“It is a movement for the liberation of all women and one which prioritises those at the bottom of the pile.” But it never has prioritised those at the bottom of the pile.. It has always been a movement that is only interested in career advancement for middle class women. Why “The Movement” should attract the attention of the genuine left, that is the working class left, is a puzzle.
I do recall some of those women turning up at the miner’s strike and being told to get lost by the miners wives.
Lydia R
3 years ago
A decade ago, feminists aligned themselves with hardline Islamist activists and gave Aayan Hirsi Ali the thumbs down. She had little choice but to align herself with Republicans to get a hearing. Now we see the same effect with Ms Bindel and her various sisters, Suzanne Moore and Julie Burchill come crying to The Spectator as they are deplatformed by their Woke, progressive former comrades. Can’t think what she’s complaining about really.
Brian Villanueva
3 years ago
Liberalism has outgrown its usefulness to feminists.
The word “liberal” comes from the same root as “to liberate” — in other words, liberals believe in eliminating barriers, hierarchies, unchosen obligations… anything that conflicts with personal autonomy. In the hierarchical society of the Middle Ages “liberal” was actually an insult — see Much Ado About Nothing for an example.
Feminists needed liberalism to remove the legal and social barriers to women’s independence. It is liberalism that provides the philosophical muscle to tear down sexist voting laws, inheritance laws, dress codes, etc… However, most of those have now come down. Remaining glass ceilings are cathedral ceilings, so high most women will never meet them. When 56% of college graduates are women, it’s hard to claim significant barriers to the fairer sex’s general success.
But liberalism continues it’s march to “liberate”, tearing down pornography laws, abortion laws, sodomy laws, military service rules, sexual expectations, and now (courtesy the trans-craze) even basic biology. Women are harmed, not helped: by the broad availability of pornography; by men “expecting” that they will put out after a few dates; by competing against men in sports. And despite the left’s assertions to the contrary, women are not uniformly in favor of abortion either.
Hence, each woman in America is doing exactly what everyone does in politics: finding the side that agrees with her more. Liberalism was the home of women’s rights for decades. But many of its policies are now hostile to those very women the philosophy championed so recently. It’s hardly surprising that some (maybe many) of them are unhitching their car from the liberal bandwagon.
Brigitte Lechner
3 years ago
Julie is right to warn about the likely consequences of strategic alliances. There is no defence other than the abject betrayal of women’s rights by the left. Every day is therefore a new day of hope that this betrayal will be reversed.
ericaconrick
3 years ago
Poor Ms. Bindel sounds conflicted. She would like to exclude trans women from both feminism and womanhood, but finds to her chagrin that doing so puts her in league with hate mongers, homophobes, and misogynists. Her tightrope walk between denying trans women their human dignity while attempting to pat herself on the back for standing up for “marginalized” people seems to have made her dizzy. Oh, why can’t a TERF just hate this one annoying demographic, kick them out of the ladies bathroom, and then celebrate her own liberality? I’ll tell you why Ms. Bindel: because that’s the way hate works. You start with the idea that trans women aren’t women, you end up with your new friends, bible bangers who consider you as much of an “abomination unto the Lord” as I am. You stabbed your own trans sisters in the back and now you want to call yourself a feminist. Cry me a river.
“Margaret Thatcher disliked women and was no fan of feminism. With her in charge, the sexism inherent to the Conservative party remained in safe hands. She promoted only one woman to a cabinet position in 11 years. She was a female politician promulgating male politics. That’s hardly equality”
And in one twist of rhetoric the glass ceiling remains intact: she was the ‘wrong’ type of feminist. The ‘wrong’ type of woman. Thus ‘trans-women are women’ is a rejected “mantra” alongside ‘centre-right female leaders are women.’ Note the use of “female politician”: her womanhood has been deleted.
Is Angela Merkel the ‘right’ type of feminist? Or is she also too centre-right to be ‘right’? 🤔
R MS
1 year ago
Honestly Julie, you’re overcomplicating things.
With transgenderism you’ve been gifted an opportunity where the vast majority of the people in the country agree with you, and between you here and at the Mail, Sarah Ditum and Janice Turner at the Times, Suzanne Moore at the Telegraph etc etc you’re able to reach and speak to them at scale to drum up support through right wing papers that dominate the print media and still shape the national agenda, even if the Guardian won’t publish you.
Win trust on that issue and I dare say, even if most won’t support your agenda across the piste, you’ll be able if you play your cards right to build trust more broadly and get a hearing and maybe start to make progress on at least some of your wider agenda.
As for political parties the blunt fact is the more support you command in the country and through the press the more they will all listen to you.
At the moment the Tories are the only ones not captured by gender lunacy, and unfortunately for other reasons their prospects aren’t looking great. But if you want to change attitudes in Labour, the LibDems and SNP the best way is to move and cement broad popular support in the country so you can’t be ignored.
Now stop this self-defeating agonising and GET ON WITH IT!
Rich Garcia
1 year ago
The only women who benefit from a right-wing alliance are the types of women who are seen as the default: white, heterosexual, and/or middle-class. And that sounds like a “woke” virtue signal, but let’s learn from history and call a thing a thing.
Women making the argument that feminists should work with conservatives don’t care about intersectionality and will never be affected by systemic racism and homophobia. They’ll lose their rights to abortion and contraception if conservatives get their way. But that’s a price to pay if it means winning the (Trans)Gender Wars. A price that poorer and more marginalized women will have to pay.
Is it any wonder why white feminists in particular get so much guff from their lesbian and WoC contemporaries for being myopic and out of touch? This is it.
a.druggan
3 years ago
Poor Julie-entagngled in the many conbtradictions of Feminism IE support for porn etc.Well,when you tear down previous social taboos,demonise those who supported them,elimintae all restrictions etc it’s very difficult to propse any new ones.All red lines appear entirely arbitrary including,sadly for her,all those proposed by the bold Julie.To be fair to Julie I like her a lot.Her description of Hugh Hefner as “sexist scum of the lowest order” is a classic.It looks great on my T-shirt.Thanks Julie.
Scott Allan
3 years ago
Seeing the majority of the leadership of the left is Feminists then Julie you should be mad at your little Neo-Marxist cult. I personally am just going to sit back with a drink and watch the snake eat its tail.
Andrew Baldwin
3 years ago
Trump Derangement Syndrome sufferer Julie Blindel should really reconsider her anti-Trump rhetoric, which seems to be uninformed by any consideration of the alternative. (This is no what-aboutism, when people are already voting in the US presidential election.) Here’s Joe Biden from the town hall on 15 October: “The idea that an 8-year-old child or a 10-year-old child decides, you know I decided I want to be transgender. That’s what I think I’d like to be. It would make my life a lot easier. There should be zero discrimination.” Got that? Biden wants an 8-year-old girl to be able to decide that she wants to transition to become a boy. It’s her decision, never mind her parents. And she accuses Trump of misogyny! Sleepy Joe, Trump’s nickname for Biden, is much too generous. Biden really is Creepy Joe, in so many ways.
mcsean2163
3 years ago
Hmm. I find the Trump bashing a real turn off. He’s a pretty repugnant character but what’s the alternative?
A democrat party that seems to prioritize war.
Biden seems weak and Kamala is bringing the dangerous centre for new American security that supported her run. As far as I’m concerned republicans and democrats are the same with different policies on abortion and war.
The whole trans thing is weird. Trans people have a massively high rate of attempted suicide. Many are vulnerable people that need support. The anti trans movement just seems appalling.
The suicide business is regularly repeated, but it’s not particularly true. There are some mental health conditions more common in the trans population and rates of suicide are in line with those groups generally. Medical organisations that deal with minor trans patients don’t report elevated rates of suicide at all.
Jonathan Barker
3 years ago
Men are angular and therefore inherently dangerous unless tempered by the gentling Feminine Principle. Angular men are inherently afraid of and hostile towards the Feminine Principle. Women are spherical.If you paint women, you paint the whole universe. Every woman is a particularization of one thing – the “She” or Shakti the universal power. A woman’s body rotating expresses the unity of existence. It is all just “She”.
In 1970 the Boston Women’s Health Book Collective published a (then) revolutionary book titled Our Bodies Our Selves. Not surprisingly it was condemned with shock-horror-outrage by all of the usual right wing “moralists” The sort of “moralists” associated with Focus on the Family and that now infest the Alliance Defending “Freedom”.
Some of my favorite truth-telling feminists who go far beyond the reductionist anti-feminist diatribes that (mis)-inform most/all of the right wing bloviators.
Susan Griffin the author of A Chorus of Stones, Woman and Nature The Roaring Inside Her, and Pornography and Silence (patriarchal) Cultures Revenge Against Nature
Marilyn French the author of The War Against Women Vandana Shiva the author Ecofeminism and Staying Alive.
Plus the little known Nor Hall the author of The Moon and the Virgin Reflections on the Archetypal Feminism
“It is a movement for the liberation of all women and one which prioritises those at the bottom of the pile.”
But it never has prioritised those at the bottom of the pile.. It has always been a movement that is only interested in career advancement for middle class women.
Why “The Movement” should attract the attention of the genuine left, that is the working class left, is a puzzle.
I do recall some of those women turning up at the miner’s strike and being told to get lost by the miners wives.
A decade ago, feminists aligned themselves with hardline Islamist activists and gave Aayan Hirsi Ali the thumbs down. She had little choice but to align herself with Republicans to get a hearing. Now we see the same effect with Ms Bindel and her various sisters, Suzanne Moore and Julie Burchill come crying to The Spectator as they are deplatformed by their Woke, progressive former comrades. Can’t think what she’s complaining about really.
Liberalism has outgrown its usefulness to feminists.
The word “liberal” comes from the same root as “to liberate” — in other words, liberals believe in eliminating barriers, hierarchies, unchosen obligations… anything that conflicts with personal autonomy. In the hierarchical society of the Middle Ages “liberal” was actually an insult — see Much Ado About Nothing for an example.
Feminists needed liberalism to remove the legal and social barriers to women’s independence. It is liberalism that provides the philosophical muscle to tear down sexist voting laws, inheritance laws, dress codes, etc… However, most of those have now come down. Remaining glass ceilings are cathedral ceilings, so high most women will never meet them. When 56% of college graduates are women, it’s hard to claim significant barriers to the fairer sex’s general success.
But liberalism continues it’s march to “liberate”, tearing down pornography laws, abortion laws, sodomy laws, military service rules, sexual expectations, and now (courtesy the trans-craze) even basic biology. Women are harmed, not helped: by the broad availability of pornography; by men “expecting” that they will put out after a few dates; by competing against men in sports. And despite the left’s assertions to the contrary, women are not uniformly in favor of abortion either.
Hence, each woman in America is doing exactly what everyone does in politics: finding the side that agrees with her more. Liberalism was the home of women’s rights for decades. But many of its policies are now hostile to those very women the philosophy championed so recently. It’s hardly surprising that some (maybe many) of them are unhitching their car from the liberal bandwagon.
Julie is right to warn about the likely consequences of strategic alliances. There is no defence other than the abject betrayal of women’s rights by the left. Every day is therefore a new day of hope that this betrayal will be reversed.
Poor Ms. Bindel sounds conflicted. She would like to exclude trans women from both feminism and womanhood, but finds to her chagrin that doing so puts her in league with hate mongers, homophobes, and misogynists. Her tightrope walk between denying trans women their human dignity while attempting to pat herself on the back for standing up for “marginalized” people seems to have made her dizzy. Oh, why can’t a TERF just hate this one annoying demographic, kick them out of the ladies bathroom, and then celebrate her own liberality? I’ll tell you why Ms. Bindel: because that’s the way hate works. You start with the idea that trans women aren’t women, you end up with your new friends, bible bangers who consider you as much of an “abomination unto the Lord” as I am. You stabbed your own trans sisters in the back and now you want to call yourself a feminist. Cry me a river.
The first Prime Minister I remember was a woman, and she was in power unti I was a teenager. So I tend to switch off when I hear this now quite clichéd argument from some feminists:
“Margaret Thatcher disliked women and was no fan of feminism. With her in charge, the sexism inherent to the Conservative party remained in safe hands. She promoted only one woman to a cabinet position in 11 years. She was a female politician promulgating male politics. That’s hardly equality”
And in one twist of rhetoric the glass ceiling remains intact: she was the ‘wrong’ type of feminist. The ‘wrong’ type of woman. Thus ‘trans-women are women’ is a rejected “mantra” alongside ‘centre-right female leaders are women.’ Note the use of “female politician”: her womanhood has been deleted.
Is Angela Merkel the ‘right’ type of feminist? Or is she also too centre-right to be ‘right’? 🤔
Honestly Julie, you’re overcomplicating things.
With transgenderism you’ve been gifted an opportunity where the vast majority of the people in the country agree with you, and between you here and at the Mail, Sarah Ditum and Janice Turner at the Times, Suzanne Moore at the Telegraph etc etc you’re able to reach and speak to them at scale to drum up support through right wing papers that dominate the print media and still shape the national agenda, even if the Guardian won’t publish you.
Win trust on that issue and I dare say, even if most won’t support your agenda across the piste, you’ll be able if you play your cards right to build trust more broadly and get a hearing and maybe start to make progress on at least some of your wider agenda.
As for political parties the blunt fact is the more support you command in the country and through the press the more they will all listen to you.
At the moment the Tories are the only ones not captured by gender lunacy, and unfortunately for other reasons their prospects aren’t looking great. But if you want to change attitudes in Labour, the LibDems and SNP the best way is to move and cement broad popular support in the country so you can’t be ignored.
Now stop this self-defeating agonising and GET ON WITH IT!
The only women who benefit from a right-wing alliance are the types of women who are seen as the default: white, heterosexual, and/or middle-class. And that sounds like a “woke” virtue signal, but let’s learn from history and call a thing a thing.
Women making the argument that feminists should work with conservatives don’t care about intersectionality and will never be affected by systemic racism and homophobia. They’ll lose their rights to abortion and contraception if conservatives get their way. But that’s a price to pay if it means winning the (Trans)Gender Wars. A price that poorer and more marginalized women will have to pay.
Is it any wonder why white feminists in particular get so much guff from their lesbian and WoC contemporaries for being myopic and out of touch? This is it.
Poor Julie-entagngled in the many conbtradictions of Feminism IE support for porn etc.Well,when you tear down previous social taboos,demonise those who supported them,elimintae all restrictions etc it’s very difficult to propse any new ones.All red lines appear entirely arbitrary including,sadly for her,all those proposed by the bold Julie.To be fair to Julie I like her a lot.Her description of Hugh Hefner as “sexist scum of the lowest order” is a classic.It looks great on my T-shirt.Thanks Julie.
Seeing the majority of the leadership of the left is Feminists then Julie you should be mad at your little Neo-Marxist cult. I personally am just going to sit back with a drink and watch the snake eat its tail.
Trump Derangement Syndrome sufferer Julie Blindel should really reconsider her anti-Trump rhetoric, which seems to be uninformed by any consideration of the alternative. (This is no what-aboutism, when people are already voting in the US presidential election.) Here’s Joe Biden from the town hall on 15 October: “The idea that an 8-year-old child or a 10-year-old child decides, you know I decided I want to be transgender. That’s what I think I’d like to be. It would make my life a lot easier. There should be zero discrimination.” Got that? Biden wants an 8-year-old girl to be able to decide that she wants to transition to become a boy. It’s her decision, never mind her parents. And she accuses Trump of misogyny! Sleepy Joe, Trump’s nickname for Biden, is much too generous. Biden really is Creepy Joe, in so many ways.
Hmm. I find the Trump bashing a real turn off. He’s a pretty repugnant character but what’s the alternative?
A democrat party that seems to prioritize war.
Biden seems weak and Kamala is bringing the dangerous centre for new American security that supported her run. As far as I’m concerned republicans and democrats are the same with different policies on abortion and war.
The whole trans thing is weird. Trans people have a massively high rate of attempted suicide. Many are vulnerable people that need support. The anti trans movement just seems appalling.
The suicide business is regularly repeated, but it’s not particularly true. There are some mental health conditions more common in the trans population and rates of suicide are in line with those groups generally. Medical organisations that deal with minor trans patients don’t report elevated rates of suicide at all.
Men are angular and therefore inherently dangerous unless tempered by the gentling Feminine Principle. Angular men are inherently afraid of and hostile towards the Feminine Principle.
Women are spherical.If you paint women, you paint the whole universe.
Every woman is a particularization of one thing – the “She” or Shakti the universal power.
A woman’s body rotating expresses the unity of existence. It is all just “She”.
In 1970 the Boston Women’s Health Book Collective published a (then) revolutionary book titled Our Bodies Our Selves. Not surprisingly it was condemned with shock-horror-outrage by all of the usual right wing “moralists” The sort of “moralists” associated with Focus on the Family and that now infest the Alliance Defending “Freedom”.
Some of my favorite truth-telling feminists who go far beyond the reductionist anti-feminist diatribes that (mis)-inform most/all of the right wing bloviators.
Susan Griffin the author of A Chorus of Stones, Woman and Nature The Roaring Inside Her, and Pornography and Silence (patriarchal) Cultures Revenge Against Nature
Marilyn French the author of The War Against Women
Vandana Shiva the author Ecofeminism and Staying Alive.
Plus the little known Nor Hall the author of The Moon and the Virgin Reflections on the Archetypal Feminism