Where Are The Men…?
When I first came to online feminism I was scared and tired. I wasn’t sure if I knew enough or anything. I was looking to regain myself after abuse. I stumbled into a lot of radical feminist women at the very start. I was really, really lucky.
They were the kind of women who made their thoughts absolutely clear that men have no place around feminist women campaigning, organising, writing or protesting. Some of them just really didn’t want to spend any time around men at all. Frankly, they’d been around men all their lives and life around men hadn’t turned out too rosy. They were also keenly aware of living a restricted life under patriarchal structures. I was waking up. They were waking me up fast.
At around this time I attended NEFG 2013 (North East Feminist Gathering), in Newcastle. I entered the women’s centre building with absolutely no idea what “women only space” was. I left with a whole new sense of who I was as a woman. I made friends for life. Women I love deeply still. Women I invited to my wedding and women who will be at my funeral.
The experience was life changing. Only speaking to women for two whole days. Only listening to women for two whole days. Only eating and, more importantly, drinking in a space with women for two whole days. Dancing with only the eyes of women on me for two whole days. Listening to women talking about the experience of being women for TWO WHOLE DAYS. On the Saturday evening I got up and did a stand up comedy act. The evening event was called the ‘Open Mary’ and women could just stand up and do a turn. No man was watching so women performed for each other proud and free. The women applauded everyone. It was incredible. I was crying as I left. I was three weeks out of my cruel marriage and I felt light as tissue paper in wind. Not a single man had entered that building all weekend. Of any type. It pushed me further down the road to recovery.
If you have been where anything even close to this was the experience you are a very lucky woman indeed. Women’s space that doesn’t now include any men is so rare and thus precious. It has to be in women’s own homes mostly that we have this freedom to speak away from men. You can’t advertise this stuff as a “meeting”. You can’t hire public/private spaces. You will be forced to be “inclusive” or you will be called “transphobic”. You will be questioned whether husbands can attend as they are “allies”, or worse, “male feminists”. You will be told that your event is fascist or funded by the right wing; you are homophobic if you don’t include male lesbians; you hate men. On and on. Any reason to force men into space where women are discussing the experiences of being female.
A year later at NEFG 2014 the ground had shifted under the feet of the organisers and a number of men identifying as women attended. This was a decision forced upon women. One of these men attended the ‘Radical Feminist Lesbian Workshop’ …..and that was that. The gig was up. There was never that space again. It folded.
Here is an account of NEFG 2013 from Planet Cath.
And now, online and at meetings we are suddenly finding other men in our midst who weren’t around before. They are vocal and prolific in their output. They declare themselves “allies” rather than “feminists” which is a good start towards understanding what women’s boundaries are.
But, and there is no intention of being divisive when I say this, men aren’t and can’t be “in” the women’s movement. The clue is in the title. It isn’t a fight they can be “inside” because the fight is against their people and the work of their people. Women experience sex-based oppression from men. Feminism is a fight to overthrow the male power structures oppressing women — systemically, physically and financially. When planning to overthrow the oppressions women face, and that includes everything that supports men’s oppression of women, women may very well be threatening everything that those men continue to benefit and thrive from. Soldiers in a war cannot have a soldier of the enemy in their front line as they might shoot you in the head.
The men currently becoming quite popular and recognised in feminist circles online and in our physical spaces at meetings are absolutely determined to stand up for women’s sex based rights. Excellent. Defending their own right to speak freely about transgender ideology and its dangers -that is absolutely their fight and their right as men. Supporting women who are and have been fighting to retain their sex-based rights and their women-only space is great. Showing other men what the problem is for women and that they are angry about it on behalf of women — marvellous. Dragging people along to listen to women you encounter online and off on this subject ….lovely job.
I don’t think we need to thank these men too much. It is what all decent, supportive men should be doing. It is the least they can do. That’s only my opinion and it isn’t meant to be divisive. It is a standard radical feminist perspective that we don’t need to pedestal and adore men for being decent humans. I often say thank you to these men individually if they have selflessly supported a woman. I’m polite about it. Not gushing.
However some of these men are writing a lot of things about “the cause” and “our movement” and “our side”. Some women are happy about this and show their gratitude very vocally. Some women are not. Some women do think “we are all in it together” and some women are a little cautious about saying this. Some women aren’t cautious at all. They are angry. Some women feel these men are co-opting their voices and experience and often their actual feminist work and they think it’s just not on.
So just to turn the music off at the party for a minute I’d like to ponder …. where did all the men come from? And why? And do we need them here? If we do … what should be their role?
Let’s look at some of the issues women face each day nationally and globally in our fight to overthrow sex-based oppression.
Every day 830 women die from preventable causes related to pregnancy and childbirth. 99% of all maternal deaths occur in developing countries. WHO figures show that 303,000 women died during or shortly after childbirth in 2015. Almost all the deaths were in low-resource settings and could have been prevented. Men contributed to the women being pregnant and male-dominated governments fail to provide the healthcare and education they needed.
The ‘UK Annual Report on Modern Slavery’ shows that 26% of the 2121 reported cases are for sexual exploitation. Of those 91% are female slaves. Men are predominantly the ones buying other humans, female humans, to use their bodies for sex.
A survey of female prisoners last year showed that nearly 65% have suffered traumatic brain injuries symptomatic with blows to the head. 62% of these women reported having sustained the injury through domestic violence. 33% of these were prior to the first offence. Men beat women and those women subsequently commit crime. Traumatised women who are victims of rape and domestic violence are routinely escorted to prison in vans alongside male prisoners. This is all outrageous and symptomatic of the way women are abused by men and abused some more by the criminal justice system.
According to the UK Femicide Census 2018, 139 women were murdered by men in the UK. 40% were the victims of “overkilling” which involves multiple methods of killing and multiple wounds/blows. Of these 105 were killed by someone they knew, most by a former or current partner or family member. There are women, whose names we barely know, working to prevent this the length and breadth of the UK. Their work is ceaseless and they are tired and women are still dying. Men are killing them.
According to the Office for National Statistics report for 2018, 1 in 5 women have experienced sexual assault since age 16. 510,000 women had experienced some form of sexual assault in the past year. 83% did not report.
A report from the Women’s Aid Federation ‘No Woman Turned Away’ shows that of the 271 women who engaged with the service in 2016/17–21% gained refuge space, 21% gave up and lost contact, 8% remained with their perpetrator,11% found emergency accommodation, 12% sofa surfed, 7% stayed put not with a perpetrator.
While women were waiting for a refuge space 45% had to sofa surf. This leaves them at acute risk of homicide or family annihilation for those with children (some 11.7% of women seeking refuge had more than 4 children ).
11.7% of women slept rough, often in their cars in 24 hour parking spaces. They were effectively living in their car. With children.
Women facing 3 or more barriers — including mental health needs or drug use or a background of offending, were half as likely to find a refuge space. Even if they had children.
In England, on 1st May 2017, there were just 28 refuge services run specifically for black and minority ethnic (BME) women, though not all of these were run by BME women and yet 50% of the women supported by the caseworkers were BME.
These are just some of the issues women are facing on a daily basis. There is also the issue of prostitution, FGM, porn, revenge porn…. on and on. The oppressions women face at the hands of men seem endless in their variety and magnitude.
What are these very vocal Twitter allies doing while women are sleeping in their cars waiting to die? Where are they? Are they fighting for funding alongside us? When the poorest women in the world die giving birth to the children of men where are these “allies” of women? When women are sexually assaulted at a rate of 510,000 a year … where are the men? When women face mass incarceration for crimes most often of a non-violent nature after extreme violence is perpetrated upon them by men where are the “allies” of women? I see them speaking up very loudly about transgender issues and very few becoming equally impassioned about all these other things.
You see this matters, not in a “whatabouttery” way … and women know only too well that no matter what we do men will insist we do something about something else… but because some women somewhere are working on all of these things. Some feminist organisation is caring and organising funds and developing projects. There are probably thousands of women doing this and we mostly don’t know their names. But men are not. Men aren’t telling other men. Men aren’t interested in most of this standard feminist stuff at all in any concrete way. These are not the areas they tackle other men about. Yes there are some individual men doing brilliant things like Luke and Ryan Hart and David Challen. Because these things have been made personal causes to them from the most horrific violence perpetrated on the women of their families by other men.
But the male “allies” in the fight against the erasure of our sex based rights who support women need to realise that all of the issues here are exactly why we fight against the attack upon women’s rights by the transgender lobby. They aren’t “separate” issues. They are utterly intrinsic to it. They are why radical feminist women are desperately fighting against the stripping of our rights in the first place and for some women — they have been for decades. I think some of these men forget this.
Some of the men who are within our various women’s spaces right now are utilising statistics and academic research produced by women. They are co-opting the knowledge women have acquired over a long period of time. They have become fluent in the words we use about ourselves and our experience.
They need to become fluent in the oppression of women. Then take that and tackle other men. They need to realise that they cannot only advocate politics about and for women on the transgender issue because they have become interested, and relatively “expert” in that one feminist issue. The other issues are what actually make you a feminist woman in the first place. Transgender ideology and its threat to any attempt by women to overcome these oppressions is why women are fighting. It is one big tapestry as Liz Kelly has said and men can’t simply come and start working on just one thread.
This is “our” fight and “our movement”. And because the root problem of all of these problems is and always has been men… then there is no place for men to take a lead role or be thanked for doing so. They can always walk away. Women can’t.
So what can these men who want to be allies do? I don’t know and I’m not in charge — no woman is. Some women won’t want you around at all. Some women won’t interact with you. That’s fine. You should back off. Don’t drag them back into online conversations if they’ve made that clear. Just accept that there are some women who are still too raw from the violence perpetrated upon them by men to want to listen to the views of any man about an experience they have had which he has not. They don’t want to hear your views of their experience. They may not talk to you politely, or humour your views about things they’ve been saying for a very long time. They have no obligation to do so. Women who have survived under patriarchy are far too aware of the potential threat of men in their midst. They are wary. You have centuries of male violence to make amends for. Here are some of my ideas for you.
Listen. Then listen some more.
Don’t divide women. If this seems to be happening back away. Women need each other.
Don’t take the work of women and regurgitate it for your followers … find the woman who did the work and put it out with credit.
Promote women’s work anyway. Find some. There’s a lot. Talk to men about it. Women already know.
If you have a decent social media account consider handing it over to the voice of women sometimes.
Don’t speak for or over a woman either online, at meetings or in the media. Ask them to contact a feminist woman who will be an expert in that field. Don’t put your hand up at that meeting if a woman has hers up. Simple things.
Think before you write or speak about the women’s movement whether you are taking up a space or voice that might be better for a woman to have. If you were at the WPUK meeting for example you could have offered your ticket to a woman who couldn’t afford it. Or just vacated the space in favour of a woman — because there weren’t enough tickets for women who wanted to go. The event was sold out. You could have sat back on Twitter and retweeted the hell out of those women.
Don’t use the statistics of women. Don’t use their research. Promote the woman. Promote another woman who has used them in her work. Trust me. There will BE a woman even if you personally don’t know her. It won’t take much googling for you.
Women should be cautious of telling other women to be grateful to these men. A lot of women have lived lives where they have little obligation or inclination to be grateful to men who have benefited from a system that has smashed their lives to pieces.
Louise Raw wrote in Politics Uk on 8th Feb 2018 in an article ‘The Sexual Assault Faced By The Suffragettes” At a meeting in the Albert Hall in 1908, 25 year old Helen Ogston was attacked by two men, one of whom burnt her wrist with his cigar while the other punched her in the breast. As she tried to leave she was assaulted by multiple men. Gangs eventually attacked every woman in sight, and Mrs Pankhurst described women after the meeting as “bruised, clothes torn, false teeth knocked out, eyed swollen, noses bleeding”.
This is a past not quite distant enough for all women to be comfortable with men in their space when they wish to discuss politics relevant to their oppression. Some women still prefer their feminist politics to be women-only.
