilty Feminist Podcast, whilst I wish my language had been clearer, a few sentences in particular have been taken out of context. My input on the podcast is based on almost two decades of experience I have in working to tackle violence against women and support survivors of sexual violence.
But he’s still a man. He’s still a man who feels entitled to be CEO of a rape crisis shelter. Whatever decades of experience he may have he’s still a man, forcing himself on women.
Let me make this very clear, if a woman engages with our services, through any route, and she feels she is not comfortable with the support worker allocated to her, we will of course, prioritise that need and will do whatever we can to provide the right support – this is the very basis of a person-centred approach and is a foundation of service delivery in advocacy work and support services across a number of sectors.
But she will have to ask. We won’t just refrain from allocating a man to her, we will make it her problem, so that she will have that to deal with in addition to the rape.
Alongside this, it is also critical that we act as proactive bystanders and lead by example as an organisation dedicated to equality and human rights. If what we see/hear from someone is clearly prejudiced and we are not responding to their urgent support need it is also part of our role to provide a space to explore and challenge this, in as kind a way as possible.
And by “is clearly prejudiced” he means “is able to recognize a man when she sees one.” She sees a man, and tries to get away from him, and the staff explores and challenges this instead of providing the support she is there to find.
In order for us to create a safe space for survivors it also needs to be a safe space for staff and volunteers, where everyone feels valued, safe and respected.
Except women who want to be in a women-only shelter in the wake of being raped. They won’t feel valued, safe, and respected.
That must be a priority if we are to be an ethical service provider for all survivors using our service, as well as an employer, taking seriously our role in creating a fairer society; this would be the case for any prejudice experienced be it racism, classism, homophobia, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, or transphobia.
That’s not even true. Ambulance crews don’t pause to try to re-educate the person on the stretcher on classism or homophobia. Fire crews don’t cut the hoses to re-educate the bigots whose house is in flames. Nurses don’t pause intubating a patient to explain trans doctrine.
I, the Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre or the Rape Crisis movement in Scotland is not looking to re-educate survivors when they come in for the urgent, potentially life-saving support they may need – that would be inappropriate. What we can do, when they are ready and if they are interested, is to help them take part in wider discussions about how violence against women is a cause and a consequence of a deeply unequal and sexist society.
But he’s a man. We don’t want to hear it from him. He’s the wrong person to be telling women that. He shouldn’t even be there.
When I speak about sexual violence and domestic abuse, I speak from my experiences; as a migrant, as a woman of colour and as a trans woman – I am open about all of that, because being open about our experiences and being able to tell our own stories is one way that we can create a fairer society and fight back against the inequality that silences us.
There’s that ploy again – he gets to count himself twice, because he’s a woman of colour and a trans woman. He gets to count himself as more oppressed than mere women, because he’s a woman and a trans woman.
I am drawing a line under the podcast and in desperate hope that my words here are understood in full and with the compassion and integrity I am writing with.
So that’ll be zero then. You got it.
https://youtu.be/XKnAZJ6WTk8?t=782
(Holly Lawford-Smith talks about how where we might see a given man as having just one category of disadvantage, namely “being trans” [though I would probably say “suffering from mental illness, whether crippling AGP fetish or other”], a trans ideologue would see such a man as having many categories of disadvantage: Being a woman, being a trans woman, being a lesbian…”.)
Yeah, I don’t see the Edinburgh Rape Crisis Center promising female rape victims that their counselors and roommates will be white, upperclass, straight, Aryan, or Christian. They’re saying they will be women. And then they’re taking it back. “Transphobia” is not in the same category.
“
So who gets to determine when she’s “ready” to be challenged? And even if they wait until she stops bleeding and crying all over the floor, why should they “challenge” her views? She should be their first priority. Yes, overt bigotry is bad, and when someone behaves in a racist manner toward an employee in a business, it is appropriate to ask them to leave. But (1) this isn’t the sort of ‘business’ you kick someone out of; and (2) she isn’t a bigot if she sees a trans woman as a man. She’s realistic.
Lost, somehow, in all those “decades of experience, is any awareness of the fact he should not be there at all.
Maybe not yet…
Ooooh, BURN!
I find it laughable that he mentions “classicism”… perhaps his ilk has started noticing not giving lip service to that is perhaps a problem?
But rape crisis centres are not a business. Also, consider the case of a woman who was gang-raped by a group of black men. Is she a bigot if she is now a little more afraid of groups of black men? I don’t think so, she is adapting her survival skills.
Last year my grand daughter was sexually assaulted at school; she was 12. Yesterday I had to collect her after a classroom activity triggered a panic attack. She told me that some students tried to comfort her, and boys were patting her back in sympathy, but the touch of those boys made her panic attack worse. She knew they were friends, she knew they were trying to help, but the PTSD becomes the dominant feeling. Is she bigoted against boys? No. A dozen of them sent texts last night of comfort and wanting to know if she was OK.
@ Roj Blake;
How awful for her! And yes, our reactions to trauma don’t always follow rational analysis, let alone Correct Appearance of Morals.
Wadhwa’s focusing on his own needs, which include being an activist for trans rights. That’s not the job. Though since he doesn’t qualify for the job, he wouldn’t know that.
Yeah, Roj, that was the point I was making in Number 1. It isn’t a business, you don’t just ask people to leave. Too many people are in this mode of “I don’t have to hear anything I don’t want to hear”. And all too often, when something happens like what your granddaughter went through, people who are tired of the nonsense will often jumble the panic attack with the nonsense. “Like, seriously, you’re babying her?” Something like that is a good reason to pick her up and make sure she is okay; the goddamn TRAs are equating misgendering with what your granddaughter went through, and it is disgusting. If they really “felt like a woman”, they would get it.
“Mridul Wadhwa”
How to pronounce the name?
Oh, jeez, Roj, that’s awful.
Roj, I’m really sorry to hear what your grand daughter (and the wider family) are going through. That’s horrible. I do hope that things get better for her and that what sounds like a caring friend group remain strong around her.
Ugh, Roj, so sorry to hear about your granddaughter. What Rob said.
Assuming that the name is Hindi (nb: I don’t know the language, or any language indigenous to the Subcontinent, so I’m relying on Wikipedia), pretty much as it’s spelled. Keep in mind, though, that the vowels have approximately the quality they have in most European languages; English is the outlier. Also, apparently Hindi has a long/short distinction, and it’s not clear (to me, at least) which of the vowels should be long, and which short (and again, don’t let English conventions of “long” vs. “short” distract you; the difference in Hindi seems to be in quantity (how long you pronounce the vowels), not quality (how you pronounce the vowels)).
As for the consonants, for the most part they’re obvious. Hindi doesn’t make a phonemic distinction between /w/ and /v/, so you could get away with either. The /r/ is a tap, similar to a Spanish /r/ (if you’re a speaker of American English, it’s similar to the “tt” in “hatter”).
Probably the most difficult sound for English speaker is the “dh”. Usually it’s described as an aspirated voiced consonant, but that’s not terribly helpful; others call it “murmur” or “breathy voice”. You can hear it here.