Ladies who lunch.
It may have come to your attention over the last few days that there was a lunch. The events of that afternoon have already been covered in detail, and the joyous photographic record shared widely, so I will instead focus on what led to that glorious, raucous afternoon — and the hyperbolic backlash that followed.
It was late August 2019 when a message popped up in my Twitter inbox from J.K. Rowling. I had noticed that she had begun to follow me on Twitter a few months earlier, along with a number of feminists, and I was delighted to hear from her.
“I’ve just seen that you’re in contact with Magdelen Berns,” she wrote. Berns was a young lesbian who, after being silenced at her university, made YouTube videos tackling the absurdity of transgender ideology. She was popular, hilarious and informative. I say was; Berns, in her 30s, was dying of a brain tumour. I planned to visit her at a hospice in Edinburgh and had put a call out on Twitter to any women who wished to send her a message.
I knew that she would be delighted to hear from Rowling. A few weeks beforehand, during an excitable telephone conversation, she had already told me that “JK is following me!” Berns was thrilled to have her work recognised by one of the most famous and successful women on the planet, and I was thrilled to carry her message.
I kept in touch with Berns after my return from Edinburgh, until she died in September. Rowling and I also stayed in contact, bonded by our feminism and our “simply not having it” attitude. Then, three months later, Maya Forstater lost her job for stating that sex is real. Rowling was furious, and her tweet to that effect has become the stuff of legend. #IStandWithMaya, she said, and all hell broke loose.
On one side, British women were galvanised into action. On the other, the fact that this wealthy, powerful, successful and uncancellable woman was not only expressing her opinion, but doing so in public, inspired a tsunami of abuse. For the crime of having perfectly reasonable views on women’s sex-based rights, Rowling was harassed on social media and beyond. There were death threats, rape threats, doxxings, and wild accusations. Each time, they became more and more extreme, and even, in some places, normalised and justified.
During this period, many other feminists came in for the same treatment, but no one with a profile that came near to matching Rowling’s. Under fire from extreme trans rights activists, a core group of us formed a bond. It was, however, not formed in defiance of them, but around the beating heart of our movement; for women, for girls, for our rights and our protections, and against misogyny and male violence, whatever form that eternal chimera is currently taking.
Here’s the rub. The kind of threats and abuse sent to Rowling, to me and to others are designed to make us feel isolated, afraid, alone. Patriarchy is all about dividing women and ensuring we don’t share our experiences. Why? Because when women talk, we realise our experiences are quite similar when it comes to male violence and abuse. We realise that all the gaslighting, all the lies told to us, have a common thread. We realise that the guilt, blame and shame of what happened should not belong to us, but to the perpetrators.
And when we bond like that over our common experiences, in what some of us still call “sisterhood”, we are powerful beyond measure. We support each other, emotionally and practically. We organise, agitate, fight. The haters try to stop us. But what they don’t realise is that being under fire is a recipe for solidarity.
No woman is safe from this kind of attention. Martina Navratilova has a long history of being a very public ally to everybody in the LGBTQ rainbow, and yet was still subjected to foul abuse from radical trans rights activists. What was her sin? She questioned whether biological males should compete against women in sports. But the more they came after us, the closer and more supportive our coven became until one day, another DM dropped into my inbox, again from Rowling, this time to a dozen or so of us. It was an invitation. To lunch.
Like many journalists, I love a good lunch. It’s not like the old days where it would be a three-bottle job, beginning at 12:30 after you’d filed your copy, and ending with the restaurant chucking you out at 5pm. But there is something extremely decadent about getting a bit lashed of an afternoon, with a convivial group consuming fine wine and food. And that is exactly what happened last Sunday.
The problem? We were all women, and to make matters worse, feminists. The icing on the cake was that Rowling was the host, and her guests all known for standing up against extreme transgender ideology and for women’s sex-based rights. That was bad enough, but the fact that we got up to hijinks, and had the temerity to laugh, and drink wine, and eat pasta, and have a bloody brilliant time, and do it on camera, was simply too much for some people. Can you imagine? The cheek of it.
I’d had enough experience of these things to know, beforehand, that there would be some sort of reaction, but I was genuinely surprised by the scale of it. Several national newspapers, radio programmes and talkshows covered it as some fascinating event rather than just ladies who luncheon. I was not surprised, however, by the sheer warmth of many feminists, and even a few men, who lit up social media with their good wishes for us. Nor was I surprised by the fact that there was a backlash from the blue-fringed brigade; the anger and pure spite was palpable, and once word got out that we witches had got together and had some fun, the pile on began.
First, were the handmaidens. One woman, a well-known author with pronouns in her biography, suggested that we were “patting ourselves on the back for solving feminism because of the mutual dislike of trans people”. Then another woman, a comedian, again with the pronouns, kicked off big time, saying that she had had a “mad, angry cry about the photos of J.K. Rowling at the TERF gathering. It’s disgusting how members of our own community can be so hateful”. And of course, Twitter in all its glory was soon awash with the hashtag #MadAngryCry.
Then the boys joined in. Craig Murray, who describes himself as a historian and human rights activist, seemed to think that our event was disrespectful to a man accused of the rape and sexual assault of two women. “While [Suzanne] Moore was knocking back expensive wine in a shit venue with fellow “victim” J. K. Rowling, Assange was entering his fourth year locked in a tiny cell amongst convicted terrorists.” One wonders whether it is only feminists who should refrain from eating until Assange is free?
Hen parties, make-up salons, hair dressers, maternity wards are all permissible places for women to hang out, but actual feminists meeting? Those women that refuse to back down when the patriarchal boot is on the collective neck? No chance.
Some of the intensity of this backlash is no doubt driven by jealousy — not just of us having lunch with the stupendous Rowling, but of how much we made each other laugh. Contrary to prejudicial stereotypes about feminists, there is no shortage of funny women in our midst. As can be seen in the countless photos taken at the lunch, we teased each other in the most irreverent way, such as deciding that Rowling was only 66% straight. I mean, come on: very few heterosexual feminists prioritise the bullying and debasement of lesbians by trans activists and other misogynists as she does.
When the photos were tweeted, to great merriment, I suddenly found myself accused of being some type of sexual predator, out to convert our Queen. In response, Rowling wrote: “Appalled to learn that @bindelj sexually harassed me by (checks notes) making me laugh while lunching. I’ve naturally consulted lawyers, but they say my case is likely to fail at trial due to a legal loophole known as ‘this is bullshit’. Devastated. Please send more fake concern.”
And yet for all that we laughed, it isn’t easy being on the receiving end of so much vitriol and hatred, no matter how much support, or wealth, or sisterhood you have. People seem to think that privileged women such as Rowling have no feelings, no ability to feel pain, and no concern for their safety. But this is sociopathic behaviour, sadistic even — laced with a desire to put women on the receiving end in a position where we cannot win.
Well, on that Sunday afternoon, with that group of women, and the friendship and solidarity in sisterhood in the air, we won. Trust me: we had the hangovers to prove it.
Julie Bindel is an investigative journalist, author, and feminist campaigner. Her latest book is Feminism for Women: The Real Route to Liberation. She also writes on Substack.
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SubscribeIt may come as a surprise to Julie Bindel that as a man I really don’t get upset that women who have been attacked by leftist oddballs in a vicious manner on twitter might want to get together and enjoy a convivial lunch and laugh. Nor am I surprised that women can be amusing. Indeed I know of nobody male or female to whom this would be surprising news worthy of an article.
What is mildly irritating is that so much of the article appears to invoke a phantom enemy called the “patriarchy” that seems to hold a lot of stereotypical views about women. Am I as a man supposed to be part of this band that seems to encompass a lot of thoroughly unpleasant leftist characters of either sex that have attacked Bindel and Rowling on twitter? I don’t have a twitter account and certainly wouldn’t use it to complain about anyone enjoying a convivial lunch. Does that mean I am not part of the patriarchy or are all men automatically members whatever their actual views? It does seem Julie Bindel likes to set up this Aunt Sally or should I say Uncle Sally “the patriarchy” to attack rather than confine her attacks to the leftist mob of characters of both sexes that attack her on twitter. I’m not sure why she does but it does suggest a rather unanalytical cast of mind.
I am happy to see her enjoy a convivial lunch but would prefer not to feel I am under attack myself for being a man and thus automatically classed as someone who wants to attack her. Please could Julie Bindel have a thought about it and discard “patriarchy” from her list of enemies and chose a more precise word to describe those who wish her ill. Perhaps the readers of Unherd can help Julie Bindel in choosing a more appropriate word that encompasses her twitter attackers but leaves out the bulk of men who don’t share their views. It would much improve her articles if she was able to discard reference to the patriarchy as it is a rather lazy leftist trope that doesn’t properly define her real enemies.
Apart from this she has my best wishes for plenty more convivial lunches.
T w atterati? (Gaps for moderation)
It has the advantage of channeling the main bullystick used by her opponents, is descriptive of the type of individual, and contains a female body part to keep her happy.
Well, Stuart Campbell uses the term “Twitler Youth”, which is both funny and apposite.
I am slightly reluctant to comment on the good suggestions put forward here for fear of moderators deleting the whole suggestion section. The only idea I came up with was the ”umorgenderachy” to describe those who thought gender was as fluid as one’s mood. The whole gender nonsense is an ideological quarrel within the left or aristerarchy as the ancient Greeks might have put it – no self respecting patriarch would have any truck with it.
“Perhaps the readers of Unherd can help Julie Bindel in choosing a more appropriate word that encompasses her twitter attackers but leaves out the bulk of men who don’t share their views.”
Jeremy, retracing JK’s steps…..”I’m sure there used to be a word for those people.” It’s Julie’s old mates on the left – they call her a TERF so she accuses them of being the Patriarchy.
Maybe one day Julie will eventually realise that most men support women’s rights, and it isn’t her old mates.
What are you talking about? This isn’t about you, unless you behave this way. Men aren’t born abusive twats–but a system of male dominance tends to allow jerks to not learn their lessons and get encouraged to behave even worse. Women are born just as potentially abusive, but don’t have the same opportunities and usually because of rampant abuse by 15 develop some empathy and try not to behave that way. However, plenty of female twattish-ness remains in the form passive-aggressive, emotional forms of abuse.
I suspect THAT’s what drives some guys crazy–they don’t get that feminist agree that women are perfectly capable of emotional abuse (and physical to children), but they don’t operate in a system that rewards/encourages that abuse like men do (or at least did in the West until about 30 years ago). We’re no better than men morally, but like white abolitionists and civil rights activists, they need to do a little more work and show a little more moral courage to stop for a moment, identify male twattish-ness, refuse to do it, and call it out. Thass’ all.
I can read an article as a white person about obvious white racism–the kind practiced by my ancestors–and know it’s not about me, as long as I don’t behave that way. Same deal.
Stop taking it so personally. If you don’t act this way, great–and since men listen more to other men, if you see another male, whether cross-dressed or not, behaving like a d**k, call him out in the ways guys usually do so well–with ego-deflating humor
I believe I understand your comments and, of course, shouldn’t take these things personally.
Isn’t it true though that men regularly do what you ask? They do often intervene when other men behave badly, even at physical risk to themselves.
I think that the response to Julie is hostile because she’s always like this. While her work protecting vulnerable women is very honourable, she doesn’t need to constantly make digs at men, most of whom are decent.
Your suggestion that it’s easier for men to get away with being arseholes may be true (I’m not convinced) but you could single out any group among which there are bad characters. The existence of gold digging women doesn’t give any man the right to talk about women’s bad behaviour.
Sorry, rambled a bit.
but they don’t operate in a system that rewards/encourages that abuse
I think that is exactly the system we live under
For example? Weinstein, Epstein, Cuomox2 ?? They got what they deserved. So what system are you referring to? I am the proud father of 2 working women – they have no experiences with an abusive patriarchy – quite the opposite actually.
Well a working woman is what you get when you take a woman and remove the distractions of the gender war.
The modern idea of “empowering” women is to tell them the almighty patriarchy is out to get them and keep them from achieving anything, and so they might as well not even try. In a more lucid age, probably the Renaissance, this was called “paranoia”.
To paraphrase “men and women are born equally abusive and everything after that is just social conditioning?”
I don’t disagree with the thrust of your comment, but isn’t that basic assumption essential to a lot of the nonsense we’re discussing.
Men and women are different at birth – hormones, chromosomes, etc. The different roles in reproduction also indicate evolved different attitudes to many things, not least s e x.
Wouldn’t acknowledging basic fundamental differences be a better place to start?
I agree. Men are not called the opposite sex for no reason!!!
Of course I don’t think Julie Bindel is referring to me because she doesn’t know me. I personalised it merely to illustrate the lazy use of “patriarchy” and “male violence” as catch-all categories that ostensibly include all males within them even though I expected when challenged the words might be confined to “a system of male dominance (that) tends to allow jerks to not learn their lessons” or some other vague sub-category of men.
A patriarchal society or government is generally regarded as one in which men hold the power and women are largely excluded from it. On a personal level the patriarch is the father whose word is law in the family. This in no way represents the current status of either our society nor our families.
Accordingly the use of patriarchy to describe a very small group of aggressive radical men and who want to present as women and their female supporters as being part of the patriarchy together perhaps with predominantly “progressive” woke enablers is an absurdly distorted use of language that is not helpful if Julie Bindel does not wish to be misunderstood. The sort of conservative men who might hanker after a more patriarchal society are clearly not the sort who support this absurd ideology so a more focused use of language would be useful.
I simply want Julie Bindel to be more accurate in her use of words so that her reasonable complaints about those supporting her antagonists is not undercut by the use of generalised words that ostensibly embrace a class of men uninvolved in supporting this ideology.
Just to add to my comments on Julie Bindel’s sweeping and inaccurate generalisations I quote this section of her article: “People seem to think that privileged women such as Rowling have no feelings, no ability to feel pain …”
In this case Julie lumps everyone into the category of people who have these absurd views instead of saying: “Some people …”. I just feel her journalism would be improved if she thought about what she was writing more carefully and checked it for accuracy.
Yes. I also take exception to the word “privileged”. Surely the more accurate term would be “fabulously successful”.
You know nothing – because you’re a man
is leculdesac a man?….I suppose “le” and “sac” suggest maleness….
Is this a satirical post?
This is funny. As if men would tolerate other men acting like abusive twats. What a bunch of nonsense. Nobody likes or tolerates an abusive t**t of any gender, race or religion.
He was responding to “The Patriarchy” which is most certainly a reference to all men being complicit. It’s a reasonable response, as is all of these women at their luncheon defending anti-transactivism. I think Bindel’s message could be better if she was not so hyperbolic. Having said that, I’m thrilled every time this side of the issue gets aired. I’m furious about the backlash that will happen to the entire “community” (as if there were actual cohesion), who has fought long and hard to be accepted and normalized. It makes the TRAs look like pure evil.
Julie hates men, for whatever traumatic reason, and looks at everything through that prism. That’s the long and short of it.
She could not get one
A prism?
She doesn’t want one!
“I didn’t want it anyway” is always one response to something you can’t have
I agree that, on the topic of the ridiculous gender wars and the vitriol that JK and her lunch guests face from people that I have trouble describing, I share the author views and am drawn to side with her. Yet, I feel alienated from her and her feminist team by the use of the word ‘patriarchy’ as, I am unsure, am I meant to be part of that team by birth sex? Seems like a different flavour of the very thing she speaks out on and lunches over.. Such sweeping language pushes away people of a moderate mind, it makes me think the author is happy to make the moderate, the enemy to her cause too.
Entirely the sense I had about the article. She seemed to be doing exactly the same kind of reductionist thinking she is accusing others of, and it truly has no utility. If she didn’t bang on about the patriarchy so much, I would read her work more. And I am a woman. In the alphabet soup line-up, no less. Your response was composed exactly right, thank you for saying it.
Thanks Jeremy, you speak for me.
Am I the only one who thinks Julie should maybe just get off of twitter, and social media in general, and out a bit more ? What irony that she, being ‘out and proud’, seems to be trapped inside of an information cage of her own contrivance, that only lets in information that confirms her own world view. For someone who seems to ‘hate’ the patriarchy (men) she doesn’t half go on about them (does that make her ‘only’ 66% lesbian ?). At the risk of sounding like a parrot, is Julie so blinded by her obsession with the ‘patriarchy’ that she cannot see the ‘progressive’ link between radical feminist activism of the past few decades and the radical trans activism of today, and like a dog, chasing it’s own tail, as it bites chunks off it has to spin around, ever faster, in ever diminishing circles, ever more frantic, until, lo and behold, it ends up consuming itself completely.
Yep, and having been so sure of her virtuous position in fighting ‘patriarchy’ for decades, now she finds herself the target of her former allies, her former team.. she’s suddenly one of the bad guys and she clearly struggles with it. Hence the regular self-pitying butthurt articles
Maybe Julie has, unbeknownst to her, become part of the patriarchy.
Never been on ‘social media’. Never missed it.
The commentariat make a living out if comments. Pretty sterile existence. This is indeed a comment, and yes I worked for 45 yrs outside this world.
Her life has been committed to combatting international child sex trafficking and help support nascent movements in third world countries where women calling this out face imprisonment and death.
I’d suspect she’s walked into far more unpleasant “real” circumstances than you ever had.
Also, if you only posted photos of yourself and friends once a week, and received vicious death threats and were doxxed, perhaps you’d return to social media to attempt to raise awareness of the issue?
Are you subject to the same level of threats that Bindel is? How do you know how you’d react?
now now, you leave Tom alone ,,how do you know what you don`t know about him anyway?? plus let Bindel defend herself she seems a big girl.
Nice story spoiled by the line about the non-existent ‘patriarchy’.
I was about to say the same. That was the only bad bit.
Bindel cannot help herself. She always has to shoehorn in her misandry
Yeah, Julie is a strange one. She’s like someone whose entire social and intellectual life was based on Scientology, and then one day a light bulb went off in her head and she realized that she had been part of a cult, and that everything she had thought was true was built on a foundation of nonsense.
Now she speaks out against them (which I applaud), but even as she’s doing it, she just can’t help mixing actual facts with Scientology facts. And when people criticize her for it, her defenders respond like, well, they respond like Scientologists. “How dare you attack our religion!”
It’s fascinating but it’s also exhausting. I expect more from Unheard.
Absolutely love it! The nerve! The gall! The utter joyousness of it all 🙂 It’s just the perfect thing. I have always thought the most radical and effective protest is to simply enjoy being ourselves. #hugesmile
Whatever it is, it’s the patriarchy’s doing.
Sad to say it often is
Curious. How so?
Good on you and all, but may I suggest that patriarchy is no more happy with the trans movement than you are? You can have more than one enemy, you know.
The trans movement is the very definition of masculinity and patriarchy gone toxic. There are a lot of very rich men pumping money into this gender-bending movement.
What’s a lot? 10000, 50?
Are you taking the p__s? There are rich men pumping money into lots of things, from football to yachts to impressionist paintings. Are they also ‘the very definition of masculinity and patriarchy gone toxic’, or were you missing some key arguments?
As a trans-transman who holds a very high position within the patriarchy (I have multiple sub-patriarchs directly under me) I have to agree. We generally utilize sex changes to temporarily cleanse ourselves from our toxic masculinity. This has a tremendous anti-aging effect, and we get to use make-up and nail polish.
When I read stuff like this, I can’t help wondering why smart reasonable people don’t realize that they wouldn’t be on the receiving end of so much vitriol and hatred if they weren’t on a toxic place like Twitter in the first place.
Leave it to the crazies and it will become nothing but another leftist, circular firing squad.
Oh God I wish they’d listen to you.
Amen! Social Media is the ruination of civil society.
Yes, Twitter is mad people screaming into the void.
Close , no its really like daft people peering and shouting up a sewage pipe !
#madangrycry? Really? I’ve been saying it all week, I’m going to say it again, the woke need to grow up!
The woke need to fur cough far, far away and never return.
It’s the hand-maidens & High Priestesses of this reality denying religion that offend me the most. Woman were always among the most enthusiastic witch-burners.
Well done! I support you, the logic of your arguments, your expression of that logic and your courage. PS I am a bloke and in spite of my company encouraging me to use pronouns apparently in support of someone else, I refuse. It’s a little thing but it might help.
Thank you, Phillip. This was always going to come down to the good men in the world saying ‘enough’.
I believe you can fit the entire population of men who support “trans” into an average sized football stadium.
Accrington Stanley’s ground
I wonder whether the entire population of men who support “trans” and the entire population of “trans” women (once men) are largely one and the same. Were I of a more mathematical disposition, I would be talking about largely overlapping sets…….
I very much doubt it. I reckon that there is a substantial silent majority of actual trans people who believe in biological truth and resent their traducing by the so-called activists claiming to speak for them.
That is a very fair comment, and presents a perspective that had not occurred to me. Thank you.
Any business with which I have dealings will immediately lose my custom if I receive a communication from one of their staff disclosing their pronouns. Please say this to your company.
God I wish I was still working in the corporate world. I’d have so much fun refusing to play the pronoun game. Or maybe I’d declare myself ‘it/its’. Or maybe I’d identify as genderfluid and insist on different pronouns on different days. Or maybe I’d insist on “His Excellency”. Or maybe I’d change it each week. So envious of you Philip.
I still don’t understand how the patriarchy is behind trans rights. Aren’t we all suppose to be knuckle dragging bigots who don’t like feminists of any stripe OR trans people – or really activists of any sort?
It’s men pretending to be women, and demanding that women’s legal protections be removed. ‘Trans rights movement’ demands that wishes of men (overwhelmingly sexual fetishists) are placed before the rights of women. That’s how.
If “men pretending to be women” comprise “the patriarchy”, then you should not worry. The entire population of those could fit into an average sized football stadium. Most blokes seem to simply laugh off the idea of a biological man thinking he is a woman.
The men pretending to be women are straight guys with fetishes who are HARMING women and WILL HARM MORE WOMEN in bathrooms, changing rooms, locker rooms, battered women’s shelters, and prisons. Go to WomenAreHuman for daily reports on the crimes committed by these men, who are trying to turn their fetish to force their way into women and girls spaces into a civil right. They talk about how to “talk to little girls” while in the washrooms. There are OnllyFans accounts where autogynephiles livestream masturbating while in women’s changing rooms. They GET OFF on transgressing against women.
THIS is why women are rightly terrified. Most “trans women” are rapists in dresses. Not the oldfashioned very homosexual transsexuals, many of whom have decried contemporary trans-activism, but the straight guys hooked on “sissy porn” or the standard sex offenders who now put on a dress because they know it gives them better access to potential female victims.
Surely most trans men are not like that
I personally know a number of women pretending to be men via trans rights, and they would be demanding that men’s protections be removed if men had any left. Is this the “Matriarchy?”
Spot on thanks Occam
The radical Left has become the Puritans of today: constantly calling out sin, obsessed with sexual morays (or lack thereof), and living in dread fear that someone, somewhere, might have a good time for a few hours.
Great article, Julie.
mores
Well stated. I have found the irony of all this too obvious to take seriously.
Sexual morays are a piscine delicacy
OK, so I deserve that for relying on the machine to check my spelling. 🙂 Good one.
I would like to propose a toast, to the ladies who lunch.
Hear, hear! Chin, chin, toodle pip old bean! And good luck, may you prosper.
The patriarchy didn’t try to ruin your lunch. It was the mentally ill Twitter/Discord/Tumblr crowd. Both groups need to go and ‘touch grass’, as they say.
That lunch just sounded like so much fun – as soon as I saw the photo in Suzanne Moore’s article in the DT I knew Julie Bindel would be writing something for UnHerd and here it is!
It’s crackers how the equation women + opinions + victuals + libations can equal (anti-) social media frenzy.
Please have more lunches! Tell us all about them! Time spent with “the girls” is so enriching.
On a separate note, the use of the word “of” in the sentence “But there is something extremely decadent about getting a bit lashed of an afternoon“, made me feel all warm and fuzzy because it reminds me of home (Yorkshire). I do like it when journalists allow a little bit of dialect into their writing.
Just glad to see this fantastic group of women publicly enjoying themselves. I find Julie’s observations very reasonable and accurate in my own experience. Depends where you are looking out from.
I applaud the idea of a bunch of women having a good time over a few drinks, which happens coincidentally with many groups of women every weekend across the country.
Along with what I am confident is the vast majority on men, I also share the dislike for the ridiculous ideas spouted about women by radical minorities in the current climate.
I would find it most disappointing if this simple fact was not understood, or even appreciated by those in this particular group.
I think Julie is being disingenuous. I can’t help but think, looking at the lead photo, that this wasn’t just an ‘innocent’ bunch of people getting together, to shoot the breeze and chat about old times over a few drinks while having a couple of laughs in the process as Julie seems to suggest.
The photo suggests, if even that were needed, that this is a bunch of like minded people, and not accidentally, opinionated feminist women, several of whom are obviously gay, who have met over beer and bratwurst, sorry, that was another party, I mean cheese and wine, with a specific agenda in mind, and however laudable, to suggest otherwise is dishonest.
I suspect the constant throwing in of references to the ‘patriarchy’ in Julie’s articles, is the equivalent of bating the mob, to rile the dissenters, draw out a few quotable, rude or uncouth phrases that can then be used at a later date to deflect attention from herself or considered examination the central theme that she is trying to make.
“While [Suzanne] Moore was knocking back expensive wine in a shit venue with fellow “victim” J. K. Rowling, Assange was entering his fourth year locked in a tiny cell amongst convicted terrorists.”
He’s the subject of one of my Sonnets, Mostly Bristolian, by Richard Craven:-
……….
Sonnet 151
He’s to be scoped, the rapey narcissist,
athwart on camp-bed with a cigarette,
recalling ruefully his Swedish tryst.
It’s pretty gamey in that oubliette,
and latterly his visitors are few
and low status: just junior attachés
and interns. No more television crews
now camp beneath his balcony; that craze
of troubadour paying court to caytiff king
has passed. Now Julian’s the apostate,
there’ll be an end of virtue-signalling.
Let Cumberbatch and Gaga find new mates;
the creep will linger like a nasty smell
inside his Ecuadorian hotel.
Cigarette/oubliette is very good!
Thanks very much, although I think that line 2 on its own feels a bit contrived.
Is the Wokeiad an actual work in progress, or do you knock out a few stanzas to accompany the article?
Thanks for your question. It’s an actual work in progress, but very nearly finished: envisaged as 4 books of 400 lines each, of which I’ve written 1584 lines, so it’s literally 99% complete.
Very good. It’s quite apart from the apt imagery, it’s refreshing to see the work of someone who understands and can properly use meter.
Thanks very much indeed for your kind words. I am indeed very much wedded to iambic pentameter, whether in the form of heroic couplet or sonnet. Here’s a link to some of the latter:-
Good stuff but getting thrown out of a restaurant at 5pm is a bit concerning. I was once thrown out of Langans at 5 pm but it was the day after I got there.
Exactly. I can see misogyny in the vicious pile-ons on gender-critical women (so often by men but rarely on men). I can see misogyny in the desire by men to gatecrash women’s sports and spaces, humiliating women by bullying them into compliance and silence. But patriarchy it is not. Patriarchy institutionalises boundaries between the sexes. Strong patriarchies, such as those in the Middle East, go to far extremes with social borders between men and women. But the trans movement rips down borders and boundaries to validate solipsistic individualism.
But surely transwomen are women so how can it e misogyny?
Where every day is a fight for survival work is done according to strength. If one reads W Thessiger ” Arabian Sands ” beduin women were free to trave, have affairs and be unmarried mothers. It was the towns where women lost teir freedom. In general, where men have to travel and fight and there is a nomadic aspect to society, such as Dutch merchants of 16 and 17th centuries, nomadic Pashtuns, Vikings and Mongols, women have more freedom.
In England and Wales, while the men went to war as archers, the wives ran the farms and also brewed beer in the towns. Where civil wars occurred, 1135- 1155 , 1455-1485 and 1642-1651 women defended the family homes while men were away. During WW2 women served in the SOE and other armed forces saw combat on airfields and cities and won the GC, GM and MBEs.
What I never understand is why the feminist movement of the 1960s never highlighted the various heroines of WW2 particularly Szabo, Hallows and Khan who won the GC and Wake and Skarbek who won the GM.
It is likely that the idea of chivalry originates with the beduin. Chivalry is largely absent in the Far East. The first group to attack the idea of chivalry were the Frankfurt School Marxists after the failed communist coup of 1919 in Germany.
So what about the thousands of documented cases of heterosexual males with the fetish of autogynephilia who’ve been arrested for sexually assaulting (or attempting to assault) girls and women? That’s not patriarchal?
What is it? Just a bad day?
Well, I’m glad to hear you had fun, and that you all stuck it to the “man” (an ironic idiom in this light), but I can’t say this article told me much besides that. Kudos?
The Bewildering World of Julie Bindel, chapter 57
I made a distinction between misogyny and patriarchy. My comment has been removed. Why?
Expelliarmus Wokeus Twaddlum!
Expellamus (let us banish)
Julie, banging on about “the Patriarchy” puts you on the same page as the gender identity ideologues.
I’m not sure what’s boring me more, all these trans rights activists or Julie Bindel.
I just wish I had been invited and had been there! All that laughing and eating and drinking and fun. With like-minded women. Whatever the back lash. By the way we (including Julie Bindel) don’t hate men. But we love just being together with other women. It is called Sisterhood.
Anette doesn’t answer for Bindel. Trust me, there are plenty of feminists (even radical lesbian ones :)) who can’t abide her and her b*llsh*t.
As I gather from what you write that you know Julie Bindel can I ask you to suggest she reviews sentences like this: “ Patriarchy is all about dividing women and ensuring we don’t share our experiences. Why? Because when women talk, we realise our experiences are quite similar when it comes to male violence and abuse.” It doesn’t convey that she has a very positive view of men even if it may fall short of actual hate.
She seems to have received abuse from both men and women about her perfectly reasonable belief that men can’t become women simply by saying they are or by taking hormones and chopping bits off. Why then does she seek to stigmatise all men, most of whom agree with her on this point, as being part of some patriarchal conspiracy against women enforced by violence. She is either ideologically blinded to the facts or she needs to be more careful in her use of English if she wishes to convey the idea that it is a subset of mostly radical leftist men and their female supporters that she wants to complain about. If the patriarchy are men who hold unprogressive views than they are not among those interested in dividing women or supporting twitter attacks on her.
It’s all about selling eyeballs. Nothing is based on truth anymore.
I’m printing that joyous photo of all my feminist heros to stick on the fridge! It’s a wonderful image!
Suzanne Moore wasn’t so good on the grooming gangs
“… my case is likely to fail at trial due to a legal loophole known as ‘this is b*llsh*t’
Obviously this loophole is not being used very much these days, as quite a lot is still going ahead.
(I put the * in as I have noticed that what’s ok in the article is often not ok in the comments’ section)
I think the correct legal Latin must be “faeces bovum”. Will that pass?
Recte dicis!
Perfect.
Exactly. True equality is that anyone can have a social laugh and it isn’t forbidden. Jumping on every possible and cancelling every form of humour and jollity ended up rebounding on themselves predictably. Shouted about hate speech hatefully. There’s a paradox there somewhere that escaped them.
What? This doesn’t make any sense.
Great picture! JK looks so different to everyone else.
People who stew themselves into a hysterical lather because other people are enjoying themselves and other people’s company obviously have a sort of psychological death wish. Not only do they want to be miserable themselves, they want to make others miserable too, and if they don’t succeed then they will jolly well have a mad, angry, ostentatious cry about it. It is really a cry for help.
I get the distinct impression that Julie B needs an enemy to be the focus for her bile, and whether this enemy is ‘the patriarchy’ or some other construct (the more nebulous the better) is irrelevant. In other circumstances (or in an alternative reality) her focus could be popery, or heresy, or jewry, or communism, or ‘the great Satan’, or any one of many foes.
I do feel rather sorry for her, not because she is oppressed, but because her oppression seems self-inflicted and she is (literally) sad and invites contempt rather than sympathy.
Perhaps if she could bang on about the patriarchy less her readers could concentrate on more important aspects of her writing : several commentators have mentioned that she tackles important subjects, but the only aspect of her writing that I can call to mind is misandry.
Thank you Julie for this excellent article.
As a high-ranking member of the patriarchy, I have instructed my sub-patriarchs to suppress you 22% less for the entire month of May in honor of this commendable piece of writing.
I hope the other lunchers have the courage to distance themselves from Julie Bindel’s attempt to make this about “patriarchy”. if they can’t do this we are doomed. the trans activists tried to destroy JK as a moral being. this is what you do when your argument doesn’t stand up, but it is nonetheless shocking to see it done with such cold thoroughness and brutal intimidation. she and others stood up to this bullying and proved trans activism (and “cancel culture”) is a pantomime horse. the misuse of the word “patriarchy” is one way the extreme feminists try to destroy the moral standing of all who challenge their views. it plays very well among the young. one of the most chilling things about the story is the way Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson were more than willing to stand and watch. in this sense the more extreme feminists where reaping what they (among others) had sown. they cant have it both ways and they must be brave enough to confront this. the Ukraine should make this easier. Jeremy Bray below explains how Julies comment reads like an attempt to excommunicate everyone who is not a radical feminist from this fight. this is Nasty politics and destroys any proper focus on the true enemy.
A simple question: why post the photos when the response was so predictable? Is it that the craving for attention – even negative attention – afflicts such prominent figures?
Do any of the vicious-tweet writers who pile on whenever possible ever get identified as real people? Would be interesting to know who these losers actually are.
“…for women, for girls, for our rights and our protections, and against misogyny and male violence, whatever form that eternal chimera is currently taking.”
The problem with this analysis is, it takes one thing that various things have in common, and concludes that those various things are a ‘form’ of that thing. The Muslim “grooming” gangs, the Yorkshire Ripper, and trans activist extremists, are all variants of “misogyny”. I’m not sure that’s the most effective way to combat each of these evils.
A potentially interesting piece ruined by her usual attack on men. Trans activists are all part of “the Patriarchy”. Utter nonsense, TA include women and you only have to look at protests at universities to see this, but once again it is mens’ fault. I support the women fighting back but not for the conspiracy theory nonsense the author is still pushing after all these years. It’s as if everything she writes has to be manipulative to fit her theory.
Unherd readers don’t half get uppity when they read something that doesn’t chime with their conservative priors. I haven’t seen such a round denunciation of mainstream feminism’s point that it’s still mostly men who kill or injure women, dominate the top jobs and hold much more power across government or institutions for a long time. Sure, the term ‘patriarchy’ is kind of annoying, but it’s a label for something real.
Wish I’d been there, if only as a fly on the wall. Unfortunately I’m a bloke.
If you had enough capacity (or willingness) to understand nuance, you’d see that, like with many major concepts/movements, identical terms are regularly used to describe polar opposite behaviors and beliefs.
It’s “racism” to not be colorblind, then “racist” to be so. It’s “anti-semitic” to respect a distinctly Jewish culture, then “anti-semitic” to deny it.
Your cynical, superficial comment belies your anger at anti-misogynist movements. The trans activist movement is driven by autogyenphiliac, heterosexual men, and the social contagion now within teen girls is also a reaction their fear that they’ll be treated like the victims of the global multibillion dollar pornography industry and their worth will be judged by the number of males who have erections around them; worse, they’re experiencing the usual street harassment of all teenage girls and want out.
You’re deliberately feigning obtuseness in order to mock Julie Bindel and her (and my) compatriots. Again, I wonder why UnHerd has so many misogynistic subscribers, yet am pleased that the editors are still willing to run genuinely feminist pieces and that the authors are willing to put up with this predictable, asinine abuse.
Who is the ‘you’ that is being addressed here, please? It seems to be a reply to a previous commenter, but I don’t know which one. Thank you.
I think it might be me, but maybe I’m flattering myself
Yes, I think it could have been your post.
Frankly, I think it deserved that rebuke. The suggestion that some sort of logical discipline might have a place in the analysis of a question, that responses should be directed at the argument rather than the (horribly obvious) character defects of the writer, and the general appeal to reason … well, it made me feel all #MadAngryCry.
You are a bad person. A man.
Suzanne Moore wrote about this in the Telegraph, a great article. Anyway, the comments about her article in this bastion of old farts was overwhelmingly positive; congratulating Moore on her writing, supporting their efforts and generally showing pleasure that the group had had a fun afternoon.
As Julie mentioned, there are spiteful, nasty people but I believe that they’re a small minority. She’s becoming tedious in her protestations.
Is it lowering the tone to observe JKR has a great rack?
LEGEND. She has more balls than most millenial men.
What? Are you being serious?
Great article Julie and spot on
The richest man, and the richest woman in the world, are doing good? It’s impossible. It doesn’t conform to my traditional left-wing view of how the world works.
Here’s another man who was delighted for you all.
Love it – your thoughts on the link between privilege and trans ideology really resonated with me and I now see it everywhere.
There’s a lot of fake outrage about. Best to laugh at it if you can.
I’m as opposed to the idiocy of transactivism as much as anyone, but referring to it as a form of “the patriarchy” is ridiculous. Although I believe the so-caled patriarchy is a chimerical as “gender,” even if it did exist, it’s absurd to include transactivists within it. Yes, they are men, but hardly part of the “patriarchy” as feminists typically understand the word. I do love Rowling’s quote about the lunch, however.
Nice one Julie. Fantastic picture of so many women I admire all together in the same place.
To lump the extreme trans activists who have been harassing JK Rowling in with “the patriarchy” is nonsense.
Read it again. That’s not what she said or meant. Sometimes the lens affects the understanding.
See my post. It’s deliberate obtuseness by the usual misogynists in the comments section of UnHerd.
Mods and Julie: The comments section here is so misogynistic.
Sure, let your subscribers comment freely, but how about speaking up for your own articles in these sections rather than leaving such ignorance and hate here unanswered.
I’m feeling as alone as any feminist because I appear to be the only person here calling out the woman-hating remarks in Unherd’s comments section. I could use a little support too.
I’m always astonished how many people who appear to be male (from their names) are looking to criticise Julie. Why? Seems they just don’t get where she is coming from but provide excellent examples of what vocal women are up against. Why don’t they read something else?!!!
Julie is not beyond criticism, and what matters is the criticisms, not the sex of the critics. Unless you subscribe to the identity politics which has led to the leftist disaster of which Julie & co. are victims.
Carol, the patriarchy has it’s agents everywhere. Stay strong.
The deliberate obtuseness is the worst. That someone would pretend to misunderstand a point made in an article just to be able to criticise Bindel because her commentary on misogyny stung them personally – and yes, that’s their sole motivation – that’s misogyny.
Recte dicis!!
I think this might be a circular, unfalsifiable, argument
I wish I had your ability to divine the thoughts of others like this. How much easier my life would have been with such a gift.
Nobody actually misunderstood the point, the only thing that was criticized is the referral to the ominous “patriarchy”.
In fairness, none of the comments here (which you have objected to at length above) do not exhibit any woman-hating at all. The common refrain is that ladling in “patriarchy” seems like some sort of cognitive dissonance. And that it is a habit of her style to stick that in sooner or later, irrespective of topic. There is also some critique of twitter use, when it is such an obvious cesspool, and legitimate querying of whether there is a cycle of hate-and-riposte in using it.
That’s not misogyny, it’s legitimate criticism of style, content and intention.
I’m sorry, but your pleading for moderation here seems like a demand for a safe space from words nobody is actually writing.
I also read these comments with astonishment. It is hard not to conclude that misogyny (rather than patriarchy) is the true intent of many comments here posted.
The Oxford Language dictionary quoted on Google defines misogyny as “a dislike of, contempt for or ingrained prejudice against women”. While the US swimmer Lia Thomas whose apparent antics of wandering around female changing rooms naked displaying his genitals seems to fall into the misogynistic category by exhibiting contempt for the discretion customary among women most of the posts here are merely critical of Julie Bindel’s style of writing and habit of wild generalisation.
I think you will find that I and many of the commentators here have commented favourably regarding articles by Kathleen Stock, Maya Forstater, Mary Harrington, Ayaan Hirsi Ali among the excellent contributions from women. Indeed my unstinting praise of Kathleen Stock’s article from two days ago was the second most recommended comment – the most popular being a post from someone with a male name that was equally enthusiastic and endorsed by plenty of poster with male names.
This suggests to me that Julie Bindel attracts criticism not because she is a woman but because of what she writes. Criticism of a woman’s writing is not automatically misogyny. I might add that I am equally critical of male authors if their arguments don’t hang together. The difference is that I have never encountered critical posts by women of male authors attracting criticism that this is a display of misandry.
Jeremy, Thank you for your thoughtful-and well stated– reply.