Unusually, I found myself in a Twitter brawl this morning that ended with the male involved telling me I was a moron, that I am everything that is wrong with feminism, a trans hater and an Abbott clone, and he wound it up by telling me to get fucked. He then engaged in this thing you can do on Twitter whereby you can continue to publicly abuse someone, but block them so they can’t respond.
A man telling me to get fucked feels like a sexual threat, and I was somewhat unsettled by his animosity: mostly I tell people to go fuck themselves, which doesn’t require the hostile bodily interference of another. Or fuck off, which actually has nothing to do with sex at all.
Also, given the current state of feminism I usually refrain from identifying myself with that ideology, so if I’m everything that’s wrong with it that can only be a good thing for me, so taa.
Then he told me I was no different from Clementine Ford and that really pissed me off when I got around to thinking about it.
The fight was about bloody Germaine Greer. I was in conversation with a trans woman called Aoifa, who hosts this excellent blog, and a trans woman called Miranda, who hosts this excellent blog. Aoifa had been expressing her disgust with her community for its lack of protest about death threats made against Greer, and Miranda was part of our convo. Suddenly, out of nowhere, this man appeared and told me I was no better than Tony Abbott, and that expecting trans women to protest other trans women threatening Greer with death was no different from Abbott saying Muslims should speak out about minority radicalisation. He is sick, he says, of the way rad fems treat trans women so he thought it would make everything better if he abused me.
He didn’t say anything to the trans women. Only me.
To express hope that communities will speak out when their members issue death threats, his argument apparently goes, is to imply that everyone in the community is in fact responsible for the actions of a minority.
I strongly disagree with this notion. Coming from the position that evil thrives when good people say nothing, I know that were I in the Catholic community I would never shut up about child sexual abuse by priests, not because I am in any way responsible for their ghastly actions, but because my silence on the subject would enable, and implicitly condone those actions.
Likewise, I am a member of a language group that constantly threatens war and genocide for its own gain and I vigorously criticise Western leaders who wage wars, without me taking personal responsibility for their warmongering. Speaking out against injustice does not equate to me accepting responsibility for that injustice. However, keeping silent, in my opinion, might very well contribute to my responsibility for injustice.
From this perspective, I can see nothing wrong with wondering why transgender people and their supporters have on the whole been silent about the death threats against Greer that have come from their ranks. If I would ask these questions of my community and every other community, why should I not ask them of the transgender community?
Because, the argument goes, the trans gender community is a persecuted minority and shouldn’t be expected to speak up against death threats. There’s no doubt an excessive amount of violence and hatred is directed towards trans women. There is also no doubt that an excessive amount of violence is directed towards biological women, with two of us dying each week at the hands of intimate partners or family members, and hundreds of us hospitalised every day as a consequence of domestic violence.
Women are a persecuted majority in a patriarchy, and while the reasons for persecuting trans women and biological women are no doubt different, and require separate analysis, the fact of violence against us and the repercussion of that violence are not conducive to hierarchical evaluation, in itself a patriarchal practice Rather, we have in common a terrifying vulnerability to the violence of violent males.
Hoping for protest against the efforts to silence dissent through fear and death threats does not equate to transphobia. And debate ought not to equate to world war three. You people who tell others you want them to die, you’re going to kill them for expressing opinions that don’t make you feel good? There’s something terribly wrong with you, and I don’t care what community you belong to.
I’ve spoken at length about my own experiences of male physical violence, child sexual abuse, and sexual assault. I will with my whole heart support any woman, trans and biological, in her experiences, whether she talks about them or not. But I will fucking well not be abused and insulted by some fucking male dropkick who has decided he knows what feminism is and what being a woman, biological and trans, is like in this hierarchical patriarchy of which he is a most unedifying example. So, go fuck yourself sir, with an implement of your choice, because I would not wish rape even on you.
No Place For Sheep 
Illegitimi non Carborundum, Dr Wilson. 🙂
Arseclowns exist. It’s a sad fact fact of life.
After having read most of your writings on this blog, you strike me as one of the most sensitive and sensible people I’ve ever run across on the Internet, and I’ve been involved with the net since the early 1980’s…long before it was the Internet. This is why I’ve started contributing here occasionally after a great deal of lurking…intelligent discussion on the net is A Rare Thing Indeed and I welcome it. 🙂
Ennyway…I greatly regret that you face abuse and threats from fools as a result of expressing your views. I hope that you are able to let that negative energy flow past you without absorbing any of it, and that you can continue your life and work with equanamity. For whatever it may mean, you have my support.
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Many thanks, LSWCHP
Your appreciation far outweighs the brainless garbage that very occasionally comes my way.
It’s also quite wonderful to know there are lurkers unknown to me, reading and enjoying. Thank you.
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I thoroughly agree, LSWCHP.
If the odd arsehole wants to troll you, it’s hard to ignore them; but ignore them is what you should do. They simply don’t matter.
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It hardly ever happens, DQ, I guess Sheep has the eft off trolls vibe
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Death Threats are unacceptable.
It’s possible to plead mitigating circumstances that diminish the seriousness of the offence, but it’s not possible to justify them. That’s all there is to it.
It’s even understandable in some circumstances. But never acceptable.
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If we are outspoken we all receive this type of comment because they don’t have anything of substance to argue with, congratulations and welcome to the club. The best thing is when you get this response it means you have well and truly won the arguement.
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Thank you, townsville, it’s a club I’m proud to be part of 🙂
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Here’s my beef and it is not because I am insensitive. Unless people of any adult consenting age are rapists or child molesters I have zero interest in if they are gay, lesbian or transgender and have no idea why there is some driven need to tell the world all about it.
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That’s twice now that we have agreed. WGAF?
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LOL to both of you. You’ll be back scrapping again soon enough 🙂 xx xx
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My take on this for what it’s worth goes not to the point of who we ought or ought not to empathise with because they’re genuinely or otherwise hard done by, but to something I find sets apart the genuinely worthy from all others. It is in how they conduct themselves.
Let’s face it there are any number of opinionated political splinter groups and minorities vigorously pushing their causes, any member of which can identify their opponent, or enemy even, and tell you all the things “others” have to change to meet their demands. Some of them will even resort to force to get their own miserable way, and these are invariably the least worthy of all.
But find me the one with a modicum of humility and the intellectual honesty to examine themselves and what their own role might be in engineering change, and that’s somebody I actually want to be in a conversation with. That’s an exceptional person I suppose, but we cannot for the life of us be inspired by the dullard who thinks somebody will make exceptions for them they they would not make for us. If you want that, then you might as well pray for it for all the good it might do you for you are destined to be thoroughly disappointed.
Give me the Israeli who supports Palestinians or the Palestinian who upholds Israel’s right to exist. The Christian who supports choice. The Muslim feminist. Give me early Greer, or anyone from Chomsky to Pussy Riot, who wants to take on their own society and better it from the inside, and there is the distinct possibility that they will earn our kudos.
Twats on Twitter however have the distinct quality of succinct boorishness. You can always say “Fuck off” in fewer characters than “I love you”, but if either suffers from a lack of context it would probably be entirely wasted.
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Fuck off, I love you. I love you, fuck off. I believe I have said all that at one time or another. But not on Twitter.
What is irritating to me is the ageism of some young feminists who seem to think nothing existed that matters prior to the 1990s.
Were it not for Greer, et al, they would not have a foundation from which to argue gender issues or much else.
I note I was taken to task on a feminist blog for using Carole King’s song as an example of patriarchal twaddle. It was the times, I’m reprimanded, and I think the young one has entirely missed my point. I hovered, wondering if I should leave a comment, then decided there was little point and moved on.
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We could deconstruct and bang on for ages about whether the subjective feelings of being naturally a woman are limited to some shared experience involving a second person, be they a man, a baby or even another woman. The point should surely be whether the song is relatable to you in some context or other or how it otherwise reflects your taste in music.
The most absurd thing of all would be to understand a rebuttal of the notion that a woman needs a man to validate her in terms so censorious that they seek merely to supplant one flawed feminine ideal with the all too rigid imposition of another.
Worse still in either case the problem remains externalised. Granted millions of women hearing that song could possibly internalise a patriarchal ideal of monogamous relationships and desire. But if instead of women expanding their minds the whole journey, from 1967 when that song was released until now, comes down to still blaming a song…..???
It’s interesting to think about how that song has been heard since then, and might be taken less seriously now. I suspect how either one’s tastes in music or relationships shape a response to this song as opposed to anything empirically wrong with the lyric is always going to be treated with some suspicion by the people who happen to like it. Am I entitled to call all art I don’t like bad art?
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You are entitled to do that, but nobody has to agree with your judgement!
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Exactly. Although I think that is not what you’re being told.
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Hello Jennifer,
I’ve been blown away by Aoife’s blog too 🙂 I was incredibly relieved and then saw her as somewhat of a hero – just because she was so honest. I wanted to bloody weep and then thank her. She probably didn’t want to be put in that position at all.
The sexism and homophobia behind some of the trans’ activists’ messages is vile. I’ve 2 good friends who are trans m-f and they really do not wish to align themselves with the hate messages against women.
I wondered if you’d seen this article from Helen Lewis at the New Statesman – showing how women writers are routinely harangued for views on transpeople vs. men who have a far ‘stronger’ view, for want of a better word.
Also, there is a good interview with Sheila Jeffreys on Breitbart – yes, I know, but it contains some interesting views on 4th gen feminism. Which I didn’t even know existed.
http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/feminism/2015/10/what-row-over-banning-germaine-greer-really-about
http://www.breitbart.com/london/2015/11/10/interview-feminist-author-tells-breitbart-transgender-lobby-targets-livelihoods-gov-creating-trans-children/
I find ‘Off you fuck’ is quite good statement to use.
Good blog, by the way, just new to it.
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Thanks for the links, Sketcher, will read later tonight. I think I did see the Lewis one, but not the Jeffreys.
Off you fuck – excellent, I like it, thank you.
And welcome 🙂
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I was surfing the ‘net and somehow ended up here. Now I’m wondering why I haven’t found your writings before today. Great stuff!!
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