[DanaC]

So, a differene of opinion then.

Anyway, back to Julie Birchill's Guardian piece:

Similarly, Suzanne's original piece was about the real horror of the bigger picture – how the savagery of a few old Etonians is having real, ruinous effects on the lives of the weakest members of our society, many of whom happen to be women. The reaction of the trans lobby reminded me very much of those wretched inner-city kids who shoot another inner-city kid dead in a fast-food shop for not showing them enough "respect". Ignore the real enemy – they're strong and will need real effort and organisation to fight. How much easier to lash out at those who are conveniently close to hand!

But they'd rather argue over semantics. To be fair, after having one's nuts taken off (see what I did there?) by endless decades in academia, it's all most of them are fit to do. Educated beyond all common sense and honesty, it was a hoot to see the screaming mimis accuse Suze of white feminist privilege; it may have been this that made her finally respond in the subsequent salty language she employed to answer her Twitter critics: "People can just fuck off really. Cut their dicks off and be more feminist than me. Good for them."

It is somewhat troubling when, as a working-class woman who grew up at a time when women still needed their husbands signatures in order to get a loan, buy a car, open a bank account, etc., to be dismissed as part of the oppressor class by someone who grew up male and in a priveleged income bracket.

The dangers and discriminations faced by transexuals, as with any gender non-conformists, is very real and very immediate. But danger and discrimination are something girls are born to and learn to live with in various ways from their earliest development to their last days in the nursing home. The proportion of women who have experienced sexual assault or violence either as children or as adults is staggeringly high even in countries with a good record on female emancipation. Most, and possibly every, woman is conscious of the dangers portrayed as inherent to our gender from a very young age. If we have not suffered sexual assault or violence ourselves, we will know someone who has. In my own circle of friends there are several survivors of rape and domestic abuse.

The anger and sense of threat that trans people feel is understandable. But there appears very little understanding on the part of some of the real and immediate sense of threat the average woman feels walking to the bus stop in the dark, or locking the door at night when they live alone. From our youth we are warned against the dangers of walking in unlit areas at night. Against the dangers of wearing too alluring an outfit, or showing too much bare flesh. Against the dangers of leaving our drinks unattended in a nightclub, or going on a blind date, or getting too drunk to say no to men who will take advantage of our vulnerability.

The female life is bounded by warnings and dangers and messages of weakness and threat from cradle to grave.

And soooo many places, professions, fields of activity might as well have a 'Gurrls Keep out' sign plastered across their fronts for all the welcome they offer to anyone of the female persuasion. Right down to keeping the computer games magazines on the 'Men's Lifestyle' shelf in the newsagents, or as has been graphically demonstrated in recent news of the BBC's longstanding organisational culture of sexual harrassment, the expectation that female bodies are up for grabs or discussion.

I'll stop now, because I'm starting to rant...


Birchill continues:

She, the other JB and I are part of the minority of women of working-class origin to make it in what used to be called Fleet Street and I think this partly contributes to the stand-off with the trannies. (I know that's a wrong word, but having recently discovered that their lot describe born women as 'Cis' – sounds like syph, cyst, cistern; all nasty stuff – they're lucky I'm not calling them shemales. Or shims.) We know that everything we have we got for ourselves. We have no family money, no safety net. And we are damned if we are going to be accused of being privileged by a bunch of bed-wetters in bad wigs.

It's been noted before that cyberspace, though supposedly all new and shiny, is plagued by the age-old boredom of men telling women not to talk and threatening them with all kinds of nastiness if they persist in saying what they feel.

The trans lobby is now saying that it wasn't so much the initial piece as Suzanne's refusal to apologise when told to that "made" them drive her from Twitter. Presumably she is meant to do this in the name of solidarity and the "struggle", though I find it very hard to imagine this mob struggling with anything apart from the English language and the concept of free speech.

To have your cock cut off and then plead special privileges as women – above natural-born women, who don't know the meaning of suffering, apparently – is a bit like the old definition of chutzpah: the boy who killed his parents and then asked the jury for clemency on the grounds he was an orphan.

Shims, shemales, whatever you're calling yourselves these days – don't threaten or bully us lowly natural-born women, I warn you. We may not have as many lovely big swinging Phds as you, but we've experienced a lifetime of PMT and sexual harassment and many of us are now staring HRT and the menopause straight in the face – and still not flinching. Trust me, you ain't seen nothing yet. You really won't like us when we're angry.

I don't necessarily agree with her choice of language. But I can understand her anger. We are fighting the wrong fucking battles people. Choosing the wrong enemies. We are being divided and thoroughly fucking conquered. As evidenced, I think by the low number of young women who now consider themselves feminists.

One of the key problems I think, is the assumption that as far as female emancipation is concerned, the battle is won, the new lines have been drawn and we can all get on with something else. I think the battle is far from won, and the lines are being redrawn again further back along the path we thought we'd done with. In Britain right now the brunt of the recession and austerity measures is falling disproportionately on women. And disproportionately on the poor and low waged. And old attitudes that place the blame for their suffering firmly onto women's own shoulders, whether in assumptions of females as sexually suspect in rape trials and childcare provision for single mums, or assumptions of rampant masochism in the case of women who stay with abusive partners, are resurfacing.