Uncategorized | Feminist Fightback

Why do they hate Transwomen so much?

The recent events which culminated in Julie Burchill’s shocking article, ‘Transsexuals should cut it out’, in The Observer, has revealed a nasty bigoted underbelly to mainstream politics and, in particular, a type of so-called feminism which is promoted in the media. The very fact that transphobia of such ignorant venom was ever written by some-one who calls themselves a left-wing feminist, never mind published by a self-named liberal newspaper, is absolutely horrifying. Why do they hate transwomen so much?

It all began with Suzanne Moore’s essay in The New Statesman, Seeing red: the power of female anger [8th Jan 2013] where she argued that women are put under pressure to have ‘the ideal body shape – that of a Brazilian transsexual.’ When challenged to justify or explain what she meant by this an array of progressive columnist/commentator friends came to her defense – dismissing this as a small aspect of what was otherwise a brilliant feminist article. Yet neither Moore nor her defenders actually have explained what she did mean by this comment – which sits uncomfortably and incongruously within her argument – if it was not a transphobic jibe. Instead it seems as though we were being asked to overlook this little offhand comment and that it was outrageous that poor Suzanne was being held accountable for her words, despite the fact words are indeed her very trade and bigotry, although it may mask itself as such, is never little nor offhand.

And of course, during the back and forth discussion that followed, Suzanne confirmed that behind this so-called throwaway admission she does indeed ‘have issues with trans anything actually’ and that she doesn’t ‘prioritise this fucking lopping bits of your body over all else that is happening to women’. With a frightening Bernard Manning-esque arrogance she proudly declared that she ‘use(s) lots of ‘offensive’ words’ and if people are offended that is their own ‘prerogative.’ Then, as if she hadn’t shown enough contempt for the general public who dare to express a differing opinion, she leaves us with no doubt of what her position is:

“People can just fuck off really. Cut their dicks off and be more feminist than me.”

Yet still she is defended. Owen Jones in particular rallies to support Moore in light of this ‘disproportional’ criticism on the bizaar grounds that ‘some have the attitude that the “near enemy” (the impure left) are a bigger threat than the “far enemy”’. Let us be clear, a bigot is a bigot, where-ever they have positioned themselves for comforts’ sake. Not only does such an approach show an arrogance and lack of respect for the ordinary folk these people purport to represent (how dare we lowly unpaid feminists and socialists criticise the authority of the professionals?) but is shocking in the way in which it supports clear unadulterated prejudice. Moore’s comments by this stage are not cryptic or complicated. When probed specifically on the ‘cut their dick off’ phrase, Jones declares that ‘it’s a statement about macho men lecturing her on feminism!’ At the very best this reflects an absolute and unforgivable (possibly willful) ignorance.

Finally, Julie Burchill’s tirade that followed smashes any cover of ambiguity to hide behind, when she issues her frightening warning;

‘Shims, shemales, whatever you’re calling yourselves these days – don’t threaten or bully we lowly natural-born women, I warn you. We may not have as many lovely big swinging Phds as you, but we’ve experienced a lifetime of PMT and sexual harassment, and many of us are now staring HRT and the menopause straight in the face – and still not flinching. Trust me, you ain’t seen nothing yet. You really won’t like us when we’re angry.’

The level of hatred, the vitriolic language, the ridiculous ill-founded claims of transpeople as a group (‘they’ are this, ‘they’ all do this – sound familiar?) and the aggressive threat is nothing less than spine chilling. Of course she conflates transwomen with all transpeople – ignoring the experiences of transmen in particular, along with the many different ways people define their identity. Even her fellow columnist friends have now distanced themselves.

Anger can be a good thing. Oppressed people everywhere feel anger at injustice and exploitation. Anger at discrimination. Anger at our disenfranchisement. Anger at abuse and our lack of autonomy over our own bodies. Anger at not being able to determine our own identity – for being persecuted for difference or non-conformity. Yet, anger, directed towards groups of human beings, our allies, our comrades, our sisters and brothers for no particular reason, is not feminism, is just bigotry. Moore and Burchill have scoffed at the notion of ‘intersectional’ politics and parodied transpolitics as an overly academic distraction. Yet it is because of the intellectual inadequacies of their type of feminism that they find themselves in the unjustifiable corner they are now in.

‘Intersectional’ derives from longstanding debates, and indeed criticism of/within, the feminist movement, which were/are about trying to understand the world we live in. In particular, Black Feminists pointed out that refusing to acknowledge the complicated interaction of the whole host of oppressions that an individual experiences, leads to an exclusive white middle class feminism. In Feminist Fightback, a grassroots collective for self defining women, intersectionality is far from an academic exercise but is a continually developed understanding drawn from our everyday experiences as working class women, queer women, disabled women, black women and so on. Through campaigns about reproductive freedoms, childcare provision, domestic labour in the home, objectification, workers rights, migrants rights, anti racism, public sector cuts, sex workers rights, sex, it is unavoidably clear that there are many different oppressions people face. Moore and Burchill speak as though it is not possible to be a working class single parent who also happens to be a transwoman. For all the talk about the ‘chauvinist’ critics of Moore, nothing is more chauvinistic and ignorant than a political approach which is not interested in displaying the many different ways in which people experience their bodies and gender.

The insistence of referring to men who have cut their dicks, reflects most clearly this thuggary. Personally, I don’t know of any men who have casually cut their dicks off, although I see no reason to take a moral stance on the subject. However, I presume what is meant by this is transwomen - WHO ARE WOMEN, our sisters. Why is it so upsetting to let people define themselves? Moreover, in light of the fact transpeople often face horrific discrimination and prejudice, the only progressive stance is to stand in solidarity with their struggle. Despite the flippant remarks made by Burchill and Moore about ‘solidarity’, that is indeed what it is all about. Luckily we are not a ‘small group’, as has been implied. There are many of us who understand what solidarity means. We may not have a column in the bourgeois press but we stand shoulder to shoulder (all self-defining genders and none) against every form of oppression.

And, right back at ya Burchill, we will overcome.

January 21, 2013 | Democratic Rights,Public Sector Cuts,Uncategorized | comment

Women’s Library in East End to Close

LSE’s PR machine has been in firing away, shamefully attempting to whitewash the closure of The Women’s Library and present themselves as it’s saviours. When in fact, they have simply taken the valuable collections and integrated them into their academic corporate library in central London. This means an end to community and outreach work and the closure of the purpose-built reading room and gallery. At least now emminent professors won’t have to dirty their shoes with a trip to Tower Hamlets! We re-print below the press release of the campaign, which vows to keep the building open.

Save The Women’s Library campaigners vow to fight on

Women’s Library supporters have vowed to continue their campaign, following an announcement by LSE and London Metropolitan University that The Women’s Library will leave its purpose-built home in the East End of London.

The decision to close the building follows a series of protests by the Save The Women’s Library Campaign and the presentation of a 12,000-strong petition against the Library’s closure. The Library’s current home opened just ten years ago, with £4.2m funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund and contributions from other supporters. It encompasses purpose-designed collections storage, education and exhibition space, and light and airy reading room facilities.

A rare monument to women’s lives, learning and scholarship designed by a woman architect (Claire Wright MBE), it was purpose-built on the site of an old Wash House off Petticoat Lane to provide safe housing for its unique collections, open up access to the public, and contribute to the regeneration of Tower Hamlets. Its high quality, sustainable design, and contribution to the local environment was recognised with an award from the Royal Institute of British Architects. In 2002 it was named RIBA Journal’s building of the year, the Brick Award’s Best UK Public Building, and winner of the Liveable City Sustainability Award. A dedicated, high-quality building for The Women’s Library’s collections recognises the importance of the fight for women’s equality to national life.

A statement from the Save The Women’s Library campaign said: “Moving the collection out of its purpose built premises on Old Castle Street will limit and reduce access to this powerful collection. Access is more than opening times, and we find it hard to see how current plans will accommodate the vibrant exhibitions, education and events programmes that have opened up this collection to the wider public over the past decade. The closure of this building would be a step back for women’s equality, as well as an enormous waste. “We do not accept that ensuring professional care and custodianship for this library can best be ensured through removing its contents from their home. The Women’s Library must maintain its building, staff, accessibility and commitment to the community. It is an institution of national and international importance which deserves secure funding in its own right. It would be senseless to close it because London Met is in trouble. “We remain confident that a viable alternative to closing the building can still be found. We intend to pursue the full range of available options and to work with all supporters to ensure that The Women’s Library stays where it is, open and accessible to all. As the LSE runs respected archive and library services, we’d be delighted if they wanted to be part of this solution”

Rushanara Ali, Bethnal Green and Bow MP, said, “The Women’s Library provides a crucial hub for local women, researchers and students, contributing to the East End’s vibrant intellectual and cultural life. London Metropolitan University and the Government need to make every effort to keep The Women’s Library open.”

Further support for the Save The Women’s Library campaign

“The Women’s Library is an international treasure and must be kept intact and open to researchers and visitors.” Karen Offen, Historian & Senior Scholar, The Clayman Institute for Gender Research, Stanford University, USA

“The closure of The Women’s Library would be a real step backwards for all of us who fought to end the invisibility of women in history. The Women’s Library must be kept open not just to academics but also to the local community and anyone interested in finding out about our rich history of women’s struggles for equality.” Prof. Barbara Taylor, Professor of Humanities, Queen Mary, University of London

“The process by which London Met has conducted the ‘bidding process’ for the irreplaceable Women’s Library is a national scandal that merits an enquiry.” Prof. June Purvis, University of Portsmouth

“I hope that this magnificent purpose designed building for The Women’s Library by award winning architects Wright & Wright finds a future which keeps it all together, including the dedicated staff and collection. There has got to be a solution out there! It would be most regrettable if it all gets lost after so much effort and enjoyment of its success.” Angela Brady, President, Royal Institute of British Architects

*Click for more information*

Address for TWL visitors: The Women’s Library, London Metropolitan University, Old Castle Street, London E1 7NT; nearest tube Aldgate East, Aldgate or Liverpool Street; open Mon to Fri 9.30am-5.30pm, Thurs until 8.00pm

Follow us on Twitter: @saveTWL, #savetwl

September 29, 2012 | Uncategorized | comment

Save the Women’s Library: Public Meeting

Save the Women’s Library!
Public Meeting: 7pm on Friday 6th July at The Rocket, 166-220 Holloway Road, London N7 8DB (nearest tube Holloway Road)
Join us to discuss what’s going on at The Women’s Library and what you can do to save it!

Many of you have heard about the threat of closure faced by The Women’s Library. Many of you (12,000 people to be precise) have signed our petition protesting against London Met’s decision to divest custodianship. Many of you will have read the extensive press coverage generated by the campaign to save The Women’s Library, which demands that its collections remain together, that we keep its heritage-lottery funded building and its expert body of staff.

Now is the time to get together, as library users, librarians, students, teachers, archivists, union members and community activists to work out how together we can protect this world-famous resource on women and their struggles for freedom.

The meeting will discuss
• How can we ensure that the WL remains open and accessible to all?
• How does this sell-off relate to wider cuts in higher education and attacks on research culture at widening participation universities?
• What is the government doing to protect our museums and archives in a climate of austerity?
• How can we make The Women’s Library an even better resource for feminist activists and the East London community?

For more information see www.savethewomenslibrary@blogspot.co.uk or email savetwl86@gmail.com

June 27, 2012 | Uncategorized | comment

Support Lambeth Women’s Project!

Lambeth Women’s Project is a volunteer run community organisation which has been supporting women in Lambeth from the building at 166a Stockwell Road since 1979. It’s future is now under threat.

In 2010 management of 166a was handed over to neighbouring Stockwell Primary School who refurbished the building and a five year agreement was agreed for shared usage of the space between the school and the project. On 31st May, on the eve of the Jubilee Bank Holiday and only two years into this lease the school informed the project that they had two weeks to pack up their belongings and leave.

The school later agreed to consider independent mediation with the project but on Monday 18th June, with no prior warning, a new lock was added to the building and women were locked inside. The school called the police but were told they must give Lambeth Women’s Project access and keys to all locks.

LWP are seeking legal advice and are clear that they are being unjustly treated and that their eviction will compromise the already hard hit services offered to women in Lambeth. At the moment women are staying in the building at all times.

Find out how to help here:
Campaign Blog: http://savelambethwomensproject.wordpress.com

Twitter: @SaveLWP

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/lambethwomensproject

Sign the online petition here: http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/lambethwomen/

A message of support from Feminist Fightback:

Dear Lambeth Women’s Project
We are writing to give you are solidarity in your struggle against eviction.
We are all aware of what is stake in such an incredibly important and invaluable space for women and girls in south London is lost.
Over the years many of us have come to Lambeth Women’s Project for feminist meetings and events and we hope this will continue for many more years ot come.
Your struggle so far has been inspiring. Members of our collective are following developments and will do what we can to support you in your crucial fight to save the centre.
Do let us know what we can do. We’ll continue to send updates on our list and support your demonstrations.

In solidarity and sisterhood,
Feminist Fightback

June 22, 2012 | Uncategorized | comment

Sex Education Past and Present: Study Day

Feminist Fightback will be participating in the Feminist Study Day at the
Bishopsgate Institute (E1) next week on Sat 26th May at 11am.

We have been developing materials on sex and relationship education for
teachers to use in schools. Come and hear about how were inspired by the
amazing Feminist Library Pamphlet Collection, recently donated to the
Bishopsgate Institute. This collection holds many materials from the Women’s
Liberation Movement on how to empower young people to talk about their
sexuality and relationships.
Our workshop will be part of a day long event in which different feminist
collectives talk about how they have used the history of our movement to enrich
our activism today.

Schedule:
11 – 11:45am – Welcome and introduction to the collection – Gail & Stefan
Break
12 – 12:45pm – Feminist Fightback: hands-on session on reproductive rights
and sex education material.
Lunch – people to provide their own, plenty of cafes in the vicinity.
1:45 – 2:30pm – Solfed: hands-on session on sexual harassment.
Break
2:45 – 3:45pm – Patrizia; hands-on session looking at the art and imagery
of the Women’s Liberation Movement.
4pm – Finish

To book a place: e-mail Stefan.Dickers@bishopsgate.org.uk.

May 20, 2012 | Uncategorized | comment

In, Against (and Beyond?) the State

Report back from workshop at ‘Women At the Cutting Edge’ and suggestions for how to further pursue the questions it raised.

Aims of the workshop

To test several hypothesis:

Has David Cameron’s ‘Big Society’ rhetoric tapped into a genuine dissatisfaction/ desire for more control over our state services?

How do people experience the contradictory nature of the state – as an instrument of social control and as the provider of essential services?

That a simple ‘defend public services position’ is inadequate to inspiring working-people to fight and responding to their real needs.

And to ask what this tells us about how to fight against cuts:

In particular, what we think about initial moves being made to run services ourselves – case studies of library being taken over by the anti-cuts campaign, and of free ESOL classes in a migrant resource centre filling in for ESOL courses cut at the local FE college. What problems/ possibilities might arise from such a strategy?

What the workshop came up with…;

Many people did not have time to use public services because they had to work full time – a teacher said she hadn’t been to the dentist for years, a civil servant never got to her local library, a charity worker couldn’t take time off to visit her GP.

They were all public sector workers and public service users, but these two different roles were completely separated. People also suggested that their own stresses and work pressures as public service workers made them more demanding about the service provision they received from other public sector workers.

People spoke positively about their experiences of the NHS – a life saving service. They also commented on the long waiting lists, and sometimes grumpy and over-worked staff that came with this, though this did not stop them from strongly endorsing the service. One participant felt strongly as a result that our first and foremost position had to be to defend these services, not to critique them.

This connected to a point about there being great potential in all our public service institutions which was often stifled because workers were prevented from doing the job properly. One positive arising from this was that the fury and frustration that it provoked might be effectively channelled into fighting management.

Going on strike might be seen (and argued for) as the ultimate experience of workers taking control of these services.

Guilt of state workers providing essential services such as education or public transport when they either had to limit their work in order to protect their own health or withdraw their labour during strikes. In this context it was useful to point out to service users that management, who force workers into these positions, are NOT running the service for the benefit of the public.

This was a clear example of the paradoxical/ dual nature of these services – in whose interests they are run and how they are run depends on who runs them?

Higher education provided another useful example of the multiple ways in which the state operated in this context. On the one hand higher education could be a liberating and transformative experience for working class people. Yet the higher education establishment is currently structured to operate as a border, benefitting a chosen few and deliberately excluding the majority, and it is upon this exclusion that it derives its prestige. So now higher education, or lack of it, is also a way of ensuring that people who don’t have a degree will be trapped in minimum wage jobs. One participant felt strongly that as a result is was not possible to simply defend higher education (despite his positive experience of it), we need to imagine a different system altogether[?].

Important to ask who is empowered to access state services and who is not.

State services and the housing system were even more explicit examples of ‘gate-keeping’ public resources – dividing working class people and making them see each other as the enemy.

Case Study: Taking over the local library

What would happen if we took over a local library earmarked for closure? Would we just be providing this service for free?

Problems:

Lets the state off the hook – providing a vital service for free.

Where would the money come from? Voluntary service provision unsustainable. Would it encourage further privatisation, insist that it be run for a profit?

Who would the volunteers be? Middle-class retired people or unemployed people on workfare – both scenarios highly problematic.

Would undermine librarians both in terms of arguing that this is important work that should be waged but also that they are highly skilled workers.

Important that we don’t romanticise current public service provision. Libraries for example use a lot of volunteer labour, untrained workers, and also are supposed to be ‘self-funding’ (eg fund themselves through fines and DVD rentals.

Positives:

Would depend greatly on how it was run, but possibility of running it in an antagonistic way which was less about service provision and more an educative experience in what these services are/ who controls them and why we need them?

Could you use the library also as space for political meetings, could people’s involvement in helping to run it be a politicising experience, could its inevitable ‘failure’ be used to highlight the impossibility of Cameron’s voluntary vision?

Case Study: ESOL Classes

Free ESOL classes provided by volunteers in a migrant resource centre are being used to fill in the gap in provision created by under-funded FE college and closure of ESOL courses there.

Problems:

Sets precedent that it is ok to provide services on the cheap. How is quality guaranteed in a voluntary service?

How do you support yourself if working unpaid?

Tensions created between FE teachers and volunteer activists.

How do the students needs and desires fit into this?

Will funding for migrant resource centre impose restrictions and regulations?

Important to question whether ESOL really is just a service – also a means of disciplining migrants and forcing them to conform to a standard of ‘integration’ which supports a racist logic. When are ESOL classes empowering and when are they not?.

Positives:

ESOL teachers and volunteers need to join forces, communicate, understand each other’s position.

Potential to build a stronger campaign hat defends existing services (for documented migrants) and demands better ones (for undocumented migrants).

ESOL teachers could refuse to ask for proof of documentation, to resist division between legal and illegal migrants that created the need for the voluntary lessons in the first place.

Questions/ Issues to Pursue Further…

Do we need to go back to basics? To ask why these services exist in the first place? What is their function? What are people’s needs? Why do people need them?

How can we challenge fragmentation between workers and services users as well as breaking up of these services themselves?

October 25, 2010 | In and Against the State,Public Sector Cuts,Uncategorized,Workers' Struggles,Workplace Organising | comment

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Feminist Fightback is an anti-capitalist feminist collective for self-defining women.
feminist.fightback@googlemail.com

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