Recordings of Our "Flaring Up" Webinar Now Available!

Links and description of presentations and discussion from "Flaring Up: Feminist Opposition to Working with the Radical Right."

I am pleased to report that we had a fantastic turnout for our webinar last Sunday, September 10th, Flaring Up: Feminist Opposition to Working with the Radical Right. Women have been clamoring for recordings - and for a place where we can continue the conversation. The recordings are up now in six parts; future discussion to be determined - but will happen! As I said in the introduction to our webinar, we are not going anywhere. 

We began the webinar with Fran Luck and Max Dashu outlining the history and political context of our current dilemma.

Part 1: Fran Luck

Fran Luck hosts and produces Joy of Resistance: Multicultural Feminist Radio @ WBAI radio in New York. Fran’s show is the only terrestrial radio program (not a podcast) created and hosted by a radical feminist. It broadcasts to 3 states and streams worldwide.

In her talk, Fran discusses the rise of the radical right, their co-option of some feminist ideas, and raises some issues for feminists of working with the right on gender identity policy. She notes the example of Iran where fundamentalists and Leftists worked together to overthrow the Shah, and once that was accomplished, the fundamentalists turned on the Leftists and seized power for themselves.

Part 2: Max Dashu

Max Dashu, lesbian feminist activist and scholar of global women’s history, begins by discussing the silencing, with threats of of violence, of women who critique gender identity policy, comparing it to historical silencing of women’s speech. Dashu describes how feminism arose from Leftist political positions, how feminists were mistreated by men of the Left during the 2nd wave, but warns that seeking alliances with the radical right is not an option. 

Sinclair Lewis warned us that fascism in the United States would be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross. But there is no balm in Gilead, not for women, and not from these men,  because they believe in male domination. That's what they want to enforce; they’re working systematically to do so across a broad consortium of very well-funded powerful organizations and this is not ever going to work on behalf of the women.

---

Next, Bess Hungerford, myself, and Kitty Robinson take the discussion to specific issues and outcomes for feminists of working with the Right.

Part 3: Bess Hungerford

Bess Hungerford, feminist lawyer and creator of the podcast Notes on Feminism and the Culture Wars, discusses Nancy Whittier’s exhaustive sociological analysis that debunks the commonly-held belief that conservative Christians and radical feminists worked together on the anti-pornography issue.

Part 4: Katherine M Acosta

I discuss the practical outcomes for feminists of “setting aside the issues with which we disagree” to work with anti-feminist Council for National Policy-affiliated organizations. I compare such partnerships with coalitions where diverse constituencies come together to fight a common oppressor, noting that feminists working with anti-feminists are not uniting to fight a common oppressor, but rather, working with agents of their oppression. I argue that the disparities in power and influence between these parties, and in their conceptions of what gender means, produces outcomes in policy and law that favors the interests of the anti-feminist radical right.

Part 5: Kitty Robinson

Kitty Robinson, editor of You Told Me You Were Different and Detransition: Beyond Before and After, presents a statement from her collective Are You Asking Why.

This collective of detransitioned and desisted women, (women who have previously asserted transgender identities), objects to their stories being used or co-opted by the Right. The collective does not believe the Right has their best interest in mind, and is using the issue as a “cudgel” against the LGBT community generally. Nor do they believe that getting “legal representation and coverage [of their stories] must come at the cost of compromising our left-wing values.”

Part 6: Discussion

Finally, Part 6 is our discussion of the above presentations, led by Kathleen Kelly and Shani Handel. Kathleen Kelly is a feminist attorney, who was part of original Title IX working group, and organizer for the implementation regulations; former Chief of the Special Victims Unit in Trenton, NJ; Executive Director of non-profit organizations serving women and children, including the International Breast Cancer Research Foundation; currently working in labor law.

Shani Handel is an office worker, on and off again organizer, and Leftist.  She recently completed an MA in History where she focused on the equality/difference debate in feminist thought.  Shani is a former member of both WoLF and FIST. While she has mostly stepped away from feminist organizing, she remains committed to fighting both gender identity ideology and the religious right.

It’s a fantastic discussion that doesn’t shy away from the complexities of the issues raised. Very much worth a listen.