Julie Bindel, new book - feminism for women, the route to freedom. Interviewed by Emma Barnett on women’s hour today

Julie Birchill has written a thought provoking article for the DM today.

She compares the "woke warriors" with the old time religious Puritans:

www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-11150581/Julie-Burchill-reveals-refuses-bow-social-justice-warriors-altar-wokeness.html

I like her. She’s what I consider to be an “original” feminist - standing up for women’s rights, and not allowing the whole thing to be hijacked by biological men and their supporters.?

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10952397/Council-chiefs-cancel-talk-feminist-writer-Julie-Bindel-views-trans-rights.html

For those interested FiLiA organise the largest annual Feminist Conference in Europe. This year it is being held in Cardiff, runs for 3 days, 22-24 October. Tickets on sale now www.filia.org.uk/

Here is a link to an interview with Julie Bindel, on GB News.
It's over an hour long and she covers many interesting areas.

For instance, JB points out that the grooming gangs were made up of criminals. Their ethnicity, or anything else, is irrelevant. They were committing criminal acts and should have been stopped by the police.

Likewise, male prisoners who claim a trans identity are criminals. There is no reason to trust that they will be well-behaved in a women's prison with female people who have no chance to avoid them.

youtu.be/2iw91C5RYr0

I wasn't saying that transpeople would get promoted over them, and I wouldn't object if that happened. Transpeople have as much right to promotion as anyone, so long as that promotion is not gained by putting themselves onto all-female shortlists (or lying about their sex on an application form.

Like you, I have seen young women 'see the light', and I think that as with many things, the older we get the more of that sort of thing we come across - it's the 'can't put old heads on young shoulders' thing. I honestly think that as time passes and more young people (particularly women, as IMO they are significantly more affected by trans 'issues' than men) will do likewise. We won't know that until it happens, of course.

*plenty

Are you really complaining about anyone derailing? Who usually uses that strategy?
If I go back to the first few pages and find the first derailments who would have made them?
Once derailments and deviations have started, any thread gets really convoluted and often gets dragged back to the subject of trans, whatever the initial post was about.

Although I have a fair amount of experience of trans people, I have never in all of my career had a trans person be promoted ahead of me. PLENTLY of cis men. I really don't think we're anywhere near the stage where trans people are so accepted in society that they are getting preferential treatment in the workplace.

I'm MORE than happy to read examples of it though.

I totally accept your other point about feminism. And I think women that think that way are idiots. I've seen a couple of younger women change their minds as they get into their 30s and things change for them.

As you seem to have shifted the argument and disussion so many times Doodledog I think there is only one person responsible for the derailing.

I really haven't, trisher, but will leave it for others (if they can be bothered) to read it and decide.

GagaJo, I agree that many young people are accepting of trans issues, and that is as it should be - I know you disagree, but I am also in support of people living their best lives however they like - but I think that many of them have just not come across situations (yet) in which self id has impacted on their lives. Most young people at University have had relatively protected lives, and live in a relatively rarified milieu when they are there. The transpeople they meet will mostly be confused young people with other issues, at least some of whom will change their minds in time.

They haven't started careers and been sidelined because of men on female shortlists, or needed help from policies that measure female need but take account of responses of people who have male bodies and early lives but identify as female when they vote. And so on.

I think it is similar to the way in which many young women don't see the need for feminism because they are still young, attractive and on the first rungs of corporate ladders (or still setting their sights on those rungs). Give them a few years of men being promoted over them, people suggesting that they got where they were because of 'quotas', of being the ones expected to homeschool and work at the same time, of being sidelined when pregnant, and they soon change their minds. By the time they get to 50 and are all but 'invisible', they are positively raging?

Sorry that should be "more than" not "as much as"

As you seem to have shifted the argument and disussion so many times Doodledog I think there is only one person responsible for the derailing.

So I've read quite a bit of JB's stuff over the last few days. She does seem to me to be the kind of feminist that was prevalent in the 70s and 80s. Determined to see male privilege behind everything and convinced only defeating males will bring about equality. Most of the people I know, concerned with how things have gone, see the big mistake feminism made was thinking it was possible to acheive equality by acting and behaving as men and participating in the patriarchal battle to be top. They want to see the feminisation of society, where caring and nurturing are valued as much as competition and conflict. They want not just to defeat masculinity but to change its values.

Ooops, I agreed with posts on page one, we’re on page nine now.

I also agree with this Doodledog and Rosie.

The thing is, young people are more accepting of trans issues. Therefore, they will not accept many of the points made in threads like this. So they will not accept points / speakers taking these stances at their universities.

Not an official ban on the speaker but her topic made her unpopular to her audience. Not no platforming (sorry for the double negative) but someone with a POV the students were against. A similar situation would probably arise with a pro-Israel speaker, or if Candace Owens were to speak.

I can only repeat myself so often, and the thread has been derailed enough, for which I apologise.

Good response Doodledog!

If you like.

I have never said there was any one body who would do this. Universities are huge communities who have numerous organisations that book speakers and organise events. You have shifted steadily all the time Doodledog. However I am happy we can agree that JB was not no-platformed. That trans issues are not the only reasons for non platforming and that many different organisations do non platform usually to protect vulnerable student minorities.

My argument is that universities are not homogeneous bodies.

The idea that there is someone whose role it is to screen out 'tasteless' and other forms of undesirable talks is nonsense. The responsibility for vulnerable students usually extends to employing a welfare team (often massively underfunded), who are there to offer counselling, and putting on a few sessions of relaxation or similar during exam periods, so the idea that they are protected in the way you suggest is also untrue. They are not (and IMO should not be) protected from hearing things that may challenge their perceptions, or be difficult to learn.

Yes, speakers on all kinds of topics are cancelled by students. Personally, I would not be inclined to indulge them in this, but still. That is not the same as universities no-platforming people.

My point (again) is that when senior figures in universities do get involved, it is usually because of threats to cause trouble for the institution as a whole. Senior figures are not interested in what goes on in societies or (on a micro level) in modules, but they are interested in their institutions' PR, and in avoiding negative headlines that may alienate students and staff.

I am aware of instances where Stonewall has threatened to remove its Diversity Champion kitemark from institutions who do not obey their 'No Debate' rule, and wondered if they were the only body to do this. That is why I was asking about trans issues, as I was (and still would be) interested to learn whether other bodies did likewise, and whether they succeeded.

I don't know what you don't understand about any of this - I think it is spelt out plainly enough.

Is it really necessary to go through all the scripts? Honestly Doodledog I have enjpyed our discussions in the past but I'm really not going to keep reposting things you claim not to have said And I'm not entirely certain what your argument is. It seems trans issues are now not important, whereas they were once the only reason for non-platforming.
Some speakers will be controversial, some minority groups will regard some of those speakers as a threat, some of those speakers will be no platformed. The reasons for no-platforming are many as are the people and organisations who do this.

I din't say they were the original aim. I didn't say that they are the only people being silenced.

I said that there are no 'basic regulations' driving any of this, and asked whether there were examples of other topics where universities (many of whom are running scared of Stonewall) have silenced (or curtailed) speakers. That is very different from students cancelling a talk after a vote by a society's members.

I am not arguing for the sake of it, and not trying to be 'on a winner'. I find the notion that 'basic regulations' are there to 'protect vulnerable' students (a) troubling, and (b) I know it is untrue.

A lot of nonsense is spouted about universities and students, often by people with no experience of them since they were students themselves decades ago. People believe what they read, as seen reflected in posts on here, and often it just is not true.

It is unfortunate that this has arisen on a thread about someone wanting to speak about trans issues, as we obviously disagree about those, but that is not what is driving my wish to have the record set straight. I would feel the same if someone claimed that a speaker from, say, the Lib Dems (purely as an example of an innocuous group with whom I disagree) was being 'banned' by 'a university' because of 'basic regulations' designed to protect 'vulnerable students', and you got arsey with someone questioning this by saying that if they didn't understand that some students are vulnerable there is nothing you can do.

Who do you think would make decisions about whether to allow speakers on every module, to every society and to university-endorsed events such as public lectures, research groups, consortiums and so on? Do you honestly think that anyone has time to go through the scripts of all of these people and decide whether vulnerable students may find them distasteful? Do you even have any idea of how many of these talks there are in any week, let alone a year across a university?

Doodledog
I am interested to hear if there have been instances (apart from those that would break the law) of other speakers falling foul of these ‘basic regulations’, or if it is just gender-critical speakers who are being silenced.

But it seems you aren't really interested and each tiime you are challenged about something that you have said you shift the goalposts a little bit.

And I actually said JB wasn't no platformed and posted why she wouldn't attend many posts ago.
Really Doodle give up you are on a no winner. Trans issues do result in people being no platformed, they were not the original aim of no platforming, and they certainly aren't the only issue people have been no platformed on.

As others have said however, this is a straw man argument. JB wasn't no platformed. She didn't like the conditions imposed.
Exactly.

Not imposed by 'The University', and not because of 'basic rules and regulations', but because she would not kowtow to the demands of those who seek to dominate the 'debate' that they refuse to have.

trisher, as I am sure you are aware, as I repeatedly said so, I am not saying that it is only trans issues - I am questioning your assertion that there are ‘basic rules and regulations’ in universities that disallow speakers who might be considered ’tasteless or threatening’.

The cases you mention show students ‘cancelling’ speakers, which is not the same thing at all. It is still wrong, IMO, but is not in any way because universities are ‘aware that students are vulnerable’ and are protecting them from hearing views that the university (or more accurately someone within it) considers unsuitable. Whose role would that be, in your scenario? Vice Chancellors have better things to do, and as yet there is no committee for the promotion of acceptable ideas.

That is what I was questioning. The case in Durham looks to me to be different, in that the speaker was able to go ahead, but only with the sayso and prior approval of the trans society - that screams to me of a case where there has been a threat to ‘the university’ to remove the Diversity Champion kitemark if free speech about trans issues is allowed. I may, of course be mistaken, but it certainly wouldn’t be the first time they have exerted that sort of pressure.

It is an important distinction to make, as if people believed your assertion that universities were acting as thought police
they would have valid cause for concern, where (beyond the Stonewall strongarming) none really exists.

Sorry! I'm wrong of course. It IS possible just to pick the groups the majority agree with. BUT that is discriminatory.

As others have said however, this is a straw man argument. JB wasn't no platformed. She didn't like the conditions imposed.