Becca Reilly-Cooper · @boodleoops
25th Oct 2014 from TwitLonger
Dear @CUSUwomen,
I have read your open letter to the organisers of the WOW event in response to their inviting Caroline Criado-Perez to speak. There are a few things about this letter that I was hoping you might be able to clarify:
1. You claim in your letter that Caroline Criado-Perez has "persistently attacked trans people" online. That's a very serious accusation, and is something I have never witnessed. Have you got any evidence for this?
2. You further claim that CCP has persistently attacked other feminists online. You provide a link to some apparent evidence for this. That link leads to a conversation between some CCP and some members of your own campaign, initiated not by CCP but by Nina de Paula Hanika. While this conversation is clearly combative and acrimonious in tone, it doesn't look like evidence of CCP attacking anyone, since the unpleasant tone comes from all sides. Do you have any more compelling evidence of CCP attacking other feminists online?
3. You claim that CCP's track record on talking about issues of race is "dismal". Your evidence for this is that during a Women's Hour discussion CCP "interrupted Reni Eddo-Lodge", which even if true, would not be evidence of a dismal track record on race; but as a matter of fact it is not true, as CCP did not interrupt Reni, but responded to a question that had been put to her by the interviewer. Your only other evidence of her dismal track record on race is that she said in the same interview that "certain people are using intersectionality as a cloak to abuse other women” - again, whether or not this is accurate, it hardly constitutes evidence of problematic attitudes toward issue of race. Do you have any more compelling evidence?
4. Most troubling about your letter, from my perspective, is your suggestion that CCP "hijacks key theoretical terms", "strawman[s] important parts of feminist politics", and "misrepresent[s] what it means to be cisgender". All of these strike me as extremely bad faith ways of interpreting what is simply a conceptual disagreement about the term cisgender and what it means, and point to a really quite disturbing attempt to stifle any disagreement about these terms. As a feminist, Caroline is entitled to participate in any theoretical discussion about the nature of gender and the meanings and usage of feminist terminology. It is uncharitable at best, and oppressive at worst, to portray this contribution as "hijacking" and "misrepresentation", rather than a good faith attempt to understand how best to make sense of this terminology. Furthermore, as an apparently cisgender woman, CCP, like all other non-trans women, is told she must accept the label cisgender to define herself and her identity. How can an attempt to understand the labels that are being applied to oneself be "hijacking"? It strikes me as incredibly oppressive to insist that women must accept a label to refer themselves and their identities, and then to deny them the opportunity to think critically about these labels by asserting that any attempt to do so is in itself evidence of bigotry. It is hard to interpret this as anything other than an attempt to stifle disagreement and silence dissenting voices.