I've seen quite a few people in my social circle mention this piece but I avoided reading it until now because I generally can't read anything related to this form of radical feminism without it ruining my day via a pervasive sense of dread. I spent quite a wee bit of time reading their writing in the past for the sake of awareness and the mere thought of it drains me.
This time was very different though. This time I actually laughed a little at the blatant bias and some of the ridiculous claims. From the way these radicals are portrayed as victims of censorship despite a history of using power to harm others to the way every single reference to the perspective of trans people is an obvious straw-man. The writer doesn't even attempt to hide it.
With regard to the content: While almost any violence and threats are repugnant to me, I still think it's entirely possible for one side in an argument to be
totally wrong and I believe that's the case here. I value the positive things some of these radical feminists continue to do in other domains but, on the whole, they seem to be clinging to a One True Womanhood that never had any validity in the first place. In my mind, they constructed a version of sisterhood that's reliant on excluding anyone that isn't an able middle-class white woman. They cling to it despite decades of thought and experience from women of colour, disabled women, poor women, trans women, femme women, straight women, and many others. If that weren't bad enough, they extend their Western definitions to the entirety of the planet in an appalling display of supremacy. For me, it's somewhat similar to suffragettes like Christabel Pankhurst only focusing on votes for wealthy white women and nationalism during the First World War. In a century, they've learned nothing.
If something doesn't agree with their outmoded worldview then many of them will ignore it, dismiss it, misrepresent it, or invent lies about it. For instance, if you have somebody on your side that tries to use speculation about the smell of trans women's post-GRS genitals as a legitimate argument, as Jeffreys does in Gender Hurts, then you might want to question whether you're being intellectually honest.
Personally, I'll stick with forms of feminism that are constantly trying to adapt to diversity of experience and embrace it rather than erase it.
QuoteFirst, the organizers hoped to refute charges that the desire to ban prostitution implies hostility toward prostitutes.
Apologies for the aside but this quote from the article made me laugh with shock because it's so brazen. I can never understand the mental acrobatics necessary to maintain that position. As far as I'm aware, the typical claim is that they're focusing on penalising male clients and misogyny while providing alternatives to sex work but the reality is that their sacred models are being revealed as emperors with no clothes. They yield increased poverty, abuse, murder, removal of children from loving mothers, and prosecution of women for simply keeping each other safe to name just a few things. Their position is sustained by reliance on dehumanising sex workers, silencing sex workers that object, enforcement of laws by violent patriarchal institutions, and low quality research that often blatantly warps fact to fit pre-determined conclusions.
By banning sex work they impose utter misery on many so how can they
not be hostile to sex workers? Hostility doesn't need to be overt, for me. I'd suggest it can simply be callous disregard for existence. These overwhelmingly middle-class white women are willing to do anything in the name of their vision of the greater good. They're necessarily hostile to sex workers since these radical feminists handed patriarchal society a way to justify its treatment of the most vulnerable on a silver platter. In my view, this is where their exclusionary definition of womanhood tends to lead and why this form of radical feminism is always outright dangerous. They use the same tactics on anyone that doesn't aim to be identical to them whenever they have any power. They aren't some poor censored minority, they're rightly feared egotists.
Anyhoo, sorry for rambling... again.
