why did @joan0fsnark go on rape apologist novara media?

why did @joan0fsnark go on rape apologist novara media?

answer via curiouscat. tl;dr they're an apologist too.

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https://curiouscat.me/User395874924046199/post/351452489
<<Q>> why did you go on novara
<<A>> I went on Novara to talk about the UCU strike because it is the biggest in the union’s history and building and maintaining student support for it is important.

I think what you’re asking is if I support the idea of boycotting novara - I do not agree that a boycott is the right tactic for fighting complicity in sexual violence.*
Given that every major media outlet is clearly complicit in sexual violence does this mean that we should boycott the entirety of the press? I don’t see how such a thing could be possible or desirable. Of course, we should hold left-wing organisations to a higher standard and expect more from them. But Novara are not an organising group. They are a media platform. The responses they can give and the action they can take are fundamentally limited by that. If we look at what happened aside from acrimonious behaviour of those involved on both “sides”, the response seems to me adequate for a media organisation (i.e. producing a complaints policy, removing the article in question).

The concern seems to be that there is some connection, through friendship, between members of the editorial team and people who have been accused of abuse apologism. Given the response of the editorial team to complaints, I do not think many of those claims made against the organisation hold up. Secondly, this is a politics that I find destructive and damaging for our understanding of sexual violence and for those who have had experience of it. Categorising people into good or bad, apologist or ally, hides the complicity of all of us in sexual violence, and in many cases allows genuinely dangerous abusers to hide in plain sight by playing the role of the most vocal ally (indeed, this has happened in several groups that I am aware of).

I am also troubled by the adoption of the idea of survivor-as-identity. It is the case that those who have direct experience of an oppression may have insights into those experiences and political responses to it that those who have not do not. But, insisting that “survivors” (a term which not all who’ve experienced sexual assault/rape/gendered violence etc are happy with) are the only ones who can speak on an issue, makes disclosure necessary for participation in discussion and organising. There are three problems with this. Firstly, it forces disclosure. Secondly, given that there will always be some people more comfortable disclosing publicly than others (usually those with more material resources and social capital), this necessarily excludes many who’ve experienced sexual violence. Thirdly, it misses that sexu violence affects all women as a group in profound ways even when they have had little direct experience of it. I don’t want to play a part in this politics. I’m not comfortable disclosing my experiences of domestic abuse and of sexual violence to thousands of people and I shouldn’t be expected to be. [ Contd on next post]

https://curiouscat.me/User395874924046199/post/353235215
<<Q>> Do you consider ignoring a boycott scab behaviour?
<<A>> Contd from previous post

Suffice to say that my direct experiences of abuse, living with and near it, and trying to move past it, suggest to me this approach is not the emancipatory solution. For this reason I do not want to talk about this publicly (beyond what has been written here) at the moment. However, I have had private discussions with people about it and most likely will continue to do so.

Finally, it’s important that our politics allow for the fact that people can change rather than casting some people as inherently bad, and suggesting that others are tainted through proximity to them. As radicals we will disagree on big things, we should confront the need for discussion and difficulty rather than ignoring it. Talking about how we respond to sexual violence isn’t easy: there are no pregiven solutions, and, for obvious reasons, it can be incredibly emotionally difficult to do so. However, there is perhaps no political issue less suited to the online call-out and pile-on than this.

*It might be asked why then, do I support the principles of not working with the SWP, the AWL or other groups who have covered up abuse. Is this not inconsistent? I would say it isn’t - the SWP and the AWL actively covered up abuse and harboured abusers to protect their own parties - in such cases it is not complicity in but rather the actuality of abuse.