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“Intersectionality shows us that everyone could do better; that every attempt at rolling back discrimination could work harder and be more inclusive. But it should also remind us that people themselves are more than a simple label: “white feminist”; “middle-class man”; “posh boy”; “Twitter bully”. Here are some of the things I know that the kind of feminists regularly decried for their privilege have had to deal with, in private: eating disorder relapses; rape; the stalking of their children; redundancy; clinical depression; the sectioning of a family member; an anxiety disorder that made every train ride and theatre trip an agony. (Yes, one of those descriptions is me.)
None of this is to say that feminism shouldn’t be open to criticism. When Caroline Crampton and I got together our bloggers last year for a New Statesman debate about feminism, the response was . . . well, there were two responses. There was criticism that was constructive: for example, the deviously persuasive Karen Ingala Smith managed to parlay her disappointment that we didn’t talk enough about rape into making me join the board of her VAWG charity. And there was criticism that was destructive, aimed at wounding us for not representing every possible permutation of womanhood. (I laughed when one particularly enthusiastic deconstructor, when asked: “Well, how can you possibly make a six-person panel totally representative of half of humanity?”, came back with, “Oh, that’s why I don’t believe in panel discussions.”)”
Megan Murphy last night at the Vancouver Public Library:
“Despite what transactivists claim it is not illegal to understand that biological sex is real and that it matters which is essentially what I and other women have been smeared, censored and no-platformed for saying . It’s also not illegal to understand that a woman is an adult human female. It’s not illegal to defend women’s transition houses and to argue that when women are escaping male violence they should have access to spaces that make them feel safe where they can speak to women who understand what it’s like to grow up female in this world and where they can be assured that they won’t be made more vulnerable by having to share a room with a man.
It is not illegal to understand that male bodies and female bodies are different and that women and girls have the right to compete in sports under fair terms against other women and girls not against men who, in most cases, would have an unfair advantage…
It’s not illegal in Canada for lesbians to limit their choices in intimate partners to women only and to refuse sexual partners with penises.”
— Meghan Murphy (Excerpt from speech at Vancouver Public Library)
Feminism has a voice in Canada. Meghan Murphy continues the struggle against male power and for the rights of women. This event almost didn’t happen thanks to the ‘progessive, inclusive’ left.
Thank you for persevering Ms.Murphy.
Canadian feminism at its finest.
Made the news as well.
See the other award winners at the Quillette.
Written by Dr. Caroline Norma her piece is about running up against the male centric Left in Australia. Inside her essay though are a couple of paragraphs that deserve extra attention. The notion that appearance and allegiance to the right things is taking precedence over effective action is an important idea. Coming together despite the differences between the groups involved has been vital in forming effective action in society. Fragments of groups working apart can be nullified and marginalized by the forces of the status quo in light of the recent gender-identity dust up, it would seem the fragmentation of effective political action is in full swing.
“During those 20 years, no activist in Okinawa had the privilege of being able to pick and choose with whom they built alliances or worked in coalition. Their situation permitted no such liberal luxury, only desperate struggle to build movement numbers. They had to be grateful for any friends they could get. The combined will of the US military and the Japanese government was thrown behind the base construction proposal, and so, facing such a Goliath, unionists, churchgoers, artists, fishermen, and feminist groups like Women Act Against Military Violence joined forces in resistance. Defeat was always a possibility, but coalition members permitted no cracks of movement disunity to open up to make it a certainty.
In places like Okinawa, different and even conflicting groups band together for a common cause. In doing so, they prioritize that cause over everything else — including their ideological purity, public image, and social media credibility. In places like Australia, no similarly strong commitment to a cause exists. On the contrary, the priority is performing outrage about inconsequential things in order to appear as though one cares deeply about the right things. People prefer to be seen as the right kind of people holding the right kind of views over actually achieving anything. Meanwhile, coal mine development, overseas military deployment, housing degradation, reef destruction, and corporate tax rorting proceeds apace.
But the problem isn’t one of laziness or smoke and mirrors distraction. We know from the history of left organizing that ideological fitness tests are applied deliberately for political purposes. They are applied for the benefit of the people whose interests a movement is seeking to advance. How they are applied clearly signals who is being prioritized.
As to whose interests the Australian left is pursuing, the antics over my attendance at the Historical Materialism Sydney conference gave the game away. Questioning the notion that gender is a matter of how we feel about ourselves, rather than a matter of how we have been systematically treated throughout our lives, was turned into a crime more serious than ignoring tens of thousands of Asian women in brothels on every street corner of Australia’s cities. But the comedic disproportion of this scenario wasn’t accidental. It was manufactured in service of male interests that are now coming under pressure from feminist challenge.”
bleatmop
Mystro
Dead Wild Roses 
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