These two tweets were directed at me during a Twitter spat I had with James Billingham a couple of months ago. Yes, he really is one of those men who presume to adjudicate on what feminism is. I can’t in all seriousness believe he thinks I care what he would “love” to see me do. Rather, I think these tweets were intentionally condescending to me in order to virtue-signal to his followers, who will probably applaud the insufferable arrogance of a man telling a woman old enough to be his mother how she should be doing feminism.
In order to virtue-signal and in order to tell a woman how she should be doing feminism. He loves it – he would love it even if no one applauded.
I am still against anti-feminists in the ‘atheist movement’, as he calls it – especially the ones in Humanists UK, whose numbers are growing. What has happened is that Billingham has joined their ranks as an honorary member of the trans Taliban (hat-tip to Julie Bindel for coining that very apt sobriquet). That he has done so exemplifies why we should be wary of men who self-identify as feminists. Men who genuinely want to support us know better than to do so. If your feminism includes men who talk over women – as they are wont to do – it’s not feminism.
And if your feminism “centers” men who say they are women and bullies women, it’s really not feminism.
Years ago, he was responsible for creating a ‘block bot’ on Twitter, about which Martin Robbins wrote,
The Block Bot started as a tool to create a safe space for women online and turned into a weapon to bully and silence women the community disagreed with.
There’s a great deal more about what a dedicated, persistent bully James Billingham is.
Comments
12 responses to “What he would love to see us do”
Maria is one of the best people I know.
I’m not sure that the “tell a woman how to do feminism” line works anymore, given that feminism itself has been corrupted and made to serve the trans cause. There are, in fact, many women who are doing feminism wrong, while there are many men who have their heads screwed on straight enough to know that male and female are the only genders.
Honestly, I don’t think the line ever worked, at least from an epistemological perspective. Politically and pragmatically, sure, there are reasons to forbid men from taking an authoritative role in feminist activity (i.e., feminism as movement). Feminism as propositional content, though? That seems iffy and smacks of standpoint epistemology.
Can someone explain how to get to that article from the home page of peaktrans.org?
Sure I can follow the link directly from here but I am trying to find my way on the site itself.
Hmm. No. I tried, but I can’t figure it out either.
It was originally published in May, 2020, so it’s probably well-hidden by now.
Oh it’s an oldy – sorry, I missed that.
Still relevant, though.
Definitely, it’s just that I always mean to point it out if something I blog about is not recent.
For axxyaan #3, the Peak Trans home page (on desktop and mobile) has a search window (with a magnifying glass), so I entered Billingham and I got this result:
https://www.peaktrans.org/?s=Billingham
That result shows eight posts, listed newest to oldest (seven from 2020 and one from 2017), including the post you asked about (dated May 17, 2020).
Ach – thanks Dave. I should have been able to figure that out, since I often use the search box right here to find a particular post. I must not have been fully awake yet.
Funnily enough, reconsidering whether I was in the right was what led to me being here and not on Oolon’s side.
Exactly, despite the disingenuous implication that people like MacLachlan have somehow betrayed their cause (and hence ought to “go back” to their feminist activism), the people on the gender critical side are not the ones who changed. People who called themselves “feminists” and “feminist allies” used to stand in opposition to hostility/disrespect towards, oppression of, or violence against biological females – regardless of what you prefer to call them – by aggressive, entitled, abusive biological males – once again regardless of what you prefer to call them. Some of us still do.