Standing for Women, led by Kelly-Jay Keen, is on a Let Women Speak European tour. Despite the solid police presence backed up by water cannons on standby, women’s safety could not be guaranteed. The event was cut short by gender fascists as is now common in so-called liberal democracies. You could hear the angry male voices booming in the background as brave women spoke in front of the UN.
I found one speech to be particularly powerful so I’ve translated/summarized Camille’s speech below:
When I was a teenager I wasn’t into femininity. I didn’t have a lot of friends because I didn’t want to wear make-up and high heels, and talk about boys all the time. Now I’m seeing all over again that girls and women are being told we’re women because we identify as women, that we accept all the things society says we should be and do. This causes me a lot of pain. When I hear the stories of girls who think they’re trans or non-binary because they don’t conform to gender, our stories are exactly the same. This ideology is dangerous for women, and gays and lesbians in particular.
My family couldn’t understand why I didn’t want to be like my female cousins. When I was a bit older, about 25 or 26 years old, I started watching make-up tutorials and wearing dresses and heels because I thought there was something wrong with me. I wanted to be accepted. Only then was I told, ‘Oh my god, Camille, you’re finally a real woman!’
In a way this made me happy because I felt like my efforts were successful and I was finally ‘normal’. At the same time, it killed me inside because I now had proof of what I suspected growing up: that people really did believe all the things I’d been told at home and at school, and by the women around me, which is that women are considered defective – not good enough and not ‘real’ women – if they’re not feminine. From that moment on, I stopped wearing make-up and all that stuff. I want to tell girls and boys that gender – the roles society imposes on you – is a prison. To be free is to let go of it. And don’t be afraid to say so to those around you.
It used to be that people who described themselves as queer were simply gay, lesbian or bisexual. Some rejected the idea of reclaiming the slur on principle while others believed it was an effective way to change the meaning and thus the power of the word. Now fewer and fewer people are referring to themselves as gay, lesbian or even bi. Most just say they’re queer. Why is this the case, and whom does it serve?
‘Queer’ ultimately means whatever the person using the word means – and that’s the point. Referring to oneself as queer is a deliberate, often well-meaning attempt to signal one’s inclusivity. If you do say you’re gay or lesbian and insist that means you’re same-sex attracted, trans activists will call you a bigot (Don’t believe me? Scroll down to the bottom). Better not open that can of worms and make someone feel invalidated. One big happy rainbow family.
Queer is a word that describes sexual and gender identities other than straight and cisgender.
Planned Parenthood
Notice ultra-woke Planned Parenthood uses the word straight instead of heterosexual; this framing avoids associating biological sex with sexual orientation so it’s accommodating to gender identity.
If you call yourself Queer, I’m going to assume you’re ashamed of your sexuality and are hiding behind an umbrella term.
The Unitarian Universalist Association, however, presents a much more expansive definition:
Although this definition is less widely known, many so-called queer people identify with the fourth definition. For them, it isn’t about sexual orientation or even gender identity necessarily, but the simple act of kicking against sexual norms. As a radical feminist, I believe some norms should be smashed, including gender, but not for the sake of it. That’s just nihilistic teenage rebellion. In Sexual Politics, Kate Millett demonstrated that rather than happening in a social vacuum, social shifts happen in the context of pre-existing power dynamics. In a patriarchy, the sexual revolution of the 1960s inevitably found a way to exploit women while claiming to liberate them. A modern iteration would be SlutWalks which, conveniently for straight and bi men, give them exactly what they want.
I don’t care if men wear makeup, carry purses, wear their hair long or don’t know how to change a tire. Gender critical people often say they don’t mind men in dresses. Yeah, well radical feminists do, and not because the cocks in frocks are performing femininity. Now, one might think feminists would appreciate men adopting the feminine gender role. The first problem arises when men leverage gender identity to claim that doing so makes them women. The second is what femininity means to them. Men no longer perform femininity while acknowledging they’re men like they once did in the goth, glam, and hair metal scenes. Thanks to porn, more men than ever are internalizing the fetishization of the female body, transposing themselves as the female object of desire. As sexual submission is indelibly linked to femininity, these men get a charge out of pretending they’re a member of the subordinate sex, frequently identifying as masochistic “sissies”. This is evidenced by the explosion of sissy hyno porn and forced feminization. These men are otherwise known as auto-gynephiles. Men like the Oakville high school teacher with gigantic prosthetic breasts and protruding nipples, a dude who calls himself Rosemary Times and exposes himself in public and women’s spaces (NSFW), darling of professional gender critical feminists Debbie Hayton, and, as radical feminists have suspected all along, Lia Thomas. The list of AGPs is endless.
James Cantor says: (1) shaming AGP is unfair; (2) AGP is a sexuality, like homosexuality; (3) Lia/Will Thomas is a "her"; (4) AGP is "inborn"; and (5) homosexuality, like AGP, is a paraphilia that boils down to sociopolitical view and "image management." pic.twitter.com/9qCVRuzI1U
Once you see these things, you can’t unsee them and it becomes clear why cross-dressing in this context is neither innocent nor a human right. Men don’t have to worry about trans-identified females creeping into their washrooms, locker rooms, and changerooms to perv on or film them, film themselves while committing lude acts, or assaulting them. Women simply don’t tend to have that compulsion and even if they did, they could easily be overpowered by men. Trans activists always accuse “TERFs” of being prejudiced against trans people when in fact the issue is the ever-present reality of male violence and, that threat aside, the right of both females and males to privacy.
Quotes from 'Foucault and Queer Theory' by Tamsin Spargo:
"In theory, queer is perpetually at odds with the normal, the norm, whether that is dominant heterosexuality or gay/lesbian identity. It is definitely eccentric, ab-normal."
Because queer theory fundamentally values transgression, there have always been people – men, largely – with “marginalized” sexual interests within LGBT culture, notably becoming more visible in the 1970s with drag, transvestism, and transsexualism. As such, the LGBT/queer trajectory has been and remains controlled by men, initially with gay men and now, increasingly, straight trans-identified men. It was largely gay male culture, which can be quite misogynistic, that embraced practices like BDSM, leather families, porn, prostitution, etc. Some lesbians did as well, but to a much lesser extent and it wasn’t a feature of the culture of women-identified-women. In other words, these practices aren’t inherent to homosexuality or bisexuality. What does someone who likes to flog or be flogged, choke or be choked, or have multiple partners have in common with any random homosexual?
After the AIDS crisis and the recognition of same-sex marriage, LGBT advocacy increasingly shifted from sexual orientation to sexual identity. This allowed the kink community to gain a stronger foothold. Bottom feeders like pedophiles saw the opportunity to stake their claim, convincing some prominent queer activists to begin referring to them as “minor attracted persons” or MAPs. Michel Foucault, a founder of queer theory, has been accused of raping children and was at the very least a child sexual abuse apologist. Since Foucault and John Money, numerous prominent queer/trans activists have tried to destigmatize pedophilia and normalize the idea of child sexuality, that children are sexual beings, including Peter Tatchell and Jacob Breslow. Alok Vaid-Menon, posting from his Blackmatter Facebook account, once referred to girls as kinky and deviant. A queer Pre-K teacher in California published a post on social media questioning childhood innocence.
Bearing all of this in mind, it doesn’t take an evangelical Christian to question the appropriateness of bringing children to drag shows, which until very recently have been understood even by liberals as adult entertainment. That male drag performers are grotesque sexist caricatures of femaleness should be considered damaging to children, especially girls. We now have several instances on camera of men performing as scantily-clad female strippers interacting with children, taking their money or encouraging them to stuff cash into their g-strings. Even when performers are conscious of what’s appropriate, somehow some parents aren’t. These videos are real. The political persuasion of those sharing them is irrelevant. Those who believe Drag Queen Story Hour is innocuous might be surprised by what some LGB people have to say about the messages children are really getting from these events, including stories that encourage them to believe they may be born in the wrong body, can become the opposite sex, and should change their gender to fit their personalities.
The question isn’t whether LGBT people are perverts or predators. The question is, why do organizations like the Pedophile Information Exchange and the people who associate or sympathize with them always glom onto queer politics? Because the queer community and queer advocacy are usually male-led and unfortunately, male sexuality can be very problematic. Combine that with a movement whose ethos is rainbows and love on the surface and transgressive sexuality de rigueur underneath, and ‘queer’ can either be something beautiful or something monstrous.
.@EdinburghUni, can you explain why you hosted homophobic hate preacher @katymontgomerie who told your students that my same-sex attraction is a “dogwhistle”?
If being a feminist means recognizing that women and girls face unique challenges because we’re female and men as a class exert power over us, why do some women, especially some who campaign for women’s rights, reject the label?
One reason proferred is that the words ‘feminism’ and ‘feminist’ supposedly don’t mean anything anymore because the movement has been astroturfed and is dominated by women who are male-centred. These are the “sex positive” cool girls who go on slut walks and denounce you as a SWERF if you criticize the sex trade’s disproportionate impact on women and girls. They say that talking about this creates the stigma around “sex work,” which then inspires men who purchase sex to assault and kill women. The fact that men who target desperate and underprivileged women to purchase their consent are violent misogynists driven by their hatred of women is not only ignored but unspeakable. These same so-called feminists are also happy to allow male sex offenders into women’s prisons and for men to steal medals from female athletes, represent women in politics, and erase women as the female sex class in law and language. Obviously, they’re the opposite of feminist.
The problem with this stated reason for not identifying as feminist, however, is it’s rife with contradiction. The word ‘woman’ arguably doesn’t mean anything anymore either because trans activists have succeeded in bullying a huge tranche of the population into saying “trans women are women” and defining ‘woman’ as anyone who identifies as one. Should we then abandon the word ‘woman’ because it’s been pretty much mangled beyond recognition, most recently by the Cambridge Dictionary? Of course not. It’s nonsensical for women who oppose male appropriation of womanhood to reclaim the meaning of ‘woman’ but not the meaning of ‘feminist.’
For this reason, I’m suspicious that the real motivation might be a desire to remain in feminist spaces while protecting one’s likeability. Particularly if one has broadened one’s content to non-feminist audiences and makes a living off podcasting and writing. Why else would someone who founded a feminist platform and has published so much clear, uncompromising feminist writing suddenly become sympathetic to the ridiculous claim that incels are misunderstood victims? Women who date men have to make many uncomfortable choices, often between their feminism and their relationships with or appeal to men. They should nevertheless be honest about their motivations.
Another explanation a women’s rights campaigner has given for not identifying as a feminist is she believes some feminists really are man-haters and have gone too far. Standard MRA rhetoric of the “feminism is cancer” variety. Ironically, this person also acknowledges that some women sell other women out. I’ve heard one podcaster, a lesbian who vehemently opposes gender identity, say the word patriarchy is overused. How can it be that naming a system that degrades, brutalizes, and murders girls and women is considered excessive, rather than the system itself? Should we resort to sanitized language to describe our oppression, the same way liberation has been replaced by equality? Notably, the individuals who say these sorts of things frequently criticize liberal feminism, usually on the basis that it’s fake feminism, which is exactly what they’re engaging in when they eschew class analysis and refuse to name the problem. And anyway, why be offended by fake feminists when you don’t want to be a feminist yourself?
We use certain words constantly in feminist circles because the whole point is to talk about feminist concepts. If you get tired hearing about it, do the decent thing and bow out graciously and leave women to do the work. Don’t go whining to men and any woman who will tolerate it that women won’t shut up about our oppression. Outside of those spaces, people aren’t talking about patriarchy enough. Just because men bristle at the mention of male violence, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t talk about it.
Some arguments between feminists and not-really-feminists turn on the way in which mothers shield their boys from scrutiny. No mother wants to believe her son hates her and other females on some level. She’s inclined to believe she’s done a good job and may have even tried to avoid pushing masculinity on her son(s). But I suspect a mother who doesn’t want to call herself a feminist and parrots MRA talking points isn’t well prepared to raise a boy/man who supports the feminist struggle and treats women and girls with respect. If boys themselves weren’t a threat, many of us girls wouldn’t have experienced all manner of violence, including sexual violence, at the hands of boys. And yet we have.
There’s also the claim that feminism is the province of middle class educated women: “I’m working class and we don’t do academic feminism (paraphrasing).” A lot of radical feminists are working class and have never taken a women’s or gender studies course. I certainly haven’t and I certainly don’t come from a middle class family. Those of us who don’t fit this characterization are able to understand that naming the class of people who oppress us is critical to our liberation from them even if we believe the oppressive behaviour is learned and not biological. It doesn’t require a degree.
And what’s up with this business of identifying as a feminist, anyway? What does that even mean? Given the nonsense around identifying as a woman, or black, or disabled, we should be clear that some things are objective; words have meaning. Mere utterance doesn’t make something true, e.g. a man who says he’s a woman or non-binary is a man no matter what he says. If you satisfy the definition of feminist (what it actually means, not the bullshit version patriarchy has cooked up), then aren’t you a feminist?
You may not want to stain yourself with the title but you are what you are. You may resist in order to avoid some measure of punishment, just as some women and girls try to identify out of femaleness. The logical parallel should be evident to anyone who rejects gender identity. So if some women don’t want to call themselves feminists for whatever reason, they’re probably more male-centred than they’d like to admit. One might argue that what really matters is the work they do – tireless, brilliant, amazing work which benefits all women. That’s fair. We should give credit where credit is due.
But women aren’t fragile creatures immune to critique. Our predecessors defiantly marched behind the feminist banner. Our rights are once again under attack: our bodies, our spaces, our language. Now is the time to proudly reclaim the legacy of feminism. We don’t need another word to describe who we are. We already have one. It was taken from us. Whichever new one you try to use, they’ll try to take it from you too. Feminism, female, woman, vagina, mother, breastfeeding, menstruation, intersectionality, homosexuality, oppression, biological sex, patriarchy…
I say we stand our ground and say, “No, fuck off, you can’t have it, it’s ours.”
The phrase ‘gender critical’ has become commonplace in discussions around gender identity. In many ways, however, it mimics gender ideology’s propensity for confusing language and contradiction.
A quick primer if you haven’t read my blog or radical feminist work: humans are a sexually dimorphic species consisting of females and males, the two sex classes. ‘Intersex’ is a misnomer as people referred to as such are technically female or male but have sex organs that haven’t developed properly; they’re not a third sex. Sex is about reproduction, which requires a female and a male. Like other species, we’re wired to instantly recognize sex because our continued survival as a species depends on it. There are physiological differences between the sexes which are designed to facilitate reproduction, but they don’t extend to cognition, personality, aptitudes, hobbies, etc. There’s no female or male brain. There are many boys who take after their mothers and girls who take after their fathers. It’s not as though those genetic traits that females inherit from their male ancestors are rendered inactive. The truth is personality is highly individualized, shaped by genetics, environment, and one’s choices.
Gender, on the other hand, is the social hierarchy that shunts females and males into two separate, opposing, and unequal social classes. Females are trained into femininity and males are trained into masculinity. It starts before birth with ridiculous “gender reveal” parties and continues from there nonstop. The first thing people ask when they see an infant is, “Is it a boy or girl? Adults speak differently to babies once they know their sex. Masculinity encourages males to engage in the sort of behaviour that affords them power and dominance, while femininity encourages females to be self-sacrificing, self-limiting, and obsessed with being attractive and available to males.
Yet how many women who refer to themselves as feminists still perform femininity? Feminists used to recognize that beauty practices rob women of our hard-earned money, time, and focus, and are physically damaging. How many years of the average woman’s life are aggregately spent on hair removal, makeup application, hair styling, fashion and clothing, and other rituals? How many self-described feminists or supposedly gender-critical women take their husband’s last name as though they’re still a man’s property? Germaine Greer is correct that “Women have very little idea of how much men hate them,” but perhaps even less of an idea of how much women have learned to hate themselves.
There’s a glaring contradiction in being a woman who says girls should be able to be and do whatever they want while performing femininity.
I argue that women have a responsibility to live this message. To show girls that not being feminine isn’t just an option, but a necessary step to liberating themselves from patriarchy. This isn’t a choice men will support, including men who claim to be gender critical. It’s not even a choice many women will encourage other women to make. Because women who perform femininity do so knowing they’ll be judged, mocked, and far less able to attract or keep men as romantic partners if they don’t. This is where liberal feminism creeps in: women feel they’re being attacked personally and claim they just happen to like femininity, that these considerations are superficial and simply a matter of individual choice. But if you’re straight or bi and have hairy legs, don’t wear makeup, and dress solely for comfort as most men do, your dating options pretty shrink drastically.
Radical feminists don’t play these games. They’re not merely critical of gender. They want to abolish it. This means that as much as masculinity is inherently toxic, so is femininity. One can’t exist without the other. There’s no reforming gender roles. Femininity isn’t just harmful when men dress up in lingerie, become submissive or masochistic “sissies,” or perform their fetish in public and in female spaces. Sure, it’s atrocious that gender identity is enabling more and more men to deny their privilege and openly eroticize women’s oppression. But they’ll continue to do this as long as there’s a gender role attached to women to perform, because it’s the act of occupying this inferior sex role that excites them.
Canadian pop music artist Shania Twain has spoken about how sexual abuse by her stepfather made her hide and hate her female body. Every girl experiences female objectification and misogynist discrimination and abuse, and now with the gender identity cult offering them a way to dissociate from girlhood and womanhood and/or alter their body to make it unrecognizable as female, they’re doing exactly what you’d expect girls to do in a world that hates them.
Female celebrities are the most obvious example. Their brand follows the liberal feminist you-go-girl template of self-objectification and overt sexualization. They’re steered in that direction by everyone around them and thought we’re told they’re happy and powerful, they, like all women, know exactly what’s expected of them from years of being groomed by society at large. The path of least resistance is to create a narrative “owning” one’s oppression. The resulting contradictions are exemplified by Twain’s rationalization of how following a personal tragedy at the age of 22 she “began to embrace her identity as a woman”:
“All of a sudden it was like, ‘Well, what’s your problem? You know, you’re a woman and you have this beautiful body.’ What was so natural for other people was so scary for me. I felt exploited, but I didn’t have a choice now. I had to play the glamorous singer, had to wear my femininity more openly or more freely. And work out how I’m not gonna get groped, or raped by someone’s eyes, you know, and feel so degraded.”
Doesn’t make much sense, does it? Twain understands womanhood as an identity because defining womanhood as embodiment means that women are nothing more or less than an adult human female, and that’s just not good enough. It’s not just liberal feminists who perpetuate this message. Though not so overtly, many women who consider themselves gender critical may criticize gender rhetorically, but they don’t quite follow through on that conviction. It’s no coincidence that the women who are most visible in this space are quite feminine-presenting. As the brilliant radical feminist Sheila Jeffreys clearly and concisely explains in the video below, we can’t effectively challenge gender identity or transgenderism while holding onto femininity.
Feminism identifies patriarchy as the root of social inequality; though oppression also exists along ethnic, religious, national and cultural axes which overlap to create multiple layers of marginalization and discrimination, all societies (with a mere handful of exceptions) are built on a system of male domination of females. Though the term ‘radical’ is widely interpreted to mean ‘extreme’ particularly in the realm of politics, the etymology of the word is far less loaded while illuminating a crucial point:
late 14c., in a medieval philosophical sense, from Late Latin radicalis “of or having roots,” from Latin radix (genitive radicis) “root” (from PIE root *wrād- “branch, root”). Meaning “going to the origin, essential” is from 1650s. Radical sign in mathematics is from 1680s.
Radical feminism therefore seeks to address the root of patriarchy – why it exists and how it functions. The goal of any system of oppression is the accumulation and control of resources: one group wants something another has; usually land, natural resources, and labour. What resource do women have that men want? Labour, certainly, but more fundamentally it’s the ability to reproduce the species. Men need women in order to have offspring who can carry on their legacy, take care of them when they’re elderly or ill, and bring honour to the family name – their name, of course.
The historical accumulation and maintenance of power and capital by men is a massive barrier that women as a class are still struggling to overcome. Women are aware that men are generally physically stronger than them. The prevalence of male violence against women presents enough of a threat to deter women from ending relationships with men, standing up to them, and choosing to prioritize their own lives and the lives women more generally.
But brute force alone isn’t enough. No system of oppression is complete without social engineering. Those without power must not only be convinced that they can’t win if they fight back; they must be convinced that fighting back is unacceptable or unthinkable. Enter the system of gender, or gender roles, as it’s more commonly known. Gender consists of sex role stereotypes that decree what each sex is supposed to do in relation to each other, i.e. masculinity and femininity. Masculinity is the social institution that gives males permission to be domineering, self-centred, and sociopathic. Femininity, on the other hand, grooms, coerces, and punishes women and girls into centring the feelings and demands of boys and men, arranging their appearance in relation to the male gaze and porn culture, and compromising their own self-interest and well-being in order to meet the expectation that they be managers and carers for all.
Gender permeates all cultures, all economic classes, all households. Whether one’s parents are liberal or conservative, religious or atheist, single-parent or traditional, gender roles are imposed both explicitly and subtly through limitless sources. Children grow up understanding what’s expected based on biological sex as reinforced by interactions with students and teachers, nannies, neighbours, politicians, business leaders, religious leaders, TV commercials, movies, toys, clothing, music, family friends, relatives, etc. No one escapes sexist brainwashing no matter how progressive one’s immediate family might be in theory or practice, and men benefit from sexism no matter how progressive they appear or try to be. Regardless of men’s individual upbringing or intentions, they have a vested interest in patriarchy and they don’t have to make any effort to wield that power. They’re born with it just as females are born into a role designed to force women to accommodate that power.
“Many women, I think, resist feminism because it is an agony to be fully conscious of the brutal misogyny which permeates culture, society, and all personal relationships.”
Is it any wonder that feminist spaces (places where women can gather freely without interference from men) is the only true safe haven for women? Feminism isn’t for white women, or educated women, or English-speaking women, or rich women, or conventionally attractive women, or heterosexual women. Nor is it for liberal or left-wing women alone. Feminism is for all women, even those who don’t identify as feminists, and even those whose political views we find repugnant.
Recently, three UK feminists traveled to Washington, D.C. to speak to politicians of all stripes about the importance of maintaining sex-based protections under Title IX as trans activists push to replace the protected category of sex with gender identity. These women are Posie Parker (AKA Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull), Venice Allan (AKA Dr RadFem), and Julia Long. An uproar has ensued because Posie and Julia confronted two individuals, one of whom is Sarah McBride, a male who identifies as a woman and is the National Press Secretary for the Human Rights Campaign. McBride is lobbying the U.S. government to eliminate sex-based protections. Natasha Chart explains the context for the campaign:
McBride was there that morning to argue that girls in school have no right to bodily privacy when changing for gym class or when first managing menstruation in what should be girls-only bathrooms. McBride was there to argue for an end to girls’ sports, because they want boys to be able to join the girls’ sports teams. McBride was there to overturn decades of women’s rights advocacy, at the head of a movement that has brutally silenced women who dissent.
Posie posted a video of the interaction with McBride which was instantly denounced by LGBTQ+ organizations and websites like Gay Star News and PinkNews as a shocking incident of harassment and transphobia. Let’s see if their interpretation is fair and accurate:
First off, what right do men have to equivocate on the rights of women to be recognized as a class of people with unique challenges and needs? What right does any group have to tell children that they’re born wrong and to lead them toward permanent, dangerous medical procedures as they struggle to negotiate gender roles? It’s not surprising that organizations supportive of gender ideology would characterize this encounter in an unfavourable light. But what’s kept me awake this past week has been the way in which prominent feminists have torn into Posie and Julia, accusing them of launching an embarassing ambush, causing harm, and declaring these feminists a liability. These criticisms aren’t coming from liberal feminists. They’re coming from feminists who have vocally opposed the genderbread nonsense and have had the courage to say that actually, women are adult human females and nothing else.
What I see in this video are two men who hate women being paid good money to reverse feminists’ achievements in the name of human rights and progressive politics. I see two women seizing an opportunity and asking these men to be accountable. They didn’t call anyone names. They didn’t curse. They didn’t yell. And if you notice, the first thing McBride does when the women walk in is turn his head away from them and ignore them. Yet he’s being cajoled as a victim. Something doesn’t feel right about this. I realize that Posie has made controversial statements in the past but that doesn’t mean everything she does is wrong. This looks to me like an attempt by popular feminists who oppose gender self-declaration to purge feminists they view as problematic as they gain acknowledgement in mainstream politics.
I wonder whether the real controversy here is the fact that Women’s Liberation Front (WoLF) organized the campaign and they’ve partnered with conservative organizations to oppose gender self-declaration. Another feminist coalition, Hands Across The Aisle, is also not above working with people from the Right to defend the boundaries of women and girls, and to recognize biological sex as legally, socially and materially significant to women’s lives. That includes women from conservative families and communities. Likewise, children from all walks of life have a right to be protected regardless of where the adults around them fall on the political spectrum. Progressives like to think that conservatives are brutes who don’t care about women, and most of them don’t, but neither do progressives. So liberals support abortion rights. That’s easy. Men on the Left support abortion because they benefit from it; it means they may not have to take responsibility if they get a woman pregnant.
It’s recently dawned on me that some lefty men probably realize exactly how much they benefit from the myth that abortion is the only significant women’s issue. Brilliant way to keep liberal women from working with conservative women on any other issues.
Liberals support the sex trade, pornography and surrogacy – all industries that exploit women. It was a conservative government under Stephen Harper in Canada that implemented the Nordic Model, as some liberal countries have also done. The Left, usually consisting of the Greens, NDP and Labour, has been the home of misogynists who wish to abolish the word ‘woman’ and replace it with ‘womxn’ (they don’t seem to mind the word ‘men’, interestingly). It’s liberals who are responsible for giving awards and positions to men who identify as women instead of actual women. It’s liberals who congratulate men for competing in women’s sports and stealing their medals. It’s liberals who turn a blind eye to arranged marriages, child marriage, female genital mutilation, honour killings, and acid attacks. It’s liberals who’ve embraced the words ‘TERF’ and ‘cis’. It’s liberals who argue that feminine beauty practices are a matter of personal choice and are empowering.
Feminists who criticize other women for working with conservatives don’t seem to realize that there’s no such thing as a a pure ally. No matter where you turn, the organization you’re working with – unless it’s a radical feminist group – will support you in some ways while undermining you in others. Hasn’t that always been the case? Even parties that purport to centre women purge feminists who dare say that men can’t be women and that women are oppressed because of our biological sex. I understand why it’s controversial to speak at an event hosted by a group like the Heritage Foundation and I’ll never question a woman who doesn’t feel comfortable doing so. I get it. But even in this hostile climate, I think it says a lot that an organization that opposes gay rights invited radical feminists to share their views, whereas the Left tries to shut radical feminists down every chance they get.
How do we advocate for women if we can’t say what a woman is? How do we support lesbians if we’re not allowed to define sexual orientation according to biological sex? Leftists who shun women for working with others on some issues are hypocrites who’ve hated women all along anyway. If they cared, they would have listened in the first place and not forced feminists to go looking elsewhere for support.
Lavender Blume 