Feminist Current

The COVID-19 pandemic has been hard on everyone. But imagine if you were impoverished, a migrant, or living in close quarters with no way to socially isolate. What if you were a prostituted woman? A domestic worker? What if you were trapped in an abusive relationship, with nowhere to go? How have the pandemic and the lockdowns impacted the most marginalized among us? And how have exploitative industries — like the porn industry — profited? How have women, in particular, been impacted? How could we better support these women? Can we really continue to pretend as though sex is a social construct, rather than a material reality, considering the different ways males and females are impacted by coronavirus?

This week, I talk to Anna Zobnina, coordinator of the European Network of Migrant Women, a migrant-women led platform of NGOs that works, in the spirit of intersectional feminism, for the rights of migrant women in Europe; a member of the executive committee of the European Women’s Lobby; a former research analyst with the Mediterranean Institute of Gender Studies; and a selected expert with the European Institute for Gender Equality.

Read her article, “Global Feminist Perspective on the Pandemic: What ‘normal’ do we expect when the crisis is over?” at migrantwomennetwork.org

University of Alberta associate professor Kathleen Lowrey was dismissed as associate chair of undergraduate studies in the department of anthropology in March.

Kathleen Lowrey, an associate professor of anthropology at the University of Alberta, was recently dismissed from her role as undergraduate programs chair. She was told students had complained about her views on gender identity ideology.

I spoke with her on Thursday about what happened and about the current culture in academia, in terms of free speech, open debate, and the ability of students and professors alike to discuss the issue of gender identity.

Follow Kathleen on Spinster @kathleenbee.

Vaishnavi Sundar

Last month, a scheduled screening of Vaishnavi Sundar’s film, But What Was She Wearing? was abruptly cancelled. Vaishnavi was told, a week before the screening, that the event was cancelled because of her “transphobic” views. This was in reference, she discovered, to some tweets she had posted about gender identity politics online, including questioning whether males who identify as transgender should be allowed to complete against and with women in sport, be transferred to female prisons, or use women’s change rooms. Vaishnavi had spent three years on the film, interviewing women in India about their experiences of sexual harassment and assault in the workplace. She published an article about the ordeal in Spiked earlier this month, titled, “I was cancelled for my tweets on transgenderism.”

In it, she writes:

“I grew up in Avadi in the south of India. I have spent most of my life working with marginalised women. But I was simply not the right flavour of woke for the postmodern, queer-theory espousing desis of Manhattan.

I have since confronted the editors of the publications that blacklisted me. It appears that Indian trans-rights activists googled my name and wrote to every outlet I had ever been published in, telling them about my ‘TERFy’ tweets.

By being outcast, I was essentially being told that the feminism I live by — the feminism of Mary Wollstonecraft, Emmeline Pankhurst and Andrea Dworkin — was exclusionary because it rejected males in female safe spaces. My intersectionality wasn’t expansive enough to accommodate men. My feminism did not embrace the ‘choice’ of carrying water for patriarchy. Advocating for women’s safety was ‘anti-trans’, the meaning of which I am still struggling to understand. I am not ‘anti’ anything except the endless derivative forms of misogyny.”

Vaishnavi Sundar is an independent filmmaker, feminist, writer, and women’s rights activist from Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India. She is the founder of Women Making Films and Lime Soda Films, and is currently conducting research for a new film about the effect of microfinance on women.

I spoke with her over the phone this week.

To watch But what was she wearing, visit: https://gumroad.com/vaishax

Over a decade ago, Julie Bindel was the first to report on the so-called “grooming gangs” exploiting working class girls in a number of towns in Northern England. Thousands of victims were sexually abused and sold to adult men, yet the police and the media didn’t want to address it. Because the gangs were made up of Pakistani men, media and the authorities claimed they didn’t want to touch the issue for fear of being accused of racism. Two recently released reports revealed social workers and the police in South Yorkshire and Greater Manchester knew girls were being abused, yet failed to take action. How and why did this fly under the radar for so long?

In this episode, I speak with Julie Bindel, a journalist, prolific author, and feminist campaigner, from her home in London, to learn more about the issues surrounding the scandal.

The global women’s movement is a force to be reckoned with. The fight against the sex trade has been particularly successful in Israel, where feminists united to pass The Prohibition of Consumption of Prostitution Services Act, a law that imposes fines for consuming prostitution or attempting to pay for it. The law began being enforced in July, making Israel the tenth country to adopt the Nordic model.

To learn more about the feminist movement in Israel, I spoke with two Israeli activists, Daphna Morell and Luba Fein. Daphna is a libertarian and feminist from Tel Aviv, currently living in Portland. Luba is an anti-sex trade activist living in Israel. She is a member of the Women’s Organization Coalition against Prostitution and Trafficking in Israel, and has worked with various NGOs to implement the Nordic model in Israel. Luba is currently working on a book analyzing the history of the Sex Buyer Law in Israel from the perspective of sex trade survivors.