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I can only imagine how disheartening it is for women to see how "open" the debate around gender was even five or six years ago - when women could really voice their opinions in major publications without any fear - but there's another, much better way to look at it! [thread]
Because I've been involved in this stuff, at least on the margins, for at least eight years now, and from that perspective the gains of the radical feminist analysis of gender have been *enormous.* Like, absolutely incredible. And it's so easy to despair and forget that.
The debate was definitely "freer" in the past, but that's largely because *any* movement that doesn't pose a serious challenge to power gets ignored - and being ignored can feel like freedom when it's really irrelevance.
Like, I remember helping set up meetings in 2012, and it was six or seven women driving hundreds of miles to meet and no trans activists even cared enough to pay attention. Now "TERFs" are public enemy #1, and that's because you all are *winning* in a lot of important ways!
Even five years ago, I couldn't even *imagine* three hundred and fifty women (almost twice the number who attended the famous Miss America protest in 1968) show up in *one mid-tier city* to talk about this stuff. I think about 30 people came to Radfems Respond in 2014?
WPUK regularly had hundreds, if not thousands, of people attending their meetings before the pandemic, and they'll probably have more after because of all this Rowling stuff - literally unimaginable five years ago, even though everything felt "freer" then.
Even now, the vast majority of people I interact with have gotten involved in the last few years, if that - it's exponential growth, and that's why they're so vicious about stamping it out. That's *so much better* than the freedom to speak when no one listens.
So I know it's cliche, but that "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win" quote by Gandhi really sums up what's happening here - if you imagine a victory in, say, 2030, then things are exactly where they need to be right now. That's good!
Which isn't to say, of course, that it isn't insanely discouraging to see the attacks on women speaking - I can only imagine - but I guess I would just say that there was a time where this stuff wasn't even important enough to be discouraged!
