Read this black lesbian’s article about the racism, misogyny, and homophobia she experienced when she was part of Alcoholics Anonymous. Warning for a couple of mentions of racist and homophobic slurs/language and sexual harassment.
“Can’t we just have the racism without the misogyny? Is that too much to ask?” (Who would have thought that a system based on fear of the other and enforcing “traditional gender roles” would fear the other and enforce traditional gender roles?)
…The study released ahead of a conference this week in the UK Parliament on misogyny and anti-Semitism found that Jewish women MPs are 15% more likely to be the targets of bile on far-right website Stormfront than their male peers.
The venom they receive is particularly noxious, too, given that it combines the hatreds of women and Jews. The likes of Dame Margaret Hodge, Luciana Berger, and Ruth Smeeth – all prominent Labour parliamentarians – are not just c**ts, they are Jewish c**ts, as their online detractors might put it.
…One of the ongoing stories of Labour’s years-long anti-Semitism crisis has been the preponderance of hate and violent rhetoric directed at the party’s Jewish women MP’s in particular.
Earlier this month, the UK police launched an investigation into violent anti-Semitic threats made against Berger, who had to attend Labour’s Party Conference this year flanked by armed police guards after receiving credible threats to her life on social media.
Parliamentary Speaker John Bercow told the Sara Conference that his own experience of anti-Semitism, “Dwindles into complete insignificance and nothingness in comparison with what female Jews have experienced and do experience.”
At a general parliamentary debate on anti-Semitism in April, Smeeth got a standing ovation after reading out her hate mail “greatest hits”. These included choice specimens like: “First job for Jeremy Corbyn tomorrow expel the Zionist Bicom smearhag bitch from the party,” and “The gallows would be a fine fitting place for this dyke piece of yid shit to swing from.”
For Jews who wish to participate in political life in the UK, abuse is “par for the course,” Smeeth said.
During the same debate, Berger described how the hate came from both far-right and far-left.
Four people from the far right have been convicted for abuse against her; after one of those convictions, Berger noted, “a far-right website in the United States initiated the #filthyjewbitch campaign, which the police said resulted in me receiving over 2,500 violent, pornographic and extreme anti-Semitic messages in just one day alone.”
She went on to point out that, “in 2018, anti-Semitism is now more commonplace, more conspicuous and more corrosive within the Labour party,” and the abuse she’s received from the left includes accusations “of having two masters. They have said that I am Tel Aviv’s servant, and called me a paid-up Israeli operative…suggesting that I am a traitor to our country. They have called me Judas, a Zionazi and an absolute parasite, and they have told me to get out of this country and go back to Israel.”
According to the research, members of Stormfront not only hate Jewish women in power, they also see feminism as a Jewish plot, adding to the litany of anti-Semitic tropes that sees the Jewish people pulling invisible levers behind a curtain and controlling the world.
This, along with the other findings, highlights the fact, often taken for granted, that women are on the front lines when it comes to society’s expressions of violence. Only in 2016, Labour MP Jo Cox was murdered by a far-right extremist. Her killer shot and stabbed her in the street in broad daylight.
Anecdotally at least, we already know what this research shows: that women who stick their heads above the parapet are on the receiving end of a horrific cocktail of abuse. This abuse interweaves their identity and perceived weakness with a hatred of women.
We saw it in the vitriol aimed at Hillary Clinton when she ran for president. We saw it in the barrage of hate U.S. Jewish journalist Julia Ioffe received after she profiled Melania Trump in 2016.
Here in the UK, we have seen it in the abuse suffered by Jewish women in Parliament and in the combination of racism and sexism aimed at women of color and minorities. Labour’s Shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbott, the first black woman to become an MP in the UK, received more abuse in the run-up to the general election in June last year than any other woman parliamentarian, according to Amnesty International…
Of course, there is a difference between anti-Semitic and (or) misogynistic trolling and physical abuse, but both are part of the same spectrum of violence. The Pittsburgh shooting only this month and Jo Cox’s murder are just two pieces of evidence, if anyone actually needed it, that violent rhetoric can and does end in bloodshed…
The UK government has inflicted “great misery” on its people with “punitive, mean-spirited, and often callous” austerity policies driven by a political desire to undertake social re-engineering rather than economic necessity, the United Nations poverty envoy has found.
Philip Alston, the UN’s rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, ended a two-week fact-finding mission to the UK with a stinging declaration that despite being the world’s fifth largest economy, levels of child poverty are “not just a disgrace, but a social calamity and an economic disaster”.
About 14 million people, a fifth of the population, live in poverty, and 1.5 million are destitute, unable to afford basic essentials, he said, citing figures from the Institute for Fiscal Studies and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. He highlighted predictions that child poverty could rise by 7% between 2015 and 2022, possibly up to a rate of 40%.
i’m sure the bbc will find this worthy to report on any minute now..
Britain was in breach of four UN human rights agreements relating to women, children, disabled people and economic and social rights. “If you got a group of misogynists in a room and said how can we make this system work for men and not for women they would not have come up with too many ideas that are not already in place,” he said.
It 1982, Donald Trump was 36 years old and he preferred Hanes pantyhose. Not because other leading brands constricted his balls, but because women belonged in dresses; it pleased the male eye.If you’re a Gen-Xer, you undoubtedly remember these ads.
For nearly two decades, Hanes ran television, print, and radio ads as part of their Gentlemen Prefer Hanes campaign.As for your preferences, ladies? No one gave a shit, least of all, you. You were happy to tuck that ass in Hanes if that’s how gentlemen preferred it.
Why? Because you, Gen-Xer, were socialized not to see a problem with this campaign. Even if you did see a problem, what were you going to do about it in 1982? Form a hashtag army on Twitter?
Gen X. We came of age with movies like Sixteen Candles, Weird Science, and Revenge of the Nerds. Date rape scenes were “funny.” Harassment meant you were “hot.” Getting pinned to a wall by a guy at work, at school, or a party was “normal.” Relax. Don’t be so uptight. You know you want it.
How much do you have to hate women (and other people with uteri) to celebrate a rapist being confirmed as Supreme Court Judge because you are hoping he will see that women (and other people with uteri) lose their basic human rights?
there’s such a complete lack of compassion when people talk about girls in abusive relationships and it’s like unless you’ve been manipulated and had your self esteem been ruined to pieces by a boy who consistently gaslights you and makes you feel like you’re wrong all the time then please watch ya tone all right, is not something that’s easy to see until you get out and when you’re being abused, you’re not in the optimum state of mind to realise that you need to get out. It’s not easy at all and I don’t think messages like “girls allow themselves to be treated badly by guys” help, bcs no girl is *allowing* themselves to be abused
They’ve been broken down to the point where they don’t see his behaviour as abuse, they see it as love and they romanticise everything he does bcs they don’t know any better and if they do know better, they’re too fucking scared to leave so maybe just relax with the self righteous tone when talking about girls staying in shitty relationships yah
Honestly, people seem much more concerned with patronizingly, accusingly questioning why girls stay(ed) in abusive relationships than they do with those girls’ trauma or bringing abusers to justice. Different version of the same “you deserve this” bullshit those girls are already getting from their abusers. Really fucking helpful.
Urocyon's Jaunts 2.0 
You must be logged in to post a comment.