Women deserve better
Dan Orr’s manifesto or campaign pledge or promo or whatever it is:
Women deserve better from our university. Sexual violence and harassment remain prevalent, and women are too often held back by misogyny and its intersections. As co-chair of Oxford SU’s Women’s campaign I helped bring women together to discuss feminism, establish support networks and campaign for change. From working with Irish activists in demonstrating and fundraising for the Repeal the Eighth campaign to tackling sexual violence on campus I learnt that the strength of the feminist movement is in its diversity and in the solidarity we have for each other. I want to bring the women at this university together to enact real lasting change. As a trans woman I have been lucky to work with and be supported by some deeply compassionate women activists and I want to extend the same support to women who are often excluded from certain types of feminism. Feminism is nothing without women of colour, migrant, disabled, queer, trans, Black and sex working women. As women’s officer I intend to focus on ensuring harassment is dealt with appropriately, sex working students receive support, student parents have a place to study and that we remain a pro-choice SU. Vote Dan Orr for women’s officer.
Women are “held back by misogyny and its intersections” – what are the intersections of misogyny?
Why was a man co-chair of Oxford SU’s Women’s campaign?
Why was a man needed to help “bring women together to discuss feminism, establish support networks and campaign for change”?
He learned “that the strength of the feminist movement is in its diversity and in the solidarity we have for each other,” by which he must mean its eagerness to include men in its feminism.
He wants “to bring the women at this university together to enact real lasting change” – like a shepherd guarding sheep.
I guess it’s the head-tilt that makes him a woman.
I would suggest that trans ideology is the intersection of misogyny…except I’m not sure about that. It might be right in the middle of the highway.
Fuck me dead. I am a man who has spent 4o years as a feminist; that is, I have wherever and whenever possible supported women’s campaigns for equality at work and in the provision of services, campaigns to eliminate sexual harassment and assault of women, and campaigns to eliminate forcing women into a confined set of “choices”.
The big difference is I support women’s campaigns, I do not speak for women or try to tell women how to “feminist better”. I am sure that women are far better placed than me to decide the campaigns they need.
None of the feminist campaigns I have supported has excluded “women of colour, migrant, disabled, Black and sex working women.” There has been some disputation of how best to protect women sex workers; if full decriminalisation or the prosecution of “johns and pimps” is the better way, or something else.
Queer and trans women have their own, specific needs. These needs are not women’s needs. I am happy to support trans and queer women’s organisations if their aims are to liberate, not to dominate.
Clearly, transgender ideology is at one of the intersections of misogyny. But which intersection is that? The intersection of misogyny and political correctness?
Well, some of queer women’s needs are women’s needs – the ones that arise because they are women. The ones that arise because they are queer are better dealt with by the LGB organizations that are better equipped for that, and that do center that aspect of their lives. Just like women of color have some needs that are best dealt with by feminism, and some that are best dealt with by organizations fighting racism.
Feminism should be supportive of all these groups in their fights against injustice, but should not be centering the issues that arise from sexual orientation, color, creed, or other things in the feminist movement. In those things, we can be allies and advocates, and most of us are, but feminism is the needs of women as women dealing with the issues that arise for us because we are women. That is what we can, and should, deal with, while accepting the reality of more than one axis of oppression that many of us have.
The mistake that I see some of the trans activists making, is that they don’t acknowledge the shared goal, which is gender equality. Being antagonistic towards feminists and sabotaging them is counterproductive to the goal. They could work together if they would simply identify exclusively as trans people. Like the post about McConnell, if she (he) was to try and legally change her (his) status, rather than from mother to father (or parent), and instead to ‘trans parent’, I think something like that could be achieved. How about the basic recognition of trans people as neither traditional biological males or females, but as transgender, and create new, separate, legal categories? It sounds much easier and less hateful than what they are doing now, and then they could ally with feminists instead of trying to hijack them. I don’t see this happening until they stop trying to insist they are actual biological males or females when they are clearly not, and start working toward legal recognition of their actual status as transgender — a separate, legitimate category of people with differing and specific concerns about their of oppression and marginalization. Then they could fight alongside everyone toward gender equality and civil justice, instead of against them.
And of course, women organizing and campaigning for their sex-based rights (or even wondering how a man was elected as women’s officer) will be considered “harassment” and will be “dealt with appropriately.”
Aren’t feminists out to get rid of gender altogether? Gender equality is not the same as gender abolition. If feminist theory says that gender is a social construct based on sex-assigned stereotypes used by patriarchy to subordinate women, then getting rid of gender is one of the aims of women’s liberation. What meaning does “gender identity” have if gender is dismantled and done away with? How can one have “gender equality” without gender? Trans identified people, having ignored, rejected or abandoned their natal sex, have nothing but the gender role of the other sex to strive toward emulating. Feminism sees gender as a weight and drag on women that must be cut loose and cast off, while for trans ideology, gender is a life jacket onto which it clings for dear life.
I see you, sneaking men in there! A quick translation:
“Feminism is nothing without [non-white female humans], [migrant female humans], [disabled female humans], [queer female humans – the term is untranslatable as it is meaningless], [male female humans] …”
‘The mistake that I see some of the trans activists making, is that they don’t acknowledge the shared goal, which is gender equality.’
The activists who seem to be causing the most disruption and damage don’t seem to be interested in gender equality. They are men who are interested in ensuring that they get what they want from women, and using their male privilege and male socialisation to great effect in achieving this goal.
The more I read this line, the more it bugs me.
Feminism has included racists, xenophobes, eugenicists, homophobes etc… throughout its history.
And their bigotries did not render their calls for an end to gender inequality null, any more that MLK Jnr’s homophobia rendered his calls for racial equality null.
If you eliminated racism, xenophobia, homophobia etc… feminism would still have its place in fighting sexism.
To proclaim that feminism or any other social justice activism is “nothing without…” is an all or nothing fallacy that inherently demands a higher standard of behaviour from allies than you would demand from enemies.
You cannot solve every problem all at once, you can make progress by breaking problems up into manageable chunks. Pushing the feminist movement into being the everything movement inherently devalues feminism by removing its core idea from the discussion, and removing its focus.
And that is not to say that feminism is better without the listed groups, or that the various groups are wrong to organise or demand recognition from the feminist movement, but to point out that the core idea of gender equality is a thing in and of itself that can provide common ground to people of otherwise very different ideologies.
These people can work together within the context of feminism even if they don’t like each other very much outside of that context. This is how movements win, not by achieving a broad based intersectional agreement on all points, but agreement on a few points that allow majorities to develop behind them, allowing progress on those points.
By requiring agreement on all points, intersectionality minimises support for all points, thus slowing and even reversing progress on any given point.
This is the best summation I have seen of this idea. It needs to be said, and repeated. Removing all traces of racism and homophobia is desirable, but even without doing that, calls for equality are legitimate.
Mission creep has destroyed many a movement. Feminism needs to be about women. It needs to center women – all women, yes, but still women. And to some extent trans understand that, which is why the constant wail of TWAW…they know they will not get sympathy on opening women’s spaces to male bodies unless they convince people that they are women.
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