Thread by @suzannezeedyk

I want to write a brief & very personal thread abt what it means to me to be talkng w/ @DrJessTaylor at tomoro's #TigersAndTeddies. The publication of her feminist book ths Summer2020 takes me back 20 years to Summer2000, whn I published my own, trying to tackle similar problems.

2. I want to talk about ths because t public often associates me w/ teddy bears & babies & sweet connection. But my deepest intellectual roots are in feminist theory, where I learned to think about power & language & t social construction of knowledge. These shape how I work now.

3. For anyone who doesn't know her work, @DrJessTaylor founded Victim Focus & ths year published t book Why Women Are Blamed For Everything. "Written for every single woman & girl who has been told she had to make her life smaller to avoid male violence." theguardian.com/books/2020/apr…

4. @DrJessTaylor & her co-presenter @Jaimi_Shrive
hv just released a new podcast series called The Wandering Womb Podcast @WombPodcast. The fact 500 people downloaded it in 24hrs gives a sense of t hunger for her insights. Plus her 62K followrs on Twitter!

5. Wandering Womb? Yes! I loved seeing that. Because I too was talking about the history of women's psychiatric 'diagnoses', those 20 years ago. 1854: "Women's reproductive organs are closely interwoven with erratic and disordered intellectual and moral manifestations."

6. Here is @DrJessTaylor & @bindelj , drawing attn to Emma Humphrey's appeal case 25yrs ago. Her self-defence had to be explaind as an 'abnormal personalty' due to what we wd now call ACES. Yep, there is MsHumphrey's case being discussd on pg73 of my book

7. I wanted to talk abt this because someone recently asked me what my work on developmental science had to do w/ feminist theory. And I thought: everything! Feminist theory asks hard questions: Who has power? Who decides how to frame an issue? Whose experience gets represented?

8. Every bit of @DrJessTaylor work is about these questions. I think her perspective shines light on wider debates. Eg: ACES: What terminology should be used (ACES, trauma, maltreatment?) and who decides, for whom? Eg: Making sense of others' experiences - by what method?

9. @DrJessTaylor addresses themes of vulnerability & authenticity, injustice, class & race, which I know so many of my followers are also keen to reflect on. Here she is in 2019: "Only [then] did I become the most powerful and authentic version of myself." victimfocusblog.com/2019/05/20/cou…

10. Our society needs people who feel empowered to think more deeply abt how our views of the world are constructed. We need fierce curiosity. @DrJessTaylor offers this. She pushes us into uncomfortable places. Here she is talking abt the term 'grooming'. victimfocusblog.com/2020/06/30/dr-…

11. So, whn I encounterd recent questns about what "feminism" had to do w/ "the science of babies", I thought it time to be clearer abt why those links matter. They aren't new. Here are my @dundeeuni studnts talkng abt thm 20yrs ago at t launch of "Women and Syndrome Evidence".

12. And here is me w/ my co-author, Prof Fiona Raitt of @dundeeuni Law Dept, as we launched that @Routledgepsych book at t @POWES_BPS Section of @BPSOfficial Conf, held in Dundee that summer of 2000. We were trying hard to shine a light on things our society resists seeing.

13/end. So that is why I can't wait to talk tomorrow 11 July w/ @DrJessTaylor on #TigersAndTeddies. She is one of the people who brings me hope that change is possible, if we get ballsy & brave & curious. It's not too late for you to join us: connectedbaby.net/event/tigers-t…