A strong and necessary piece. As a long-term Friend of the RA I have been following this affair closely. One can have some sympathy for organisations embarrassed by the actions of misguided staff. So I have held off cancelling my subscription, in the hope the RA would have the grace and good sense to admit a dreadful mistake had been made. But rather than face its critics the RA has gone to ground, refusing requests for elucidation from the Times, Telegraph, Guardian, BBC, Mail and Sun.
Let’s be clear. Both legally and ethically it’s as wrong to exclude someone for their legitimate beliefs as it would be to exclude them for being black, gay or disabled. The RA needs to recognise that, and act accordingly.
Cheer up Mike, watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNSwjEHXg1k the TV series (all portions of the episodes are there on youtube if you look,) ‘Coming Soon’ by Annie Griffin, the story of a ‘Devised Theater Group’ (highest level ‘fine arts’, they work without a script) and ‘The Arts Council’ in a great send up on the entire fine-arts/funding/Patronage situation. (all the women in my family have bagged Fine Arts Degrees at some point)
The thing to remember is the higher the art the more disdain they have for the society they come from, even to the point of despising it for the top persons, so at the level of the RA they must be very anti-Traditional indeed, and be for anything which ‘rubs the right’s nose in it’ (as Blair put it).
Lesley van Reenen
2 years ago
We are increasingly being dictated to by the intolerant lunatic fringe. We sadly get confirmation of this daily.
They are no longer a fringe, but hold power in public, educational, commercial and artistic organisations as elite university educated professionals. It will be difficult to change this, but public boycott would be a start or protests outside the institutions.
Didn’t work last time such people got rolling….Imagine “please Mr klansman/stasi/daesh etc, stop persecuting people or we’ll boycott, disinvest and protest”.
Rasmus Fogh
2 years ago
‘Because she is a woman’, is it? Are you saying, Ms Ditum, that a man could have said the same things that Jess De Wahls did without getting into any kind of trouble? Regrettably I do not think that is correct.
Of course you are right. In a way, writing this article as if the problem is unique to women actually makes the problem worse because we are fighting the nonsense as separate smaller groups instead of ganging together as one allied army. If this is perceived to be only a problem for women, then we are running into another problem – that of extreme feminism.
Yes agreed.
As I suggested rather flippantly below, this is a bigger problem that one just affecting women. In fact it’s worse from the author, as to just dismiss this as a variant of old fashioned sexism is to miss the point spectacularly.
It’s not that Ms De Wahls’ case is not bad, but it happened because of a mindset that‘s endemic’, not because the same old sexist bigots now wear skirts.
I don’t think she’s saying that a man wouldn’t have got a bad reaction if he’s written that essay. But the implications of male to female transition are more damaging for women than female to male is for men. If natal males are accepted into women sports, it makes a nonsense of those sports, since men are simply born bigger and stronger on average. If natal males are allowed into spaces designed for the protection and privacy of women – be it refuges, prisons or toilets – again women are put at risk. And if language is altered to deny that only a woman’s body is designed to bear, give birth to and suckle a child, then that denies realities that women feel define them. It feels like we women are undermined, exposed and even erased. Hence our particular anger. Interestingly, no one I’ve met could ever define what a woman actually is, if you take her body out of the equation.
I think another, complementary perspective is possible.
Your approach is spatial, based in the now, and from that point of view your call for solidarity through various different groups joining forces makes sense.
But speaking from the point of view of a 300-year old woman, I would have to say, wearily, if it’s not one thing then it’s another, but always they seem to get us in the end. The author points to this time-oriented angle, which is a legitimate female view of the problem.
I cannot see that these two perspectives need be mutually exclusive.
Depends if the man has a free pass – ie wealthy, woke, white and witless, or a member of ISIS/Daesh, the Black Panthers or the IRA. If you are a member of one of these protected minorities apparently you can say and do vile things to LGBT people without fear of repercussions.
When a man goes through the same thing then, yes, it will be because people go through this. But unfortunately very few men are “cancelled” anywhere apart from one or two who have chosen to stand with women who are thrown under the bus every day.
Stephen Rose
2 years ago
I would certainly support Jess De Wahls, but you paint an image of the RA that is too autocratic and misogynistic. I was a student there in the 1980’s. Like many academic institutions it has proceeded from enlighten, benign indifference, bumbling along, to a corporate institution of glamour and money. Contemporary politics now impacts the bottom line, so effort must be made to aswage any fears that they may not be proceeding in the correct line of travel, which would be feared as harmful to reputation and sales.
That is the front of house RA, less kindly patrician liberal, more corporate HR.
As for the schools, it has changed since 1776,even then they had a female academician, Angelica Kaufman. Women exhibited since its beginning and have been admitted to the life room since the late 1800s.When I was a student, the student body was approximately say 60-70% female. Tutors say 30% female. You are correct in saying that the first professor(Keeper) didn’t come until 2011.But female representation was fairly high, class representation was not, out of a yearly intake of 15, three of us were from state schools.
The RA is a pretty good mirror of change, if always slightly behind the beat. The. Myra Hindley painting was scandalous and pretty tasteless and like so much art of the time pretty fatuous. The distinguished portrait painter John Ward RA, resigned, too kind and gentle a man to tolerate such a thing. The fact that artists can be pretty reprehensible, should surprise nobody, they register high on disagreablness and risk taking. We are all flawed, art is our redemption, bringing beauty into the world is worth doing, although unpopular at the present . So I support Jess De Wahls, not exclusively because she is a woman, but because she is a victim of an insurgent orthodoxy,that will end badly if not confronted.
mike otter
2 years ago
Whilst its nice to see the woke choke themselves in the narrow world of “high” culture ie arts, unis, screen media and other ephemera, these very dangerous people are continuing to run almost unchecked in the police, schools, NHS and broader civil service.
This high culture fence was amongst the first to fall. Espousing corporate, progressive values seemed to occur at the same time that the RA dismantled our Alumni organisation, removed visiting privileges for students and ex students, and embarked on a costly architectural programme and monetized everything.
Having worked on the Summer Exhibition, I can tell you it’s a fraud. I still get sent the magazine, God knows who pays for it, I certainly wouldn’t.
I’ve had my successes there, but it is spiralling into ridiculousness now.
Like a virus i guess, the first to fall ill is the first to develop antibodies. I can’t see wokism’s appetite for destruction getting traction with the commonsense public. Here lies the danger – their chief weapons are violence, theft, and autistic screeching. As they will never win elected power under the rule of law they will do everything they can to destroy our society. We used to have laws for people like that right up until 1997 and dedicated arms of the state (MI5/6 and some cops) whose job it was to keep us safe from them. Now these have been either stood down or infiltrated i expect it will get worse before it gets better.
Last edited 2 years ago by mike otter
A Spetzari
2 years ago
De Wahls case sounds worryingly familiar today – for her daring to speak something that wasn’t in the play script. I hope the RA see sense.
However once again the author here is just seeing what she wants to see. She would read about Anne Frank and conclude that the biggest problem in Europe c.1936-1945 was sexism.
Last edited 2 years ago by A Spetzari
Alyona Song
2 years ago
To me, the issue lies in the way that the so called “progressives” have twisted and distorted what being “committed to equality, diversity and inclusion” actually means. As a result, any individual, male of female, can become a victim of “righteous” ire by simply expressing own views.
Michael James
2 years ago
Why are artists’ reputations hostage to the choices of elite outfits like the Royal Academy? Surely some small private galleries would exhibit worthwhile art without bothering about the private opinions of the artists?
Last edited 2 years ago by Michael James
Alan Thorpe
2 years ago
If the RA were able to read the mind of its visitors and banned those whose views it did not like it would not have any visitors. I’m pleased that I gave up my membership some years ago.
Andrew Roman
2 years ago
If the author had not attributed this RA reaction to sexism she would not have had the headline or the story, but after reading the story it seems contrived to make surrender to mobbing by only 8 people look like sexism rather than asexual cowardice.
Alan Westwood
2 years ago
It is important to push back against the transgender ideology. This article has made a good contribution to reaffirming the importance of biological sex.
Penelope Lane
2 years ago
I am mystified. Could someone please explain to me what harm the artist’s flower embroideries could do to trans people?
Because celebrating femaleness and female genitalia is seen as transphobic. It is that lunatic. Even more lunatic is the ‘defence’ of her ‘crime’. There was no crime.
Julia H
2 years ago
If I might take a dissenting view, I think Jess De Wahl’s reputation, far from being trashed, has been enhanced immeasurably by her dignified conduct in the face of this wholly unjustified attack. A role model for us all.
Douglas McNeish
2 years ago
There is an implication here that the source of the misogyny is biological men – presumably because it was they who excluded women from the RA in the past. But the gender justice warriors in this case are just as likely to be biological women, and possibly feminists – just not TERFS.
A strong and necessary piece. As a long-term Friend of the RA I have been following this affair closely. One can have some sympathy for organisations embarrassed by the actions of misguided staff. So I have held off cancelling my subscription, in the hope the RA would have the grace and good sense to admit a dreadful mistake had been made. But rather than face its critics the RA has gone to ground, refusing requests for elucidation from the Times, Telegraph, Guardian, BBC, Mail and Sun.
Let’s be clear. Both legally and ethically it’s as wrong to exclude someone for their legitimate beliefs as it would be to exclude them for being black, gay or disabled. The RA needs to recognise that, and act accordingly.
Long term friend eh? Up the ‘RA!
Cheer up Mike, watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNSwjEHXg1k the TV series (all portions of the episodes are there on youtube if you look,) ‘Coming Soon’ by Annie Griffin, the story of a ‘Devised Theater Group’ (highest level ‘fine arts’, they work without a script) and ‘The Arts Council’ in a great send up on the entire fine-arts/funding/Patronage situation. (all the women in my family have bagged Fine Arts Degrees at some point)
The thing to remember is the higher the art the more disdain they have for the society they come from, even to the point of despising it for the top persons, so at the level of the RA they must be very anti-Traditional indeed, and be for anything which ‘rubs the right’s nose in it’ (as Blair put it).
We are increasingly being dictated to by the intolerant lunatic fringe. We sadly get confirmation of this daily.
They are no longer a fringe, but hold power in public, educational, commercial and artistic organisations as elite university educated professionals. It will be difficult to change this, but public boycott would be a start or protests outside the institutions.
Didn’t work last time such people got rolling….Imagine “please Mr klansman/stasi/daesh etc, stop persecuting people or we’ll boycott, disinvest and protest”.
‘Because she is a woman’, is it? Are you saying, Ms Ditum, that a man could have said the same things that Jess De Wahls did without getting into any kind of trouble? Regrettably I do not think that is correct.
Of course you are right. In a way, writing this article as if the problem is unique to women actually makes the problem worse because we are fighting the nonsense as separate smaller groups instead of ganging together as one allied army. If this is perceived to be only a problem for women, then we are running into another problem – that of extreme feminism.
Yes agreed.
As I suggested rather flippantly below, this is a bigger problem that one just affecting women. In fact it’s worse from the author, as to just dismiss this as a variant of old fashioned sexism is to miss the point spectacularly.
It’s not that Ms De Wahls’ case is not bad, but it happened because of a mindset that‘s endemic’, not because the same old sexist bigots now wear skirts.
I don’t think she’s saying that a man wouldn’t have got a bad reaction if he’s written that essay. But the implications of male to female transition are more damaging for women than female to male is for men. If natal males are accepted into women sports, it makes a nonsense of those sports, since men are simply born bigger and stronger on average. If natal males are allowed into spaces designed for the protection and privacy of women – be it refuges, prisons or toilets – again women are put at risk. And if language is altered to deny that only a woman’s body is designed to bear, give birth to and suckle a child, then that denies realities that women feel define them. It feels like we women are undermined, exposed and even erased. Hence our particular anger. Interestingly, no one I’ve met could ever define what a woman actually is, if you take her body out of the equation.
Useful detail specifying real differences, thankyou, except I’d prefer your
to be expressed as
And I don’t think anyone could define what a man was either, if you took his body out of the equation!
I think another, complementary perspective is possible.
Your approach is spatial, based in the now, and from that point of view your call for solidarity through various different groups joining forces makes sense.
But speaking from the point of view of a 300-year old woman, I would have to say, wearily, if it’s not one thing then it’s another, but always they seem to get us in the end. The author points to this time-oriented angle, which is a legitimate female view of the problem.
I cannot see that these two perspectives need be mutually exclusive.
I thought the same initially, but she is making a valid point about how long it took them to recognised women in the first place.
Yes agreed – but this is a separate thing, and not the cause of the current issue
A man saying the same things would of course also have been subjected to abuse, but I don’t think it would have been quite so vile.
Depends if the man has a free pass – ie wealthy, woke, white and witless, or a member of ISIS/Daesh, the Black Panthers or the IRA. If you are a member of one of these protected minorities apparently you can say and do vile things to LGBT people without fear of repercussions.
What next. An article on how testicular cancer is misogynistic invention of the patriarchy created to oppress wimmin?
I agree. This is not about anti-feminism, it is about lunatic wokedom.
For the female Alf Garnett everything is anti-feminism
When a man goes through the same thing then, yes, it will be because people go through this. But unfortunately very few men are “cancelled” anywhere apart from one or two who have chosen to stand with women who are thrown under the bus every day.
I would certainly support Jess De Wahls, but you paint an image of the RA that is too autocratic and misogynistic. I was a student there in the 1980’s. Like many academic institutions it has proceeded from enlighten, benign indifference, bumbling along, to a corporate institution of glamour and money. Contemporary politics now impacts the bottom line, so effort must be made to aswage any fears that they may not be proceeding in the correct line of travel, which would be feared as harmful to reputation and sales.
That is the front of house RA, less kindly patrician liberal, more corporate HR.
As for the schools, it has changed since 1776,even then they had a female academician, Angelica Kaufman. Women exhibited since its beginning and have been admitted to the life room since the late 1800s.When I was a student, the student body was approximately say 60-70% female. Tutors say 30% female. You are correct in saying that the first professor(Keeper) didn’t come until 2011.But female representation was fairly high, class representation was not, out of a yearly intake of 15, three of us were from state schools.
The RA is a pretty good mirror of change, if always slightly behind the beat. The. Myra Hindley painting was scandalous and pretty tasteless and like so much art of the time pretty fatuous. The distinguished portrait painter John Ward RA, resigned, too kind and gentle a man to tolerate such a thing. The fact that artists can be pretty reprehensible, should surprise nobody, they register high on disagreablness and risk taking. We are all flawed, art is our redemption, bringing beauty into the world is worth doing, although unpopular at the present . So I support Jess De Wahls, not exclusively because she is a woman, but because she is a victim of an insurgent orthodoxy,that will end badly if not confronted.
Whilst its nice to see the woke choke themselves in the narrow world of “high” culture ie arts, unis, screen media and other ephemera, these very dangerous people are continuing to run almost unchecked in the police, schools, NHS and broader civil service.
This high culture fence was amongst the first to fall. Espousing corporate, progressive values seemed to occur at the same time that the RA dismantled our Alumni organisation, removed visiting privileges for students and ex students, and embarked on a costly architectural programme and monetized everything.
Having worked on the Summer Exhibition, I can tell you it’s a fraud. I still get sent the magazine, God knows who pays for it, I certainly wouldn’t.
I’ve had my successes there, but it is spiralling into ridiculousness now.
Like a virus i guess, the first to fall ill is the first to develop antibodies. I can’t see wokism’s appetite for destruction getting traction with the commonsense public. Here lies the danger – their chief weapons are violence, theft, and autistic screeching. As they will never win elected power under the rule of law they will do everything they can to destroy our society. We used to have laws for people like that right up until 1997 and dedicated arms of the state (MI5/6 and some cops) whose job it was to keep us safe from them. Now these have been either stood down or infiltrated i expect it will get worse before it gets better.
De Wahls case sounds worryingly familiar today – for her daring to speak something that wasn’t in the play script. I hope the RA see sense.
However once again the author here is just seeing what she wants to see. She would read about Anne Frank and conclude that the biggest problem in Europe c.1936-1945 was sexism.
To me, the issue lies in the way that the so called “progressives” have twisted and distorted what being “committed to equality, diversity and inclusion” actually means. As a result, any individual, male of female, can become a victim of “righteous” ire by simply expressing own views.
Why are artists’ reputations hostage to the choices of elite outfits like the Royal Academy? Surely some small private galleries would exhibit worthwhile art without bothering about the private opinions of the artists?
If the RA were able to read the mind of its visitors and banned those whose views it did not like it would not have any visitors. I’m pleased that I gave up my membership some years ago.
If the author had not attributed this RA reaction to sexism she would not have had the headline or the story, but after reading the story it seems contrived to make surrender to mobbing by only 8 people look like sexism rather than asexual cowardice.
It is important to push back against the transgender ideology. This article has made a good contribution to reaffirming the importance of biological sex.
I am mystified. Could someone please explain to me what harm the artist’s flower embroideries could do to trans people?
Because celebrating femaleness and female genitalia is seen as transphobic. It is that lunatic. Even more lunatic is the ‘defence’ of her ‘crime’. There was no crime.
If I might take a dissenting view, I think Jess De Wahl’s reputation, far from being trashed, has been enhanced immeasurably by her dignified conduct in the face of this wholly unjustified attack. A role model for us all.
There is an implication here that the source of the misogyny is biological men – presumably because it was they who excluded women from the RA in the past. But the gender justice warriors in this case are just as likely to be biological women, and possibly feminists – just not TERFS.