‘I got rape threats over claims I put a feminist symbol in a video game’ | BBC

Young male gamers had taken issue with a single frame in the trailer, in which the female character could be seen holding her thumb and forefinger close together.

They thought it resembled a hand gesture used by a radical online feminist community almost a decade ago to poke fun at the size of Korean men’s penises.

Darim had become the latest victim in a series of vicious online witch hunts, in which men in South Korea attack women they suspect of having feminist views. They bombard them with abuse and try to get them sacked.

This is part of a growing backlash to feminism, in which feminists have been branded man-haters who deserve to be punished. The witch hunts are having a chilling effect on women, with many now scared to admit they are feminists.

This is forcing the movement underground, in a country where gender discrimination is still deeply entrenched. South Korea has the largest gender pay gap in the OECD, a group of the world’s rich countries.

The backlash began in the mid-2010s, following a surge of feminist activism. During this time, women took to the streets in protest at sexual violence and the widespread use of hidden cameras that secretly film women using toilets and changing rooms – around 5,000 to 6,000 cases are reported annually.

There is evidence the authorities are also capitulating to the anti-feminists’ demands. When Darim reported her abuse to the police, they refused to take her case.

They said because the finger-pinching gesture was taboo, it was “logical” that she, as a feminist, had been attacked. “I was astonished,” she said. “Why would the authorities not protect me?”

A 2024 IPSOS poll of 31 countries found only 24% of women in South Korea defined themselves as feminist, compared to an average of 45%, and down from 33% in 2019.

Source: ‘I got rape threats over claims I put a feminist symbol in a video game’

How intersectionality killed feminism – UnHerd | Julie Bindel

At least according to a certain kind of intersectional feminist — the sort of person who believes trans women are women and sex work is work — “white feminists” are now to blame for everything. Consider, to give one example, the wild popularity of the “Karen” slur, an implicit (or sometimes not-so-implicit) attack on white women standing up for themselves. Then there’s the explosion of books. The titles speak for themselves: White Tears/Brown Scars: How White Feminism Betrays Women of Color; The Othered Woman: How White Feminism Harms Muslim Women; Against White Feminism; The Problem With White Feminism.

The latest to land is Faux Feminism: Why We Fall for White Feminism and How We Can Stop by Serene Khader. An academic at the CUNY Graduate Center, Khader credits white feminists with propagating five key myths, devoting a chapter to each. Demolishing everything from the claim that feminism is about personal freedom, to the fantasy that it aims to free individual women, Khader clearly sets her sights high.

But as a feminist myself, albeit of the white variety, what Khader seems to constitute as feminism feels utterly unrecognisable. Quite aside from the infamous shallowness of such people, they’re anyway a group that includes both white and non-white women. The idea that Khader is somehow demolishing the racial monolith of white feminism therefore feels rather implausible. In any case her liberal targets — white, affluent, #girlbossy — don’t include robust, grassroots feminists like me and countless others around the world.

And if that’s bad enough for feminism generally — though the girlbosses should surely be criticised, there’s clearly more to us than that — books like Faux Feminism are equally poisonous from a racial perspective. Not once in over 40 years of activism have I witnessed an actual feminist advocate for white women exclusively. Indeed, I spent my early years in the women’s liberation movement, throughout the Eighties, discussing real intersectionality: how feminism had to represent and include all women or progress meant nothing. From abortion rights to tackling male violence, I have never been in a group that wasn’t racially and ethnically diverse.

Source: How intersectionality killed feminism – UnHerd

Iran detains woman who stripped to her underwear at university in apparent protest – ABC News

A woman at an Iranian university stripped down to her underwear in an apparent act of protest after university security forces reportedly violently stopped her for not wearing a headscarf.

The Islamic Republic of Iran has a history of taking protesters to psychiatric centers, claiming their acts of resistance are due to their unstable mental health.

A growing number of Iranian women have been pushing back against laws requiring headscarves since the deadly nationwide protests in September 2022.

The protests followed the tragic death of Mahsa Amini, a young Iranian Kurdish woman who was taken into morality police custody for allegedly not fully complying with hijab rules. The 22-year-old Kurdish woman’s death in police custody triggered Iran’s longest anti-government protests since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Human rights groups say more than 500 people were killed in those demonstrations and, according to the Islamic Republic News Agency, over 20,000 people were arrested.

Source: Iran detains woman who stripped to her underwear at university in apparent protest – ABC News

The Burning Times –  Donna Read

This documentary takes an in-depth look at the witch hunts that swept Europe just a few hundred years ago. False accusations and trials led to massive torture and burnings at the stake and ultimately to the destruction of an organic way of life. The film questions whether the widespread violence against women and the neglect of our environment today can be traced back to those times.

Source: The Burning Times – NFB

Lesbian Action Group

History

Lesbian Action Group is a long standing group which has revitalised itself in response to a number of recent social and political conditions which have had serious negative impacts on the rights of women and lesbians in particular. LAG has its origins in Melbourne, Australia.

Mission Statement

The purpose of the Lesbian Action Group is to support Lesbians who were born female and are same sex attracted and enable them to live their lives to the full and enjoy the benefits of inclusive Lesbian cultural events and gatherings in Australia from a Radical Feminist perspective.

Aims & Objectives

  • To fight against the oppression of and discrimination against Lesbians who were born female.
  • To work towards the social recognition and political justice for the human rights of Lesbians who were born female.
  • To challenge a society and its laws where Lesbians are not recognised as adult human females in their own right.
  • To provide social outlets for Lesbians who are born female to meet, have discussions and have fun with other like-minded and like-bodied Lesbians for their own physical and mental health.
  • To support Lesbians born female who are socially isolated, newly out and questioning their sexuality with information and appropriate groups to join.
  • To enhance the many aspects of the culture of Lesbians who are born female, everything from music, films and and entertainment, to artistic and cultural pursuits which are unique to the world-wide Lesbians born female communities that have been actively engaged in a diverse range of activities for the past fifty plus years.

Source: Lesbian Action Group

The Absurdity of “Tickle v. Giggle” – Fairer Disputations

Tickle v. Giggle is an Australian court case that, in its very name, evokes the absurd. Since it has scratched a legal itch and produced much gallows humour, there is something of a cosmic joke about the nomenclature of the case, which is the latest battle in the existential war over the category of “woman.”

So, what is it all about? Who are the central protagonists, and what are the implications?

Roxanne Tickle, a trans-identifying male, is the plaintiff who has brought the first case of “gender identity discrimination” in the Federal Court of Australia against the (now-defunct) woman-only app “Giggle for Girls.” Tickle, who was barred from the app in September 2021, claims that the exclusion of males who identify as transgender women is illegal discrimination. Thus, most of the proceedings have concentrated on what constitutes the legal definition of woman. The main question is whether Tickle can identify into the category of woman, and therefore whether sex is mutable in the eyes of the law.

As expected, the Federal Court ruled in favour of Tickle. In doing so, the court came down categorically on the side of gender identity, discriminating against women in the process and, paradoxically, using their own laws to do so.

Far from being a feminist victory, this ruling—and the ideology it represents—is a subversion of the work of foundational thinkers like Simone de Beauvoir. These women critiqued cultural conceptions of gender norms in order to free women from arbitrary constraints—not to deny biology or take away their access to private female-only spaces.

Source: The Absurdity of “Tickle v. Giggle” – Fairer Disputations

Lesbian: Politics, Culture, Existence | Online Book Launch Tickets | TryBooking Australia

Across almost 50 years of writing, Susan Hawthorne’s essays on lesbian culture and politics take the reader on a journey through the concerns of radical feminists engaged in the Women’s Liberation Movement. Not only does she trace the experiments of lesbians creating a vibrant woman-loving culture, but she also traces the backlash against lesbians and a history of violence perpetrated by the state, corporations and individual men.

Read more about the book: https://www.spinifexpress.com.au/shop/p/9781925950984

Kaye Moseley is an artist and has been active in lesbian communities in Melbourne since 1973 when she attended the first National Lesbian Conference in Australia. She designed the Spinifex logo and inaugurated the annual Satin and Silk Ball for Lesbians which ran for over one and a half decades in Melbourne.

Date

Wednesday 4 September 2024 6:00 PM – 7:00 PM (UTC+10)

Location

Online event access details will be provided by the event organiser

Source: Lesbian: Politics, Culture, Existence | Online Book Launch Tickets | TryBooking Australia

Register Here – IFLN event: A feminist approach to litigation and legal advocacy internationally – City University Law School

IFLN event: A feminist approach to litigation and legal advocacy internationally

Wed 17 Jul 2024 10:00 AM5:00 PM

City University Law School, EC1V 0HB

What can we learn from lawyers in different countries and jurisdictions about their strategies to tackle male violence against women?

Join us on 17 July 2024 for the first hybrid International Feminist Legal Network event.

During the event we will discuss local, regional, national and international approaches on issues such as:

  • Femicide and suicide resulting from domestic abuse
  • Challenging criminalisation of survivors of male violence
  • Challenging men’s fightback through the family courts and the use of parental alienation
  • Police perpetrated abuse
  • Violence against women framed as torture
  • Legal representation for victims in the criminal justice system and challenging anonymity for perpetrators
  • Using litigation as a tool for change
  • The impact of strategic litigation and how to enhance it

Lawyers from around the world will attend in person or online including from the Philippines, South Africa, United States and elsewhere.

International timings for the event are:

05:00-12:00 Lima, Bogota, New York
10:00-17:00 London
11:00-18:00 Madrid, Johannesburg
12:00-19:00 Athens, Helsinki, Nairobi
14:00-21:00 Lahore, Tashkent
14:30-21:30 New Delhi
17:00-00:00 Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Beijing
18:00-01:00 Seoul, Tokyo
19:00-02:00 Sydney, Melbourne

Please note this event is aimed at lawyers, legal NGOs and legal academics.

Source: Register Here – IFLN event: A feminist approach to litigation and legal advocacy internationally – City University Law School