Alex Callinicos/SWP vs Laurie Penny/New Statesman Facebook handbags

[sihhi]

What does that 210 euro price tag actually get you, do you know? That's extortionate.

Entrance to the Re Publica 13 Gathering for all 3 days (6 May - 8 May), 2 day Entrance is 140 Euro, 1 Day Entrance is 70 Euro.

https://twitter.com/republica/status/329613433798553600

Die Preise an der Tageskasse: MO bis 19 Uhr 210 Euro, DI bis 19 Uhr 140 Euro, MI 70 Euro. Jeweils dann bis Ende

I think criticism on these grounds would make more sense.

The gentrification certainly affects the Turkish and Arabic speaking people - when they are forced out - they are made to move to East Berlin or sometimes wholesale to East Germany in places where there are few immigrants and without some semblance of community support - they become easier targets for direct manifestations racist graffiti within sight of homes, street harassment, firecracker attacks onto cars etc.

 

[equationgirl]

Definitely. If someone had told me and my workmates we were unskilled when I was working as a pipe fitter we'd have fed them their own teeth. To equate working class with unskilled is really fucking insulting. Practical skills are every bit as difficult to master as white collar ones (in fact having now been to university I'd say they're more difficult - my apprenticeship was much harder than my degree) and you have to really master them cos you only get one chance to do a piece of work properly - fuck it up and you're out of a job if it's a critical piece of work.

Yet more contempt from the spokesperson of the left. Fuck her.

Couldn't agree more, Spiney, at my place they're called Craft workers to recognise that what they are is highly skilled craftsmen and women, and what they produce is exactly that.

 

[BigTom]

I haven't watched the LP video, but for me I think there are enough dickhead MRA types, general assorted mysogynists and right wing trolls that she would get a lot of abuse even if each person only sent one message/comment once every few years, and not just on those occasions where something stirs the hornets nest but on a day by day basis. Does it really matter if it's not that level of abuse every day? If some days pass without any abuse? If it's 3 or 4 days a week where she gets some form of genuinely mysogynist abuse? I don't see much difference tbh and I'm sure that it could feel like every day even if it's not.

I think it's grim how she seems to dismiss pretty much all criticism as mysogynistic, but I've no real doubt that she does get a lot of mysogynistic crap posted at her, and that other women blogging do too - possibly not as much but then LP is pretty high profile (in internet terms).

 

[equationgirl]

Entrance to the Re Publica 13 Gathering for all 3 days (6 May - 8 May), 2 day Entrance is 140 Euro, 1 Day Entrance is 70 Euro.

https://twitter.com/republica/status/329613433798553600



I think criticism on these grounds would make more sense.

The gentrification certainly affects the Turkish and Arabic speaking people - when they are forced out - they are made to move to East Berlin or sometimes wholesale to East Germany in places where there are few immigrants and without some semblance of community support - they become easier targets for direct manifestations racist graffiti within sight of homes, street harassment, firecracker attacks onto cars etc.

210 euro just to go to the whole event - 70 euro a day? That's expensive.

 

[Belushi]

The gentrification certainly affects the Turkish and Arabic speaking people - when they are forced out - they are made to move to East Berlin or sometimes wholesale to East Germany in places where there are few immigrants and without some semblance of community support - they become easier targets for direct manifestations racist graffiti within sight of homes, street harassment, firecracker attacks onto cars etc.

A minor quibble but a shit load of East Berlin has already been gentrified to fuck - a lot of visitors are surprised to discover that most of the centre of Berlin was on the Eastern side of the wall. Mitte, Prenzlauer Berg etc have been utterly transformed in the past 20 years.

I have close friends who are mixed race who grew up in East Berlin and it was no picnic. They find London incredibly safe and welcoming for them in comparison.

 

[sihhi]

210 euro just to go to the whole event - 70 euro a day? That's expensive.

Worth bearing in mind that Germany operates by means of Lander-based minimum wages by sector. So that the minimum wage for temporary or agency work in Berlin is 7.5Euro/hour. Minimum wage for commercial cleaning in Berlin is 7E/hr etc. We are talking weekly salaries of 280-320 at best for many people.
If you are on benefits as part of the Hartz system you get was 374 Euro a month as a single person. So to afford a ticket to the Conference (no concessions as far I could make out) you would be giving up just over 56% of your monthly financial resources.

 

[Belushi]

IIRC a quarter of Germans are on low wages, and in Berlin (which has always been a relatively poor city) the figure is much higher.

 

[frogwoman]

I'm inclined to believe someone reporting sexual assault, even someone I dont like, I think as anti-sexists/anti-racists etc you always have to start from a position of believing someone, and I don't think that looking tense or what have you proves anything.

i dont like LP at all for the reasons that everyone has said on the thread, but i think even if you dont like somebody you still have to start from a position of believing them when they report sexual assualt and only change that when you have some fucking good evidence to go on.

I've known a few people who I think (but do not know for sure) lied about things like sexual assault but I think that not knowing LP personally we really cannot tell if that's the case. And with the girl I am thinking about I think she lied about some of it but not all.

I know ive lied about stuff especially when younger. I'd hate to have somebody look at my posts and say that because of what I've said in the past or because iv'e been a bit of a twat or whatever that means my experiences of sexual harassment and threats have been made up, i think even if the person lies that the sky is blue or whatever you still have to start off believing them until you have proper evidence that they're lying beccause the alternative, that you didn't believe it when it was true, is too horrible to contemplate

 

[where to]

What does that 210 euro price tag actually get you, do you know? That's extortionate.

a warm glow of self-satisfaction.

 

[sihhi]

A minor quibble but a shit load of East Berlin has already been gentrified to fuck - a lot of visitors are surprised to discover that most of the centre of Berlin was on the Eastern side of the wall. Mitte, Prenzlauer Berg etc have been utterly transformed in the past 20 years.

I have close friends who are mixed race who grew up in East Berlin and it was no picnic. They find London incredibly safe and welcoming for them in comparison.

I was thinking of the out-of-town Eastern Berlin suburbs places like Kopenick not Prenzlauer. I'm informed by people that those who live there feel more threatened than central or western Berlin - could be wrong.
Apparently, the Gulen movement - hidden but rightwing religious schooling movement - is quite strong in these new places, because it allows people to feel safe and off the streets.

Not suggesting that racist incidents don't happen in West Germany either. This only 2 evenings ago was a molotov attack on a foreign family operated corner kiosk in Huckelhoven, which is apparently only 8 miles from the border with Holland.

German http://www.aachener-zeitung.de/loka...ne-hinweise-auf-fremdenfeindlichkeit-1.571179

Turkish http://haber.mynet.com/turklere-irkci-saldiri-694590-dunya

 

[where to]

You're mad.

hmm. i agree with you on the broader point here, but you can't play dumb in quite the way you're doing here imo. you and everyone else on this thread criticise her - quite rightly - for hamming various matters of her private life (or, often, her imagined private life) for the benefit of her articles and career. i agree with the principle of believing the potential victim here, but you can't go all "what, ham things up for her career? Laurie Penny? never!" on us - if that's what you intended - whilst slagging her off for doing exactly that every other day of the week!

 

[sihhi]

Agree with you frogwoman, and there was a backlog of dodgy stuff from LP.
I remember Anna Span, Finn Mackay, Julie Bindel and Sofie Buckland who all complained of distortions:

This kind of LP behaviour - outright false statements and made up quotes - basically stopped once this thread got going.

None of it means that the reality of daily emails of misogynistic abuse to LP shouldn't be believed.

They are different things: poor journalism behaviour versus sexist abuse from rightwing and/or men's rights blacklash figures, we shouldn't get them confused.

 

[equationgirl]

At least this thread has forced her not to use such tactics anymore.

 

[DaveCinzano]

At least this thread has forced her not to use such tactics anymore.

Well, for now, in the little backwater that is mean-minded Britain, at least, perhaps...

 

[killer b]

don't think it's necessarily this thread tbh (she only discovered it a few hundred pages in after all) so much as the reasons for this thread existing - there has been much more scrutiny on her since those early fabrications from all over the place, specially since the hari debacle.

 

[ymu]

im prepared to concede i am mostly talking bollocks, but its bollocks based in honesty, my blog has had 30,000 comments over the years, many made by women, and some on posts about overtly feminist issues, I cant remember one sexual threat out of those

You're a bloke. How in holy hell do you think your blog offers any relevant evidence whatsoever?

I'm not denying theres a problem, i really hope people dont think that, im just unsure of lauries claims that this is a problem on the internet above and beyond what is experienced by most women in society, therefore women should approach the internet with special care if they wish to speak out.

Because the problems that are part of society don't matter? Fact of life, nothing to see here. If women react to the volume and threat of abuse in their everyday 'normal' lives that's their problem. Nothing that mere men need to do about it. Just knowing that it happens but not making any connections at all is the best we can expect from the poor helpless little things, right?

in my experience violence that happens irl is somewhat more traumatic than that carried out online and its dangerous to conflate the two as seems to be happening

Then you should read the links people post to try and educate you. Fuck's sake, the internet is not separate from real life and this drives women (aka people, often with children) out of their homes.

Apologies for the Canuck, I'm sure this has been sorted out by now.

 

[toggle]

If blokes telling women "how to do feminism" etc. can be called "mansplaining"...

...can we call privates school/Oxbridge types acting all oppressed and/or radical "poshturing"?

(See what I did there? )

yes.

that's why i tend to read more of these threads than comment, cause I can't call myself working class by any stretch of the imagination, and i don't want to be that kind of twat.

 

[smokedout]

You're a bloke. How in holy hell do you think your blog offers any relevant evidence whatsoever?

I mentioned it because most of that comment has nothing to do with me and is generally people arguing and talking amongst themselves, often about feminism, issues relating to women etc I also mod a quite large and active fb group, and have been involved in various other sites and havent seen evidence of what laurie describes on the scale she describes it, thats just the truth of my experience of blogging and being involved with the net as a man

if i'm wrong im fucking wrong and i apologise, im not trying to score a point or prove im right, if this is what political female bloggers face (and by that i only mean the impression given by laurie in the intro to her speech, not the general level of misogyny online - which i oppose and recognise as a significant problem) then i dont want to be wrong about this

 

[toggle]

I mentioned it because most of that comment has nothing to do with me and is generally people arguing and talking amongst themselves, often about feminism, issues relating to women etc I also mod a quite large and active fb group, and have been involved in various other sites and havent seen evidence of what laurie describes on the scale she describes it, thats just the truth of my experience of blogging and being involved with the net

if i'm wrong im fucking wrong and i apologise, im not trying to score a point or prove im right, if this is what political female bloggers face (and by that i only mean the impression given by laurie in the intro to her speech, not the general level of misogyny online - which i oppose and recognise as a significant problem) then i dont want to be wrong about this

wish you weren't wrong. i really do.

 

[Nylock]

210 euro just to go to the whole event - 70 euro a day? That's expensive.

wow... not even a discount for getting a ticket for all 3 days... that's a bit tight innit... =/

 

[toggle]

*****s

http://www.urban75.net/forums/threads/england-local-election-results-thread.309781/page-34

scan down to cnt36's posts, then imagine that the bloke writing that stuff had taken an interest in writing to a woman personally.

add in the threats.

 

[equationgirl]

I mentioned it because most of that comment has nothing to do with me and is generally people arguing and talking amongst themselves, often about feminism, issues relating to women etc I also mod a quite large and active fb group, and have been involved in various other sites and havent seen evidence of what laurie describes on the scale she describes it, thats just the truth of my experience of blogging and being involved with the net as a man

if i'm wrong im fucking wrong and i apologise, im not trying to score a point or prove im right, if this is what political female bloggers face (and by that i only mean the impression given by laurie in the intro to her speech, not the general level of misogyny online - which i oppose and recognise as a significant problem) then i dont want to be wrong about this

Have you read the 'sexualisation of teenagers' thread over in general? Have a look at some of the comments female posters got on that thread. Someone got a temp ban for those comments. Some of us got some pretty vile personal attacks, myself included - and I'm not even a political blogger. Why would I voluntarily subject myself to unmoderated attacks from random men by being a blogger?

We're fortunate in that on this forum, reports of abusive behaviour are generally taken seriously. But it still happens, whether you see it or not. Please, just accept the word of the women it's happened to and stop saying you don't see it. Because we do.

 

[ymu]

it's not about making me happy

she has form for lying, she lies regularly, she's been caught out lying many times, many of us on this very thread have been the victim of her lying, so when she lies about something, regardless of what the topic is, i'm not going to apologise for pointing it out. she's a journalist for fuck's sake, she regularly lies about her life experiences and uses that to push her work and promote her brand. Most people are happy to pull her up on it in relation to her lies on other topics, and while I can understand/appreciate the sensitive nature of this, i don't see why she should get a free pass to lie about it. The truth of the matter is bad enough, there's no need to exaggerate/lie when talking about it, as it allows her (sexist, abusive) opponents to claim that she's talking a load of shite (in general) and diminish/belittle the actual real lived experience of her and others like her

i couldn't give a shit what pointing this out makes me 'look like'

And we all know how much women like to lie about being raped, right? It's so incredibly rare that most of them must be lying to make the stats look so horrific, right?

Fuck off. Just fuck off. You're part of the fucking problem. Put some fucking theory into praxis before the IWCA destroys itself just like the Assange cultists and then the swappies did.

Until then, just fuck off.

 

[ymu]

I think the suggestion is that she is exaggerating how much 'really bad' stuff she gets sent, which she quite possibly is. but as you say that is not the point. I find it quite plausible that she gets abusive messages on a daily, or almost, daily basis that are not as extreme as the example she gives in the video. But we should not be ranking abuse like that, any sexist abuse is unacceptable however 'mild' it may seem compared to the really bad stuff.

Having said that I think that the discussion around this on here as been quite sensitive and serious on the whole, and really shows how out of place her accusations of misogyny at people on here was.

Oh not really reply to you Firky just seemed a convent post to follow.

I said similar a few weeks ago. Turns out that there were a few people who just know what script to follow most of the time but have not spent much time at all thinking about it, let alone listening to what other people (usually women) have to say about it.

It's a bit like realising your dad is proud that you're in work and independent but still thinks you should be looking for a rich husband. Massive kick in the guts that won't go away.

 

[equationgirl]

I said similar a few weeks ago. Turns out that there were a few people who just know what script to follow most of the time but have not spent much time at all thinking about it, let alone listening to what other people (usually women) have to say about it.

It's a bit like realising your dad is proud that you're in work and independent but still thinks you should be looking for a rich husband. Massive kick in the guts that won't go away.

For years, my dad was all 'you should marry a farmer, they're loaded'. Then foot and mouth happened and I pointed out that the suicide rate for farmers went through the roof. He hasn't mentioned it since then.

I think he's given up on me even finding a new boyfriend to be honest, let alone a husband

ETA: For a man of his generation, born during WWII, he's very progressive. I was brought up to believe there was nothing I couldn't do, that being a woman wasn't an issue and when I chose engineering as a profession he was supportive and encouraging. But I think he's still like to see me with a partner.

 

[ymu]

Sue Marsh of 'Diary of a Benefit scrounger' received masses of abuse, etc, but afaik, it wasn't gendered, but attacks along the lines of 'how dare disabled claimants speak out'.

However, I can well imagine women bloggers getting horrendous abuse..

Bendy Girl gets a lot of abuse related to gas chambers. I don't know whether she or Sue get more abuse than the men with similar blogs. I don't usually notice the sex of a blogger until the commenters start making threats and it's always been a woman when I have noticed that.

 

[ymu]

I mentioned it because most of that comment has nothing to do with me and is generally people arguing and talking amongst themselves, often about feminism, issues relating to women etc I also mod a quite large and active fb group, and have been involved in various other sites and havent seen evidence of what laurie describes on the scale she describes it, thats just the truth of my experience of blogging and being involved with the net as a man

if i'm wrong im fucking wrong and i apologise, im not trying to score a point or prove im right, if this is what political female bloggers face (and by that i only mean the impression given by laurie in the intro to her speech, not the general level of misogyny online - which i oppose and recognise as a significant problem) then i dont want to be wrong about this

That's fine. Just cut out the ifs and the buts, accept that you cannot know what women experience, and attack her for the myriad of stuff she actually does wrong instead of strengthening misogynist tropes by calling her a liar about something that is depressingly and provably common.

You're coming across a bit like this prick. Not a good look, especially when you live in a country that does collect the statistics and even has a media that occasionally reports them (albeit rarely with any sensible analysis attached).

 

[ymu]

For years, my dad was all 'you should marry a farmer, they're loaded'. Then foot and mouth happened and I pointed out that the suicide rate for farmers went through the roof. He hasn't mentioned it since then.

I think he's given up on me even finding a new boyfriend to be honest, let alone a husband

ETA: For a man of his generation, born during WWII, he's very progressive. I was brought up to believe there was nothing I couldn't do, that being a woman wasn't an issue and when I chose engineering as a profession he was supportive and encouraging. But I think he's still like to see me with a partner.

My dad was a sexist shit who drummed into me that I was a failure and a disappointment for not being a pretty little thing. Bullied my mum, bullied me, taught my brother to bully me.

He's grown up now and is deeply ashamed of his immaturity and delighted that I have a stay-at-home partner looking after my domestic needs because I am fucking hopeless.

My brother is busy putting his wife and kids through hell. That damage doesn't look like it will ever get undone.

 

[equationgirl]

My dad was a sexist shit who drummed into me that I was a failure and a disappointment for not being a pretty little thing. Bullied my mum, bullied me, taught my brother to bully me.

He's grown up now and is deeply ashamed of his immaturity and delighted that I have a stay-at-home partner looking after my domestic needs because I am fucking hopeless.

My brother is busy putting his wife and kids through hell. That damage doesn't look like it will ever get undone.

sorry to hear this ymu, that sucks doesn't really cover it.

 

[ymu]

I know a self-described "mens' rights activist" whose misogyny was as far as I know limited to online misogyny, a couple of weeks ago he was arrested for being the shit out of his girlfriend.

Words tend to express attitudes which may lead to action, you say? How very thought-provoking.