Women's Voices

Caitlin Roper is Campaigns Manager for Australian grassroots movement Collective Shout: For a World Free of Sexploitation, and a PhD candidate researching female-bodied sex dolls and robots.

This talk was given during an online workshop titled "Sex Tech, Robots, and AI: A Feminist Response" on July 4th, 2020, hosted by the Campaign Against Sex Robots.

www.collectiveshout.org/

This was a talk given by Jo Bartosch on July 4, 2020, during a webinar titled: "Sex Tech, Robots & AI: A feminist Response," hosted by the Campaign Against Sex Robots.

https://campaignagainstsexrobots.org

This is the introduction to the 1992 book, "Living Laboratories: Women and Reproductive Technologies," by Robyn Rowland. Here, she describes reproductive technologies as inherently based on a male desire for domination and control of both women's reproductive capacity, and over nature itself.

"In the process of trying to end their own alienation, men have made procreative alienation a reality for women, divorcing women from their wombs, eggs and embryos — from their own bodily selves and their sense of procreative continuity. They have made children products of the nexus between commerce, science and medicine, calling experimentation on women and human society ‘therapy’ and camouflaging the intention to map and control human genetics with the rhetoric of ‘helping the infertile’. In this process women have become the experimental raw material in the masculine desire to control the creation of life; patriarchy’s living laboratories."

Over the last several years, transgender activism has made sweeping gains. Proponents of this ideology have succeeded in positioning "gender identity" as the social justice issue of our day.

But are the claims made by these activists actually true? What does it mean to say that people can be "born in the wrong body"? Does the concept of “gender identity” break down stereotypes about the nature of men and women, or does it reinforce them? And what about the rights of women and girls?

On February 1, 2020, the US-based organization Women's Liberation Front hosted a panel event called “The New Misogyny.”

Three women’s rights campaigners, Meghan Murphy, Saba Malik, and Kara Dansky, presented a critical analysis of gender identity and made arguments for sex-based women's rights. The event took place at the Seattle Public Library in downtown Seattle, Washington, despite protesters inside and outside the building.

This is the talk given by Kara Danksy, who serves on the Board of Directors for the Women’s Liberation Front, where she acts as an attorney and media coordinator.

https://soundcloud.com/womenreadwomen/the-new-misogyny-kara-dansky

Over the last several years, transgender activism has made sweeping gains. Proponents of this ideology have succeeded in positioning "gender identity" as the social justice issue of our day.

But are the claims made by these activists actually true? What does it mean to say that people can be "born in the wrong body"? Does the concept of “gender identity” break down stereotypes about the nature of men and women, or does it reinforce them? And what about the rights of women and girls?

On February 1, 2020, the US-based organization Women's Liberation Front hosted a panel event called “The New Misogyny.”

Three women’s rights campaigners, Meghan Murphy, Saba Malik, and Kara Dansky, presented a critical analysis of gender identity and made arguments for sex-based women's rights. The event took place at the Seattle Public Library in downtown Seattle, Washington, despite protesters inside and outside the building.

This is the talk that was given by Saba Malik, a radical feminist who serves on the Board of Directors for the Fertile Ground Institute, a non-profit organization working for ecological justice.

Over the last several years, transgender activism has made sweeping gains. Proponents of this ideology have succeeded in positioning "gender identity" as the social justice issue of our day.

But are the claims made by these activists actually true? What does it mean to say that people can be "born in the wrong body"? Does the concept of “gender identity” break down stereotypes about the nature of men and women, or does it reinforce them? And what about the rights of women and girls?

On February 1, 2020, the US-based organization Women's Liberation Front hosted a panel event called “The New Misogyny.”

Three women’s rights campaigners, Meghan Murphy, Saba Malik, and Kara Dansky, presented a critical analysis of gender identity and made arguments for sex-based women's rights. The event took place at the Seattle Public Library in downtown Seattle, Washington, despite protesters inside and outside the building.

This is the talk given by Meghan Murphy, a Canadian journalist and founder of Canada’s leading feminist website, Feminist Current.

Over the last several years, transgender activism has made sweeping gains. Proponents of this ideology have succeeded in positioning "gender identity" as the social justice issue of our day.

But are the claims made by these activists actually true? What does it mean to say that people can be "born in the wrong body"? Does the concept of “gender identity” break down stereotypes about the nature of men and women, or does it reinforce them? And what about the rights of women and girls?

On February 1, 2020, the US-based organization Women's Liberation Front hosted a panel event called “The New Misogyny.”

Three women’s rights campaigners, Meghan Murphy, Saba Malik, and Kara Dansky, presented a critical analysis of gender identity and made arguments for sex-based women's rights. The event took place at the Seattle Public Library in downtown Seattle, Washington, despite protesters inside and outside the building.

This is the talk given by Meghan Murphy, a Canadian journalist and founder of Canada’s leading feminist website, Feminist Current.

***Please note this recording contains explicit content.***

"Pornography is the propaganda of sexual fascism. Pornography is the propaganda of sexual terrorism. Images of women bound, bruised, and maimed on virtually every street corner, on every magazine rack, in every drug store, in movie house after movie house, on billboards, on posters pasted on walls, are death threats to a female population in rebellion."

"The birth mother is not in the place of another; she is the mother. That was the law in every country in the world until now. We always knew who the mother was — she was the one who gave birth. That is the first definition of a mother. We weren’t so sure about the father, which is why women’s freedoms have been curtailed so men could be assured of their lineage. Now, with DNA, we can be scientifically certain of the father. So the first 'success' of the surrogacy movement was to change the definition of the mother and remove the woman who gave birth from the frame. By applying the word 'surrogate' to the wrong person, it depresses the position of the birth mother but does not elevate the position of the other woman. Instead, the position of the sperm donor, or the father, is elevated as the only person with rights."

https://www.fairobserver.com/culture/surrogacy-legality-ethics-womens-rights-news-018210/

Excerpts from "Witches, Midwives, and Nurses: A History of Women Healers," by Barbara Ehrenreich and Deirdre English (1973).

"Women have always been healers. They were the unlicensed doctors and anatomists of western history. They were abortionists, nurses and counsellors. They were pharmacists, cultivating healing herbs and exchanging the secrets of their uses. They were midwives, travelling from home to home and village to village. For centuries women were doctors without degrees, barred from books and lectures, learning from each other, and passing on experience from neighbor to neighbor and mother to daughter. They were called 'wise women' by the people, witches or charlatans by the authorities. Medicine is part of our heritage as women, our history, our birthright."

Full text:

https://www.marxists.org/subject/women/authors/ehrenreich-barbara/witches.htm