The March discussion group was held on 16 March 2023. For this meeting each participant chose to read one or more articles from the Gender Critical Disputes issue of the feminist magazine The Radical Notion. You can access a FREE copy of the issue here.
The suggestion to read this issue of the magazine was came from Alfie, who felt that the varied reactions to the publication would make it a current and worthwhile read for the group.
The overall theme of this special edition is a split in gender critical feminism described by Rose Pickford as follows: “Some are comfortable with, and in even positive favour of, reciprocal promotion and collaboration with ultra-conservative groups and actors … Others, myself included, contend that it does not make political sense for feminists to engage in collective action with people who are working toward anti-feminist goals.”
For this event we each selected one or two articles from the magazine to read and talk about.
David started with ‘The Fairer Sex Strikes Back‘ by Jeni Harvey. This article identifies a trend to reinvent feminism as a “sex-realist” movement based on a rejection of the 1970s sexual revolution. Louise Perry and Erika Bachiochi are among the authors promoting this view. They point out that this revolution had the effect of promoting pornography and prostitution, while the invention of the contraceptive pill was empowering to men rather than women (and in fact weakened women’s position as they could no longer use the risk of pregnancy as a reason to say ‘No‘).
The answer of these authors is to support traditional marriage and family values as the only realistic way to put a brake on male sexual entitlement. Thus we end up with a “socially conservative” version of feminism.
Harvey rejects this view on the grounds that according to the evidence, women are not made safe by traditional family structures and in fact domestic violence within those structures is the one of the biggest threats to women. If the idea is for women to trade freedom for security, it won’t work because men cannot be relied on to provide the “security” part of the bargain.
Harvey’s article is clearly taking the side of those who reject collaboration with the right, however it seems a little tangential to the subject of gender critical feminism as such.
A similar point was made by Björn regarding an article by Marina Strinkovsky on the “dangerous appeal” of evolutionary psychology. According to the author the danger of EP comes from its deterministic nature which can be used to argue that men are inherently superior and/or patriarchal structures are inevitable. There seems to be an attempt to link this determinism to gender critical feminism but the argument is unclear. (If you believe in the importance of the XX chromosome does that make you ‘deterministic’ in an objectionable sense?). We felt again, that this was an article that seems only vaguely related to the overall theme.
Rosie Pickford’s article on ‘Femalism vs Feminism‘ (reviewed by Robbie) gets closer to the issue, discussing the dispute between those such as Kellie-Jay Keen and Meghan Murphy who appear on such right wing channels as GB News and Fox News and those who might be called ‘Purists‘. Pickford identifies KJK (who coined the term Femalism and distances herself from Feminism) as a “provocative” character who for example has called for armed vigilantes to defend women’s toilets. Pickford sees Femalism as an identitarian movement similar to ethno-nationalism; however this seems a false analogy as ethnic differences do not raise the same issues as sex differences. It is also often the case that right wingers insert themselves into gender critical battles (e.g. against Drag Queen Story Time) in an opportunistic way. The blatant hypocrisy of their interventions should be obvious.
Robbie made the point that divisions in radical movements are always fostered by the ruling class and in order to counter this maybe we need to overlook the differences and support all the various strands of GC feminism/femalism. The definition of right wing (or far right) is also debatable, e.g. Julie Bindel who is among those critical of collaboration writes for the Daily Mail, which for some feminists would be beyond the pale. KJK is clearly not everyone’s cup of tea but she has successfully engaged a lot of women beyond the reach of “purist” academic feminists and some of those women might emerge as future leaders.
Finally an article by Kay Green, also read by David, attempts to get beyond the intra-feminist dispute by arguing for the recognition of feminism as an aspect of a broader left wing politics. Only the left can provide the things that women in patriarchy are most dependent on such as a well financed welfare state, pensions and childcare services. Since these things also benefit trans people, a left aligned feminist movement that pursues these objectives might turn out to be truer “allies” to trans people than those, such as Nicola Sturgeon and the “Women’s Equality Party” who claim to be.
Alfie pointed out that if read in isolation some of the articles, including ‘The Fairer Sex Strikes Back‘ and ‘The dangerous appeal of evolutionary psychology‘, may seem not to directly relate to the theme of ‘Gender Critical Disputes‘. However when read together, provide a cohesive picture of the differing point of views of feminists at this time.
Key takeaway: As male allies, we should try to avoid criticising feminists involved in this debate while actively providing support to those whose stance we feel comfortable with.
The suggestion to read this issue of the magazine was came from Alfie, who felt that the varied reactions to the publication would make it a current and worthwhile read for the group.
The overall theme of this special edition is a split in gender critical feminism described by Rose Pickford as follows: “Some are comfortable with, and in even positive favour of, reciprocal promotion and collaboration with ultra-conservative groups and actors … Others, myself included, contend that it does not make political sense for feminists to engage in collective action with people who are working toward anti-feminist goals.”
For this event we each selected one or two articles from the magazine to read and talk about.
David started with ‘The Fairer Sex Strikes Back‘ by Jeni Harvey. This article identifies a trend to reinvent feminism as a “sex-realist” movement based on a rejection of the 1970s sexual revolution. Louise Perry and Erika Bachiochi are among the authors promoting this view. They point out that this revolution had the effect of promoting pornography and prostitution, while the invention of the contraceptive pill was empowering to men rather than women (and in fact weakened women’s position as they could no longer use the risk of pregnancy as a reason to say ‘No‘).
The answer of these authors is to support traditional marriage and family values as the only realistic way to put a brake on male sexual entitlement. Thus we end up with a “socially conservative” version of feminism.
Harvey rejects this view on the grounds that according to the evidence, women are not made safe by traditional family structures and in fact domestic violence within those structures is the one of the biggest threats to women. If the idea is for women to trade freedom for security, it won’t work because men cannot be relied on to provide the “security” part of the bargain.
Harvey’s article is clearly taking the side of those who reject collaboration with the right, however it seems a little tangential to the subject of gender critical feminism as such.
A similar point was made by Björn regarding an article by Marina Strinkovsky on the “dangerous appeal” of evolutionary psychology. According to the author the danger of EP comes from its deterministic nature which can be used to argue that men are inherently superior and/or patriarchal structures are inevitable. There seems to be an attempt to link this determinism to gender critical feminism but the argument is unclear. (If you believe in the importance of the XX chromosome does that make you ‘deterministic’ in an objectionable sense?). We felt again, that this was an article that seems only vaguely related to the overall theme.
Rosie Pickford’s article on ‘Femalism vs Feminism‘ (reviewed by Robbie) gets closer to the issue, discussing the dispute between those such as Kellie-Jay Keen and Meghan Murphy who appear on such right wing channels as GB News and Fox News and those who might be called ‘Purists‘. Pickford identifies KJK (who coined the term Femalism and distances herself from Feminism) as a “provocative” character who for example has called for armed vigilantes to defend women’s toilets. Pickford sees Femalism as an identitarian movement similar to ethno-nationalism; however this seems a false analogy as ethnic differences do not raise the same issues as sex differences. It is also often the case that right wingers insert themselves into gender critical battles (e.g. against Drag Queen Story Time) in an opportunistic way. The blatant hypocrisy of their interventions should be obvious.
Robbie made the point that divisions in radical movements are always fostered by the ruling class and in order to counter this maybe we need to overlook the differences and support all the various strands of GC feminism/femalism. The definition of right wing (or far right) is also debatable, e.g. Julie Bindel who is among those critical of collaboration writes for the Daily Mail, which for some feminists would be beyond the pale. KJK is clearly not everyone’s cup of tea but she has successfully engaged a lot of women beyond the reach of “purist” academic feminists and some of those women might emerge as future leaders.
Finally an article by Kay Green, also read by David, attempts to get beyond the intra-feminist dispute by arguing for the recognition of feminism as an aspect of a broader left wing politics. Only the left can provide the things that women in patriarchy are most dependent on such as a well financed welfare state, pensions and childcare services. Since these things also benefit trans people, a left aligned feminist movement that pursues these objectives might turn out to be truer “allies” to trans people than those, such as Nicola Sturgeon and the “Women’s Equality Party” who claim to be.
Alfie pointed out that if read in isolation some of the articles, including ‘The Fairer Sex Strikes Back‘ and ‘The dangerous appeal of evolutionary psychology‘, may seem not to directly relate to the theme of ‘Gender Critical Disputes‘. However when read together, provide a cohesive picture of the differing point of views of feminists at this time.
Key takeaway: As male allies, we should try to avoid criticising feminists involved in this debate while actively providing support to those whose stance we feel comfortable with.
