Lucy Carne: Don’t let woke belief end fight for change

If you can’t use the word ‘women’ in a march for women’s rights, what are you protesting? It is misogyny hidden by the cloak of woke, writes Lucy Carne. And if this is where feminism is headed, I think I want to get off.

Wow, it’s depressing being a feminist right now.

It shouldn’t be – the rage, sadness and frustration is palpable.

That a woman could be allegedly raped by a colleague on our capitol hill and her boss reportedly calls her a “lying cow”.

That our nation’s First Law Officer is accused of rape, which he has denied.

That thousands of young women share heartbreaking testimony of sexual assault inflicted on them as school students.

That yet another woman is burnt to death by a partner she tried to escape.

That a woman in London is killed walking home.

And that through it all the stinging chant of victim blaming still rings out: “too drunk”, “too mentally unstable” or “took too many risks”.

In response, an estimated 85,000 people are expected to take to the streets in protest marches across Australia on Monday. demanding justice for violent crimes against women.

Known as March 4 Justice, it was started by Melbourne academic Janine Hendry, who asked on social media if it was possible for “extremely disgruntled women” to form a ring around Parliament House as a silent protest.

The group’s Facebook page now has more than 31,000 members.

But what should be a movement united on one cause – protecting women – has become a fetid lasagne of bullying and silencing all in the name of inclusion.

To read through the group’s Facebook page is a doomscroll into the sorry state of Australian feminism, where the mention of the word ‘women’ or the symbol of a vulva has now become so deeply problematic they must be erased.

Liberal party staffer Brittany Higgins who has made shocking claims that she was raped whilst in the defence industry minister's office in Parliament House.

To think that a pink beanie could fracture a feminist movement, is mind blowing.

But when the group’s founder innocently posted a guide to knit your own pussyhat, the anger was immediate.

For those unacquainted with the pussyhat, it came about in the US in 2017 in protest of Trump’s “grab them by the pussy” remark and became a symbol of women’s rights.

They’ve become a bit cringe, but if you want to wear one in solidarity with women, go for it.

But, no. Pussyhats must be banned because they are too “exclusionary”.

“F**k please no pussy hats,” one woman ranted on the March 4 Justice page.

Another lectured the group: “a reminder with the hats, not all women have vulvas. And not all those with vulvas are women.”

Singing We Are Australian during the march was also railed against as it’s now deemed racist.

But most baffling of all, was the decision to remove the word ‘women’ from the group’s name.

Ms Hendry first launched the group as Women for Equity, but it was mysteriously changed to March 4 Justice, later explained as being more inclusive.

It needs to be noted that the group was never only for women and was always welcoming of anyone joining the protest.

But the mention of the word ‘women’ in the group’s name was too offensive for some.

When the change was queried, one woman was accused of being “privilege in action” and told that “trans people and non-binary people are as much if not more in need of justice and equality than we as cis women are”.

Not everyone agreed, with one woman pushing back: “My grandmother was a Suffragette and you can be sure her banner didn’t read ‘March for the vote’.”

But soon the page became littered with the grey ghosts of women who had been blocked.

Writing last week on the LGB Alliance Australia-run website No Conflict They Said, a woman aged in her 50s, who was a victim of sexual abuse, told of her distress at being ejected from the March 4 Justice group by a “male with a ‘transgender identity’” whose role was to moderate and “silence certain female voices”.

“I was discriminated against and excluded, specifically because my feminism centres female people and because I accept biological reality,” she wrote.

It’s hard to know whether to laugh or cry when a group fighting against the silencing of women silences any woman who states her sex is real.

The reality of biological sex is the basis of women’s oppression.

The Perth newborn, whose family allegedly planned to circumcise her, was not at risk of genital mutilation because she was female based on her feelings or choices.

It was because of the biological fact of her sex.

It’s easy to dismiss this saga as yet another example of the intellectual septic tank that is Facebook.

But when words are removed, their meaning vanishes.

If you can’t use the word ‘women’ in a march for women’s rights, what are you protesting?

It is misogyny hidden by the cloak of woke.

And if this is where feminism is headed, I think I want to get off.