If I Speak - 62: I’m not sure I want to call myself a feminist anymore…

Episode Date: April 29, 2025

Ash and Moya confront their feelings after a bad fortnight for feminism, from Katy Perry in space to the Supreme Court’s anti-trans ruling. Plus: advice on divorcing parents and compulsive exercising. PSA: We’re going live at EartH in London on 21st May! Special guest TBA! Tickets are available from Dice. Send your dilemmas to [e-mail] […]

Anna Holland was a pretty normal teenager. Shy, well behaved. I was a real goody two shoes. You know my homework was always in on time. No one would have predicted that a couple of years after leaving school, Anna would be in prison for throwing soup at a priceless painting. What is worth more, art or life? Just a few months before their now infamous soup-throwing action, Anna has signed up to Just Stop Oil. The group's activists are some of the most hated people in Britain.

I need to get my kids to school. The anti-growth coalition that we have to thank for the disruption that we are seeing on our roads today. And it's not just tabloid readers and Tory ministers that don't get them. I also really care about the climate crisis and I struggle to understand why Just Stop Oil's activists put themselves up for such punishment. Is any cause really worth your freedom? My going to prison was completely my choice.

I think the irresponsible thing would have been for me to not do anything and just to hope that someone else would fix it for me. I'm Rivka Brown. And I'm Claire Hymer. And we've been trying to figure out how someone could go from a high school goody two shoes to a convicted criminal. On Committed, we go behind bars to find out what life's like for Britain's climate activists, whether their relationships can survive the separation,

and why Anna doesn't regret a minute they spent in prison. I toasted the judge who sentenced me, thanking him for that time in prison because I have come out of it so much stronger. That's on Committed, a four-part series available now on Novara Media's podcast feed. Hello and welcome to, I think what may be a goofy mood, if not goofy content, if I speak. Are you feeling goofy? I'm feeling discombobulated. My use of that word maybe is a little bit goofy. That sounds a little goofy to me. Who are you, discombobulado? I am Moya Lothian-McLean of the house, McLean, which I'm currently sat in,

and you commented on, new background. I'm peering into Moya's childhood home, and it is actually really dreamy. And it's maybe, I suppose I'm so used to seeing you in like city contexts, right? Like this is the first time I've truly understood that you are in fact a little hedgerow mouse. I wish I could show you the outside because the outside, like right now I'm looking at wooden, what's the word, like windows structured with like wood

rather than there's glass obviously, but it's wooden outside. And then straight onto a porch with this tangling with Styria going across it. And all I can see is green and trees and two different lawns and like just more tree. I wish I could show you that bit because that's far more revealing. Brain is really stupid.

Cause every time I hear the word with Styria, think about with Styria or look at Wisteria. It also completes to, oh, Wisteria's girl. That's upsetting. I want to get close to you. Also, you have to take us into your house, your childhood home at some point. Yeah, all right. I will. My mum would be delighted. Even though it would just be a podcast recording, she'd be like, I've made biryani for 50 people.

Amazing. We'll do ASMR and enjoy it that way. Maybe we'll have to like mail it out to subscribers. Okay. Before the, before the questions, we have to tell the people that tickets are on sale for our live show at Earth. Dolston, which is on the 21st of May. Yes, it's in London, but we do have ambitions, real ambitions to leave the confines of the M25.

And I think we'll do it this year. We will do it this year. But before we do that, come to London, come to Dolcester, come to Earth. Come to Earth. Get back to Earth. Get back to Earth. I really need to touch earth. I mean, like, I was telling you this story before we went live, which was, um, it was my brother-in-law's wedding at the weekend and it was really, really fun and really, really lovely and it was quite a small wedding.

And at the end of the day, somebody was handing out weed gummies and I had a quarter of one, right? A quarter. Because I was like, that's tiny, but it sent me to the fucking moon because my tolerance, my tolerance is just so, so low. I told you I'd be saying yes to things and having fun this year and look, I did it. But it did mean that I was like cry laughing, just like in hysterics and like clinging on to the arm of my mother in law going, please don't tell my mom I did this. Just like repeating it over and over. And now you've told your mom and 8,000 plus weekly listeners. Well, I actually told my mom about it yesterday.

Of course you did. You're like those posties in Croydon who opened up the, um, weed chocolate and ate it because it had been left there. And then got so spangled, they had to get someone out to like rescue them from the packing center. There's something, there's something about edibles where like, I don't know why, but one is just like my tolerance for like THC of any kind is just like, it's like little baby. Like I just have to think about it

and I'm like wheezing like mutley. But also something about edibles where I just, I always forget that like, it's just different. So when I was sort of, when I was like, oh my God, I'm like way more high than I wanted to be. I was like, it's fine, in 15 minutes I'll feel different. In 15 minutes I did not feel different. If in 15 minutes I felt the same.

I have a theory, I know we have two questions, but I have a theory actually that if you were someone like me, who does not like losing control, and I suspect you too do not like losing control, you should only do an edible when you're on your own, because you can only then really enjoy the complete looseness and silliness and giddiness. But when you're around other people, you'll just be clinging to them going,

am I being weird? Don't tell my mom. So I really think edibles, edibles in isolation for those of us who are not good at letting go in a public space and worried about, we like control of our goofiness and the edible warps you of control of the goofiness. It insists you go with the flow. That's what my partner was saying.

He was just like, it's fine, but maybe you shouldn't have done this because you can't just let go and go with it. On your own, I think you'd have had a huge laugh. You'd have been sat in front of like, stupid clips being like, this is the funniest I've ever seen and then laughing at how silly you find yourself.

But with other people, you worry about the perception. That's just my take. That's my take. 100%, 100%. But I hear you've got some questions for me. I do, I do. Okay, right. Limbering up.

Question one, in honor of the fact that I have a tan line, organic, homegrown, none of your bloody going on holiday in a foreign country cheating stuff. Yeah, no foreign tan line. No foreign tan line, organic, homegrown, none of your bloody going on holiday in a foreign country, cheating stuff. Yeah, no foreign tan line, British tan line. No foreign tan line, British. Factor 30 or factor 50? Okay, I have for my face a factor 30 primer, and I put that on.

But then the rest of the time, if I'm in this country, I don't put sunblock on. I put on a bit if I'm on holiday, but only because everyone else is doing it. I don't take sun protection that seriously, I'm sorry. Everyone lectures me about it, I know. But I've never had sunburn, I've never been sunburned. I don't know what it feels like. Okay, sure. Do you know what, Ash? Enough people have told you. I don't need to

tell you again. You already know and it's fine. But that was an interesting insight. And I hope the melanoma never finds you. I, question two. I got that melanin, baby. Got that melanin. A melanin. I'm just jealous because my melanin, it comes and goes depending on the season. Right, question two. Fiction or non-fiction?

I can't remember if I've asked this before, but I'm asking it again. Ooh, fiction all day. Interesting, pourquoi? Because I think that there are some things that you can only learn through fiction, the way in which fiction and the voices within it tend to be more relational.

It's being animated through different characters rather than a single didactic voice. And I don't know, like obviously I have written nonfiction and I like nonfiction, but I don't think that I have felt transformed as a person by nonfiction in the same way that I have by fiction. Like there have been like huge politically significant things that I've read, but I think that, you know, there are novels which changed who I am forever. Hmm. Thinking about that. What about you? I probably err on the side of agreeing with your take that I would say more,

there have been more novels that have changed me as a person than nonfiction. However, I do gravitate to non-fiction. Like a beautiful flower. I thought that you would have said fiction. No, I gobble up non-fiction and fiction I find much harder, but when I do read fiction, it leaves probably a more lasting impression. I don't know, I'm a secret.

One of my colleagues said this the other day. He said, he talked about something, he was like, oh, we can't make it too wonky. And I was like, oh, but I understand it. He was like, you are wonky. You are a secret, one of my colleagues said this the other day, he said, he talked about something, he was like, oh, we can't make it too wonky. And I was like, oh, but I understand it. He was like, you are wonky. You are a secret wonk. You're actually quite a wonk. That doesn't mean I'm good with data,

I just really enjoy reading it to a degree that perhaps a lay person would find it boring. Give me local council minutes and I'm a happy girl. Exactly, so I think I do have a thing for nonfiction that would surprise people, but I would agree with you that fiction is more formative and important when you're talking about teaching me relations. It has more muddier ethics in a lot of the time, which is really key. And I think people need to learn to read fiction to form opinions. Because at the moment they're like,

this is bad, or this is good. Okay, last question. You just had a birthday. How did this birthday rank in your grand scheme of birthdays to this date? Okay, well, I actually had to miss my own 30th birthday because I was really ill. So I made everyone have the party without me because I was at home throwing up nonstop and I was so sick that I couldn't lift my head.

So I just had to like roll my head to like throw up in a bucket and then like roll my head back. And I felt so, I felt primarily guilty because I was like, oh, I've wasted everyone's time by like making them keep the day free. So I was like, just go and have fun in my honor. And if I die, I die knowing that you're having a good time. So that was a really bad birthday. Like that was just a terrible, terrible birthday. And this one was quite quiet. It was just me and my partner eating some meats, eating some meats at a restaurant and that was it and I was very happy. But where's it rank? You didn't answer the question.

Top, middle, bottom? I don't know. I've never ranked them before. I'm now struggling to remember having any birthdays at all. I mean, on my 18th birthday, I met Will Young in a toilet. That was fun. That is fun. It sounds like you had, let's just say like a top quarter,

quartile, what are they called? Me saying I'm a wonk and they're not even know what the quartiles are. Top percentile, it sounds like a top percentile birthday. It was nice. I think it was exactly what I needed. I didn't want a big party with people looking at me. I was like, I just don't want to be looked at. I don't want to be perceived. I looking at me. I was like, I just don't wanna be looked at.

I don't wanna be perceived. I wanna eat my meat. I want my meat, I want my meat. Okay, cool, right. Let's get on to your intrusive thought, your pressing intrusive thought. I have a really pressing intrusive thought. And to be honest, it's been making me feel

genuinely quite sad, like emotionally sad. And the intrusive thought is this, which is I feel so deeply and profoundly alienated from feminism at the moment. I've always considered myself a feminist from way back when, when I was an earnest teenager and I was trying to learn about politics and I read the feminine, sorry, I haven't said that really in a bunged up way because I probably have a cork. Yeah, I thought you were starting to move. A feminine mystique. A little flabby-dun.

The feminine mystique. You know, since then it just always seemed really non-negotiable that you had to organize as women to make the world better because the subjugation of women is so essential to the functioning of the world. And things have changed about my feminism. It obviously things have changed about my feminism. It obviously expanded to be trans inclusive. It integrated an analysis of class and imperialism and race and all of those things, but that never disrupted the fundamental belief in feminism and seeing myself in that word and in that movement. But I just don't feel that way anymore. I think the Supreme Court judgment on the definition of woman, which defined a woman as someone who is biologically female at birth, quotation marks, quotation marks, quotation marks, quotation marks. That's obviously been a moment of rupture,

in particular just reflecting on how much work and labor hours and money and organizational resources went into making that happen and all the other things that those campaigners could have fought for. I mean, just the really obvious shit. You've got a genocide going on in Gaza where women and children are being slaughtered. Women are having to have caesareans without any painkillers. You've got the blanket use of starvation as a weapon of war. Closer to home, you've got the two-child benefit cap. You've got the closure of domestic violence services. You've got the exploitation of working class migrant women by bosses. These are all things which I think are more deserving of attention than trying to define women in such a way that excludes trans women from

it. But it's not just the obsessiveness, I think, of trans hostile feminists, which has alienated me from feminism. There's some other stuff too. Even people who are generally trans inclusive, I do think sometimes there is this attachment to victimhood narratives. And you definitely see that in terms of the TikTok feminism that we've discussed many, many a time. There is a reductiveness about it, which is like whoever claims the mantle of victim is always in the right and then a desire to read conflict as abuse. And I get where that comes from. I get that it comes from real experiences of trauma, subjugation and oppression, but I just find it off-putting and alienating.

And also, especially in the last few years, I do feel that there is a bourgeois and liberal feminism which is so flattening and there's a way of talking about men and patriarchy, particularly as a way for middle-class women to advance themselves in white collar professional spaces in ways which are just entirely self-serving. There are so many times I've been talking to a woman in quite a high powered job who has looked askance at someone who's effectively a professional rival and gone like, oh well, they're a man and they behave like a man. And also I think they're just a competitor for advancement.

Like I don't think that that's, that's to do with the grand cause of feminism. Love, this is just about your own personal interests. And I think what I can boil it down to is that I'm just, I'm sick of a lack of perspective. I'm just so sick of a lack of perspective. Um, uh, an inability to see what's important to the greatest number of women. I'm sick of feminism being used as a vehicle for cruelty, and I'm sick of headassery. To be honest, I'm not even sure if I want to call myself a feminist anymore,

not because I don't believe in feminist principles, but just because I think that there is maybe a more, the more universalist humanism to communism, which suits me better. And I'm just, um, profoundly disappointed with the ways in which feminism has been weaponized. And it makes me feel sad. Moya, what should I do about it? What should you do? Well, first of all, I need to unfortunately issue a correction. Well, first of all, I need to unfortunately issue a correction, which is not your fault. So the Supreme Court didn't actually rule on the definition of a woman. That is beyond their scope. They wouldn't have done that.

They ruled on the definition, they ruled on what the term women refers to in the Equality Act 2010. Oh yeah, of course. Which is very, very important because if they had ruled on the definition of a woman, that would be a whole other thing. That is what the campaigners are claiming happened because they have to turn this into an entire victory that we will have indicated the only people who can be women are those born with XX chromosomes. But that's not what happened. They do define lesbian though. Did you notice that in the ruling? It's a completely incoherent ruling.

Which has never been done before. I'd love to get really deep into it, but I worry that for our listeners, we need to ease in. Ease in. Yeah. Cause this isn't downstream. Maybe it can be downstream.

This is now downstream. Someone doing Aaron Bessani impressions stat. The beautiful town. A beautiful girl. Maybe. I can't do it, I can't do his voice, but talking about towns. Anyway, but what they ruled on was just for listeners

who might be confused was in the Equality Act, there are different protections that apply to different gender categories. And they ruled that different protections that apply to different gender categories. And they ruled that the protections that apply to the category of women in the Equality Act 2010 no longer apply to those who weren't born female. So they only apply to biological females. And they argued that this was fine because there's different categories for those who've undergone gender reassignment surgery, who have a certificate,

not even surgery, just gender reassignment. But they said people who designed the Equality Act didn't intend for the term woman to mean people who weren't born female. And this obviously messes everything up because it's like, what about the people who were born female who are now men?

Like, what covers them? Where does this sit? And they made all these weird rulings about toilets and spaces and that, people can come in if they look a certain way, but they don't look another way. It's very, very incoherent, very confused. And then the people who did design the Equality Act

came out and said, well, we did mean that women who are trans are protected under the category of women. We did mean that people who'd seen their gender reassigned under a legal process were protected under this category. So you've actually got it wrong about our intentions. Anyway, so that's what happened in the Supreme Court. Now, on to feminism. I think I've talked about this quite a lot. So I'm worried about repeating myself. But why not? Why not? I'm sure people are on every platform. I think the main problem with the feminism today is the the economic bottom fell out of it in the 1980s. So when you think about feminism, we talk feminism used to be qualified by different categories, right?

You'd have a qualifying type of feminism before it. You had the radical feminists who were very sex-based and they are the ones who today you might have seen called TERFs, which stands for trans exclusionary radical feminists. That vein of feminism has been around since the 1970s. And not every radical feminist was trans exclusionary. There's some very famous radical feminists

who actually saw, so they kind of fall into two camps, right? It's like either you see biological sex as something that needs to be totally exploded and blown up and that everyone who challenges the idea that you have to be biologically born a woman to be, or born a female to be a woman is actually, yes, freedom fighter, this is the way we should be thinking. Or you have the other camp, which is like,

you can only be a woman if you're born female and rights have to be absolutely sex-based on the XX chromosome pairing. And those are the radical feminists. And then you have the Marxist feminists, who I presume you'd have fallen into the camp of. And downstream from the Marxist feminists, you have the socialist feminists, which I would be, because it's the people who think that feminism

has to be paired with an economic base. And it's that patriarchy comes hand in hand with capitalism and that you can't consider just a struggle for sex-based rights. You have to consider a struggle based on class-based rights and that the patriarchy intersects with that to see that women are oppressed, but also women of a certain class are going to have more oppressions and they don't just see it as like, you are a woman, therefore you are oppressed

more than say a working class man who earns like half your wage. Like it's very intersectional and then they bring in all, you know, race, sexuality, et cetera. Then you have the liberal feminists and they're the ones that do all the lean in and the, you know, as a woman, it is my choice to be a boss bitch. Katy Perry in space. Katy Perry in space is the absolute, it's, Katy Perry in space was an incredible sight to see

because I'm like, good God, we're back here. We're here. But we're here on another planet. Good God, my time machine works. I know. It really did feel like 2015 get us on banknotes, feminism, except this time it was, except it was on steroids because it was get us into space.

When I heard all the women screaming, going, ah, the capsule. My misogyny came out. My misogyny jumped out. I went, what are these women doing? But it was a real setback because it framed the entire thing. First of all, obviously, like the socialist feminists would have a fucking field day with this

because it was the idea of this private company, Amazon, that doesn't pay any bloody taxes that completely oppresses and exploits its workers, putting itself at the bastion of female empowerment by sticking a load of celebrities in a rocket capsule, spending God knows how much money blasting them to space for what 30 seconds, and all they could talk about was how glam they'd look in space and how this was somehow empowering just by dint of being a woman. Identifying as a woman and being in space meant it was feminism.

And I was like, good God, good God. Because there's no economic analysis in that. There's no, there's no like Marxist or socialist underpinning of that and how, you know, Blue Origin's spaceship perhaps isn't empowering to all women just because there's women in it, because that's liberal feminism. So you're like, what do we do? How do I stop being sad? I think the main, I mean, I could go on forever, but I think the main thing is you have to return to the feminism that you believe in and not just accept the definitions of feminism that we're now to dominate. Because the reason that we have liberal feminism and the feminism that you believe in, and not just accept the definitions of feminism that

they're now to dominate. Because the reason that we have liberal feminism, and the reason that radical feminism managed to find its way back to a mainstream via transphobia, is because they do serve the status quo ultimately. They don't actually undo the systems that we talk about, the systems of capital and the systems of patriarchy. Whereas socialist feminism was absolutely crushed in the 1980s, because it was crushed along with a lot of other left-wing movements that had that socialist underpinning and also the Marxists, but the socialists, we were the more mainstream friendly, let's say. More mainstream friendly, but not enough, vein. And they were systematically dismantled through a divide and conquer approach

that started with Thatcher and carried on with Tony Blair's sort of multicultural, here's your superficial gains, here's some little treats and we'll just divide you into identity camps and identity politics took over. And the class-based bottom fell out feminism. And what you had rising in the space in between was the individualized feminism,

the feminism of the liberal, the feminism of the sort of like radical as well. Both of these feminisms could flourish so long as they found willing ground. And the liberal feminism flourished more for a while because it was totally just like, again, sex-based and completely airless. And then the radical feminism found ground when it was organizing around oppressing a

minority group within already a minority group. So you've got women and you've got trans women, which are a marginalized group within the marginalized group. And by picking on them, they found so much fertile ground, so many allies, and absolute mainstream traction at a time when right-wing thought was on the rise. And because they could couch it in all, we've talked about this before, but because they could couch it in the terms of, the same terms that we were fighting for on the left, and because often they were people who'd normally been on the left, and then were expressing these very hardline, oppressive views, they could still wield it.

They're like, well, we're women, we're fighting for our rights, I can't believe this, for so many years, we've been oppressed, we won't listen to what men say. And I'll shut up in a second, because I have more to say, but I wanna bring you back in first. But because they did that, then they were easily absorbed into this wider right wing push, which is why you see

people who in the 70s were fighting for women's refuges and abortion rights now allied alongside anti-abortion activists. Immediately after the ruling happened, there was a small segment, and I can't remember the name of the group, who went outside and said, now we need to campaign against all these foreign men who are coming in. It was like for women's safety or something like that. And there's all these little splinter groups within it because from different

bits and it's like, that's exactly where it's going to go next. I mean, they're not going to let up on, on trans women. They're going to try and lobby every single bar and pub and small Italian mom and pop restaurant to make sure that these women can't use the toilets ever again, that's going to be part of their campaign. But they're also going to move on to these other grounds because and I'm sure we'll come on to this. What radical this well, it was originally radical,

but now it's just kind of morphed into this just blob of transphobia and all kinds of other rightward currents. But what initially organized around is simply, I think, the fear of the male sex. So they see women as something innate, like I said, it's sex based. They see women as something innate, born to people with XX chromosomes.

And they see the male sex as something you can't escape, something that can't be changed, something that is innate, original sin, is how I described it in a piece I wrote. They see being born as an XY pairing as something that means innate original sin is how I described it in a piece I wrote. They see being born as an X, Y pairing as something that means you are programmed to oppress and enact violence on women. And they don't think that can be changed.

That's the radical feminists. Within that there's elsewhere, but I think it all comes from a fear as well of the male sex and they see that bound up with men, which are two different things, gender and sex separate. Anyway, anyway, I'll let you talk. Yeah, I mean, there's so much in what you've said. I mean, I suppose like the first thing,

and I maybe hate to repeat myself as well, but it's my podcast, so I will, is that I do very much see that this kind of trans hostile feminism is identity politics. And that's why I hate identity politics just being used to describe progressive forms of identity politics. It's not. I also think that identity politics includes these incredibly reactionary movements because it cannot move beyond first this question of who am I, who are you, and how do we draw the boundary between the two? And two, leveraging identity as a form of authority.

So that first bit, who am I, who are you, that's where this whole what is a woman thing comes into. And it's about fixing a border and saying, you can't overstep this point. Whereas I think this question of what is a woman is really expansive, like really, really expansive. And also the answer changes depending on what you're talking about. Context matters. And maybe there'll be some people listening going, oh, well, Ash, like you can't change the fact you've got XX chromosomes. Sure, I cannot change that fact, but if tomorrow I began transitioning and I changed every aspect of my appearance, I changed my name, my voice changed, my hormone

levels changed, my muscle density and tone changed, if I changed my external sexual characteristics, if I had top surgery, if I had bottom surgery, sure, where I end up will never be identical to assist gender man. I'll never be able to change my chromosomes, but to say that I am the same biological sex as I was before I did all those things, that's just never made sense to me. That's just never made sense to me. It seems perfectly fine to say, well, biological sex is and always has been about clusters of characteristics rather than trying to nail down one. There are so many people out there who've got intersex conditions. Many people with intersex conditions go their whole lives not knowing that they've got an intersex condition. And so there are people who've got the external sexual characteristics

of a female, they've got a vagina, they might have a uterus, who have XY chromosomes because guess what? Nature is fucking complicated. And we want all these neat categories and nature is like, ah-ha, you can't have it. There's always going to be these edge cases. And the identity politics component of trans-hostile feminism is rather than saying, well, you can't have it, there's always going to be these edge cases. And the identity politics component of trans hostile feminism is rather than saying, well, you know what, the category can be expansive, because we know from the variety of humanity that's out there, that you're always going to have to accommodate some edge cases, rather than saying that's like, no, there must be a hard boundary. The second identity politics component is, as you said, the saying of like, well, we are women, using the language of liberation struggle as a means to pursue political goals. And that itself

is, you know, I think we can argue till the cows come home about whether that form of identity as political and moral authority is good or not. I'm going to leave that aside. But you can definitely see it with those women who are now saying that the next goal is about immigration. And you're saying that for women's safety, by which they mean British nationals and looking at the composition of that photo, white British nationals, that means that the immigrant is this other category and so you leverage the authority that comes with being recognized as a woman, recognized as being on the losing end of a power dynamic to exert a certain power of your own. So I think that's something which is really important in there. I think that there's a second thing,

and I think to just broaden this out lived going from no money, my mum being a single parent precariously housed to me very much being in control of my finances, having a good amount of savings, having bought a house. My vulnerability to male violence has transformed radically because of that. That doesn't mean that I can't experience sexual violence, domestic violence, misogyny. But my ability to extract myself from situations, to have a degree of autonomy, to afford myself degrees of legal recourse, I mean, that's massive. Like that's massive. And it does put me off when, like that's massive. And it does put me off when in particular, you know, and I talked about this being in white collar spaces and I don't want to name any names, but it was just, it was, I have heard feminism invoked in this like entirely self-serving way, as if being middle

class and being really well paid and like having like, you know, being in the top 5% of earners maybe, hasn't changed anything for you. I don't know. I don't want to feel this way and I want to feel like I'm part of a community and a movement of women. But I just feel that that, either bourgeois self-servingness or trans hostile obsession or fucking like TikTok whinging, to put it really, really bluntly,

it has impeded our ability to form a sense of collective purpose. And actually, the only people with a sense of collective purpose, it seems at the moment in the UK, is those people who are really, really motivated by transphobia. And it's just, it just, it bums me out so much. It bums me out. Bums me out as I just looked at my coffee and realized it's gone cold. It bums me out. But I would also,

forgot to drink my damn coffee. I would add to the bumming out, you're talking about groups there that you're atomized from anyway. So it's not like you're organizing with the TikTok whinges or organizing with the liberal sort of like bourgeois feminists anyway. I encountered the TikTok thing more.

Like I'm talking about socially, it's something I encounter like- Yeah, encounter it more. Even dear friends, dear friends. But there's always gonna be people who whinge in a movement, we're gonna whinge. Like the left has all of these elements. The point of bringing in feminism to a to a left space was to add that intersection. The point of socialist feminism was to have the triple yoke.

So you had it was race, gender, class. So you had all these intersecting factors and you took them into account when you were analyzing a problem and trying to tackle a problem. So if you were organising, say, I don't know, a strike of fabric workers in the 1970s in Essex, you'd be looking at those three factors and how they affect the ability of people to organise and also how you can organize along those three lines, those intersecting places, rather than just being like, we're just going to organize along the base of class, and then it'll be fine. Because those things affected, people recognize those different characteristics, identity characteristics, did affect the position and power that people had and also would affect the solutions that needed to be found. There was in the

1970s those groups in Hackney, the Hackney Flashers, who came up with a DIY commune vibe where they were childcare, where they would just every day switch in different parents to do the childcare so people could go out to work. That was a solution based along those lines of recognizing the different intersections and men are involved in that as well. Like it's a socialist feminism, sorry to go on about it, but I do think it's like the only way is one that doesn't exclude men.

The whole point is you bring them in, but you also recognize like the feminism bit is just to recognize those other characteristics will affect a person's positionality when they're organizing or when all the solutions that you come up with, but it's not the only thing. That's the point. None of these characteristics can be the only thing. And I think when you're talking about this idea that they've been, that feminism has been captured, well, yeah, the mainstream feminism has been captured, but that doesn't mean we should give up or not have

our, like, if we want these groups, we have to make them ourselves. That's another thing. So there's maybe one thing that I would quibble with because why not? Quibble. We'll all quibble. And I think maybe the thing I'd quibble with is this, and I've seen this happen, like, in left-wing spaces, which is people talk about intersectionality and, like, the ways in which these intersections impact someone's ability to organize, as if it always means the same thing. When people are, say, talking about strike action or a hard picket or something, you'll

often hear people go, oh, well, actually, if you do this thing where there's the risk of arrest or if you do this thing where it involves a hard picket, that's inaccessible to people of color or whatever marginalized group you name, in a way which completely ignores the history of marginalized groups doing exactly those fucking things. I think that there is a sort of like, I don't know how to put it other than like a valorization of wibbliness, like a kind of like, everyone know, everyone wants to be first to be like, oh, but what about like, oh, no, I can't.

Like searching out the no and finding it and then draping around that no, intersectional identity politics in a way which has got like nothing to do with like the history of like black radical organizing or women's organizing or black women's organizing. And so that's something which like, yeah, has also like made me feel like pissed off and alienated. And I suppose like the, you know, and this is about the sort of like TikTok winginess, right? Which is where like therapy speak and like very superficial feminism becomes like indistinguishable and collapses into one another. That's obviously annoying.

And what you want is just people doing a little bit more thinking. You don't have to have read everything on the planet, but just maybe doing a little bit more thinking. And realizing, because I think that this is something which like, maybe it's because I live with two straight guys, which means that like, there is an empathy that comes from like living in that much close proximity. But seeing all the ways in which patriarchy constrains and disciplines men as well. Like, I think that's important. I think that men need feminism, not just because it's good for the women in their lives, but

because straight men experience homophobia because that's a way of keeping straight men in narrow little boxes. All of these things to do with patriarchal norms and in particular, the homophobic panic, the terror of being called gay or perceived as gay, is a way of cutting men off from love and community with one another, relationships with women on the basis of equals. I'm sure you can have arguments about whether or not men and women can be truly equal while patriarchy still exists, but I think you can move towards that. Like I think that there can be, you know, I don't go into conflicts with my husband,

like, you know, armed with like a lance and a shield because I'm like, I've got to level the playing field. We do it on the basis that we can be equal to one another. I think that that's important. There's obviously the super essentialist radical feminism, which says that's impossible, but in a different way, there is the sort of like, you know, TikTok, WINGY like therapy speak kind, which I think also thinks that that's impossible and also has like a really pessimistic view of people, of relationships, of the ability to be changed by someone else in a way, which is really positive. And also the potential of, of men to find liberation through feminism.

Yeah, but what's that got to do with your feminism? Like all the things you say, you've answered your own question. Like when you were talking about, you know, the wibbliness and that, it's like, you're like, this ignores these traditions. It's like, yeah, you hold to those traditions. You hold firm to your understanding of feminism

and you find the other people around you who have the same understanding. That's how you build stuff. When the initial different waves of feminism are coming, everyone's fucking fighting with each other. The radicals are the socialists. They were beefed. They had beef within that.

So there's always these different strains of thought. I think the key is to not get so caught up with almost the complaining about the others. Like I love to complain about TikTok feminists, you know I do. So much though that it, what's the word, not dissuades, diverts you from your own path and your own people.

Like if you don't want feminism to be the battleground that you've retreated from, if you want feminism to still be a site where you are on, you have to find your feminism and hold on to it. And one thing I think that the transphobic cohort have done incredibly well, and I was meeting Mike Davis yesterday because now I've got brain back due to my methaphone program. And I quote this in the subject I just did, but he's talking about how conservative groups, conservative Christian groups, he says they understand Gramsci, it's more than leftist Oh, yeah.

Because they understand the need to have like an unyielding programmatic tendency. And basically just means hold firm, hold the faith, hold firm, hold the faith and don't waver and don't give ground and don't seed. And that is what the annoying, the transphobic feminists have done. They've done it over 10 years and they did not seed any ground. They just got crazier, but we've seeded so much ground and we seed ground. And then we're like, ah, but the TikTok feminist, the TikTok feminist are irrelevant.

You need to find your bit, carve your, with other people, obviously you can't do things on your own, but carve out that space and then watch the people come as you make the argument. Because people are looking for these unyielding sort of thought leaders. And the problem is the right are really good

at creating unyielding thought leaders because they have these hard lines. Whereas the left obviously, we're much more like, we need to create space, we need to create these intersections. It's like, we need to create that whole fucking firm. We need to hold firm on some of these lines. And you've talked about this.

We gave in spaces we shouldn't have given and we held firm on the things that didn't matter because they didn't matter. Because they were the things that we could hold firm on and not face challenge. And it's hard to hold your nerve in certain places when someone's saying, you know, this picket line is inaccessible for X, Y, Z and I'm heaping my whole things on the no. I'm heaping all of these identity characteristics on the no.

And it's hard to say you're heaping identity characteristics on the no, but we got to find our lines and hold firm. And I am firmly now. Socialists, it's feminism. That's my line. That's the line I'm holding. I'm on the front line.

Well, I'm not on the front line. The feminists are gonna come at me and be like, you're doing, fuck all, you're on a podcast. I'm on the front line of podcasting, guys. You know what, Moira? You've put some steel back in my spine. You have so much steel. You put steel up my spine all the time. Oh, you give me steel.

You're a rod in my back. Oh, you give me steel. All right, shall we move on to I'm in big trouble. Let's give some steely advice to our listeners as this is our regular dilemma segment. Do you want to read it out or shall I? Well, how do people submit a dilemma? They know by now. No, you send it into if I speak at navaramedia.com. All right, I'll read it out

and then you can be the first person to give advice. Also a little content note, there will be discussion of an eating disorder. I think you still got it. Yes, it's actually compulsive exercising. But yes. Yeah. Okay. Hello, Ashen Moya. I'm a 24-year-old lesbanana. It says that. I didn't just fuck up the word. All right. Lesbanana from Surrey. Sorry. I don't think you don't have to apologize for being from Surrey. Working as don't think you don't have to apologize for being from Surrey,

working as an English teacher in Bangkok and I'm in a bit of a pickle. My parents have been divorcing for an entire fifth of my life since 2019 and they've so far been incapable of conversing, making me act as their piggy in the middle. She lives in India and he lives in Italy. I've also been struggling with anorexia athletica, compulsive exercising, that has not been helped by their immaturity.

My mother occasionally throws out accusations of abuse by my dad. Mostly she's talking about financial abuse but not exclusively. I know they've had some fights in the past, mostly over financial disputes, but it's inevitable that our family history, we lost two little boys, has fueled the majority of their antagonism towards each other. I would like some advice regarding, one, drawing a boundary with my mum. She depends on me a lot for emotional support and I don't have the balls to tell her that I can't always hold space for her, particularly when she's attempting to manipulate my feelings towards my dad. It's very difficult to hear about her feelings towards him and having heard his side of the story. I'm not sure all of her accusations are accurate. I'm not accusing her of lying, but there are more than two sides to any story.

Two, I'm considering taking my savings and spending them on something to help me get better. I'm at a very low weight now and it can't be swept under the rug anymore. I was thinking of either buffering off somewhere natural and escaping the insufferable relentlessness of neoliberal hustle or paying a specialist to tell me to stop doing so much damn exercise just some food for thought pun intended. Hope there wasn't too much to read love the pod and I've loved reading Ash's book Big Hugs from a Small Sausage. This is hard stuff. Ah! I just fell off my stool. Wow. Sorry, listener.

This is hard stuff. This is very hard stuff. It's very easy to say things like, just do this. You're on a boundary with your mother, just do this. And in practice, everyone I know who's tried to do that, it's difficult, it's really hard. I would almost wrap these problems into one

in the terms of, first of all, any, almost at least, exercise disorders. As someone who has had this, and I would say suffered from this, I feel I can speak on this a little bit from personal experience. There were points, I won't get into it too deep, I've talked about it before, but I was exercising six days a week, every, every evening and eating very little. And my head looked like a big egg on a tiny birdy body. It's control, you're looking for control. That's the second thing,

you're looking for control in your life. And I'm sure you know this already. And the first thing, you don't have any control in the relationship that you have with your parents. And I would say if you get professional support with the latter, it might help you with professional support with the former. Because I could, you know, you say draw a boundary with your mum. You need emotional support to do that. You can just draw this boundary with your mum, but it will take a lot of time to for her to maybe even respect that she might never respect that. It will take a lot of fiddling around with what that looks like. And you will need someone to talk to while you are doing that. You will need somebody to talk. The reason you've written to us is because you want someone to talk to. You need someone to talk to you full stop.

You clearly don't want to exercise all the time because you have said it yourself. You know there is an issue. You don't feel capable of confronting this issue on your own. Sometimes, you know, when I slow down my exercising, I still have issues with it. But when I slowed it down and managed to gain more control

over the control issue, it was with the support of a partner who gently eased me into first of all doing like four days and then just three days and seeing that the world wouldn't end. If you can try that on your own, try that. But I would say what you really need here is a professional, regular person to go to and I would use your savings for that

rather than just going somewhere different because all going somewhere different will do is change your scenery. It might make you feel more out of control, which especially without the regular touchstones of, you know, the gym, etc. And going cold turkey really is not advisable in these states because you will just stop eating. And it won't get any further to actually tackling the root of the issue which is the need for control and the need to feel like you have control over some area of your life.

That is what I would advise. I might be totally wrong, but I, and I hate doing a cop-up being like, well, get a therapist, but I would get a third party professional support while considering all these other things and trying to do them. But I do think this is the kind of thing

that you need a double whammy of just this space where you can go and talk and get it out to because that's what you've shown here. I have nothing to add in the way of practical advice because I think I think you've got it nailed on which is neither one of these are things that you can do with a loan. I'm finding the right therapist and take a loan. Finding the right therapist, and take some time to find the right therapist. Don't just jump into bed with the first one that you find. Think about who you connect with,

think about, especially during the initial consultations, ask them about the sort of, I guess, journey they have in their head to take you on and what kind of structure they use, because my experience of therapy is varied a lot, and it's generally been good, but there have been times where I'm like, I just feel like I've hit the limit of progress with you, and I'm like, yeah, I just feel like I've hit the limit of progress with you. And I'm just a regular source of income for you right now. You can't take me any further.

I think it's important to feel, especially when you've got some quite clear goals, that there is a plan. So feel free know, feel free to like ask about those things and be asked like, what's your plan for me? What's your plan? So I can't add to more in terms of practical advice. And I think maybe instead I'm just going to affirm some of your perceptions. The first is that you're what, 24 and parents' divorce been going on since 2019, it is okay for you to still need to be their child and to not be turned into a peer or a confidant by your mum in particular. Clearly your mum's going through something really painful, both your parents are. Clearly your mom's got a way of understanding her experience, but it's not for you to take on. And I think with help from a therapist, you will feel like you've got the foundation to be able to say to your mom,

like, look, you've got to talk to someone, but it ain't me. It's not me. He's always going to be my dad. You're always going to be my mom. The two of you may not have a relationship with each other, but I'm the person who's going to have a relationship with the both of you. It's not selfish or wrong for you to think that. Um, it's not selfish or wrong for you to think that. And, you know, I'm sure that it is, you know, I don't mean this in a blasé way, but like it must be proper shit to, you know, be in, in a divorce from somebody who's been married to you for a really long time and you've got a kid, right? That must just be like a shit thing to go through.

And it's shit that while you're going through a shit time, you've got this added responsibility of having to manage that for your kid. But guess what? That's what you sign up for when you have a kid, right? You sign up for a world of shit and obligation. And hopefully- Can you tell me child free? Right? No, you sign up for a world of shit Shit obligation, then hopefully your kid will be really good at football and become La Mignyamal. That's the hope with having kids. But you're not wrong for saying that actually your mom's got responsibilities towards you to direct her meaning making around the divorce away from you. Like that's completely, completely fair. I would join Moya in advising against the just like

going somewhere less busy. I mean, like maybe you wanna do that at some point, but I don't think that's the solution. Because what is it that we learn from the white lotus? It's that wherever you go, you bring your problems with you. You're there too. Wherever you go, you are there too. So yeah, I'm really sorry that you've been going through all of this. Like it is shit. But I think that it's, even the way that you've put it together for us, it shows that you've got an understanding

of your pickle. You've got an understanding of the predicament you're in. And that's really important. Can you imagine if you had to build up the understanding and the insight first? Long. So you're already on a good pathway. So yeah, spend the money on the right therapist. That's what I think. You got the money. You got the money. You don't have to go out on the rob. And enjoy Bangkok. I can't believe you're listening to us from Bangkok. That's crazy. That's cool. Good luck, special one.

Okay. Sawadee ka. I have no idea what that means, but I presume... That's Thai. It's a greeting. Great. See, Ash is multilingual. I'm just an idiot. No, I can just be charming in a few languages. That's not the same as being multilingual. You're charming in every language.

Right. Goodbye from the global podcast. Goodbye from the podcast industrial complex. Hahaha!