Thank you for writing this honest review of the film! Every major US Women's organization was involved in this tour, and every major US activist showed up. You are exactly right, that is the reason that I made my thread so that our hard work would be recognized.
I still appreciate what KJK does but this needed to be said. There's much more footage out there and I hope someone can compile it and create a more centered view on what the American women have gone through and what future plans are in the works. Thank you.
There is a huge difference between critiquing a film and attacking the film maker. I don't think any of us deny that KJK is a force to be reckoned with and that her work is extremely important and effective. I'm glad this article was written as it articulated some of the reasons I felt such disappointment with the film. The film is professionally produced, but not , what I understood to be, what was promised. As mentioned in so many of these responses and the article itself, many women worked extremely hard before during and after KJK's tour. And, many women donated resources stretching budgets and giving up pleasures and necessities in support of what was promised to be a film about US women fighting the trans deception. I will echo the comments that pointed out that the film was a film about KJK - a star's - tour to the US. It is her film and it's ok that it is what it is, but not what was promised. But here, I want to talk about what's come out of it, both good and bad.
Good: US women instinctively and then deliberately took up the mantel of shining light on the US women who work tirelessly and to celebrate all of their unique talents an contributions. I too watched all of the live streams as they were happening, felt the fear for women in danger, as well as my own adrenaline when I was in Philadelphia. So, I think this film inspired us to look more to each other and away from the stars of the show. To acknowledge that it's an effort of women united. That stars have their purpose and effectiveness, but ultimately fan girls aren't going to win this, fighters are.
Bad: More division. The opposite side of that coin is that the film opened up a new split between those who refuse to look critically at the film and will only accept uncompromised acclaim and praise, and those who want to learn from it, improve on it and understand what happened. KJK already spends an inordinate amount of time talking about the "women on the left" who attack her. And, while she does receive a great deal of personal attack, I think many of us confuse criticism and discussion about the way forward as some sort of personal attack. I also think that buying into the polarizing false narrative of left and right (especially in the US) and focusing on it doesn't help anyone. I've been a left socialist and feminist my entire adult life. In fact it was being called a right wing bigot by a pregnant women pretending to be a man that made me go, "Whaaaaat?" Me?! Really?! I know what KJK means by the left and by socialist feminists, but it's incorrect and not helpful to spend so much time on the divisions. We need to spend all of our time uniting and peaking others, but I digress...
I realized the other day that I am self censoring where this film is concerned and that is exactly why we need to talk about it openly. When we start self censoring with each other they've won a battle. When we don't have the freedom to look at any aspect of the fight critically, we're in trouble. We must understand that criticism is not the same as personal attack. We need to call out personal attacks, but to also be able see the difference, and to think and discuss critically about all that we are doing, including KJK and the other "stars."
You said what I was thinking. I've ben too afraid to "stir the pot" to say so myself. Mind you, I haven't even watched the docu yet. There are SO many of us in the U.S. who have been pushing and sacrificing to make change, but were not invited to participate.
I didn't want to play "queen of the hill" anymore so I stepped away from activism. Also, legal isues thanks to the firm, Gender Justice.
If we all spent the time we watch KJK videos and instead used it to write letters, make phone calls, and testify, we would be a lot better off here in the land of the free.
I appreciate that you wrote this review to bring attention to the things that were left out of KJK’s documentary. I know from experience that when a content creator is putting something together like this very large video project, the content creator is sure to let someone down, etc. --KJK is only human. I am thankful for her adventure here and her taking the time to shine a light on us. I feel like it was well done.
What can ww do better is the question. How do we keep this momentum going and expand on it?
KJK has been campaigning for women and children for a long time. She doesn’t have to put herself in the firing line in the way she does. She doesn’t have to bother with women in other countries but she does and she raises her own money to do it, as she raised the money to make her own film. No one is stopping you doing the same. Your criticism comes across as petty and vindictive, nor does it do anything to unite women around a common cause.
100% agree with this critique, and, like most of us, I think, my appreciation of KJK's doc and HER is that she is highly effective as a mascot for the movement; not an easy job. It takes a lot of energy, perseverance and the sacrifice of her privacy and her family's privacy. She gets her face on TV talk shows and news magazine shows, without which our movement would be invisible to the general public--including a lot of us women, many of whom are experiencing severe damage in our lives and our children's lives from that which KJK is fighting. She maintains a continuous platform and meetinghouse with her YouTube channel from which she cheer-leads a global audience of women of all ages, many of whom are otherwise in little or no contact with other, like-minded, concerned, angered and frightened women. And she has a pleasant countenance, a physical appeal that helps her message come through with 'a spoonful of sugar.' This is a FACT of marketing: appeal, and she's got it. That helps open doors to media, which 'hires' faces that the camera loves, AND, she is ever-ready to stand in the spotlight: sometimes warm, sometimes glaring: she is there to speak for women and children. She has great value to our movement for ALL of these reasons, and in spite of what some justifiably question as untoward associations and PERHAPS a covert political agenda against which many women have built walls for good, demonstrable reasons and from which many will not blindfold themselves while still agreeing with the need to 'take to the streets' together as one. She should have spotlighted all of the dedicated women activists, organizers and donors of the Free Speech for Women/Let Women Speak’ American tour with purposeful appearances on her YouTube channel, presenting to her global audience the intensely active North American women's rights campaigners, which would actually have strengthened her own platform and widened her own audience. More importantly, it would have widened our American activists’ audiences, increased connections and sharing of information and needs. It would have endeared Kellie Jay Keen to American women, more, to whom she is often offensively critical and condescending on her show, and perhaps it would have helped to meld the UK and US women's rights activists together, for mutual strategizing and moral support and understanding how we are the same and different. I’ve watched her YT channel for two years, I base my comment on what I have seen her say despite mounted resistance by myself and others to open her eyes to the wider American women's perspective, to no avail. She was not interested in that discourse, and, I accepted that she gets to choose what role she is willing to play and what she isn’t. Once in a while she squeezes out a good word for one or two American women, but never at the cost of the spotlight moving from her. “I am leading this movement,” she corrected a caller recently who claimed that conservative women were leading the movement in a clear compliment TO HER. “I am not a conservative or a liberal... “ she went on. In my final analysis, the documentary IS a record of our dissent; it is a record of the welcome Kellie Jay Keen receives from American women, North and South (and Australia and Europe, and more) because her work is Women’s rights. The campaign by American women was epic; for anyone who was there or who watched it all live-streamed, beginning, in effect, with the Port Townsend Let Julie Swim press conference in early August, 2022, led by Amy Sousa, Jennifer Thomas and Gabrielle Clark, just before the Let Women Speak tour began in October 2022, and we being arranged at that very time by those three and many others throughout the nation. We knew from the shocking violence that broke out there that the “Free Speech for Women featuring Kellie Jay Keen” events would be tough, would be attended by a terrorist faction--not unlike many of the events Kellie Jay Keen organized in cities in the UK. There were numerous injuries and assaults that have brought criminal charges against assailants. And, we still do not know who these assailants actually are, who is organizing them, how they seem to have neutered police departments in some cities, how they are being wound up and/or remunerated for their behavior, OR by whom. It is clear there is a organized resistance to women speaking out against the erasure of women. Who are they, and why are they resisting women existing? To what end? That is a question that KJK does not address directly. That is her choice: to keep her focus sharp, she keeps her target discrete from the bigger picture, and that is USEFUL to us all. She remains a leading mascot for the movement until and if there rises someone better. Note: despite constant quibbling about Gloria Steinem being ‘the appropriate’ mascot for Women’s Lib, being so ‘pretty’ and presumably air-headed and even masqueraded once AS a Playboy Bunny at the old Playboy club in NYC for a story (a great expose, as it turned out), Steinem was a tireless worker for reform. She was and still is a chronicler of our issues, via a lifetime of public appearances, speeches, starting, writing for and editing Ms. Magazine, etc. She made a huge difference and continues to this day to work for women, though she may have an uncomfortable opinion on sex change being real and why women should include men as legal women in any circumstance. She learned how to be politic in order to move the needle of women's rights, along with Betty Friedan, Bella Abzug and numerous other "extraordinary" ordinary women who certainly did not all agree and fought plenty and got in each other's way sometimes. Occasionally fights brought forward motion to a screeching halt, temporarily. She continued to bring women together: organizing women was the majority of her work, and her face was the recognizable mascot for Women's Lib and Feminism in America, all factions of it, for decades: the 70s, 80s, 90s, 00s, 10s, and today. KJK is not the writer, researcher or magazine editor that Gloria Steinem is, but she is an organizer of women and a YouTube channel 'editor'. She might be the face of our women's rights movement today and for decades to come, while other hard-working women out of the spotlight do other heavy lifting. There is a talent pool among us who can and should produce our own documentary series on the Free Speech tour and ancillary events and activities, reactions, responses, legal cases and why different women feel differently about it all, what feminism means to different women in different generations and locales and how these different strands of us CAN be braided together while still being separate strands. And there will certainly be affectionate and respectful nods to KJK in any documentary of it, and to the other very important women in the UK whose activism and experience fired up that nation AND ours via Twitter as UK women were attacked and fired for THINKING and SPEAKING the truth, and where the world's most successful, prolific author, JKRowling, used her colossal platform and communication skills to awaken the entire world of her readers and mothers of her readers to what was happening there, and in Canada, and soon to be here in the USA. It is healthy for us to do this post-mortem so we can incorporate what we've learned works and what doesn't work for future events/activism. So thank you, Katherina M. Acosta, for your considered, insightful, honest review of the documentary, and to everyone who chooses to weigh in thoughtfully from their perspectives. Me? I'm a writer and re-awakened filmmaker, and will help to get our own documentaries written and produced, and at least will cheer-lead those who do.
Thank you for writing this honest review of the film! Every major US Women's organization was involved in this tour, and every major US activist showed up. You are exactly right, that is the reason that I made my thread so that our hard work would be recognized.
I still appreciate what KJK does but this needed to be said. There's much more footage out there and I hope someone can compile it and create a more centered view on what the American women have gone through and what future plans are in the works. Thank you.
There is a huge difference between critiquing a film and attacking the film maker. I don't think any of us deny that KJK is a force to be reckoned with and that her work is extremely important and effective. I'm glad this article was written as it articulated some of the reasons I felt such disappointment with the film. The film is professionally produced, but not , what I understood to be, what was promised. As mentioned in so many of these responses and the article itself, many women worked extremely hard before during and after KJK's tour. And, many women donated resources stretching budgets and giving up pleasures and necessities in support of what was promised to be a film about US women fighting the trans deception. I will echo the comments that pointed out that the film was a film about KJK - a star's - tour to the US. It is her film and it's ok that it is what it is, but not what was promised. But here, I want to talk about what's come out of it, both good and bad.
Good: US women instinctively and then deliberately took up the mantel of shining light on the US women who work tirelessly and to celebrate all of their unique talents an contributions. I too watched all of the live streams as they were happening, felt the fear for women in danger, as well as my own adrenaline when I was in Philadelphia. So, I think this film inspired us to look more to each other and away from the stars of the show. To acknowledge that it's an effort of women united. That stars have their purpose and effectiveness, but ultimately fan girls aren't going to win this, fighters are.
Bad: More division. The opposite side of that coin is that the film opened up a new split between those who refuse to look critically at the film and will only accept uncompromised acclaim and praise, and those who want to learn from it, improve on it and understand what happened. KJK already spends an inordinate amount of time talking about the "women on the left" who attack her. And, while she does receive a great deal of personal attack, I think many of us confuse criticism and discussion about the way forward as some sort of personal attack. I also think that buying into the polarizing false narrative of left and right (especially in the US) and focusing on it doesn't help anyone. I've been a left socialist and feminist my entire adult life. In fact it was being called a right wing bigot by a pregnant women pretending to be a man that made me go, "Whaaaaat?" Me?! Really?! I know what KJK means by the left and by socialist feminists, but it's incorrect and not helpful to spend so much time on the divisions. We need to spend all of our time uniting and peaking others, but I digress...
I realized the other day that I am self censoring where this film is concerned and that is exactly why we need to talk about it openly. When we start self censoring with each other they've won a battle. When we don't have the freedom to look at any aspect of the fight critically, we're in trouble. We must understand that criticism is not the same as personal attack. We need to call out personal attacks, but to also be able see the difference, and to think and discuss critically about all that we are doing, including KJK and the other "stars."
An excellent response to the propaganda and important highlighting of the women doing work on this in USA and how they've been invisibilized. TY
You said what I was thinking. I've ben too afraid to "stir the pot" to say so myself. Mind you, I haven't even watched the docu yet. There are SO many of us in the U.S. who have been pushing and sacrificing to make change, but were not invited to participate.
I didn't want to play "queen of the hill" anymore so I stepped away from activism. Also, legal isues thanks to the firm, Gender Justice.
If we all spent the time we watch KJK videos and instead used it to write letters, make phone calls, and testify, we would be a lot better off here in the land of the free.
I appreciate that you wrote this review to bring attention to the things that were left out of KJK’s documentary. I know from experience that when a content creator is putting something together like this very large video project, the content creator is sure to let someone down, etc. --KJK is only human. I am thankful for her adventure here and her taking the time to shine a light on us. I feel like it was well done.
What can ww do better is the question. How do we keep this momentum going and expand on it?
Thanks for unpicking the propaganda and revealing the empty heart of KJK's "activism". Spot on analysis.
KJK has been campaigning for women and children for a long time. She doesn’t have to put herself in the firing line in the way she does. She doesn’t have to bother with women in other countries but she does and she raises her own money to do it, as she raised the money to make her own film. No one is stopping you doing the same. Your criticism comes across as petty and vindictive, nor does it do anything to unite women around a common cause.
100% agree with this critique, and, like most of us, I think, my appreciation of KJK's doc and HER is that she is highly effective as a mascot for the movement; not an easy job. It takes a lot of energy, perseverance and the sacrifice of her privacy and her family's privacy. She gets her face on TV talk shows and news magazine shows, without which our movement would be invisible to the general public--including a lot of us women, many of whom are experiencing severe damage in our lives and our children's lives from that which KJK is fighting. She maintains a continuous platform and meetinghouse with her YouTube channel from which she cheer-leads a global audience of women of all ages, many of whom are otherwise in little or no contact with other, like-minded, concerned, angered and frightened women. And she has a pleasant countenance, a physical appeal that helps her message come through with 'a spoonful of sugar.' This is a FACT of marketing: appeal, and she's got it. That helps open doors to media, which 'hires' faces that the camera loves, AND, she is ever-ready to stand in the spotlight: sometimes warm, sometimes glaring: she is there to speak for women and children. She has great value to our movement for ALL of these reasons, and in spite of what some justifiably question as untoward associations and PERHAPS a covert political agenda against which many women have built walls for good, demonstrable reasons and from which many will not blindfold themselves while still agreeing with the need to 'take to the streets' together as one. She should have spotlighted all of the dedicated women activists, organizers and donors of the Free Speech for Women/Let Women Speak’ American tour with purposeful appearances on her YouTube channel, presenting to her global audience the intensely active North American women's rights campaigners, which would actually have strengthened her own platform and widened her own audience. More importantly, it would have widened our American activists’ audiences, increased connections and sharing of information and needs. It would have endeared Kellie Jay Keen to American women, more, to whom she is often offensively critical and condescending on her show, and perhaps it would have helped to meld the UK and US women's rights activists together, for mutual strategizing and moral support and understanding how we are the same and different. I’ve watched her YT channel for two years, I base my comment on what I have seen her say despite mounted resistance by myself and others to open her eyes to the wider American women's perspective, to no avail. She was not interested in that discourse, and, I accepted that she gets to choose what role she is willing to play and what she isn’t. Once in a while she squeezes out a good word for one or two American women, but never at the cost of the spotlight moving from her. “I am leading this movement,” she corrected a caller recently who claimed that conservative women were leading the movement in a clear compliment TO HER. “I am not a conservative or a liberal... “ she went on. In my final analysis, the documentary IS a record of our dissent; it is a record of the welcome Kellie Jay Keen receives from American women, North and South (and Australia and Europe, and more) because her work is Women’s rights. The campaign by American women was epic; for anyone who was there or who watched it all live-streamed, beginning, in effect, with the Port Townsend Let Julie Swim press conference in early August, 2022, led by Amy Sousa, Jennifer Thomas and Gabrielle Clark, just before the Let Women Speak tour began in October 2022, and we being arranged at that very time by those three and many others throughout the nation. We knew from the shocking violence that broke out there that the “Free Speech for Women featuring Kellie Jay Keen” events would be tough, would be attended by a terrorist faction--not unlike many of the events Kellie Jay Keen organized in cities in the UK. There were numerous injuries and assaults that have brought criminal charges against assailants. And, we still do not know who these assailants actually are, who is organizing them, how they seem to have neutered police departments in some cities, how they are being wound up and/or remunerated for their behavior, OR by whom. It is clear there is a organized resistance to women speaking out against the erasure of women. Who are they, and why are they resisting women existing? To what end? That is a question that KJK does not address directly. That is her choice: to keep her focus sharp, she keeps her target discrete from the bigger picture, and that is USEFUL to us all. She remains a leading mascot for the movement until and if there rises someone better. Note: despite constant quibbling about Gloria Steinem being ‘the appropriate’ mascot for Women’s Lib, being so ‘pretty’ and presumably air-headed and even masqueraded once AS a Playboy Bunny at the old Playboy club in NYC for a story (a great expose, as it turned out), Steinem was a tireless worker for reform. She was and still is a chronicler of our issues, via a lifetime of public appearances, speeches, starting, writing for and editing Ms. Magazine, etc. She made a huge difference and continues to this day to work for women, though she may have an uncomfortable opinion on sex change being real and why women should include men as legal women in any circumstance. She learned how to be politic in order to move the needle of women's rights, along with Betty Friedan, Bella Abzug and numerous other "extraordinary" ordinary women who certainly did not all agree and fought plenty and got in each other's way sometimes. Occasionally fights brought forward motion to a screeching halt, temporarily. She continued to bring women together: organizing women was the majority of her work, and her face was the recognizable mascot for Women's Lib and Feminism in America, all factions of it, for decades: the 70s, 80s, 90s, 00s, 10s, and today. KJK is not the writer, researcher or magazine editor that Gloria Steinem is, but she is an organizer of women and a YouTube channel 'editor'. She might be the face of our women's rights movement today and for decades to come, while other hard-working women out of the spotlight do other heavy lifting. There is a talent pool among us who can and should produce our own documentary series on the Free Speech tour and ancillary events and activities, reactions, responses, legal cases and why different women feel differently about it all, what feminism means to different women in different generations and locales and how these different strands of us CAN be braided together while still being separate strands. And there will certainly be affectionate and respectful nods to KJK in any documentary of it, and to the other very important women in the UK whose activism and experience fired up that nation AND ours via Twitter as UK women were attacked and fired for THINKING and SPEAKING the truth, and where the world's most successful, prolific author, JKRowling, used her colossal platform and communication skills to awaken the entire world of her readers and mothers of her readers to what was happening there, and in Canada, and soon to be here in the USA. It is healthy for us to do this post-mortem so we can incorporate what we've learned works and what doesn't work for future events/activism. So thank you, Katherina M. Acosta, for your considered, insightful, honest review of the documentary, and to everyone who chooses to weigh in thoughtfully from their perspectives. Me? I'm a writer and re-awakened filmmaker, and will help to get our own documentaries written and produced, and at least will cheer-lead those who do.
This is really good Kathrine. When will you release it to the public?
Thanks for writing this.
Marcie
And the problem is …re your last para …..