Excellent piece and I completely agree. However, I wish somebody would tackle the inconvenient truth that it was third-wave academic feminists who started the slippery slope that led to these ridiculous stories. It was feminists who promoted the pseudoscientific idea of "gender" starting in the 70s. It was feminists who sought to deconstruct the traditional roles and behaviors of the sexes. It was feminists who completely fell for post-modernist attacks on science. It was feminists/lesbians who were a key part of the rise of Queer Theory. And most feminists today still support the inclusion of the T in LGBT. I fully support the minority of feminists ("TERFS") who are pushing back on this trans nonsense, but I hope they recognize their role in its origin.
This piece does a disservice to the MANY women who are fighting gender ideology, individually and through organizations such as WoLF, WDI, Lesbians United. You write as if they do not exist.
It is maddening that women keep throwing women under the bus. Reminds me of the UN study from a few years ago that showed that something like 90% of humans(including women) are biased against women. People crazy.
Oct 5, 2022·edited Oct 6, 2022Liked by Barbara Kay
Great piece, thank you. We seem to have somehow smoothly transitioned from a commonly defined (though often hotly contested) conception of what constituted - "material reality" - through subsequent periods like - post-modern reality - to completely Orwellian reality - through to what we might call "surrealist-reality" - and now into the uncharted waters of our current - "woke-post-surrealist-reality." I'm not sure there are any further levels left for us to traverse in this bat-shit crazy descent into societal madness?? But hey, it's not like I haven't been wrong before about this stuff.
I find it rather frightening that my five year old grandson has no problem explaining - "what a woman is" - yet I've watched many politicians and PhD academics hem and haw and somehow not be able to quite come up with an answer to what appears to now be considered in woke circles - "a trick question." Go figure.
"Have feminist leaders denounced these teachers’ and students’ forced compliance with misogyny? No. But feminists failing to stand up for women being treated badly is an old story."
WRONG! Let's start with the basic fact that 'feminists' aren't one large block of female human beings. Feminism does not and can not possibly represent ALL women in ALL countries, ALL faiths, ALL cultures. Painting ALL feminists as having turned their backs on women in general and the women who are victimized by gender ideology specifically is grossly incorrect and unfair.
Please do your research. There are HUNDREDS of organizations globally who are fighting against insurmountable odds fighting battles on every front. The organization WOLF - https://womensliberationfront.org/ is suing governments in the US for many violations against women's rights. Standing for Women in the UK is another organization fighting to protect women's rights against gender ideology: https://www.standingforwomen.com/. The organization Fair Play for Women in the UK is fighting against gender ideology in women's sports: https://fairplayforwomen.com/. Collective Shout in Australia fighting against porn and sex trafficking: https://www.collectiveshout.org/. These are just a few feminist/women's organizations who ARE standing up for women.
So, PLEASE, don't add to the denigration of feminists as a whole. It's incredibly disheartening and makes feminist struggles so much harder - by that I mean radical feminism, not the current version of feminism that is simply serving up patriarchy with a slice of internalized misogyny.
Why not uplift and share the work of these and MANY more organizations of feminists who ARE doing this critical work despite doxxing censorship, propaganda, loss of jobs and careers, not to mention assaults and threats of rape, death. Even one of the most powerful women in the world isn't safe. J.K. Rowling has put her life, health, family and wealth at risk for over 5 years defending and protecting women in the face of gender extremists. How readily would you be speaking out if you were faced with these kinds of threats every day: https://terfisaslur.com/. A very small collection of the kind of threats made to women in various institutions. Trans ideology is really just another insidious form of patriarchy that exploits women's natural inclination to be kind and inclusive and weaponizes it against us. It is driven by predatory capitalism which seeks to turn everyone and everything into a commodity and young people are now being served up as customers for life once they go down the road to transitioning: https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2020/01/the-billionaires-behind-the-lgbt-movement. The pharma billionaires are having a field day and laughing all the way to the bank between trans ideology and covid. They're all tied in together as a way to destroy our families and relationships.
I, myself, have experienced just how horrific is the abuse inflicted on women who DO speak up. I have been kicked off Twitter, Facebook, Medium simply for stating that we should offer therapy to young people considering becoming trans instead of surgery and drugs. I lost my best friend who got caught up in trans cult and had her breasts removed. She lost her children, husband beautiful home largely because she was raised by parents who repeatedly told her they wished she was born a boy.
Have compassion for ALL women who are doing their best in a culture that dismisses, ridicules and silences women's concerns. Hold those women AND men - in particular the people profiting from the transition process - accountable who are actively doing harm, of course, but just like blaming all women for their rapes is extremely misogynist and inappropriate, blaming feminists for trans ideology reaching this point of extreme behaviour because we aren't standing up enough, ignores the 10's of thousands of women/feminists who are struggling to be heard at all.
I agree with the criticism you are receiving as far as ignoring all the good work gender critical feminists are doing. That being said, what often makes a great article is the discussion it opens up. I 've gotten a lot out of reading the comments and your responses to them. I believe Feminism
is a work in progress and I'm proud to be part of it even when it gets messy.
Oddly, when I discovered my then husband's cross-dressing life and became a single mom, the "feminists" in my circles often recommended "taking my sexuality back" through a more casual attitude towards dating and affairs. I always responded that didn't sound liberating, actually.
It takes too much effort for me to get angry with misguided, illogical brainwash. For self-preservation, I have to put it into the drawer in my mind and close it, only speak in these columns. Looking back into my teaching years, I did help the girls to speak their minds, to be assertive.
Ute Heggen, author, In the Curated Woods, True Tales from a Grass Widow (iuniverse, 2022)
One of the reasons why women and feminists (radfems) are so shocked at the present state of affairs is that this is the first time in their lifespans that public policy has gone against them. They have now been forced to let other people ahead of the in the queue. That doesn't feel good, does it? (Says the heterosexual white male) Previously women's prerogatives were advanced massively, of course much of this was long overdue and was deserved. However their representatives, the feminist movement bought into ideological dogmas like intersectionality, multiculturalism, gender ideology which require women to cede their interests to other, more favoured "victim classes". Their own purported protectors have sold them out.
Now you know how the working class feels toward the left who sold them down the river to globalism and mass immigration. Please don't mistake my comment as bitter revanchism - I strongly support women's fightback against gender ideology and all other "post equality" movements. Like many other commenters I agree that feminists were happy to take advantage of these movements when they gained, and are only aghast after they started losing. That is a finger of accusation to them - not women in general.
Half the population have a right to agitate for their interest. I hope the feminist movement can reform itself from this disaster. A future where it is based around furthering of women's objective interest rather than slavishly following ideological dogmas handed down from their high priestesses like Butler.
Sorry that you’re stuck with us non-ideologues. ;)
Perhaps we provide a good example for trans activists that self identifying is not a sufficient substitute for good methodology nor good arguments.
Regarding your very good article it’s quite an astute observation that Kayla Lemieux is damaging to the great progress of first wave feminism and he might be some kind of provocateur. It’s certainly hard to take his gender expression seriously as some sort of authentic self-expression. Especially with the dangers of large prosthetic breasts around power tools. A snag can easily lead to lost fingers. Unfortunately the left is so gripped by fear of being called transphobic that even common sense is pushed aside.
I'm seeing an obvious double-standard here. Would a female teacher get away with coming to school with her nipples poking out like that? Of course not. There are expectations of appropriate professional dress for teachers, just as there are codes (or uniforms!) for the pupils. If this "industrial arts" (we called it metalwork) teacher wants to be treated as a woman, (s)he should expect to be taken aside by a female colleague and told off for making an inappropriate dress choice. Just as I would be if I chose to wear a pair of trousers to work with a non-functioning fly.
I'm very glad Barbara Kay made the connection between gender censors and the Islamophobia racket. Yes these are both massive syndicates of woke word police that will shut down speech under the banner of ----phobia and they both hurt women even though the purport to be feminist. There are academic circles, corporate bureaucracies and plenty of powerful NGOs that are all controlled by the intersectional activists that bully everyone with the threats of unemployment/termination, expulsion, deplatforming, libel, social ostracism etc. I don't anticipate these movements can be countered without massive social rejection of the narratives. It is hard to see that happening from "within" rather it will take conservative countermovements that purge the woke from positions of power.
I agree with most of what you are saying until you decided to claim it was misogyny. Trans people that are born men and now claim to be women are allowed much more leeway because the mainstream sees them as females. So if anything is driving this it is toxic Misandry by teachers and staff in schools that are 95% female.
Excellent piece and I completely agree. However, I wish somebody would tackle the inconvenient truth that it was third-wave academic feminists who started the slippery slope that led to these ridiculous stories. It was feminists who promoted the pseudoscientific idea of "gender" starting in the 70s. It was feminists who sought to deconstruct the traditional roles and behaviors of the sexes. It was feminists who completely fell for post-modernist attacks on science. It was feminists/lesbians who were a key part of the rise of Queer Theory. And most feminists today still support the inclusion of the T in LGBT. I fully support the minority of feminists ("TERFS") who are pushing back on this trans nonsense, but I hope they recognize their role in its origin.
This piece does a disservice to the MANY women who are fighting gender ideology, individually and through organizations such as WoLF, WDI, Lesbians United. You write as if they do not exist.
Right on Barbara! So thankful for your voice!
It is maddening that women keep throwing women under the bus. Reminds me of the UN study from a few years ago that showed that something like 90% of humans(including women) are biased against women. People crazy.
Great piece, thank you. We seem to have somehow smoothly transitioned from a commonly defined (though often hotly contested) conception of what constituted - "material reality" - through subsequent periods like - post-modern reality - to completely Orwellian reality - through to what we might call "surrealist-reality" - and now into the uncharted waters of our current - "woke-post-surrealist-reality." I'm not sure there are any further levels left for us to traverse in this bat-shit crazy descent into societal madness?? But hey, it's not like I haven't been wrong before about this stuff.
I find it rather frightening that my five year old grandson has no problem explaining - "what a woman is" - yet I've watched many politicians and PhD academics hem and haw and somehow not be able to quite come up with an answer to what appears to now be considered in woke circles - "a trick question." Go figure.
"Have feminist leaders denounced these teachers’ and students’ forced compliance with misogyny? No. But feminists failing to stand up for women being treated badly is an old story."
WRONG! Let's start with the basic fact that 'feminists' aren't one large block of female human beings. Feminism does not and can not possibly represent ALL women in ALL countries, ALL faiths, ALL cultures. Painting ALL feminists as having turned their backs on women in general and the women who are victimized by gender ideology specifically is grossly incorrect and unfair.
Please do your research. There are HUNDREDS of organizations globally who are fighting against insurmountable odds fighting battles on every front. The organization WOLF - https://womensliberationfront.org/ is suing governments in the US for many violations against women's rights. Standing for Women in the UK is another organization fighting to protect women's rights against gender ideology: https://www.standingforwomen.com/. The organization Fair Play for Women in the UK is fighting against gender ideology in women's sports: https://fairplayforwomen.com/. Collective Shout in Australia fighting against porn and sex trafficking: https://www.collectiveshout.org/. These are just a few feminist/women's organizations who ARE standing up for women.
So, PLEASE, don't add to the denigration of feminists as a whole. It's incredibly disheartening and makes feminist struggles so much harder - by that I mean radical feminism, not the current version of feminism that is simply serving up patriarchy with a slice of internalized misogyny.
Why not uplift and share the work of these and MANY more organizations of feminists who ARE doing this critical work despite doxxing censorship, propaganda, loss of jobs and careers, not to mention assaults and threats of rape, death. Even one of the most powerful women in the world isn't safe. J.K. Rowling has put her life, health, family and wealth at risk for over 5 years defending and protecting women in the face of gender extremists. How readily would you be speaking out if you were faced with these kinds of threats every day: https://terfisaslur.com/. A very small collection of the kind of threats made to women in various institutions. Trans ideology is really just another insidious form of patriarchy that exploits women's natural inclination to be kind and inclusive and weaponizes it against us. It is driven by predatory capitalism which seeks to turn everyone and everything into a commodity and young people are now being served up as customers for life once they go down the road to transitioning: https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2020/01/the-billionaires-behind-the-lgbt-movement. The pharma billionaires are having a field day and laughing all the way to the bank between trans ideology and covid. They're all tied in together as a way to destroy our families and relationships.
I, myself, have experienced just how horrific is the abuse inflicted on women who DO speak up. I have been kicked off Twitter, Facebook, Medium simply for stating that we should offer therapy to young people considering becoming trans instead of surgery and drugs. I lost my best friend who got caught up in trans cult and had her breasts removed. She lost her children, husband beautiful home largely because she was raised by parents who repeatedly told her they wished she was born a boy.
Have compassion for ALL women who are doing their best in a culture that dismisses, ridicules and silences women's concerns. Hold those women AND men - in particular the people profiting from the transition process - accountable who are actively doing harm, of course, but just like blaming all women for their rapes is extremely misogynist and inappropriate, blaming feminists for trans ideology reaching this point of extreme behaviour because we aren't standing up enough, ignores the 10's of thousands of women/feminists who are struggling to be heard at all.
I agree with the criticism you are receiving as far as ignoring all the good work gender critical feminists are doing. That being said, what often makes a great article is the discussion it opens up. I 've gotten a lot out of reading the comments and your responses to them. I believe Feminism
is a work in progress and I'm proud to be part of it even when it gets messy.
Oddly, when I discovered my then husband's cross-dressing life and became a single mom, the "feminists" in my circles often recommended "taking my sexuality back" through a more casual attitude towards dating and affairs. I always responded that didn't sound liberating, actually.
It takes too much effort for me to get angry with misguided, illogical brainwash. For self-preservation, I have to put it into the drawer in my mind and close it, only speak in these columns. Looking back into my teaching years, I did help the girls to speak their minds, to be assertive.
Ute Heggen, author, In the Curated Woods, True Tales from a Grass Widow (iuniverse, 2022)
uteheggengrasswidow.wordpress.com (healing somatic movements recently highlighted)
One of the reasons why women and feminists (radfems) are so shocked at the present state of affairs is that this is the first time in their lifespans that public policy has gone against them. They have now been forced to let other people ahead of the in the queue. That doesn't feel good, does it? (Says the heterosexual white male) Previously women's prerogatives were advanced massively, of course much of this was long overdue and was deserved. However their representatives, the feminist movement bought into ideological dogmas like intersectionality, multiculturalism, gender ideology which require women to cede their interests to other, more favoured "victim classes". Their own purported protectors have sold them out.
Now you know how the working class feels toward the left who sold them down the river to globalism and mass immigration. Please don't mistake my comment as bitter revanchism - I strongly support women's fightback against gender ideology and all other "post equality" movements. Like many other commenters I agree that feminists were happy to take advantage of these movements when they gained, and are only aghast after they started losing. That is a finger of accusation to them - not women in general.
Half the population have a right to agitate for their interest. I hope the feminist movement can reform itself from this disaster. A future where it is based around furthering of women's objective interest rather than slavishly following ideological dogmas handed down from their high priestesses like Butler.
Sorry that you’re stuck with us non-ideologues. ;)
Perhaps we provide a good example for trans activists that self identifying is not a sufficient substitute for good methodology nor good arguments.
Regarding your very good article it’s quite an astute observation that Kayla Lemieux is damaging to the great progress of first wave feminism and he might be some kind of provocateur. It’s certainly hard to take his gender expression seriously as some sort of authentic self-expression. Especially with the dangers of large prosthetic breasts around power tools. A snag can easily lead to lost fingers. Unfortunately the left is so gripped by fear of being called transphobic that even common sense is pushed aside.
I'm seeing an obvious double-standard here. Would a female teacher get away with coming to school with her nipples poking out like that? Of course not. There are expectations of appropriate professional dress for teachers, just as there are codes (or uniforms!) for the pupils. If this "industrial arts" (we called it metalwork) teacher wants to be treated as a woman, (s)he should expect to be taken aside by a female colleague and told off for making an inappropriate dress choice. Just as I would be if I chose to wear a pair of trousers to work with a non-functioning fly.
I'm very glad Barbara Kay made the connection between gender censors and the Islamophobia racket. Yes these are both massive syndicates of woke word police that will shut down speech under the banner of ----phobia and they both hurt women even though the purport to be feminist. There are academic circles, corporate bureaucracies and plenty of powerful NGOs that are all controlled by the intersectional activists that bully everyone with the threats of unemployment/termination, expulsion, deplatforming, libel, social ostracism etc. I don't anticipate these movements can be countered without massive social rejection of the narratives. It is hard to see that happening from "within" rather it will take conservative countermovements that purge the woke from positions of power.
I agree with most of what you are saying until you decided to claim it was misogyny. Trans people that are born men and now claim to be women are allowed much more leeway because the mainstream sees them as females. So if anything is driving this it is toxic Misandry by teachers and staff in schools that are 95% female.
Women are, generally speaking, not the solidarity sex.
https://www.jofreeman.com/joreen/trashing.htm