October 21, 2020 - 3:00pm
Yesterday I was very much enjoying listening to an item on Woman’s Hour about a book I read and blurbed entitled ‘The Politicisation of Mumsnet’. During the discussion, author Sarah Pedersen eloquently explained how increasing numbers of Mumsnet members are finding a voice on the forum, discussing issues like childcare, party politics and feminist campaigning. That was until the presenter, Jane Garvey, brought up the Gender Recognition Act and asked Pedersen how the debate was playing out on the site. In response, Pedersen mentioned the groups most active in campaigning to maintain women’s sex-based rights on the site: Women’s Place UK, FILIA and Fair Play for Women.
Before Pedersen could finish her sentence, Garvey interjected with: “Which are groups that some people have described, in some circumstances, as transphobic”.
There is nothing transphobic about any of these groups. They campaign to maintain women-only spaces and facilities such as domestic violence refuges and prisons, which I call fighting for women’s human rights.
Repeating unfounded and libellous claims of ‘transphobia’ against feminist organisations is despicable. Perhaps next time Stonewall is mentioned on the programme, the presenter will interject with a reminder that some feminists consider the organisation to be misogynistic?
It is well known that there are sections of the BBC that does not treat the bitter battle around transgender ideology as impartially as it claims to. As Dame Jenni Murray revealed the day after retiring from the programme last month, she was carpeted for suggesting that there was a difference between sex and gender in 2017. Thereafter, she was banned from leading any discussion on the topic.
As I have previously reported, I have been informed by a number of BBC staffers that its LGBT forum, which is dominated by trans-identified members, has a huge amount of influence at the corporation. This results in a culture of fear, with some senior staff treading carefully to avoid complaints from them.
There is little doubt in my mind that the BBC, far from being impartial about the trans issue, has taken a pro-trans ideology stance in order to avoid bullying and vilification. Recently, for example, senior management requested that all staff use pronouns on their BBC email signatures.
So why don’t similarly controversial subjects face the same kind of on-air caveating? On Monday there was an item about egg freezing, but I didn’t notice any qualification from the presenter about the ethics of the process, including the argument that it amounts to the commercial exploitation of women.
Moreover, the item before the Mumsnet discussion was about a group of singing nuns: I find Catholicism problematic as a secular feminist, but didn’t expect to hear my point of view being aired by the presenter, and nor was it.
Feminism, namely women standing up for our rights, is not ‘hateful’ and recycling baseless slander is not in keeping with BBC values. It is time for the BBC to address this fact.
Join the discussion
Join like minded readers that support our journalism by becoming a paid subscriber
To join the discussion in the comments, become a paid subscriber.
Join like minded readers that support our journalism, read unlimited articles and enjoy other subscriber-only benefits.
Subscribe‘Feminism, namely women standing up for our rights, is not ‘hateful’ and recycling baseless slander is not in keeping with BBC values.’
I think you’ll find that recycling baseless slander is very much in line with BBC values. Indeed, it has become the BBC raison d’être.
It’s cute that the author believes feminism is “standing up for our rights.” What a quaint thought. Given all the trans business, it’s more like standing up for reality. When all it takes to be considered a woman is to identity as one, womanhood faces an existential threat. The BBC is committed to identity politics than to empirical reality.
Is there any real point criticising this or that individual item of BBC output? Taken as a whole, it forms a picture of of a uniformly ‘woke’ culture that is probably irretrievable. Let’s just abolish the licence fee and let those that like this stuff pay for it themselves.
And when we tried to reason, we were slandered and sneered at. And when we tried to debate, we were insulted and belittled. And when we tried to to find common ground, we were told we were beyond the pale.
And now they ask for sympathy and support.
You’re on your own, feminists.
I couldn’t have put it better myself.
Men have long since learned to keep out of gender debates due to the hysterical response we get from feminists when we try to discuss anything with them. Now, all of a sudden, they care about reason and facts.
Of course any sane person agrees with the idea that a man can’t become a women just because he says so. However, feminists have created a situation where you win an argument by screaming about your vulnerability louder than anyone else in the room. As a straight, white man I can’t hope to engage in that type of discourse so I’m out.
Feminists, you created this world and now you are reaping the rewards. If gender is a social contract and women are just as tough and capable as men, what does it matter if I turn up to your rape crisis centre? Or your women’s prison? Or your changing rooms? And if I do and you throw me out I’ll scream and scream and scream ’til I’m sick and then you’ll be shamed into readmitting me.
Great, isn’t it.
Awesome :0
I honestly thought you were speaking for women in this comment!! I have to say that there can be no common ground when people want to deny the objective reality of sexed bodies and insist that penises can be female. Women have been consistently silenced by the #no debate phenomenon and we keep saying if people want to persist in identifying as the opposite sex, that’s ok. But women are being abused, attacked, online and in person, losing their jobs just for saying men can’t be women……an objective fact. It’s the ideology we object to, not the individuals following it. And the knock on effects of that distorting figures such as women’s crime, gender pay gap, as well as single sex safe spaces for women.
Once again, there is no “gender pay gap”. There is a gender earnings gap directly due to the fact that women work fewer hours than men.
+100.
I hope these two despicable ideologies destroy each other.
“Women standing up for their rights”?
This “voice of reason” is the same Julie Bindel who, interviewed five years ago by RadFem, told us that all men shoud be kept in prison camps.
Let these unhinged fanatics eat each other.
.
P.S. She later said that ‘All men are rapists and should be put in prison then shot’.
Well, I suppose that would certainly solve her problem with the Trans community.
.
Julie, did you actually believe that those of us who run the Patriarchy would surrender and hand over the reins of power to radical feminists without a fight? We’ve been running the show for the last 12,000 years and we intend to keep it that way. The civil war on the radical left over the issue of gender recognition didn’t start by accident. So far, our plan is working perfectly.
Shush 😉
The BBC is exactly like PBS & CBC – left-leaning, anti-conservative organizations that should NOT be funded with Taxpayers money.
You are having a laugh aren’t you Julie(concentration camps for men) Bindel?
I remember hearing a “debate” on Radio 4’s Today program in which the Editor of Elle magazine proposed it was “unacceptable” for a man not to be a feminist. In the “opposite” corner the presenter of Radio 5’s Men’s Hour(Who knew?) who…agreed. Raging debate there.
You just came up against a movement more unhinged and intolerant than your own Julie. Enjoy
The BBC is the vanguard of intolerant Woke culture. If the centre and right really want to take on these people then they really need to ” cut the head off the snake” and make dramatic changes to the top of the organisation. Then take them off the public purse. A smaller , but more balanced BBC , might actually regain some credibility.
Better question is Why wont the BBC stand up against Identity and Grievance Politics? Of which Feminism forms an integral part. Julie’s problem is that now her cause has been demoted by the BBC in the victim hierarchy.
Bindel’s definition of women-only safe spaces? That would be The World, except for male-only concentration camps, as she stated in to the Rad Fem Collective in 2015.
“I mean, I would actually put them all (men) in some kind of camp where they can all drive around in quad bikes, or bicycles, or white vans,” said Bindel. “I would give them a choice of vehicles to drive around with, give them no porn, they wouldn’t be able to fight ““ we would have wardens, of course! Women who want to see their sons or male loved ones would be able to go and visit, or take them out like a library book, and then bring them back.”
Imagine her views if any man proposed having men-only spaces, other than the concentration camps, of course.
Interestingly, in the same interview, she also said:
“How do we dismantle gender? We have to get rid of it. There is no point looking at reforming it. It would be like saying we could reform the Tory party. We just need to abolish and obliterate it.”
http://www.radfemcollective…
Now, however, she wants to keep gender, indeed, fight to defend it.
Why the change? Because the Feminist monopoly on the unquestioned Victimhood card is being challenged. Now that women have privilege, other minorities want a slice of the cake, and are using exactly the same tactics the Feminists used.
And the RadFems do ot like it. They object to the Trans parking their tanks on the RadFem Victimhood lawn.
And Bindel’s view of the BBC? Just fine when it was far from being impartial about Feminism. Now that Wimmin are no longer Sacred Cows at the BBC, however, the organisation’s partiality is an outrage.
The hypocrite can go to hell.
.
.
Discussing the BBC’s attitude towards “feminism” is pointless once you register that it has a radio programme every week entitled “Woman’s Hour”. How condescending is this?
Title: Why won’t the BBC stand up for Feminism?
Subtitle: The BBC has shown that it is not impartial.
wtf? They obviously can’t do both because one contradicts the other. And this is the whole twisty BS of feminism and identity politics altogether: Siding with us is impartiality because we’re so right we don’t even need to offer evidence.
Damn, the Orwellian subtlety is not lost on us! Well played.
The first identity in identity politics is Feminism. This is the core of WOKE identity politics. Sorry no sympathy for the snake eating its tail.
This whole discussion is so much BS. Women are women, men are men, and all we really need to do is tinker with the issue of equality of opportunity. Minuscule minorities will adapt, as they’ve always done.
Feminists are outraged that other Victimhood practitioners are using Feminism’s tactics to steal their place on the Victimhood hierarchy.
On a related note, I have a lot of questions about the practice of announcing one’s pronouns; the rules are inconsistent and illogical. Actually, it seems there are no rules. As an example, why is the pronoun designation typically presented in the form “he, him”? Once we know a person wants to be identified as “he,” doesn’t it automatically follow that the related pronoun is “him” (and “his”)? Are there people whose preferred pronouns are “she, them”? As in, “Our next speaker is Pat, she is here to update our latest sales figures. Let’s give them a warm welcome!”
I fully accept that some people are trans and I believe they deserve acceptance, kind treatment, and reasonable accommodation. I know people who are trans and have no issue with referring to them in all ways by their gender presentation. I have eyes and a brain, though, and I see that the pronoun issue is being used as a lever of power. We’ve quickly gone from the obvious point that the person we knew as Ben is now presenting as a female named Brenda and should be referred to as “she,” to the open-ended imposition of new rules which are inconsistent and change by the day.
The BBC has always been chicken about controversy because it is vulnerable to the right wing press and politicians that would cheerfully see it abolished
It is supposed to be neutral, and the LGBT set are aggressively vocal and punch way above their weight on Twitter, so the BBC appeases them.
I fear Jane Garvey has a reputation for self-interest and ill-mannered ‘rabble rousing’ Julie. I am in contact with a wide circle of self-respecting women (content with their own competence) who do not share Garvey’s implicit hatred of the male of the species. Ergo, we gave up WH a long time ago. However, suspect Garvey ‘identifies’ as a ‘strong feminist’ warrior …. money and publicity, don’t you know?
I listened to Woman’s Hour all my life. Mum always did when ironing, and I got into the habit. Stopped a few years back when it became Transgender Hour, and haven’t been back. Indeed, I have abandoned Radio 4 as I no longer have any idea who it represents, apart from the fact it sure ain’t me. The BBC can go take a running jump, they are toxic and need reining in. Even Radio 3 is going down the pan.
The ‘ethics of the process’ link has an extraneous trailing ‘)’ which causes a 404.
Bindel’s definition of women-only safe spaces? That would be The
World, except for male-only concentration camps, as she stated in to the
Rad Fem Collective in 2015.
“I mean, I would actually put them
all (men) in some kind of camp where they can all drive around in quad
bikes, or bicycles, or white vans,” said Bindel. “I would give them a
choice of vehicles to drive around with, give them no porn, they
wouldn’t be able to fight ““ we would have wardens, of course! Women who
want to see their sons or male loved ones would be able to go and visit,
or take them out like a library book, and then bring them back.”
Imagine her views if any man proposed having men-only spaces, other than the concentration camps, of course.
Interestingly, in the same interview, she also said:
“How
do we dismantle gender? We have to get rid of it. There is no point
looking at reforming it. It would be like saying we could reform the
Tory party. We just need to abolish and obliterate it.”
Now, however, she wants to keep gender, indeed, fight to defend it.
Why the change? Because the Feminist monopoly on the unquestioned
Victimhood card is being challenged. Now that women have privilege,
other minorities want a slice of the cake, and are using exactly the
same tactics the Feminists used.
And the RadFems do ot like it. They object to the Trans parking their tanks on the RadFem Victimhood lawn.
And
Bindel’s view of the BBC? Just fine when it was far from being
impartial about Feminism. Now that Wimmin are no longer Sacred Cows at
the BBC, however, the organisation’s partiality is an outrage.
The hypocrite can go to hell.
Don’t tell me. My post made its point all too well, so had to be removed.
.
Mustn’t be allowed to point out Bindel’s past statements.
Noone has ever been convicted of libel for describing Gender Abolitionist Feminists as being transphobic. No one has ever been convicted of libel for describing Trans Rights Activists as being misogynistic. Both might considered that they have been libelled but for now there is no legal basis for them to make that claim. The presenter was correct to say that “some people” consider GA Feminists as being transphobic because that is what they think whether they are right or not.
Some people believe David Icke but one would be surprised to hear Nick Robinson interrupting a comment about the government with the remark ‘Whom some people consider to be a bunch of shape shifting lizards’
Sure, we can talk about whether people need to include their pronouns on their IDs (in most cases I don’t think it’s necessary) and sure, we can wonder if media like the BBC errs by being to sensitive about the subject. But the categorical dismissal of trans people on this site compromises the integrity of all the writers who appear here. Let me as Ms. Bindel and all the other TERFs and hate-mongers here on Unherd a question: Have any of you ever had a transgender friend? If not, you might attempt to make one before you bloviate again on a subject you don’t understand. It might change your perception of us as inhuman monsters invading your bathrooms. Ms. Bindel seems to consider many things a threat to women. Not only are trans people a threat, she claims, so is egg freezing and Catholicism. What else threatens “women”–as defined by her–I wonder? The BBC has many faults, but this is not one of them. In providing a place for open debate, the BBC like all responsible news outlets, has limits on what it considers a reasonable position to take in a public forum. They do not publish screeds by white supremacists or neo-Nazis, nor do they publish calls to jihad written by Islamists. Of course they do not consider the scapegoating of transgender people a reasonable position to take. It’s not.
With references to TERFs and hate-mongers, you make the author’s point while indulging in scapegoating of your own. There is nothing radical about saying “only women get pregnant.” The only thing radical is that speaking malicious truths is treated as heresy.
In providing a place for open debate, the BBC like all responsible news outlets, has limits on what it considers a reasonable position to take in a public forum.
When a party creates artificial limits or considers itself to be the arbiter of what constitutes a “reasonable position,” then we’re no longer having open debate. We’re having indoctrination where only one viewpoint is acceptable and the rest must be banished.
So if a friend has detransitioned (after surgery — performed when they were still a teenager), do they still count as trans?
‘inhuman monsters invading.. bathrooms’ The worry as I understand it is that changes to the GRA might allow bad actors, i.e. non-trans men to take advantage of relaxed requirements. Trans women can access those spaces now, and there’s no problem with that.
“But the categorical dismissal of trans people on this site compromises the integrity of all the writers who appear here”
Says who exactly? Oh, just your authoritarian decree. This sounds like someone saying everyone must shut up and never express an opinion about transgender politics -note, it’s transgender politics, and the absolute insanity of transgender politics, that people dislike so fervently and NOT transgender people. You conveniently blend the two for your own power drive. Transgender politics does not represent transgender people, just as feminism does not represent women.
“Have any of you ever had a transgender friend?”
It is hard to befriend someone you have never met.
In real life – as opposed to on Twitter and BBC forums – these people are vanishingly rare.
“It might change your perception of us as inhuman monsters invading your bathrooms.”
Unlike the dirty old men and committers of sex crimes against women and girls who are sadly all too common, and are thrilled at the prospect of having the unchallengeable legal right to enter female toilets and changing rooms.
But hey, it’s only the rights of tiny, noisy minority groups that matter, right?
“Have any of you ever had a transgender friend?”
It is hard to befriend someone you have never met.
In real life – as opposed to on Twitter and BBC forums – these people are vanishingly rare.
“It might change your perception of us as inhuman monsters invading your bathrooms.”
Unlike the dirty old men and committers of sex crimes against women and girls who are sadly all too common, and are thrilled at the prospect of having the unchallengeable legal right to enter female toilets and changing rooms.
But hey, it’s only the rights of tiny, noisy minority groups that matter, right?